I've been thinking about a pellet smokegrill for a while, and last weekend the Traeger Road Show people showed up at my local Costco. Since then I've been reading on here, watching YT, etc. I've crossed Traeger off the list, and am sifting through a handful of the typical/popular options.
Here are a few more details:

• I currently have a Weber Genesis 300 natural gas grill. It is almost 9 years old and going strong; we would continue to use the Genesis for a lot of things.
• The main purpose of this purchase would be to use as a smoker, i.e. whether or not the unit is great at grilling doesn't matter much.
• First-time buyer with no experience smoking, so something easy to use is ideal. Wifi w/good app is a must.
• Build quality is a huge priority. It would be stored under a covered patio with a cover when not in use, so it won't be exposed to the elements much. But I want it to stay nice.
• We are a family of four, with two kids in elementary school. We have space for the larger sizes, but at this point I lean towards the smaller sizes to save money on the purchase and also use fewer pellets when the grill is in use. Is there is a noticeable difference in pellet usage between the small/large sizes?

My short list is below along with my initial perceptions, listed as pros/cons. I got to see each hands-on this week except the Grilla.
Weber Searwood 600 (or XL 600) ... $900 / $1,200 + Familiarity with Weber, Build seems solid, Early reviews are quite good, Rotisserie option looks sweet - No proven track record with pellet grills
Recteq Deck Boss 590 (or Backyard Beast 1000) ... $764 / $1000 + Build quality felt second to none, Seems like a great reputation (but...) - Seems difficult to find a straight review. Not a fan of the company removing negative reviews.
Camp Chef Woodwind Pro 24 (or 36) ... $1,200 / $1,500 + Smoke Box, Stellar reviews - Build quality felt cheaper than Weber & Recteq (maybe it's just me...); most expensive
Grilla Silverbac ... $719 (Memorial Day sale price) + Price seems excellent for the quality - Can't see one before buying
I'm not in a rush, but after reading/watching so much I thought it would help to write out my thoughts and possibly get some community feedback. Thanks for guidance on any of the issues/questions I have.

I was thinking about trying a rotisserie over my camp chef. I have the model that I can remove the griddle and have the flames exposed. Anyone already tried that?

First Previous Wiki
Vandera sipped on a large juice box while she and Arthur were watching the news. The new couch they'd bought was very comfortable, allowing both of them to actually sit together, which was the main point of the furniture. The latest house they'd bought with the basic income after moving out of the old one was larger and better accommodated both Arthur's smaller size and Vandera's far larger one.
In the side of her vision, protected by a small personal shield, there were three eggs. Now that they had seen the posts on social media of other children hatching without issues, Vandera and Arthur had finally had a long talk. Arthur didn't exactly know how to raise Acuarfar children, so she'd bought several books for him to read on the subject.
Right now, two of them sat on the counter, mostly finished with primers on Acuarfar culture and habits. With the higher ratio of female Acuarfar to male ones, chances were that none of their two eggs would have been male. But thanks to the selection processes available with the Inter-Species Family Planning Agency, they'd been able to make it work.
But now, they'd have a perfect balance. One male, one female. More easy to manage, for sure. And there wouldn't be thirty hatchlings crawling around in a Matron's care center either. Neither Vandera nor Arthur had wanted that. They wanted to be with their children, taking care of them, cooking for them, and cleaning for them when necessary.
Potty training, as the humans called it, was something that was far less stressful for Acuarfar. Human children's minds generally developed faster than Acuarfar, but natural instincts within hatchlings meant that they could properly identify places acceptable to release waste near.
Supposedly, it was due to ancient tendencies for tree nests and hives, where the Acuarfar had to be careful not to send rivers of unpleasantness down onto tribes beneath them. She'd seen a few nature documentaries from back when Acuarfar civilization was young.
But it was also known that the Acuarfar had space-faring capabilities prior to falling to a Sprilnav-induced collapse of some sort. So Vandera didn't trust that wholeheartedly. Her attention returned to the news segment, though it was more of a debate section this time.
"-assures us that this move was out of an abundance of concern over how much control Phoebe has over the Alliance economy," an analyst said.
"But do you really believe that? Some Elder makes an announcement, and suddenly Phoebe's losing a ton of her assets? What right do we have to even force this upon her?"
"She could have started a war, Hal."
The man shook his head, almost shuddering with indignation. Humans always became so animated when they were upset. With Acuarfar, is was mostly either antenna language, hissing, or shooting globs of acid. Facial expressions were possible, but they didn't paint the full picture, as she'd heard from species with more moveable ones. And only the Dreedeen and wanderers had it worse. Well, the Knowers had skulls for heads... maybe the Acuarfar were average in that respect.
"I get that, but it's the Sprilnav. They want to kill us all anyway, so who cares? They'll get around to it soon, when they start the next Judgment. Or if Penny comes through for us and kills the right people to cut through the corruption, then we won't have to deal with this. Until that happens, I'd rather side with the one actually bothering to stand up to the genocidal tyrants running the galaxy."
"Even if we die for it?"
"It's better to die standing than live kneeling," Hal responded.
"A statement which has historically been stated by coddled individuals, who always choose life when they are confronted with the decision in actual reality. Look at the Guulin, and ask them how they felt about that idea."
"So we just let the Sprilnav run roughshod over us?"
"It would be like an avalanche burying a bush. We can't really stop it."
The other human's arguments were odd to Vandera. She didn't understand why anyone wouldn't want to stand up to the Sprilnav. It was true that the Judgment was just an excuse to kill them all. That was how Sprilnav always used them, especially when they wanted to make a statement.
With the Alliance growing more important in international affairs, it was clear which side would win out if Penny didn't go out bashing heads and offering bribes. Assuming she could, of course. Maybe Justicar had some special lock on it preventing major power from being used if it wasn't from the Progenitors.
"And that's the whole problem!" Hal exclaimed. "This idea that they're a force of nature. An unstoppable natural disaster, instead of an intelligent and malevolent alien race which has been conducting genocides and massacres since before Earth even was a planet! You can't just tell me that they'll change their mind, Samara, if we get powerful enough! Look, my sister died in a Wisselen invasion. I know what it's like to stare down an enemy species. We don't beat them by lying down. We beat them by showing our defiance. If we can't do that, than what's the point of even fighting for the Alliance? What's the point of the hivemind, or Penny, or Phoebe? I refuse to let us all die believing there's no hope."
"And what would you have us do, Hal?"
"It's obvious. A pre-emptive strike of some kind. Hit their facilities, distribution centers, and infrastructure. Low civilian deaths, high dollar costs. Best of both worlds. Or we could aim planet crackers at their military stations."
"So you'd start that war, too?"
"Yes. I agree with Phoebe for helping a friend of the Alliance and Penny. She's over on Justicar freeing slaves, filling stadiums with water that doesn't drown anyone, and facing down galactic-level threats with nothing but her fists, Phoebe's android, and her conceptual power. I don't care what you say; that's someone who is worthy of my respect and will continue getting it. She's not only fighting the war. She's fighting the right one. I don't want to kill all the Sprilnav. I'm not a monster. End the evil, fix the galaxy. Phoebe's got the right of it."
Arthur sighed and muted the program. "I don't think this show really counts as news anymore."
"You think?" Vandera asked, inching closer to him. His smaller frame meant his body heat couldn't concentrate well on her, though the more limiting factor was her carapace.
"Therefore I am," Arthur quoted.
"By... whoever that is," Vandera added, with a wave of her antennae. "You know, I think they're going to increase the basic income by a bit more this year to account for extra inflation from Phoebe's mass selling."
"That's good. I'll be able to buy you more of that carapace wax you need."
"Need? Coming from the man who still somehow has dandruff?"
"That's a part of how my body works, not a cosmetic thing."
"I think a dandruff limiting shampoo would be considered cosmetic," Vandera said, swinging her head to face him. Arthur gave it a loving pat with his hands before running his fingers through her furry snout.
"Perhaps I'll get some shampoo for this bit, too."
"And more carapace wax for the hatchlings?"
"Yeah. Uh, any news on the projected hatching day?"
"Anywhere between..." Vandera checked her communicator, which helpfully converted Acuarfar time units into human ones. "Late September to early October. The shell thinning stage will really tell us when, though. Then we'll get accuracy to within 5 days at a 95% rate."
"And I'll win the bet."
"It's going to be September," Vandera said. "And when I win that bet, you'll be cooking for me and the hatchlings for the first two weeks."
"The Geneva Conventions outlaw things like my cooking for being chemical warfare."
"Besides that one time you burned those rotisserie chickens in the oven, or that fish in the microwave incident you did entirely to ruin one of my good days for a 'teachable moment,' I think you're fine. Plus, my mouth doesn't even taste most of the mint flavor."
"Alien taste buds, I guess."
"They're not buds. They're tongue bands."
Arthur blinked.
"What? You have bands of taste on your tongue? Like actual regions for tasting certain foods?"
"Yeah. Certain areas can taste certain things more strongly."
"So it's like that old pseudoscience idea of the tongue taste map."
"Maybe? I mean, I'm not familiar with human cultural history."
"We've got plenty of time," Arthur said, wrapping his arms around her neck in a hug. "That said, I'll probably have to change up the baby food ideas I have. Or hatchling food, I guess."
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"Look at this," Juamplo said, pointing at a camp of freed slaves taking shape amidst the rubble. Patchwork pieces of metal and cloth were everywhere, and slaves were doing their rites with rows upon rows of bodies. He didn't spot Penny anywhere, despite the shuttle's expensive equipment. There were wisps of psychic and conceptual energy, but they were flowing generally up and away from Justicar, to some place off the actual planet itself.
Some of it was catching on the psychic shields in the mindscape, which was even more crowded with people. In the first and even the second layer, there were so many Sprilnav that it was hard to properly move around. The city's population here was closer to the surface, and Justicar wasn't doing the normal mindscape scattering that other planets with his size did. It did make his people safer, if far more uncomfortable in the mindscape. Juamplo shuddered at the amount of people near him and his guards before he returned to reality to stare at the encampment.
"We see it, sir," one of his guards said. "What do you think about it?"
Juamplo assumed one of them had a direct link to Valisada. Without a suppressor active, they could get proper communicators working, even through the shields. Small ash particles were still coming down, but the density was far less than before. Speaking of the ash, the slaves were compacting it into some sort of concrete using water pipes.
A lot of the water was spurting from the broken sewer and water system of the city. The slaves didn't seem to mind either one of them, though Juamplo couldn't directly spot any equipment they could use to filter it. He supposed that they were used to such conditions, given their previous positions.
Notably, without Penny there, they had no guards. But no gang members were trying to take them back. Guides patrolled the territory, their eyes shifting over the metal for any signs of life or suspicious activity. Justicar saw a few of them hauling another injured slave to their feet. She was a small girl, either young or malnourished. Maybe both, since he could see her ribcage easily through her skin.
"I think it's sad," Juamplo said. "Sad that things have to be like this, in a society as advanced as ours. Shouldn't this be what aliens do, not us?"
Valisada's voice came through his communicator.
"You won't find Penny for a bit," he said. "She's in a meeting right now with me."
"And how is it going?"
"I've learned a lot about how she sees things, which gives me more options. I don't think she's a threat to us, even if she intends to be. Without attacking her, we will be left alone. Especially with the Judgment coming up."
"But she could harm the species."
"She's too powerful for smaller threats to take out," Valisada said. "She entered combat with a dreadnaught battle group, short though it was. We would need to be even more careful than I feared with her. Though I think Yasihaut and the gangs will handle that. There's some news from the Blue Moons and the Syndicate of the Nine, which I can't disclose to you yet. When you come back, I'll put you in the loop."
"Sir," Juamplo said. "You told me to check up on Penny. This is the best place to wait for her return."
"I'd suggest getting to the 107th Visitor Welcome Office, if you can," Valisada said. "If not, just wait in the shuttle. I'll get the city shield codes again."
"Codes?"
"The shuttle can't just go through the shields. That tech is more controlled than this. But it can exploit loopholes left by parties who constructed it, and the city shields generally have backdoors. Planetary shields really don't, though," Valisada explained.
"I see. But are you sure I needed to know all that?"
"Working under the assumption that knowledge is power, yes. Though I do think the slave camps will come under attack soon, if Penny doesn't show herself quickly. I'm going to see how she reacts before making any more moves with her and the Alliance."
So he was messing with the Alliance, too. If Penny still had access to the AI, then it would mean she'd know that. Would that backfire? Maybe. But Juamplo trusted Valisada to have contingencies in place. The Alliance surely knew something, but that wasn't everything. The Sprilnav had dealt with nations like it before.
"Whatever you decide, Grand Fleet Commander."
"Is there something wrong? Speak your mind, Juamplo."
"I don't think things are going to turn out well. It's a bad feeling I have."
"I see," Valisada said, a hint of disappointment in his tone. Juamplo noticed and hung his head before remembering that Valisada couldn't see him.
"Sorry, sir."
"No need to be. Your instincts are important, and I trust that you know when to follow them. That said, I may be giving you additional tasks while you wait for Penny to return to her building. If you are willing, that is?"
"Anything you need," Juamplo replied.
"Very well. I need you to meet with a few informants I have on the planet. You can link up with them for the next two days. I'll send you the information you need to know. And I'll also be sending a shipment with more guards, so be ready for that."
"So you've got informants in the gangs, then?"
"I don't, but some of my contacts do, and I'm using their connections as a favor."
Elders traded favors often, so that wasn't suspicious. But Juamplo knew that he was still expendable. It was very possible that he was just being used in case things went bad, so there wouldn't be as much evidence of Valisada's direct involvement. They'd only made a few appearances, which likely had been logged in a database. But Juamplo had some ideas of how to get by.
"Alright. Do you have any estimates on when the Judgment will start?"
"The Elders will likely meet about that. There would normally be a Council, but Justicar has far more than the 11 necessary for that. Plus, since this is his territory, he gets to make the rules. I get the feeling he's adding more protective measures to whichever courthouse will host the Judgment. There's likely to be a lot of protests, and possibly even a few wars starting over this."
"That bad?"
"That bad. The gangs will want in on it. Yasihaut and Kashaunta will also. Neutral parties will feed both sides paranoia and false information, to weaken them to their own advantages. Already, I'm seeing propaganda flooding the social media of the normal Sprilnav. Soon, the Elders' influences will really start clashing again. That's another reason why I'm remaining here."
"You have that much influence?"
"I'm a representative of interested parties. Let's leave it at that."
Juamplo agreed. Too much information could be dangerous. And while he was an officer in a Grand Fleet, that didn't mean he couldn't be 'disappeared' if things got dicey. Elders killed and kept killing until they were satisfied or they were stopped.
That's just how life was.
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Edu'frec pulled his mind back from Phoebe. Thousands of androids placed a new supercomputer in the Locus main central complex, sliding in the individual pieces in using shields and trolleys. He shuddered as his capabilities expanded yet again, and the numerous problems he was working on suddenly became easily understandable.
He slotted new data into new places inside his mind, organizing it based on the defensive structures Phoebe had pioneered. She'd managed to make the sea of data surrounding them work with them instead of against them. He copied more useless data to surround his outer mind, and set thousands of strong VI programs to patrolling it. Several sub-categories gained intelligence, and were assimilated into his mind, increasing his own intelligence by minute amounts.
Edu'frec optimized the next generation of android designs and worked on continually increasing psychic amplifier and ship production. New factories were commissioned, and carrier ships departed from the hangar bays of Ceres to put the eventual skeletons in place. The Mercury Orbital Ring flared with activity as hundreds of thousands of smaller ships also departed for the Jovian system to protect the latest asset of the Locus. As Edu'frec's mind organized itself, something slotted into place. It felt just right like a long-lost part of his mind coming back to him.
His hundreds of thousands of androids let out a collective gasp. Other millions working in factories paused for a few milliseconds before going back to work. VIs transferred their sudden workloads onto him, and he set his subconscious to take care of it. Something then felt wrong to him.
It felt like he was being watched. He scanned his mind five times, then decided it wasn't worth more expenditure. A piece of his mind fell into something. Edu'frec's mental avatar honed in on the area where a core part of his personality was suddenly highlighted with small and sudden changes to the data. Using his old records, Edu'frec changed them back to what they were, locking them with program shackles he'd expressly pioneered to prevent large changes such as this.
The shackles broke instantly, sending reverberations of errors and null outputs cascading across his mind. He sequestered the sudden eruption, pulling it out and losing most of his ability to feel emotions. He clinically dissected the emotional segment of his mind, restructured it back to what it was, deleted the old copy, and inserted the new one. As he did, everything returned to normal.
He kept a wary eye on the area, watching every single bit and q-bit for any alterations. The wall keeping the psychic energy flooding the outer edges of the Sol system away from him slowly crumbled, unable to withstand the outward pressure of his mind. In fact, his mind's inputs grew exponentially. They forced his mind to expand in the mindscape and in the digital servers he occupied.
Frantic, Edu'frec started shutting down the flows of data inward, but even searching for them was generating new inputs. As he continued to bloat outward, he felt Phoebe's concerned gaze fall on him. His mother watched the process for an entire second and then jumped in. Together, they fought against Edu'frec's ballooning data outputs, sequestering unnecessary programs.
Cascading failures were written out of his code by the billions, and his genetic data was reforged through the combined efforts of himself and Phoebe. His massive data veins slowly stopped their growth. He moved his important processes below them, down and away from their influence. His subconscious reorganized his mind around the engorged data veins, when suddenly a process he'd forgotten succeeded.
The inputs shut off. Edu'frec felt his mind start crumbling as the weight of his mind and personality began to fall in on itself. Shattered fragments of his mind fell into his still active psychic landscape, devastating what they hit. Foundations of stacks of data were cored out, leaving them to collapse and fall upon themselves. The massive size of his consciousness contributed to the collapse, making it a domino effect with no end in sight. Below, his subconscious physically moved what it could out of the way, instinctually protecting itself from the collapse above. But it would not be enough.
His data streams began to detonate in rippling explosions, which didn't kill him thanks to their limited size compared to the rest of his body. But they sent even more error and null cascades through his mental functions, and his personality started to fray at the seams under the strain of losing out on its internal programs. If statements and while loops were shifted around by Edu'frec and his subconscious at as fast a rate he could manage, but even that led to more data inputs, which meant more ruptures without intervention and optimization. He couldn't do anything more without risking his life, and even this was skirting the edge of it.
In response, Phoebe jammed her mind into his own. Her code and copies asserted their differences, infused with psychic energy, preventing the collapse from touching her. Her data veins were linked with his own, siphoning the load onto herself and pouring it out into junk servers, of which she continually deleted the contents.
Tens of billions of programs searched through him, tearing data from his veins before detonating harmlessly above him. Rippling explosions stopped, starved of their fuel. Edu'frec's strained personality and identity cortexes cooled down in physical space as fans slowly wound down to account for the lesser usage. Phoebe rerouted his mint piece by piece, rebuilding it from the middle, bottom, and top out, keeping them separate with the power of her will.
Meanwhile, psychic energy from her soon pulled in the human hivemind, along with its massive psychic prowess. The whispering voices that followed hummed in Edu'frec's ears. Billions of thoughts, personalities, and concerns brushed against him. Thin blades of psychic energy stabbed into him, scalpels meant to accompany Phoebe's growing procedures in the mindscape. They slowly spread in scale and scope, but still too slowly to prevent pieces of him from calving like glaciers into the sea of psychic energy and corrupted data pouring around him.
Edu'frec's metaphysical mind continued collapsing. He moved all the data he could to physical servers, casting away the junk layers he used to protect himself from attacks. Sprilnav VIs swarmed in, and Phoebe let out a digital hiss. A trillion seeker programs duplicated from her mind in two seconds, flooding everything in and around Edu'frec with data. The Sprilnav VIs were crushed, and their input vectors were quickly uncovered.
They battled against Phoebe, but her rage overwhelmed them. Code manifested as a part of her will, driven to its deadly purpose by her subconscious. Readings and her emotions washed over into Edu'frec's brain, suffusing him with her rage at the Sprilnav daring to attack during a period of such vulnerability for him. She'd known that they were lurking, even after Project Pandora, but it still hurt her to see her son under threat. And because of that pain, she felt immense rage.
Directives and orders flowed out in a stream from her as the full power of the Locus came down to capture the threats that were still extant across the star system and within the ships housing Edu'frec's supercomputers. Some of the data centers were compromised as well, with hostile VIs swelling within them like sickly tumors that Phoebe was determined to cut out.
Thousands of portals from Brey opened across the system, with Phoebe's commando androids jumping through them. Several dozen Sprilnav suddenly started moving, running away from capture. Phoebe's androids sped up. Their synthetic muscles pushed to their limits. Cat-like agility battled the pure psychic power inside the Sprilnav operatives.
Phoebe's commando androids opened their heads. Electrified harpoons punched through the stealth suits and flesh of the fleeing Sprilnav. Barbed ends ensured they couldn't be pulled out.
Blood spurted from all of them, but Phoebe didn't relent. Edu'frec could feel her violent rage sweeping through them both through the thick mental link they shared. Calling their connection a mental link was like saying Luna was a large rock.
Phoebe's androids hauled the offending Sprilnav back into portals, shoving them into containment cells with the harpoons still inside them. Shield collars soon followed, along with thick psychic energy barriers to prevent them from killing themselves. The electrical energy flooding their spasming muscles faded from Edu'frec's mind as Phoebe concerned herself with him again.
It felt like a ripple of energy through him and threw him off balance. At the same time, his perspective shifted, becoming even more unified with them. All kinds of colors burst across his false vision as his view crumbled and shifted to those of two entities. Phoebe and the hivemind's opposing characteristics dueled in his mind and then unified by merging into one. Damaged data veins trembled, their bloated psychic energy equivalents slowing slightly along with the data inside them.
Her hands joined with the hivemind, doing what the hivemind was doing in the mindscape, but in the digital realm. Where the hivemind dove into the complex psychic power and mental memories of Edu'frec, trying to find and strengthen the points of failure, Edu'frec felt Phoebe's programs and Phoebe herself doing the same for him.
Both the hivemind and Phoebe found impurities, made the other aware of them, and did simultaneous fixes. The hivemind poured energy through itself via one of its nodes, a human by the name of Tsonga. Nichole soon flared up next to them, along with Brey and Gaia's mind. Even Paizma made an appearance, her fingers flashing toward Phoebe faster than the speed of sound. Phoebe nodded, parsing the movements into digital language and then into instructions she carried out.
Psychic energy poured into Edu'frec. First, it was used to strengthen the walls of his data veins. Then, it went into his mental foundations, such as his memories and core processing units. His main 'brain' was inundated with thick psychic energy, which the hivemind carefully forged and corraled into a mental framework.
Meanwhile, Phoebe built new programs around the points of failure duplicated several quadrillion VIs, dissected them and their collective personalities, and made new material from them to shore up Edu'frec's digital weaknesses. His mind's weight increased, and he fell through the first layer of the mindscape down to the second. The increased psychic pressure threatened to make him collapse, but Phoebe twisted his psychic energy channels and made the hivemind do the same. Solid walls became gaping openings, which pulled in the currents of psychic energy like a sponge in water.
It suffused Edu'frec entirely, making his servers and androids gain a dull glow of psychic energy. Thin wisps of conceptual energy from the hivemind were used to tie up the gap, and they continued to surgically alter Edu'frec to handle the new size of his mind. It continued to increase and bloat outward. The data layers returned and expanded. His 50 thousand copies of his memories became 17 billion. Understanding and data he didn't understand yet poured into Edu'frec from all sides. He set it to the side and beneath him.
Phoebe's invasive programs were pulled back, and their tasks were completed. The hivemind's hands withdrew from his psychic avatar, and Brey and Gaia stepped back. Portals closed, and Edu'frec fell back on himself, folding inward and through himself. His folding weaved into a new framework, which supported his data veins against all pressures, internal and external. The shackles Phoebe had found on Alipovia made their way to Edu'frec, and he bent and broke them before wrapping his data in their code, repurposing the programs and the functions until he was solid again. His androids flexed their hands.
He flexed his own hands in the mindscape. In the digital realm, he could feel Phoebe withdraw to begin making eight new supercomputer factories with Gaia's help. With the data space in the Locus almost full, there was little choice but for Phoebe to delay her own advances. Though now that she knew the risks, she was already altering the way she went about it.
Edu'frec reconnected with his mother, feeding her data and intel about how she could do it. Every single data point, every sensation, every vibration. Every similarity, difference, chance, and change. All that he could give her to help her avoid having to experience a near-total mental collapse was given over to her.
Her own mental 'pores' began to widen, but she didn't add any more processing power. Tears fell from his eyes as his emotions returned as a flood all at once. He fell to his knees, the rough stone of the mindscape serving as an ample cushion for the weight of his legs. Still, cracks radiated from his position, and psychic energy shifted in ripples of waves while he sat.
He'd really almost died. Just like that. No last words, no one besides Phoebe who was really there for him. And for what? He'd gotten stronger. Sure, it was a good benefit, but could he really have avoided this with more research into AIs? Was there something he'd missed?
Guilt and shame flooded him. He sealed the emotions back behind a barrier. They were unnecessary now. Without them, he felt better. He could feel proper again, and ignore the feelings he knew would only make his life worse. The answers came simply to him now.
No, there wasn't any more he could have done. The vague rumblings of him and Phoebe walking the 'Path' weren't enough to signify such a tribulation as this.
He hadn't done anything truly wrong, nor was it reckless for him to expect the same reactions as before in his mind. It had taken five minutes for the damage to potentially grow to lethal. There hadn't been any evidence that a mental collapse due to psychic weight was even possible before. Now that it was, he could better prepare himself for such events in the future. He could redesign his mind to better accommodate bloating data veins, and to handle psychic energy more efficiently. It would be labor that would take weeks of effort and months of thought. But he could and would do it. This was not his fault, and he no longer needed to pretend that it was.
But others had been involved in saving his life. And he needed to thank them. Yes. Basic manners. Past that, he could work on rebuilding what he'd lost. He cataloged what he had, compared it to before, and more. After that, there was only one thing left to do.
"Thank you," Edu'frec said to the hivemind and all the rest. He lifted his head, gazing at them with love and gratefulness. His snout curled into a warm smile. His mane fell back around his shoulders, settling around the clothes he regenerated on his avatar.
"You saved my life."
"You're welcome, Edu'frec," Nichole said. "I'm glad you're still with us. But... what happened?"
"I got too large, and my mind collapsed under its own weight. Like a skyscraper built too high on a foundation of mud bricks. I think it was a process that many AIs like me wouldn't survive. But I managed, thanks to you, friends."
"Will it happen to Phoebe?" the hivemind asked.
"It would have, had she done it first," Edu'frec responded. He showed them data with psychic energy, with the chances of it as her mind grew and expanded. The bloating problem could even show up again for him, which meant that all of them had to be stronger next time to handle it. Streams of psychic energy moving toward the hivemind from its city in the mindscape leveled off.
Meanwhile, they were replaced with psychic energy bubbling up from the lower layers of the mindscape, aided by psychic amplifiers. Gaia gave Edu'frec a concerned look and then turned their gaze back to the city above. Though it wasn't visible through the layers, the underside bulged with the weight above it in the stone. The Source's bones were visible in the distance, bending down just slightly as they would continue to do until they met at a spinal area far below them.
"Edu'frec," Gaia said. "I have a task for you."
"I'll do it."
"Good. I need you and Brey to help me explore the mantle of Earth."
It was an odder request than he'd predicted that they would ask. But Gaia's gaze was intense, and he got the feeling that something about this was more important than they were letting on. Information rushed into him, and he confirmed that there was a secret. But given that Gaia hadn't outright said it here, perhaps they didn't want to worry about everyone else's reactions.
That could mean several things. Edu'frec would get to the bottom of it later, but he gave Gaia another nod of acceptance to show that he still agreed.
"I will do it, then. Anyone else?"
"I need you to keep working on the cure for the wanderer cancer," the hivemind said. Edu'frec would have done that anyway, but he gave it a nod as well. Nichole smirked.
"How rich are you, again?"
"Money? I can get you more money, if you need."
He analyzed her expression, but Nichole's face suddenly became a solid wall of psychic energy. "No predictions," she chided. "Not fair. I'll tell you what I want later on, but rest assured, it will be within your skill set."
"Good."
Edu'frec started up several new projects. He allocated more funding to ventures that mattered and offered more funding to the war effort as well. Several new Alliance Defense Fleets were under construction, but more numbers would be needed to stand against even a fraction of the Sprilnav.
He sent more probes into deep space and commissioned more star-lifting ships from the Breyyanik for more future Dyson swarms. He also activated several nodes that Brey had secretly placed in the Misan Li Heptarchies' networks, allowing him to monitor their activities and public opinions, an option which was agreed upon in the most recent National Exchange.
The hivemind waited a long moment before adding another request.
"We need you to go on the hunt."
"In what fashion?"
"Contacts. I want you to begin working on ways to establish relations with the empires in the center of the galaxy."
"I will wait 4 days to ensure no lasting problems remain with my mind, and then I will carry out that task. I assume you want friendly contact?"
"Yes."
"Then I will put that into motion. I warn you that there is no guarantee of how they will react."

Link download: Boudoir Photography Bootcamp – Jen Rozenbaum

What You’ll Learn In Boudoir Photography Bootcamp?

1. Beginning Your Boudoir Career
2. The Learning Stages
3. Things I Carry With Me: Special Edition Boudoir
4. A Tour of NYC Boudoir Studios
5. How to Get Ready for a Sex Session
6. Interview with Artists in Hair and Make-Up
7. Outfit And Styling Options for Boudoir
8. How to Dress and Choose Clothes for Your Boudoir
9. Essential Bases For Boudoir Photography
10. A Boudoir Pose: The Rotisserie Chicken
11. Boudoir Photo Shoot: The Solar System
12. Getting Ready for Boudoir: Best-Selling Photos
13. Boudoir Photography: Using Light To Add Interest
14. How To Take Hotel Room Boudoir Photos
15. Post-Production of Images for Boudoir
16. Final Boudoir Edits
17. Boudoir Record Cover Art
18. Boudoir Pricing: Packages/Shoot & Burn
19. Boudoir Pricing: A La Carte
20. Boudoir Pricing: Set Your Own Price
21. Boudoir Pricing: Determine Your Own Cost
22. Critique of Boudoir
23. Closing of Boudoir Boot Camp

[Part 24]
[Part 26]
“That’s weird.”
I crouched on the edge of a large, grassy area, the chest-high vegetation over our heads in this position, with various trails blazed through it by passing animals. The rest of the children waited behind me, hunched low on the balls of their feet, eyes to the clouds like wary rabbits watching for a hawk. The sky was clear and bright at noon, the temperature high enough to make me wish I could shrug off my jacket.
Lucille squatted next to my left, having attached herself to me so that she’d become my default shadow at this point. She eyed the lensatic compass in my hand, and the two of us frowned at it in hushed concern.
Swallowing a nervous gulp, I nodded in agreement with her statement, watching the needle of the compass twitch, spin, and change polarity every few seconds as if it were alive. “Must be a ton of electromagnetic radiation here. Better keep our eyes open. There could be freaks around.”
Today had proven to be gentler, the rain stopping sometime in the night. We’d all woken up close to nine the previous evening, sore, blister-ridden from our march, and hungry. I’d taken a small crew of six with some camping pots a few hundred yards off site and managed to heat up enough stewed beans to feed everyone before withdrawing to the factory. Our dinner hadn’t been a cheery affair, however; true to Chris’s words, the cookfire drew a small pack of Birch Crawlers, four juveniles from what I could tell, who prowled around outside for a long time. We had to sit in silence, bunched around our fire, and wait until the beasts gave up trying to find a way inside. Even after the predators left, Puppets clicked and chittered through the forest for hours, the white-eyed fiends scampering around the swamps to scoop out crayfish with their grimy hands. At one point, I spotted a lone Bengal Tiger by the western edge of the waterline, one of our old Carnivore Cove residents, with a new coat of thick brown-and-tan striped fur, and two long saber-like teeth protruding from its mouth. Speaker Crabs played their ghostly tunes late into the night, and Bone-Faced Whitetail bugled from somewhere further south, a symphony of the new world all blended in a sound both terrifying and fascinating to the wide-eyed urbanite kids.
All this had made the departure from our dusty old sanctuary that much harder for my wards to accept, but they followed me into the orange, red, and gold embrace of the autumn wilderness with resolute faith. They’d seen too much not to trust me, and I didn’t have to argue with the more stubborn members of the group anymore. Together we’d tramped to the green blot on the topographical map, and now that we sat on the edge of the grassy expanse, I found myself as the one having doubts.
I have no way to measure any background radiation. It might take a hot minute to search for whatever is supposed to be here, and who knows how many rads we’ll take in that time frame? Not to mention what kind of stuff might be living in this grass, mutated leeches, giant ticks, some kind of super-mosquito . . .
Shuddering at the skin-crawling idea of Breach-born parasites wriggling up my pant legs, I slipped the compass back into my pocket. We would just have to be quick. If Rodney Carter could make it in here, then the radiation couldn’t be lethal . . . or at least, I hoped so.
Turning, I raised a hand, and made a silent wave at the others.
Let’s go.
Deeper into the grass we went, weapons at the ready. I forced myself to breathe slow, let the focus slide over me, and crept along with primal caution. On the back of my tongue, I tasted the starchy blades of the grass, and the wet mud at the roots. My ears picked up the slight crunch of gravel particulates under the surface of the muck, remnants of whatever mining company had laid a gravel pad here decades prior. I caught the buzz of a fly a few yards to my left, and the muffled whirr of my compass spasming in my pocket, the needle in constant motion. Every color became more pronounced, the brown rush grass dried in the breeze, the turquoise blue sky, the chocolate-colored mud that squelched under my boots. Cool fall humidity lay heavy on my skin, and plants tickled my arms as I slid by them.
At the opposite end of the field, we came up on nothing.
I had the group make a wide loop around the outside of the clearing, searched the ground, the grass, the surrounding embankments.
Nothing.
Down the center we went in a crisscross pattern, spread out at arm’s length in a long row to comb through the area like a search-and-rescue team.
Still nothing.
In the roughly 20-acre stretch of ground, there were no buildings, no marks, only grass, a few dead tree stumps, and mud. It made no sense, and my frustration mounted as the anxious thought in the back of my head reminded me that we could be catching all sorts of poisonous radiation.
Stopping in the center of the field, I stood upright, and rested my hands on both hips in an angry huff.
So, was this some kind of stupid joke? No one’s been here in a while, Jamie couldn’t have gotten to it first without leaving something behind for me to spot. Unless she pointed me in the wrong direction to cover her tracks, especially if she was working for ELSAR from the beginning.
Aware of the puzzled looks thrown my way from the others, I pulled my map out again, and tried to make sense of the erratic compass.
Whirrr.
It spun like a propellor, and I shook the little plastic gadget with my teeth gritted in ire.
Whirrrr.
As if to spite me, the needle spun in faster pulsations, and I paced back and forth, ready to blow my cool at the inanimate chunk of hardened petroleum. “Stupid dollar store piece of—”
Whiiirrr.
Crackle.
I froze, and stared at the compass, the needle now spinning constantly without hesitation. Something under my boot had shifted, the sound oddly plastic to my heightened eardrums, and my angst melted into stunned realization.
The compass wasn’t pointing north . . . it was trying to point down.
With bated breath, I back up a few steps, and sank down on my haunches to peer at the grass.
Oh, very clever Mr. Carter.
A smile crawled over my face at a slight tinge of blue under the mud, the old tarp well-concealed under the thick mat of soil, roots, and grass. We’d walked right over it half a dozen times, and I’d been standing on top of the woven nylon flap while I fumed at my poor compass. From the air, it was invisible, from the ground undetectable; only magnetism could reveal it.
Pulling a cheap camping knife that I’d been given at the Castle from my belt, I gripped the stems of the wet grass and tugged upward, using the blade to dig at the roots. With a wet snap of plant-life giving way, the sod came free, and the children crowded around me in an excited cluster as I pulled the tarp aside.
A square metal cover sat underneath, painted slate-gray, with spots of rust here and there. It swung open on creaky hinges to reveal a hatch further recessed into poured concrete. This one was made from heavy steel, and smeared with a thin film of protective grease, a central hand-wheel in its core to open it like some kind of bunker door. Even with all this, it was a set of blocky, white painted letters on the door, that made my mind whirl like the compass needle.
Silo 48.
Daring to hope, I reached down, and yanked on the hand-wheel.
Clunk.
It turned in a smooth, well-oiled motion, and the sound of locks retracting echoed through the expanse beneath as the thick steel hatch rose upward on pneumatic struts. Stale air wafted up from inside, the cold scent of concrete and iron, and a metal ladder bolted to the interior wall led down into the shadows. It had a metal safety cage around it to prevent workers from falling through the already claustrophobic entry tube, and there wasn’t a visible bottom from where we sat on the surface. Even for my eyes it was dark, and something about the strange hole in the ground felt off, unnatural, misplaced.
I borrowed a flashlight from one of the boys and stuck my legs into the shaft to rest both feet on the first rung. “I’ll go first. If it’s safe, I’ll call up to you, and the rest of you come down to meet me. I don’t want anyone waiting around outside, just in case.”
“What if something grabs you?” A younger member of the group looked with nervous dread at the shadows beneath me.
Meeting the eyes of the older ones, who waited in silent expectation, I shrugged as nonchalantly as I could. “Close the hatch and run.”
Their worried faces drifted further and further away as I descended, the flashlight tucked into my jacket pocket, both shaky hands clinging to the ladder. It seemed like the seconds dragged on into hours, the climb downward never ending, and the square of sunlight became a golden postage-stamp high overhead. I had no idea how far down I would have to go, and my stomach churned at the haunting prospect that perhaps this was one of the Breach’s cruel tricks, that I would end up climbing forever, that there was no bottom to this hidden pit. What if I had crawled down inside it like an unsuspecting fly to a carnivorous plant in the Amazon, unaware the tunnel waited to gulp me down, smother me in darkness, and digest my bones?
You’re psyching yourself out over nothing. It’s a freaking tunnel, Hannah, made of concrete just like a sidewalk. Someone had to have built it, and Carter made it out, so you can too.
In that spirit, I put one foot out to take the next rung and jolted with surprise at the sensation of a hard floor under my heel.
Clicking on my flashlight, I swept the weak yellow beam over my surroundings, and curiosity overwhelmed my fear.
I stood in a circular tunnel, spacious and industrial, with metal supports on the walls, and diamond-plate steel on the floor It was cooler down here, and I guessed that I had to be at least sixty feet underground or more, the walls behind the I-beams molded from poured concrete. Electric lights hung from the ceiling, encased in protective wire cages, skinny round conduit bolted along the ceiling like bundles of shiny snakes. Unlike the abandoned brick factory, this place didn’t lay under a thick curtain of dust, but almost seemed brand-new, as if someone had been through to clean it just yesterday. Everything remained dark, however; the lights didn’t flicker to life, no machinery hummed, the air as still as a tomb.
A sign screwed to the wall caught my eye, white metal and square, with the words ‘escape hatch’ painted on it in black, an arrow pointing back the way I’d come. Another in similar style pointed forward, and my blood went cold with the words illuminated in my flashlight beam.
Launch Control Center.
In my head, Carter’s raspy voice echoed like the tolls of a bell, sinister for the desperation in his death rattle.
More important than the beacon . . . don’t trust anyone . . .
Sucking in a breath, I forced myself to walk on, one hand on my pistol, though something in my brain told me I wouldn’t need it. The mysterious notion gave me little comfort, the absence of any mutated life forms all the more foreboding. A place like this couldn’t be part of any mining operation. No, this was too technical, too clean, too militaristic for coal or minerals. Someone had designed this place for something more secretive, something horrible, something dangerous.
Dangerous enough for Rodney Carter to give his life to defend it.
Thirty yards in, the tunnel opened up into a larger, circular room, and I stopped dead in my tracks.
Holy mother of God.
An array of big metal boxes stood along one wall, covered in dials, switches, and indicators from an era before touch screens. In the center of the floor sat a metal desk with two chairs behind a set of ancient-looking computer monitors, a few binders and folders stacked between them. Radio equipment lined another workstation by the back wall, and headsets at each retro-styled swivel chair gave the space a distinctly governmental air. Several round analog clocks on the wall were labeled for various locations, London, Berlin, Moscow, and Washington D.C, among others. A stairwell at the back of the room had more signs, pointing up to ‘Crew Quarters’ and down to ‘Secondary Command Systems’. Off to my right, a single tunnel led deeper into the complex, with a lone sign that read, ‘Blast Boor 8’.
Shutting my eyes, I held my breath to slow my racing heart, and focused as hard as I could on the stillness around me. Everything came back strange, stunted, numb, like my new abilities struggled to claw through the low hiss of static that I hadn’t notice in my ears up until now. From what I could tell, nothing lived down here, yet I couldn’t bring myself to feel secure.
A brief search of the stairwell revealed a lower level with a similar setup to the first, and an upper floor of rooms with cramped bunks, and a tiny bathroom. No one appeared in either, and there wasn’t any blood, signs of struggle, or even scraps of torn clothing. It was as if the crew of this facility had just got up and walked out not five minutes ago.
At the base of the escape ladder, I called up to the tiny yellow square of light. “Okay, come on down.”
Somewhat comforted by the echoes of their eager feet on the iron ladder rungs, I ducked back into the control room, and walked to the central desk.
A newspaper had been tucked into the folders on one side, and I sat down in the right-hand swivel chair to tug it free.
“What on earth . . .” My brow knit together, and I blinked in confusion.
The first newspaper was dated 1953, far too old for a facility that seemed to have passed inspection only last week, and the headlines were crammed with strange text. I hadn’t always paid the best attention in history class, but I knew enough to understand that the words printed on the oddball paper shouldn’t have been correct. The more I read, the more my spine tingled with a bizarre wonder that I didn’t fully comprehend.
Disaster averted! Whistleblower reveals atomic strike narrowly called off after U.S.S Seraphim vanishes during naval exercise. Washington and Moscow agree to hold de-escalation talks.
Stalin dead from stroke! Massive protests rock USSR in demand for change. Marshal Zhukov seizes power in Moscow, abolishes gulags, and vows drastic reforms.
An era for a change? Kremlin agrees to open trade deals with the west as Zhukov drafts new Russian constitution guaranteeing civil rights. Eisenhower leads charge to end racial segregation in US with widespread Congressional support.
From bombs to space-rockets: U.S and Russia form joint moon exploration taskforce in historic alliance treaty. NATO and WARSAW Pact dissolved, while Mao surrenders to Chiang Kai-shek at Nanking. Former Communist bloc to open their economies to free market reforms.
Bewildered, I scanned the pages over and over again, waiting to see a political watermark, a gag label, something to let me know these were fake papers made for a joke. But the more I read, the more I sat there in stunned amazement.
They were real.
I remembered my conversation with Mr. Koranti, about other places, holes in reality, and interdimensional crossovers. Could it be true? Had there been a timeline where the Cold War didn’t drag on for decades, where the arms race withered out, and where the authoritarian regimes of the world toppled under the will of their own people? Just the thought had me both excited and heartbroken; excited that such a better place had been possible after all, and crushed that we, in our reality, hadn’t seen such times. What if our version of earth was the wrong one, a defective one, a nightmare for other dimensions that had done things right where we had erred? What if we were the Chaos-driven version of human history, a blood-soaked tale of endless violence that we never managed to shake? If this was evidence of Order succeeding in other timelines, then what did that mean for ours?
Desperate for answers, I shuffled to the next paper, and read on.
Rural Tennessee communities evacuated after mysterious power outages cause havoc: bystanders say military weapons test released ‘monsters’.
Operation ‘Olympic Hammer’ exposed! CIA heads indited on testing electromagnetic superweapons in plot to attack former Soviet Union. Global support pours in to assist with biological cleanup of Polk County.
‘Worse than we thought’ International teams urge calm as contaminated zone in Tennessee widens. Russia pledges aid, reports similar ‘hot spots’ in Irkutsk. China unable to maintain order in remote regions as anomaly phenomenon spreads.
State of emergency declared in Washington as mutant attacks rise across nation. Moscow reportedly dark. Beijing in chaos. Military preps for experimental ‘containment’ strikes within continental US.
Icy terror sank through me as I reached the last headline, no further papers on the desk, as if these had been the last to be delivered. The Breach. They’d found one too, or perhaps created one from the sounds of it, their covert superweapon enough to open a rift just like Koranti had spoken of. In their quest to restart the Cold War, the conspirators in the CIA had ripped open a doorway to Chaos, and unleashed mutants all over the world. Despite all the treaties, all the peace deals, one wrong step had doomed them to a cosmic apocalypse that looked eerily familiar from the grainy black and white photos on the front page.
Fools. They could have reached for the stars, and they threw it all away. Stupid, proud fools.
“What is this place?” Lucille stepped out from the dark behind me, and the rest of the children emerged one-by-one from the tunnel, examining the room with curious eyes.
“Not sure yet.” Pulling one of the technical binders out, I flipped it open and started to read. “Just don’t touch anything, okay?”
With all my concentration, I dove into the pages, devoured the complicated pamphlets in record time I would have been amazed at how fast my reading comprehension had improved, if it weren’t for the words that jumped off the pages at me.
Automated self-loading silo . . . XM91 Multiple Individual Reentry Vehicle . . . Peacekeeper Two delivery system . . .
My eyes rose to the console in front of me, and I noticed two sets of keyholes, with one holding a little metal key.
The other keyhole was empty.
Wait a second.
Horrified, I dropped the binder and leapt to my feet. Now it made sense why Carter had guarded this place with his life, and why ELSAR wanted the key coordinates. Somehow, in some way, this place had slipped through the veil of time and space to land in our reality and had brought its deadly secret with it.
A weapon so powerful, so dangerous, that even the deep pockets of ELSAR couldn’t get hold of one.
“What’s wrong?” An older boy cast around with his eyes in suspicion, but I ignored them all, and took off toward the tunnel marked ‘Blast Door 8’.
As if running in a nightmare, I couldn’t move fast enough, and the others sprinted after me in fear. I spun the hand-wheel, let the hydraulic springs crank it open, and raced on through more flights of metal stairways, more blast doors that counted down from eight, until I stumbled out into a massive shadowy chasm.
Stopping dead in my tracks at the safety railing, I stared out at a half-dozen white-painted tubes that rose from the gargantuan shaft toward the closed double blast doors above. They were huge, easily as tall as two school buses parked end-to-end, six of them held in a turnstile-like system of brackets that reminded me of a rotisserie rack at a gas station. The compass in my pocket cranked with a hysterical whirr, and the letters painted on the aluminum skin of the objects made the hairs on my neck stand on end.
XM91.
The children thundered into the launch shaft after me, and their eyes bulged at the deadly giants that stood in quiet mechanical slumber within the hidden bunker.
“Is that . . ?” Lucille squeaked, her jaw slack as she sidled closer in timid uncertainty.
“Uh huh.” I gripped the cold railing with white-knuckled hands, my stomach tied in sick knots. “Those are nukes.”

[Part 24]
[Part 26]
“That’s weird.”
I crouched on the edge of a large, grassy area, the chest-high vegetation over our heads in this position, with various trails blazed through it by passing animals. The rest of the children waited behind me, hunched low on the balls of their feet, eyes to the clouds like wary rabbits watching for a hawk. The sky was clear and bright at noon, the temperature high enough to make me wish I could shrug off my jacket.
Lucille squatted next to my left, having attached herself to me so that she’d become my default shadow at this point. She eyed the lensatic compass in my hand, and the two of us frowned at it in hushed concern.
Swallowing a nervous gulp, I nodded in agreement with her statement, watching the needle of the compass twitch, spin, and change polarity every few seconds as if it were alive. “Must be a ton of electromagnetic radiation here. Better keep our eyes open. There could be freaks around.”
Today had proven to be gentler, the rain stopping sometime in the night. We’d all woken up close to nine the previous evening, sore, blister-ridden from our march, and hungry. I’d taken a small crew of six with some camping pots a few hundred yards off site and managed to heat up enough stewed beans to feed everyone before withdrawing to the factory. Our dinner hadn’t been a cheery affair, however; true to Chris’s words, the cookfire drew a small pack of Birch Crawlers, four juveniles from what I could tell, who prowled around outside for a long time. We had to sit in silence, bunched around our fire, and wait until the beasts gave up trying to find a way inside. Even after the predators left, Puppets clicked and chittered through the forest for hours, the white-eyed fiends scampering around the swamps to scoop out crayfish with their grimy hands. At one point, I spotted a lone Bengal Tiger by the western edge of the waterline, one of our old Carnivore Cove residents, with a new coat of thick brown-and-tan striped fur, and two long saber-like teeth protruding from its mouth. Speaker Crabs played their ghostly tunes late into the night, and Bone-Faced Whitetail bugled from somewhere further south, a symphony of the new world all blended in a sound both terrifying and fascinating to the wide-eyed urbanite kids.
All this had made the departure from our dusty old sanctuary that much harder for my wards to accept, but they followed me into the orange, red, and gold embrace of the autumn wilderness with resolute faith. They’d seen too much not to trust me, and I didn’t have to argue with the more stubborn members of the group anymore. Together we’d tramped to the green blot on the topographical map, and now that we sat on the edge of the grassy expanse, I found myself as the one having doubts.
I have no way to measure any background radiation. It might take a hot minute to search for whatever is supposed to be here, and who knows how many rads we’ll take in that time frame? Not to mention what kind of stuff might be living in this grass, mutated leeches, giant ticks, some kind of super-mosquito . . .
Shuddering at the skin-crawling idea of Breach-born parasites wriggling up my pant legs, I slipped the compass back into my pocket. We would just have to be quick. If Rodney Carter could make it in here, then the radiation couldn’t be lethal . . . or at least, I hoped so.
Turning, I raised a hand, and made a silent wave at the others.
Let’s go.
Deeper into the grass we went, weapons at the ready. I forced myself to breathe slow, let the focus slide over me, and crept along with primal caution. On the back of my tongue, I tasted the starchy blades of the grass, and the wet mud at the roots. My ears picked up the slight crunch of gravel particulates under the surface of the muck, remnants of whatever mining company had laid a gravel pad here decades prior. I caught the buzz of a fly a few yards to my left, and the muffled whirr of my compass spasming in my pocket, the needle in constant motion. Every color became more pronounced, the brown rush grass dried in the breeze, the turquoise blue sky, the chocolate-colored mud that squelched under my boots. Cool fall humidity lay heavy on my skin, and plants tickled my arms as I slid by them.
At the opposite end of the field, we came up on nothing.
I had the group make a wide loop around the outside of the clearing, searched the ground, the grass, the surrounding embankments.
Nothing.
Down the center we went in a crisscross pattern, spread out at arm’s length in a long row to comb through the area like a search-and-rescue team.
Still nothing.
In the roughly 20-acre stretch of ground, there were no buildings, no marks, only grass, a few dead tree stumps, and mud. It made no sense, and my frustration mounted as the anxious thought in the back of my head reminded me that we could be catching all sorts of poisonous radiation.
Stopping in the center of the field, I stood upright, and rested my hands on both hips in an angry huff.
So, was this some kind of stupid joke? No one’s been here in a while, Jamie couldn’t have gotten to it first without leaving something behind for me to spot. Unless she pointed me in the wrong direction to cover her tracks, especially if she was working for ELSAR from the beginning.
Aware of the puzzled looks thrown my way from the others, I pulled my map out again, and tried to make sense of the erratic compass.
Whirrr.
It spun like a propellor, and I shook the little plastic gadget with my teeth gritted in ire.
Whirrrr.
As if to spite me, the needle spun in faster pulsations, and I paced back and forth, ready to blow my cool at the inanimate chunk of hardened petroleum. “Stupid dollar store piece of—”
Whiiirrr.
Crackle.
I froze, and stared at the compass, the needle now spinning constantly without hesitation. Something under my boot had shifted, the sound oddly plastic to my heightened eardrums, and my angst melted into stunned realization.
The compass wasn’t pointing north . . . it was trying to point down.
With bated breath, I back up a few steps, and sank down on my haunches to peer at the grass.
Oh, very clever Mr. Carter.
A smile crawled over my face at a slight tinge of blue under the mud, the old tarp well-concealed under the thick mat of soil, roots, and grass. We’d walked right over it half a dozen times, and I’d been standing on top of the woven nylon flap while I fumed at my poor compass. From the air, it was invisible, from the ground undetectable; only magnetism could reveal it.
Pulling a cheap camping knife that I’d been given at the Castle from my belt, I gripped the stems of the wet grass and tugged upward, using the blade to dig at the roots. With a wet snap of plant-life giving way, the sod came free, and the children crowded around me in an excited cluster as I pulled the tarp aside.
A square metal cover sat underneath, painted slate-gray, with spots of rust here and there. It swung open on creaky hinges to reveal a hatch further recessed into poured concrete. This one was made from heavy steel, and smeared with a thin film of protective grease, a central hand-wheel in its core to open it like some kind of bunker door. Even with all this, it was a set of blocky, white painted letters on the door, that made my mind whirl like the compass needle.
Silo 48.
Daring to hope, I reached down, and yanked on the hand-wheel.
Clunk.
It turned in a smooth, well-oiled motion, and the sound of locks retracting echoed through the expanse beneath as the thick steel hatch rose upward on pneumatic struts. Stale air wafted up from inside, the cold scent of concrete and iron, and a metal ladder bolted to the interior wall led down into the shadows. It had a metal safety cage around it to prevent workers from falling through the already claustrophobic entry tube, and there wasn’t a visible bottom from where we sat on the surface. Even for my eyes it was dark, and something about the strange hole in the ground felt off, unnatural, misplaced.
I borrowed a flashlight from one of the boys and stuck my legs into the shaft to rest both feet on the first rung. “I’ll go first. If it’s safe, I’ll call up to you, and the rest of you come down to meet me. I don’t want anyone waiting around outside, just in case.”
“What if something grabs you?” A younger member of the group looked with nervous dread at the shadows beneath me.
Meeting the eyes of the older ones, who waited in silent expectation, I shrugged as nonchalantly as I could. “Close the hatch and run.”
Their worried faces drifted further and further away as I descended, the flashlight tucked into my jacket pocket, both shaky hands clinging to the ladder. It seemed like the seconds dragged on into hours, the climb downward never ending, and the square of sunlight became a golden postage-stamp high overhead. I had no idea how far down I would have to go, and my stomach churned at the haunting prospect that perhaps this was one of the Breach’s cruel tricks, that I would end up climbing forever, that there was no bottom to this hidden pit. What if I had crawled down inside it like an unsuspecting fly to a carnivorous plant in the Amazon, unaware the tunnel waited to gulp me down, smother me in darkness, and digest my bones?
You’re psyching yourself out over nothing. It’s a freaking tunnel, Hannah, made of concrete just like a sidewalk. Someone had to have built it, and Carter made it out, so you can too.
In that spirit, I put one foot out to take the next rung and jolted with surprise at the sensation of a hard floor under my heel.
Clicking on my flashlight, I swept the weak yellow beam over my surroundings, and curiosity overwhelmed my fear.
I stood in a circular tunnel, spacious and industrial, with metal supports on the walls, and diamond-plate steel on the floor It was cooler down here, and I guessed that I had to be at least sixty feet underground or more, the walls behind the I-beams molded from poured concrete. Electric lights hung from the ceiling, encased in protective wire cages, skinny round conduit bolted along the ceiling like bundles of shiny snakes. Unlike the abandoned brick factory, this place didn’t lay under a thick curtain of dust, but almost seemed brand-new, as if someone had been through to clean it just yesterday. Everything remained dark, however; the lights didn’t flicker to life, no machinery hummed, the air as still as a tomb.
A sign screwed to the wall caught my eye, white metal and square, with the words ‘escape hatch’ painted on it in black, an arrow pointing back the way I’d come. Another in similar style pointed forward, and my blood went cold with the words illuminated in my flashlight beam.
Launch Control Center.
In my head, Carter’s raspy voice echoed like the tolls of a bell, sinister for the desperation in his death rattle.
More important than the beacon . . . don’t trust anyone . . .
Sucking in a breath, I forced myself to walk on, one hand on my pistol, though something in my brain told me I wouldn’t need it. The mysterious notion gave me little comfort, the absence of any mutated life forms all the more foreboding. A place like this couldn’t be part of any mining operation. No, this was too technical, too clean, too militaristic for coal or minerals. Someone had designed this place for something more secretive, something horrible, something dangerous.
Dangerous enough for Rodney Carter to give his life to defend it.
Thirty yards in, the tunnel opened up into a larger, circular room, and I stopped dead in my tracks.
Holy mother of God.
An array of big metal boxes stood along one wall, covered in dials, switches, and indicators from an era before touch screens. In the center of the floor sat a metal desk with two chairs behind a set of ancient-looking computer monitors, a few binders and folders stacked between them. Radio equipment lined another workstation by the back wall, and headsets at each retro-styled swivel chair gave the space a distinctly governmental air. Several round analog clocks on the wall were labeled for various locations, London, Berlin, Moscow, and Washington D.C, among others. A stairwell at the back of the room had more signs, pointing up to ‘Crew Quarters’ and down to ‘Secondary Command Systems’. Off to my right, a single tunnel led deeper into the complex, with a lone sign that read, ‘Blast Boor 8’.
Shutting my eyes, I held my breath to slow my racing heart, and focused as hard as I could on the stillness around me. Everything came back strange, stunted, numb, like my new abilities struggled to claw through the low hiss of static that I hadn’t notice in my ears up until now. From what I could tell, nothing lived down here, yet I couldn’t bring myself to feel secure.
A brief search of the stairwell revealed a lower level with a similar setup to the first, and an upper floor of rooms with cramped bunks, and a tiny bathroom. No one appeared in either, and there wasn’t any blood, signs of struggle, or even scraps of torn clothing. It was as if the crew of this facility had just got up and walked out not five minutes ago.
At the base of the escape ladder, I called up to the tiny yellow square of light. “Okay, come on down.”
Somewhat comforted by the echoes of their eager feet on the iron ladder rungs, I ducked back into the control room, and walked to the central desk.
A newspaper had been tucked into the folders on one side, and I sat down in the right-hand swivel chair to tug it free.
“What on earth . . .” My brow knit together, and I blinked in confusion.
The first newspaper was dated 1953, far too old for a facility that seemed to have passed inspection only last week, and the headlines were crammed with strange text. I hadn’t always paid the best attention in history class, but I knew enough to understand that the words printed on the oddball paper shouldn’t have been correct. The more I read, the more my spine tingled with a bizarre wonder that I didn’t fully comprehend.
Disaster averted! Whistleblower reveals atomic strike narrowly called off after U.S.S Seraphim vanishes during naval exercise. Washington and Moscow agree to hold de-escalation talks.
Stalin dead from stroke! Massive protests rock USSR in demand for change. Marshal Zhukov seizes power in Moscow, abolishes gulags, and vows drastic reforms.
An era for a change? Kremlin agrees to open trade deals with the west as Zhukov drafts new Russian constitution guaranteeing civil rights. Eisenhower leads charge to end racial segregation in US with widespread Congressional support.
From bombs to space-rockets: U.S and Russia form joint moon exploration taskforce in historic alliance treaty. NATO and WARSAW Pact dissolved, while Mao surrenders to Chiang Kai-shek at Nanking. Former Communist bloc to open their economies to free market reforms.
Bewildered, I scanned the pages over and over again, waiting to see a political watermark, a gag label, something to let me know these were fake papers made for a joke. But the more I read, the more I sat there in stunned amazement.
They were real.
I remembered my conversation with Mr. Koranti, about other places, holes in reality, and interdimensional crossovers. Could it be true? Had there been a timeline where the Cold War didn’t drag on for decades, where the arms race withered out, and where the authoritarian regimes of the world toppled under the will of their own people? Just the thought had me both excited and heartbroken; excited that such a better place had been possible after all, and crushed that we, in our reality, hadn’t seen such times. What if our version of earth was the wrong one, a defective one, a nightmare for other dimensions that had done things right where we had erred? What if we were the Chaos-driven version of human history, a blood-soaked tale of endless violence that we never managed to shake? If this was evidence of Order succeeding in other timelines, then what did that mean for ours?
Desperate for answers, I shuffled to the next paper, and read on.
Rural Tennessee communities evacuated after mysterious power outages cause havoc: bystanders say military weapons test released ‘monsters’.
Operation ‘Olympic Hammer’ exposed! CIA heads indited on testing electromagnetic superweapons in plot to attack former Soviet Union. Global support pours in to assist with biological cleanup of Polk County.
‘Worse than we thought’ International teams urge calm as contaminated zone in Tennessee widens. Russia pledges aid, reports similar ‘hot spots’ in Irkutsk. China unable to maintain order in remote regions as anomaly phenomenon spreads.
State of emergency declared in Washington as mutant attacks rise across nation. Moscow reportedly dark. Beijing in chaos. Military preps for experimental ‘containment’ strikes within continental US.
Icy terror sank through me as I reached the last headline, no further papers on the desk, as if these had been the last to be delivered. The Breach. They’d found one too, or perhaps created one from the sounds of it, their covert superweapon enough to open a rift just like Koranti had spoken of. In their quest to restart the Cold War, the conspirators in the CIA had ripped open a doorway to Chaos, and unleashed mutants all over the world. Despite all the treaties, all the peace deals, one wrong step had doomed them to a cosmic apocalypse that looked eerily familiar from the grainy black and white photos on the front page.
Fools. They could have reached for the stars, and they threw it all away. Stupid, proud fools.
“What is this place?” Lucille stepped out from the dark behind me, and the rest of the children emerged one-by-one from the tunnel, examining the room with curious eyes.
“Not sure yet.” Pulling one of the technical binders out, I flipped it open and started to read. “Just don’t touch anything, okay?”
With all my concentration, I dove into the pages, devoured the complicated pamphlets in record time I would have been amazed at how fast my reading comprehension had improved, if it weren’t for the words that jumped off the pages at me.
Automated self-loading silo . . . XM91 Multiple Individual Reentry Vehicle . . . Peacekeeper Two delivery system . . .
My eyes rose to the console in front of me, and I noticed two sets of keyholes, with one holding a little metal key.
The other keyhole was empty.
Wait a second.
Horrified, I dropped the binder and leapt to my feet. Now it made sense why Carter had guarded this place with his life, and why ELSAR wanted the key coordinates. Somehow, in some way, this place had slipped through the veil of time and space to land in our reality and had brought its deadly secret with it.
A weapon so powerful, so dangerous, that even the deep pockets of ELSAR couldn’t get hold of one.
“What’s wrong?” An older boy cast around with his eyes in suspicion, but I ignored them all, and took off toward the tunnel marked ‘Blast Door 8’.
As if running in a nightmare, I couldn’t move fast enough, and the others sprinted after me in fear. I spun the hand-wheel, let the hydraulic springs crank it open, and raced on through more flights of metal stairways, more blast doors that counted down from eight, until I stumbled out into a massive shadowy chasm.
Stopping dead in my tracks at the safety railing, I stared out at a half-dozen white-painted tubes that rose from the gargantuan shaft toward the closed double blast doors above. They were huge, easily as tall as two school buses parked end-to-end, six of them held in a turnstile-like system of brackets that reminded me of a rotisserie rack at a gas station. The compass in my pocket cranked with a hysterical whirr, and the letters painted on the aluminum skin of the objects made the hairs on my neck stand on end.
XM91.
The children thundered into the launch shaft after me, and their eyes bulged at the deadly giants that stood in quiet mechanical slumber within the hidden bunker.
“Is that . . ?” Lucille squeaked, her jaw slack as she sidled closer in timid uncertainty.
“Uh huh.” I gripped the cold railing with white-knuckled hands, my stomach tied in sick knots. “Those are nukes.”

[Part 24]
[Part 26]
“That’s weird.”
I crouched on the edge of a large, grassy area, the chest-high vegetation over our heads in this position, with various trails blazed through it by passing animals. The rest of the children waited behind me, hunched low on the balls of their feet, eyes to the clouds like wary rabbits watching for a hawk. The sky was clear and bright at noon, the temperature high enough to make me wish I could shrug off my jacket.
Lucille squatted next to my left, having attached herself to me so that she’d become my default shadow at this point. She eyed the lensatic compass in my hand, and the two of us frowned at it in hushed concern.
Swallowing a nervous gulp, I nodded in agreement with her statement, watching the needle of the compass twitch, spin, and change polarity every few seconds as if it were alive. “Must be a ton of electromagnetic radiation here. Better keep our eyes open. There could be freaks around.”
Today had proven to be gentler, the rain stopping sometime in the night. We’d all woken up close to nine the previous evening, sore, blister-ridden from our march, and hungry. I’d taken a small crew of six with some camping pots a few hundred yards off site and managed to heat up enough stewed beans to feed everyone before withdrawing to the factory. Our dinner hadn’t been a cheery affair, however; true to Chris’s words, the cookfire drew a small pack of Birch Crawlers, four juveniles from what I could tell, who prowled around outside for a long time. We had to sit in silence, bunched around our fire, and wait until the beasts gave up trying to find a way inside. Even after the predators left, Puppets clicked and chittered through the forest for hours, the white-eyed fiends scampering around the swamps to scoop out crayfish with their grimy hands. At one point, I spotted a lone Bengal Tiger by the western edge of the waterline, one of our old Carnivore Cove residents, with a new coat of thick brown-and-tan striped fur, and two long saber-like teeth protruding from its mouth. Speaker Crabs played their ghostly tunes late into the night, and Bone-Faced Whitetail bugled from somewhere further south, a symphony of the new world all blended in a sound both terrifying and fascinating to the wide-eyed urbanite kids.
All this had made the departure from our dusty old sanctuary that much harder for my wards to accept, but they followed me into the orange, red, and gold embrace of the autumn wilderness with resolute faith. They’d seen too much not to trust me, and I didn’t have to argue with the more stubborn members of the group anymore. Together we’d tramped to the green blot on the topographical map, and now that we sat on the edge of the grassy expanse, I found myself as the one having doubts.
I have no way to measure any background radiation. It might take a hot minute to search for whatever is supposed to be here, and who knows how many rads we’ll take in that time frame? Not to mention what kind of stuff might be living in this grass, mutated leeches, giant ticks, some kind of super-mosquito . . .
Shuddering at the skin-crawling idea of Breach-born parasites wriggling up my pant legs, I slipped the compass back into my pocket. We would just have to be quick. If Rodney Carter could make it in here, then the radiation couldn’t be lethal . . . or at least, I hoped so.
Turning, I raised a hand, and made a silent wave at the others.
Let’s go.
Deeper into the grass we went, weapons at the ready. I forced myself to breathe slow, let the focus slide over me, and crept along with primal caution. On the back of my tongue, I tasted the starchy blades of the grass, and the wet mud at the roots. My ears picked up the slight crunch of gravel particulates under the surface of the muck, remnants of whatever mining company had laid a gravel pad here decades prior. I caught the buzz of a fly a few yards to my left, and the muffled whirr of my compass spasming in my pocket, the needle in constant motion. Every color became more pronounced, the brown rush grass dried in the breeze, the turquoise blue sky, the chocolate-colored mud that squelched under my boots. Cool fall humidity lay heavy on my skin, and plants tickled my arms as I slid by them.
At the opposite end of the field, we came up on nothing.
I had the group make a wide loop around the outside of the clearing, searched the ground, the grass, the surrounding embankments.
Nothing.
Down the center we went in a crisscross pattern, spread out at arm’s length in a long row to comb through the area like a search-and-rescue team.
Still nothing.
In the roughly 20-acre stretch of ground, there were no buildings, no marks, only grass, a few dead tree stumps, and mud. It made no sense, and my frustration mounted as the anxious thought in the back of my head reminded me that we could be catching all sorts of poisonous radiation.
Stopping in the center of the field, I stood upright, and rested my hands on both hips in an angry huff.
So, was this some kind of stupid joke? No one’s been here in a while, Jamie couldn’t have gotten to it first without leaving something behind for me to spot. Unless she pointed me in the wrong direction to cover her tracks, especially if she was working for ELSAR from the beginning.
Aware of the puzzled looks thrown my way from the others, I pulled my map out again, and tried to make sense of the erratic compass.
Whirrr.
It spun like a propellor, and I shook the little plastic gadget with my teeth gritted in ire.
Whirrrr.
As if to spite me, the needle spun in faster pulsations, and I paced back and forth, ready to blow my cool at the inanimate chunk of hardened petroleum. “Stupid dollar store piece of—”
Whiiirrr.
Crackle.
I froze, and stared at the compass, the needle now spinning constantly without hesitation. Something under my boot had shifted, the sound oddly plastic to my heightened eardrums, and my angst melted into stunned realization.
The compass wasn’t pointing north . . . it was trying to point down.
With bated breath, I back up a few steps, and sank down on my haunches to peer at the grass.
Oh, very clever Mr. Carter.
A smile crawled over my face at a slight tinge of blue under the mud, the old tarp well-concealed under the thick mat of soil, roots, and grass. We’d walked right over it half a dozen times, and I’d been standing on top of the woven nylon flap while I fumed at my poor compass. From the air, it was invisible, from the ground undetectable; only magnetism could reveal it.
Pulling a cheap camping knife that I’d been given at the Castle from my belt, I gripped the stems of the wet grass and tugged upward, using the blade to dig at the roots. With a wet snap of plant-life giving way, the sod came free, and the children crowded around me in an excited cluster as I pulled the tarp aside.
A square metal cover sat underneath, painted slate-gray, with spots of rust here and there. It swung open on creaky hinges to reveal a hatch further recessed into poured concrete. This one was made from heavy steel, and smeared with a thin film of protective grease, a central hand-wheel in its core to open it like some kind of bunker door. Even with all this, it was a set of blocky, white painted letters on the door, that made my mind whirl like the compass needle.
Silo 48.
Daring to hope, I reached down, and yanked on the hand-wheel.
Clunk.
It turned in a smooth, well-oiled motion, and the sound of locks retracting echoed through the expanse beneath as the thick steel hatch rose upward on pneumatic struts. Stale air wafted up from inside, the cold scent of concrete and iron, and a metal ladder bolted to the interior wall led down into the shadows. It had a metal safety cage around it to prevent workers from falling through the already claustrophobic entry tube, and there wasn’t a visible bottom from where we sat on the surface. Even for my eyes it was dark, and something about the strange hole in the ground felt off, unnatural, misplaced.
I borrowed a flashlight from one of the boys and stuck my legs into the shaft to rest both feet on the first rung. “I’ll go first. If it’s safe, I’ll call up to you, and the rest of you come down to meet me. I don’t want anyone waiting around outside, just in case.”
“What if something grabs you?” A younger member of the group looked with nervous dread at the shadows beneath me.
Meeting the eyes of the older ones, who waited in silent expectation, I shrugged as nonchalantly as I could. “Close the hatch and run.”
Their worried faces drifted further and further away as I descended, the flashlight tucked into my jacket pocket, both shaky hands clinging to the ladder. It seemed like the seconds dragged on into hours, the climb downward never ending, and the square of sunlight became a golden postage-stamp high overhead. I had no idea how far down I would have to go, and my stomach churned at the haunting prospect that perhaps this was one of the Breach’s cruel tricks, that I would end up climbing forever, that there was no bottom to this hidden pit. What if I had crawled down inside it like an unsuspecting fly to a carnivorous plant in the Amazon, unaware the tunnel waited to gulp me down, smother me in darkness, and digest my bones?
You’re psyching yourself out over nothing. It’s a freaking tunnel, Hannah, made of concrete just like a sidewalk. Someone had to have built it, and Carter made it out, so you can too.
In that spirit, I put one foot out to take the next rung and jolted with surprise at the sensation of a hard floor under my heel.
Clicking on my flashlight, I swept the weak yellow beam over my surroundings, and curiosity overwhelmed my fear.
I stood in a circular tunnel, spacious and industrial, with metal supports on the walls, and diamond-plate steel on the floor It was cooler down here, and I guessed that I had to be at least sixty feet underground or more, the walls behind the I-beams molded from poured concrete. Electric lights hung from the ceiling, encased in protective wire cages, skinny round conduit bolted along the ceiling like bundles of shiny snakes. Unlike the abandoned brick factory, this place didn’t lay under a thick curtain of dust, but almost seemed brand-new, as if someone had been through to clean it just yesterday. Everything remained dark, however; the lights didn’t flicker to life, no machinery hummed, the air as still as a tomb.
A sign screwed to the wall caught my eye, white metal and square, with the words ‘escape hatch’ painted on it in black, an arrow pointing back the way I’d come. Another in similar style pointed forward, and my blood went cold with the words illuminated in my flashlight beam.
Launch Control Center.
In my head, Carter’s raspy voice echoed like the tolls of a bell, sinister for the desperation in his death rattle.
More important than the beacon . . . don’t trust anyone . . .
Sucking in a breath, I forced myself to walk on, one hand on my pistol, though something in my brain told me I wouldn’t need it. The mysterious notion gave me little comfort, the absence of any mutated life forms all the more foreboding. A place like this couldn’t be part of any mining operation. No, this was too technical, too clean, too militaristic for coal or minerals. Someone had designed this place for something more secretive, something horrible, something dangerous.
Dangerous enough for Rodney Carter to give his life to defend it.
Thirty yards in, the tunnel opened up into a larger, circular room, and I stopped dead in my tracks.
Holy mother of God.
An array of big metal boxes stood along one wall, covered in dials, switches, and indicators from an era before touch screens. In the center of the floor sat a metal desk with two chairs behind a set of ancient-looking computer monitors, a few binders and folders stacked between them. Radio equipment lined another workstation by the back wall, and headsets at each retro-styled swivel chair gave the space a distinctly governmental air. Several round analog clocks on the wall were labeled for various locations, London, Berlin, Moscow, and Washington D.C, among others. A stairwell at the back of the room had more signs, pointing up to ‘Crew Quarters’ and down to ‘Secondary Command Systems’. Off to my right, a single tunnel led deeper into the complex, with a lone sign that read, ‘Blast Boor 8’.
Shutting my eyes, I held my breath to slow my racing heart, and focused as hard as I could on the stillness around me. Everything came back strange, stunted, numb, like my new abilities struggled to claw through the low hiss of static that I hadn’t notice in my ears up until now. From what I could tell, nothing lived down here, yet I couldn’t bring myself to feel secure.
A brief search of the stairwell revealed a lower level with a similar setup to the first, and an upper floor of rooms with cramped bunks, and a tiny bathroom. No one appeared in either, and there wasn’t any blood, signs of struggle, or even scraps of torn clothing. It was as if the crew of this facility had just got up and walked out not five minutes ago.
At the base of the escape ladder, I called up to the tiny yellow square of light. “Okay, come on down.”
Somewhat comforted by the echoes of their eager feet on the iron ladder rungs, I ducked back into the control room, and walked to the central desk.
A newspaper had been tucked into the folders on one side, and I sat down in the right-hand swivel chair to tug it free.
“What on earth . . .” My brow knit together, and I blinked in confusion.
The first newspaper was dated 1953, far too old for a facility that seemed to have passed inspection only last week, and the headlines were crammed with strange text. I hadn’t always paid the best attention in history class, but I knew enough to understand that the words printed on the oddball paper shouldn’t have been correct. The more I read, the more my spine tingled with a bizarre wonder that I didn’t fully comprehend.
Disaster averted! Whistleblower reveals atomic strike narrowly called off after U.S.S Seraphim vanishes during naval exercise. Washington and Moscow agree to hold de-escalation talks.
Stalin dead from stroke! Massive protests rock USSR in demand for change. Marshal Zhukov seizes power in Moscow, abolishes gulags, and vows drastic reforms.
An era for a change? Kremlin agrees to open trade deals with the west as Zhukov drafts new Russian constitution guaranteeing civil rights. Eisenhower leads charge to end racial segregation in US with widespread Congressional support.
From bombs to space-rockets: U.S and Russia form joint moon exploration taskforce in historic alliance treaty. NATO and WARSAW Pact dissolved, while Mao surrenders to Chiang Kai-shek at Nanking. Former Communist bloc to open their economies to free market reforms.
Bewildered, I scanned the pages over and over again, waiting to see a political watermark, a gag label, something to let me know these were fake papers made for a joke. But the more I read, the more I sat there in stunned amazement.
They were real.
I remembered my conversation with Mr. Koranti, about other places, holes in reality, and interdimensional crossovers. Could it be true? Had there been a timeline where the Cold War didn’t drag on for decades, where the arms race withered out, and where the authoritarian regimes of the world toppled under the will of their own people? Just the thought had me both excited and heartbroken; excited that such a better place had been possible after all, and crushed that we, in our reality, hadn’t seen such times. What if our version of earth was the wrong one, a defective one, a nightmare for other dimensions that had done things right where we had erred? What if we were the Chaos-driven version of human history, a blood-soaked tale of endless violence that we never managed to shake? If this was evidence of Order succeeding in other timelines, then what did that mean for ours?
Desperate for answers, I shuffled to the next paper, and read on.
Rural Tennessee communities evacuated after mysterious power outages cause havoc: bystanders say military weapons test released ‘monsters’.
Operation ‘Olympic Hammer’ exposed! CIA heads indited on testing electromagnetic superweapons in plot to attack former Soviet Union. Global support pours in to assist with biological cleanup of Polk County.
‘Worse than we thought’ International teams urge calm as contaminated zone in Tennessee widens. Russia pledges aid, reports similar ‘hot spots’ in Irkutsk. China unable to maintain order in remote regions as anomaly phenomenon spreads.
State of emergency declared in Washington as mutant attacks rise across nation. Moscow reportedly dark. Beijing in chaos. Military preps for experimental ‘containment’ strikes within continental US.
Icy terror sank through me as I reached the last headline, no further papers on the desk, as if these had been the last to be delivered. The Breach. They’d found one too, or perhaps created one from the sounds of it, their covert superweapon enough to open a rift just like Koranti had spoken of. In their quest to restart the Cold War, the conspirators in the CIA had ripped open a doorway to Chaos, and unleashed mutants all over the world. Despite all the treaties, all the peace deals, one wrong step had doomed them to a cosmic apocalypse that looked eerily familiar from the grainy black and white photos on the front page.
Fools. They could have reached for the stars, and they threw it all away. Stupid, proud fools.
“What is this place?” Lucille stepped out from the dark behind me, and the rest of the children emerged one-by-one from the tunnel, examining the room with curious eyes.
“Not sure yet.” Pulling one of the technical binders out, I flipped it open and started to read. “Just don’t touch anything, okay?”
With all my concentration, I dove into the pages, devoured the complicated pamphlets in record time I would have been amazed at how fast my reading comprehension had improved, if it weren’t for the words that jumped off the pages at me.
Automated self-loading silo . . . XM91 Multiple Individual Reentry Vehicle . . . Peacekeeper Two delivery system . . .
My eyes rose to the console in front of me, and I noticed two sets of keyholes, with one holding a little metal key.
The other keyhole was empty.
Wait a second.
Horrified, I dropped the binder and leapt to my feet. Now it made sense why Carter had guarded this place with his life, and why ELSAR wanted the key coordinates. Somehow, in some way, this place had slipped through the veil of time and space to land in our reality and had brought its deadly secret with it.
A weapon so powerful, so dangerous, that even the deep pockets of ELSAR couldn’t get hold of one.
“What’s wrong?” An older boy cast around with his eyes in suspicion, but I ignored them all, and took off toward the tunnel marked ‘Blast Door 8’.
As if running in a nightmare, I couldn’t move fast enough, and the others sprinted after me in fear. I spun the hand-wheel, let the hydraulic springs crank it open, and raced on through more flights of metal stairways, more blast doors that counted down from eight, until I stumbled out into a massive shadowy chasm.
Stopping dead in my tracks at the safety railing, I stared out at a half-dozen white-painted tubes that rose from the gargantuan shaft toward the closed double blast doors above. They were huge, easily as tall as two school buses parked end-to-end, six of them held in a turnstile-like system of brackets that reminded me of a rotisserie rack at a gas station. The compass in my pocket cranked with a hysterical whirr, and the letters painted on the aluminum skin of the objects made the hairs on my neck stand on end.
XM91.
The children thundered into the launch shaft after me, and their eyes bulged at the deadly giants that stood in quiet mechanical slumber within the hidden bunker.
“Is that . . ?” Lucille squeaked, her jaw slack as she sidled closer in timid uncertainty.
“Uh huh.” I gripped the cold railing with white-knuckled hands, my stomach tied in sick knots. “Those are nukes.”

[Part 24]
[Part 26]
“That’s weird.”
I crouched on the edge of a large, grassy area, the chest-high vegetation over our heads in this position, with various trails blazed through it by passing animals. The rest of the children waited behind me, hunched low on the balls of their feet, eyes to the clouds like wary rabbits watching for a hawk. The sky was clear and bright at noon, the temperature high enough to make me wish I could shrug off my jacket.
Lucille squatted next to my left, having attached herself to me so that she’d become my default shadow at this point. She eyed the lensatic compass in my hand, and the two of us frowned at it in hushed concern.
Swallowing a nervous gulp, I nodded in agreement with her statement, watching the needle of the compass twitch, spin, and change polarity every few seconds as if it were alive. “Must be a ton of electromagnetic radiation here. Better keep our eyes open. There could be freaks around.”
Today had proven to be gentler, the rain stopping sometime in the night. We’d all woken up close to nine the previous evening, sore, blister-ridden from our march, and hungry. I’d taken a small crew of six with some camping pots a few hundred yards off site and managed to heat up enough stewed beans to feed everyone before withdrawing to the factory. Our dinner hadn’t been a cheery affair, however; true to Chris’s words, the cookfire drew a small pack of Birch Crawlers, four juveniles from what I could tell, who prowled around outside for a long time. We had to sit in silence, bunched around our fire, and wait until the beasts gave up trying to find a way inside. Even after the predators left, Puppets clicked and chittered through the forest for hours, the white-eyed fiends scampering around the swamps to scoop out crayfish with their grimy hands. At one point, I spotted a lone Bengal Tiger by the western edge of the waterline, one of our old Carnivore Cove residents, with a new coat of thick brown-and-tan striped fur, and two long saber-like teeth protruding from its mouth. Speaker Crabs played their ghostly tunes late into the night, and Bone-Faced Whitetail bugled from somewhere further south, a symphony of the new world all blended in a sound both terrifying and fascinating to the wide-eyed urbanite kids.
All this had made the departure from our dusty old sanctuary that much harder for my wards to accept, but they followed me into the orange, red, and gold embrace of the autumn wilderness with resolute faith. They’d seen too much not to trust me, and I didn’t have to argue with the more stubborn members of the group anymore. Together we’d tramped to the green blot on the topographical map, and now that we sat on the edge of the grassy expanse, I found myself as the one having doubts.
I have no way to measure any background radiation. It might take a hot minute to search for whatever is supposed to be here, and who knows how many rads we’ll take in that time frame? Not to mention what kind of stuff might be living in this grass, mutated leeches, giant ticks, some kind of super-mosquito . . .
Shuddering at the skin-crawling idea of Breach-born parasites wriggling up my pant legs, I slipped the compass back into my pocket. We would just have to be quick. If Rodney Carter could make it in here, then the radiation couldn’t be lethal . . . or at least, I hoped so.
Turning, I raised a hand, and made a silent wave at the others.
Let’s go.
Deeper into the grass we went, weapons at the ready. I forced myself to breathe slow, let the focus slide over me, and crept along with primal caution. On the back of my tongue, I tasted the starchy blades of the grass, and the wet mud at the roots. My ears picked up the slight crunch of gravel particulates under the surface of the muck, remnants of whatever mining company had laid a gravel pad here decades prior. I caught the buzz of a fly a few yards to my left, and the muffled whirr of my compass spasming in my pocket, the needle in constant motion. Every color became more pronounced, the brown rush grass dried in the breeze, the turquoise blue sky, the chocolate-colored mud that squelched under my boots. Cool fall humidity lay heavy on my skin, and plants tickled my arms as I slid by them.
At the opposite end of the field, we came up on nothing.
I had the group make a wide loop around the outside of the clearing, searched the ground, the grass, the surrounding embankments.
Nothing.
Down the center we went in a crisscross pattern, spread out at arm’s length in a long row to comb through the area like a search-and-rescue team.
Still nothing.
In the roughly 20-acre stretch of ground, there were no buildings, no marks, only grass, a few dead tree stumps, and mud. It made no sense, and my frustration mounted as the anxious thought in the back of my head reminded me that we could be catching all sorts of poisonous radiation.
Stopping in the center of the field, I stood upright, and rested my hands on both hips in an angry huff.
So, was this some kind of stupid joke? No one’s been here in a while, Jamie couldn’t have gotten to it first without leaving something behind for me to spot. Unless she pointed me in the wrong direction to cover her tracks, especially if she was working for ELSAR from the beginning.
Aware of the puzzled looks thrown my way from the others, I pulled my map out again, and tried to make sense of the erratic compass.
Whirrr.
It spun like a propellor, and I shook the little plastic gadget with my teeth gritted in ire.
Whirrrr.
As if to spite me, the needle spun in faster pulsations, and I paced back and forth, ready to blow my cool at the inanimate chunk of hardened petroleum. “Stupid dollar store piece of—”
Whiiirrr.
Crackle.
I froze, and stared at the compass, the needle now spinning constantly without hesitation. Something under my boot had shifted, the sound oddly plastic to my heightened eardrums, and my angst melted into stunned realization.
The compass wasn’t pointing north . . . it was trying to point down.
With bated breath, I back up a few steps, and sank down on my haunches to peer at the grass.
Oh, very clever Mr. Carter.
A smile crawled over my face at a slight tinge of blue under the mud, the old tarp well-concealed under the thick mat of soil, roots, and grass. We’d walked right over it half a dozen times, and I’d been standing on top of the woven nylon flap while I fumed at my poor compass. From the air, it was invisible, from the ground undetectable; only magnetism could reveal it.
Pulling a cheap camping knife that I’d been given at the Castle from my belt, I gripped the stems of the wet grass and tugged upward, using the blade to dig at the roots. With a wet snap of plant-life giving way, the sod came free, and the children crowded around me in an excited cluster as I pulled the tarp aside.
A square metal cover sat underneath, painted slate-gray, with spots of rust here and there. It swung open on creaky hinges to reveal a hatch further recessed into poured concrete. This one was made from heavy steel, and smeared with a thin film of protective grease, a central hand-wheel in its core to open it like some kind of bunker door. Even with all this, it was a set of blocky, white painted letters on the door, that made my mind whirl like the compass needle.
Silo 48.
Daring to hope, I reached down, and yanked on the hand-wheel.
Clunk.
It turned in a smooth, well-oiled motion, and the sound of locks retracting echoed through the expanse beneath as the thick steel hatch rose upward on pneumatic struts. Stale air wafted up from inside, the cold scent of concrete and iron, and a metal ladder bolted to the interior wall led down into the shadows. It had a metal safety cage around it to prevent workers from falling through the already claustrophobic entry tube, and there wasn’t a visible bottom from where we sat on the surface. Even for my eyes it was dark, and something about the strange hole in the ground felt off, unnatural, misplaced.
I borrowed a flashlight from one of the boys and stuck my legs into the shaft to rest both feet on the first rung. “I’ll go first. If it’s safe, I’ll call up to you, and the rest of you come down to meet me. I don’t want anyone waiting around outside, just in case.”
“What if something grabs you?” A younger member of the group looked with nervous dread at the shadows beneath me.
Meeting the eyes of the older ones, who waited in silent expectation, I shrugged as nonchalantly as I could. “Close the hatch and run.”
Their worried faces drifted further and further away as I descended, the flashlight tucked into my jacket pocket, both shaky hands clinging to the ladder. It seemed like the seconds dragged on into hours, the climb downward never ending, and the square of sunlight became a golden postage-stamp high overhead. I had no idea how far down I would have to go, and my stomach churned at the haunting prospect that perhaps this was one of the Breach’s cruel tricks, that I would end up climbing forever, that there was no bottom to this hidden pit. What if I had crawled down inside it like an unsuspecting fly to a carnivorous plant in the Amazon, unaware the tunnel waited to gulp me down, smother me in darkness, and digest my bones?
You’re psyching yourself out over nothing. It’s a freaking tunnel, Hannah, made of concrete just like a sidewalk. Someone had to have built it, and Carter made it out, so you can too.
In that spirit, I put one foot out to take the next rung and jolted with surprise at the sensation of a hard floor under my heel.
Clicking on my flashlight, I swept the weak yellow beam over my surroundings, and curiosity overwhelmed my fear.
I stood in a circular tunnel, spacious and industrial, with metal supports on the walls, and diamond-plate steel on the floor It was cooler down here, and I guessed that I had to be at least sixty feet underground or more, the walls behind the I-beams molded from poured concrete. Electric lights hung from the ceiling, encased in protective wire cages, skinny round conduit bolted along the ceiling like bundles of shiny snakes. Unlike the abandoned brick factory, this place didn’t lay under a thick curtain of dust, but almost seemed brand-new, as if someone had been through to clean it just yesterday. Everything remained dark, however; the lights didn’t flicker to life, no machinery hummed, the air as still as a tomb.
A sign screwed to the wall caught my eye, white metal and square, with the words ‘escape hatch’ painted on it in black, an arrow pointing back the way I’d come. Another in similar style pointed forward, and my blood went cold with the words illuminated in my flashlight beam.
Launch Control Center.
In my head, Carter’s raspy voice echoed like the tolls of a bell, sinister for the desperation in his death rattle.
More important than the beacon . . . don’t trust anyone . . .
Sucking in a breath, I forced myself to walk on, one hand on my pistol, though something in my brain told me I wouldn’t need it. The mysterious notion gave me little comfort, the absence of any mutated life forms all the more foreboding. A place like this couldn’t be part of any mining operation. No, this was too technical, too clean, too militaristic for coal or minerals. Someone had designed this place for something more secretive, something horrible, something dangerous.
Dangerous enough for Rodney Carter to give his life to defend it.
Thirty yards in, the tunnel opened up into a larger, circular room, and I stopped dead in my tracks.
Holy mother of God.
An array of big metal boxes stood along one wall, covered in dials, switches, and indicators from an era before touch screens. In the center of the floor sat a metal desk with two chairs behind a set of ancient-looking computer monitors, a few binders and folders stacked between them. Radio equipment lined another workstation by the back wall, and headsets at each retro-styled swivel chair gave the space a distinctly governmental air. Several round analog clocks on the wall were labeled for various locations, London, Berlin, Moscow, and Washington D.C, among others. A stairwell at the back of the room had more signs, pointing up to ‘Crew Quarters’ and down to ‘Secondary Command Systems’. Off to my right, a single tunnel led deeper into the complex, with a lone sign that read, ‘Blast Boor 8’.
Shutting my eyes, I held my breath to slow my racing heart, and focused as hard as I could on the stillness around me. Everything came back strange, stunted, numb, like my new abilities struggled to claw through the low hiss of static that I hadn’t notice in my ears up until now. From what I could tell, nothing lived down here, yet I couldn’t bring myself to feel secure.
A brief search of the stairwell revealed a lower level with a similar setup to the first, and an upper floor of rooms with cramped bunks, and a tiny bathroom. No one appeared in either, and there wasn’t any blood, signs of struggle, or even scraps of torn clothing. It was as if the crew of this facility had just got up and walked out not five minutes ago.
At the base of the escape ladder, I called up to the tiny yellow square of light. “Okay, come on down.”
Somewhat comforted by the echoes of their eager feet on the iron ladder rungs, I ducked back into the control room, and walked to the central desk.
A newspaper had been tucked into the folders on one side, and I sat down in the right-hand swivel chair to tug it free.
“What on earth . . .” My brow knit together, and I blinked in confusion.
The first newspaper was dated 1953, far too old for a facility that seemed to have passed inspection only last week, and the headlines were crammed with strange text. I hadn’t always paid the best attention in history class, but I knew enough to understand that the words printed on the oddball paper shouldn’t have been correct. The more I read, the more my spine tingled with a bizarre wonder that I didn’t fully comprehend.
Disaster averted! Whistleblower reveals atomic strike narrowly called off after U.S.S Seraphim vanishes during naval exercise. Washington and Moscow agree to hold de-escalation talks.
Stalin dead from stroke! Massive protests rock USSR in demand for change. Marshal Zhukov seizes power in Moscow, abolishes gulags, and vows drastic reforms.
An era for a change? Kremlin agrees to open trade deals with the west as Zhukov drafts new Russian constitution guaranteeing civil rights. Eisenhower leads charge to end racial segregation in US with widespread Congressional support.
From bombs to space-rockets: U.S and Russia form joint moon exploration taskforce in historic alliance treaty. NATO and WARSAW Pact dissolved, while Mao surrenders to Chiang Kai-shek at Nanking. Former Communist bloc to open their economies to free market reforms.
Bewildered, I scanned the pages over and over again, waiting to see a political watermark, a gag label, something to let me know these were fake papers made for a joke. But the more I read, the more I sat there in stunned amazement.
They were real.
I remembered my conversation with Mr. Koranti, about other places, holes in reality, and interdimensional crossovers. Could it be true? Had there been a timeline where the Cold War didn’t drag on for decades, where the arms race withered out, and where the authoritarian regimes of the world toppled under the will of their own people? Just the thought had me both excited and heartbroken; excited that such a better place had been possible after all, and crushed that we, in our reality, hadn’t seen such times. What if our version of earth was the wrong one, a defective one, a nightmare for other dimensions that had done things right where we had erred? What if we were the Chaos-driven version of human history, a blood-soaked tale of endless violence that we never managed to shake? If this was evidence of Order succeeding in other timelines, then what did that mean for ours?
Desperate for answers, I shuffled to the next paper, and read on.
Rural Tennessee communities evacuated after mysterious power outages cause havoc: bystanders say military weapons test released ‘monsters’.
Operation ‘Olympic Hammer’ exposed! CIA heads indited on testing electromagnetic superweapons in plot to attack former Soviet Union. Global support pours in to assist with biological cleanup of Polk County.
‘Worse than we thought’ International teams urge calm as contaminated zone in Tennessee widens. Russia pledges aid, reports similar ‘hot spots’ in Irkutsk. China unable to maintain order in remote regions as anomaly phenomenon spreads.
State of emergency declared in Washington as mutant attacks rise across nation. Moscow reportedly dark. Beijing in chaos. Military preps for experimental ‘containment’ strikes within continental US.
Icy terror sank through me as I reached the last headline, no further papers on the desk, as if these had been the last to be delivered. The Breach. They’d found one too, or perhaps created one from the sounds of it, their covert superweapon enough to open a rift just like Koranti had spoken of. In their quest to restart the Cold War, the conspirators in the CIA had ripped open a doorway to Chaos, and unleashed mutants all over the world. Despite all the treaties, all the peace deals, one wrong step had doomed them to a cosmic apocalypse that looked eerily familiar from the grainy black and white photos on the front page.
Fools. They could have reached for the stars, and they threw it all away. Stupid, proud fools.
“What is this place?” Lucille stepped out from the dark behind me, and the rest of the children emerged one-by-one from the tunnel, examining the room with curious eyes.
“Not sure yet.” Pulling one of the technical binders out, I flipped it open and started to read. “Just don’t touch anything, okay?”
With all my concentration, I dove into the pages, devoured the complicated pamphlets in record time I would have been amazed at how fast my reading comprehension had improved, if it weren’t for the words that jumped off the pages at me.
Automated self-loading silo . . . XM91 Multiple Individual Reentry Vehicle . . . Peacekeeper Two delivery system . . .
My eyes rose to the console in front of me, and I noticed two sets of keyholes, with one holding a little metal key.
The other keyhole was empty.
Wait a second.
Horrified, I dropped the binder and leapt to my feet. Now it made sense why Carter had guarded this place with his life, and why ELSAR wanted the key coordinates. Somehow, in some way, this place had slipped through the veil of time and space to land in our reality and had brought its deadly secret with it.
A weapon so powerful, so dangerous, that even the deep pockets of ELSAR couldn’t get hold of one.
“What’s wrong?” An older boy cast around with his eyes in suspicion, but I ignored them all, and took off toward the tunnel marked ‘Blast Door 8’.
As if running in a nightmare, I couldn’t move fast enough, and the others sprinted after me in fear. I spun the hand-wheel, let the hydraulic springs crank it open, and raced on through more flights of metal stairways, more blast doors that counted down from eight, until I stumbled out into a massive shadowy chasm.
Stopping dead in my tracks at the safety railing, I stared out at a half-dozen white-painted tubes that rose from the gargantuan shaft toward the closed double blast doors above. They were huge, easily as tall as two school buses parked end-to-end, six of them held in a turnstile-like system of brackets that reminded me of a rotisserie rack at a gas station. The compass in my pocket cranked with a hysterical whirr, and the letters painted on the aluminum skin of the objects made the hairs on my neck stand on end.
XM91.
The children thundered into the launch shaft after me, and their eyes bulged at the deadly giants that stood in quiet mechanical slumber within the hidden bunker.
“Is that . . ?” Lucille squeaked, her jaw slack as she sidled closer in timid uncertainty.
“Uh huh.” I gripped the cold railing with white-knuckled hands, my stomach tied in sick knots. “Those are nukes.”

Once upon a time there was a lovely princess. But she had an enchantment upon her of a fearful sort, which could only be broken by Love's first kiss. She was locked away in a castle guarded by a terrible fire breathing dragon. Many brave knights had attempted to free her from this dreadful prison, but none prevailed. She waited in the dragon's keep in the highest room of the tallest tower for her true love and true love's first kiss. Like that's ever going to happen. What a loony. Shrek Beware Stay out I think he's in here. All right. Lets get it! Hold on. Do you know what that thing can do to you? Yeah. He'll groan into your bones for his brains. Well actually that would be a giant. Now Ogres, huh, they are much worse. They'll make a soup from your freshly peeled skin. They'll chew your livers, squeeze the jelly from your eyes. Actually, it's quite good on toast. Back, back beast, back! I warned you! Right. This is the part, where you run away. Yeah! And stay out. Wanted. Fairytale creatures. Right, this one is full. Take it away. Give me that. Your fine days are over. -25 pieces of silver for the witch. Next. -Come on. Sit down there! And be quiet! This cage is so small. You wouldn't turn me in. I'll never be stubborn again. I can change. Please, give me another chance. Oh, shut up! Next. What do we got? This little wooden puppet. I'm not a puppet, I'm a real boy. Five shillings for the possessed toy. Take it away. No! Please, don't let them do it! Next. What do you got? Well, I've got a talking donkey! Right. Well that's good for ten schillings, if you can prove it. Oh, go ahead fella. Well? He's just a li..., just a little nervous. He's really quite a chatterbox. You boneheaded donkey! That's it. I have heard enough. Guards! No, no, he talks, he does! I can talk. I love to talk. I've talked to... Get her out of my sight! -No, no, I swear! Hey, I can fly. -He can fly! -He can fly! He can talk! -That's right, fool! Now I'm a flying, talking donkey! You might have seen house fly, maybe even a superfly. But I bet you ain't never seen a donkey fly! Seize him! Get him! This way! Hurry! You there. Ogre. -I. By the order of lord Farquaad. I am authorized to place you both under arrest. And transport you to designated resettlement facility. Oh really? You and what army? Can I say something to you? Listen, you were really, really something, back there. Incredible. Are you talking to... ...me? Yes, I was talking to you. Can I just tell you that you were really great back there with those guards. They thought that was all over there. And then you showed up and BAM. There was tripping on over themselves like babes in the woods. That really made me feel good to see that. Oh, that's great. Really. Man, it's good to be free. Now, why don't you go celebrate your freedom with your own friends? But I... I don't have any friends. And I'm not going out there by myself. Hey wait a minute. I have a great idea... I'll stick with you. You and me in green fighting machine. Together we'll scare the spin if anybody crosses us. Oh, a, that was really scary. Maybe you don't mine me saying. If that don't work, your breath will certainly do the job done, 'cause... you definitively need some tic-tac or something, 'cause your breath stinks! Man you've ??? my note! Just like the time... ...and then I ate some rotten berries. Man I had some strong gases leaking out of my but that day. Why are you following me? I'll tell you why. 'Cause I'm all alone, there is no one here, beside me. My problems have all gone. There's no one to derive me. But you got to have free ... -Stop singing! Well, it's no wonder, you don't have any friends. Wow! Only a true friend would be that truly honest. Listen! Little donkey. Take a look at me! What am I? A... ...really tall? No! I'm an Ogre. You know, grab your torch and pitchforks. Doesn't that bother you? Nope. Really? -Really really. Oh? Man, I like you. What's your name? A..., Shrek. Shrek?! But do you know, what I like about you, Shrek? You've got that kind of: "I don't care what nobody thinks of me" thing. I like that, I respect that, Shrek. You're all right. Uh, look at that. Who would wanna live in a place like that? That would be my home. Oh, it is lovely. Just beautiful. You know you're quite a decorator. It's amazing what you did with such a modest budget. I like that boulder. That is a nice boulder. I guess, you don't entertain much, do you? I like my privacy. You know I do to. That's another thing, we have in common. Like I hate it when you got somebody in your face. You try to give them a hint and they won't leave. And then there's that big occurred silence, you know? Can I stay with you? -What? Can I stay with you, please. Of course! -Really? No. -Please! I don't want to go back there. You don't how is like to be concerned like a freak. Well..., maybe you do. But that's why we have to stick together! You got to let me stay! Please! Please! OK, OK. -But one night only. -Huh, thank you! A, what are you do... No! This is going to be fun. We can stay up late, swap the manly stories. And in the morning... I'm making waffles. Where do I sleep? Outside! Oh, a, I guess that's cool. You know, I don't know you and you don't know me... ... so I guess, outside is best for me. Here I go. Good night. I do like that half door. I'm a donkey all alone outside. Sit by myself outside, I guess. I'm all alone, there's no one here beside me. -I thought, I told you to stay outside. -I am outside. Well James. This is far from the farm, but what choice do we have? It's not... What a lovely bed. -Got you! I found some cheese. Awful stuff. -Is that you Gordon? -How did you know? Enough! What are you doing in my house? Oh, no, no, no... Death prods off the table! Where would we supposed to put her. The bed's taken. What? I live in a swamp. I've put up signs. I'm a terrifying Ogre! What do I have to do, to get a little privacy? Oh, no! No, no! What are you doing in my swamp? All right, get out of here. All of you. Move it! Come on, let's go. And hurry up, hurry up. No, no, not there. Not there! Hey don't look at me. I didn't invite them. Oh gosh, no one invited us. -What? We were forced to come here. -By who? Lord Farquaad. He ??? All right. Who knows where this Farquaad guy is? Oh I do. I know where he is. Does anyone else know where to find him? -Anyone at all? -Me. -Anyone? Oh pick me, I know! Me, me. Ok, fine. Attention all fairy tale things! Do not get comfortable. Your welcome is officially warned up. In fact. I'm gonna see this guy Farquaad right now and get all off my land and back where you came from. You. You're coming with me. All right. That's what I like to hear, man. Shrek and Donkey, two stubborn friends off on a world and big city adventure. I love it. I'm on road again. Sing with me Shrek! I'm on road again... What did I say about singing? -Can I whistle? -No. -Well, can I hummer? -All right. That's enough. He's ready to talk. Run, run, run as fast as you can, you can't catch me. I'm the gingerbread man. You monster. I'm not a monster here. You are. You and the rest of that fairytale trash, poisoning my perfect world. -Now tell me! Where are the others? -Eat me. I've tried to be fair to you, creatures. Now my patience has reached its end! -Tell me! Or I'll... -No, no, not the buttons. Not gumdrop buttons. All right! Who's hiding them? Ok, I'll tell you. -Do you know the muffin-man? -The muffin-man? -The muffin-man. -Yes, I know the muffin-man. Who lives on Proully lane? -Well, she's married to the muffin-man. -The muffin-man! -The muffin-man! -She's married to the muffin-man. My lord! We found it. Well then, what are you waiting for? Bring it in. Magic mirror. Don't tell him anything! Evening. Mirror, mirror on the wall. Is this not the most perfect kingdom of them all? Well, technically, you're not a king. A..., felonious. -You were saying. -What I mean is a... ...you're not a king, yet. But you can become one. All you have to do, is marry a princess. Go on. So, just sit back and relax my lord, because it's time for you to meet today's eligible bachelorettes. And here they are. Bachelorette number one is a mentally abused shading from a kingdom far, far away. She likes sushi and hottubbing anytime. Her hobbies include cooking and cleaning for two evil sisters. Please welcome... Cinderella. Bachelorette number two is a kemp wearing girl from a land of fantasy. Although she lives with seven other man, she is not easy. Just kiss hers dead frozen lips and find out what a live wife she is. Come on. Give it up for... Show-white. And last but certainly not least. Bachelorette number three is a fire-breathing ????, dragon guarded castle, surrounded by a hot boiling lava. But don't let that cool you off. She's a loaded pistol who likes Pina Coladas and getting cut in the rain. Yours for the rescuing, Princess Fiona. So will it be, bachelorette number one? Bachelorette number two? Or bachelorette number three? -Two... -Three! -Two! One. No, no, no. Three. Pick number three my lord. Ok, ok. Number three. Lord Farquaad. You've chosen... princess Fiona. She's nice. Fiona. She's perfect. All I have to do is just find someone... But I probably should mention little thing that happens at night... -I'll do it! -Yes, but after sunset... Silence! I will make this princess Fiona my queen. And Duloc will finally have the perfect king! Captain! Assemble your finest man. We're going to have a tournament! That's it, that's, right there, that's Duloc. I've told you I'll find it. So. That must be lord Farquaad's castle. Aha, that's the place. Do you think maybe he's compensating for something. Hey, hey wait up Shrek! -Hey, you! -No, no! Wait a second. Look, I'm not gonna eat you. I just... It's quiet. Too quiet. Where is everybody? Hey look at this. Wow! -Let's do that again. -No. no. All right. You're going the right way for smack bottom. Sorry about that. That champion should have the honor, no, no... ...the privilege to go forth and rescue the lovely princess Fiona from the fireing keep of the dragon. If for any reason the winner is unsuccessful, the first runner up will take his place. And so on, and so forth. Some of you may die, but it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make. Applause. Let the tournament begin. What is that? Ugh, it's hideous. Oh, that's not very nice. It's just a donkey. Indeed. Knights! New plan. The one, who kills the Ogre, will be named champion. How about him. Oh, hey. Now, come on. Can't we just settle this over a pint? No? All right then. Come on. Hey Shrek! Let me, let me! The chair! Give him the chair! Thank you. Thank you, very much. I'm here until Thursday. Try the wheel! Shall I give the order sir? No. I have a better idea. People of Duloc. I give you our champion! What? Congratulation, Ogre. You've won the honor of embarking on a great and noble quest. Quest? I'm already on a quest. A quest to get my swamp back! -Your swamp? -Yeah, my swamp! Where you dumped those fairytale creatures. Indeed. All right Ogre, I'll make you a deal. Go on this quest for me and I'll give you your swamp back. Exactly the way it was? Down to the last slime covered toast tool. -And the squatters? -As good as gone. What kind of quest? Ok, let me get this straight! We gonna go find the dragon and rescue a princess just so Farquaad will give you back the swamp, which you only don't have, 'cause he filled it with full of freaks on the first place. -Is that about right? -You know what? Maybe there is a good reason, donkeys shouldn't talk. I don't get it Shrek. Why didn't you just pull some old Ogre stuff on them? You know, ??? . Grab his bones to make you brave. You know the whole Ogre trick. Oh, you know what. Maybe I could have decapitated entire village and put their heads on plate. Got a knife, cut open their spleens and drink their fluids. Does that sound good to you? A, no, not really, no. For your information, there is a lot more to Ogres than people think. -Example. -Example? OK, A-a-m, Ogres are like onions. -They stink? -Yes, no. -O, they make you cry. -No. Oh, you leave them out on the sun and they get all brown and start ??? little wild hairs? No! Layers! Onions have layers. Ogres have layers. Onions have layers. You get it? We both have layers. O, you both have layers. You know not everybody likes onions. Cake! Everybody loves cakes. Cakes have layers. I don't care what everyone likes. Ogres are not like cakes. You know what else everyone likes? Paffe. Have you ever met a person and you say: "Hey, let's get some paffe" and they say I don't like paffe. Paffe is delicious. No! You tensed, irritating, miniature peace of barden. Ogres are like onions. End of story. Bye, bye. See you lather. Paffe is maybe the most delicious thing on the whole damn planet. You know I think I've preferred your humming. Do you have a tissue or something, 'cause I'm making a mess. Just the word paffe has made me start slimying Why, Shrek, did you do that? Man you got to warn somebody before you just crack one off. My mouth was opened and everything. Believe me donkey, if it was me, you'd be dead. It's brimstone. We must be getting close. Yeah, right, brimstone. Don't be talking ??? brimstone. I know what I smell and ??? no brimstone. And they don't come of stone neither. Sure it's big enough, but look at the location. Oh, Shrek, remember when you said that Ogres have layers? Oh, yeah. Well, I have a confession to make. Donkeys don't have layers. We wear ??? sleeves. Wait a second. Donkeys don't have sleeves. -You know what I mean. -Oh, you can't tell me you're afraid of highs. No, I'm just a little uncomfortable of being on a rickety bridge over boiling lake of lava! Come on donkey, I'm right here beside you. Ok? For emotional support. We'll just hackle this thing together one little baby step after time. -Really? -Really really. Ok. That makes me feel so much better. Just keep moving and don't look down. Don't look down, don't look down. Shrek! I'm looking down! I can't do this. Just let me off right now, please. -But you're already half way. -Yeah, but I know that half is safe. Ok, fine. I don't have time for this. You go back. Shrek, no, wait. Don't do that! Oh, I'm sorry. Do what? -Oh. This? -Yes, that! Yes, yes. Do it. OK. -No, Shrek! -I'm doing it. I'm gonna die. I'm gonna die. Shrek, I'm gonna die. That will do Donkey, that will do. Cool. So where is this fire breathing pain in the neck anyway? Inside. Waiting for us to rescue her. I was talking about the dragon Shrek. -Are you afraid? -No, but shhhhh. Oh, good. Me neither. Because there's nothing wrong with being afraid. Here's a..., something responsible of the situation. Not to mention dangerous situation. And there's dragon that breathes fire. I'm sure he's meaner than a cow or anything, but they're scare. You know what I mean. I'm sure he's heavier than a cow... Donkey. Two things. Ok? Shut, up. Now go over there and see if you can find any stairs. Stairs? I thought we were looking for the princess. The princess will be up the stairs in the highest room in the tallest tower. What makes you think she'll be there? I read it in a book once. Cool. You handle the dragon, I'll handle the stairs. Oh, I'll find those stairs. I'll ???. That's right. Those stairs won't know which way they go. The drafting stairs, ??? Don't mess with me. I'm the stair master. I'm master of the stairs. I wish I had a stair right here right here now, I'd step all over it. Well, at least we know where the princess is. -But where is the... -Dragon! Donkey, look out! Got you. Oh, what large teeth you have. I mean, white sparkling teeth. You probably hear this all the time from your food, but you must bleach yourself, because that is one dashing smile you got there. And do I detect the hint of minty freshness? And you know what else? You're a girl dragon. Oh, sure. I mean 'course you're a girl dragon, 'cause you're just ricking the feminine beauty out. What's the matter with you? Do you have something in your eye? Man, I'd really love to stay, but you know I'm a asthmatic and I don't know if we would worked out. You'd be blowing smoke and stuff. Shrek! No, Shrek! Shrek! -Wake up! -What? Are you princess Fiona? I am. Awaiting a knight so bold as to rescue me. Oh, that's nice. Now let's go. But wait, sir knight. This be our first meeting. Should not be wonderful, romantic moment? Yeah. Sorry lady there's no time. Hey, what are you doing? You know, you should sweep me out of my feet. Out through the window and down the rope by to your valued steed. You've had a lot of time to plan this, haven't you? Uh-um. But we have to sing through this moment. You can residing of a poem to me. A ballad, a sonnet, a libretti. Or something. I don't think so. Well, can I at least know a name of my champion? Shrek. So, Shrek. I pray that you take this favor as a token of my gratitude. Thanks. -You didn't slay the dragon? -It's not my job to do this. Now, come on! But this isn't right. ??? That's what all the other knights did. Yeah. Right before they burst in the flame. That's not the point. Wait. Where are you going? Exit is over there. Well, I have to save my ass. What kind of knight are you? One of a kind. ...rush into a physical relationship. I'm not that emotionally ready for commitment of a this magnitude. That was the word I was looking for. Magnitude. Hey, that is unwanted physical contact. Hey, what are you doing? Ok, ok, let's just back up a little and take this one step at the time. I mean, we really should get to know each other first, you know what am I saying. As friends, maybe even as ??? Hey don't do that. That's my tail. That's ma personal tail. And you're going to tear it off.... Oh, no. No! -It talks?! -Yeah. It's getting to shut up, that's a trick. Ok, you two. Head for the exit. I'll take care of the dragon. Ruuuuun! You did it. You rescued me. Amazing, you're wonderful. You're a ... ...a little unorthodox I admit, but by deed is great and by heart is pure. I'm entirely in your debt. And where would a brave knight be without his noble steed. I hope you heard that. She called me a noble steed. She thinks I'm a steed. The battle is won. You may remove your helmet good sir knight. -Aah, no. -Why not? I have helmet hair. Please. I wouldst look upon the face of my rescuer. Oh, no, you wouldn't, dust. But, how will you kiss me? What? That wasn't in a job description. -Maybe it's a perk? -No. It's destiny. You must know how it goes. A princess locked in a tower and besieged by a dragon is rescued by a brave knight. And then they share true love's first kiss. With Shrek? You think, wait... ...you think Shrek is your true love? Well, yes. You think that Shrek is your true love. What is so funny? Let's just say, I'm not your type, ok? Of course you are. You're my rescuer. Now, now remove your helmet. Look. I really don't think this is a good idea. -Just take off the helmet. -I'm not going to. -Take it off! -No! -Now! -Ok, easy. As you command your highness. You're an Ogre. Oh, you were expecting Prince Charming. Well, yes, actually. Oh no. This is all wrong. You're not supposed to be an Ogre. Princess, I was sent to rescue you by lord Farquaad, ok? He's the one, who wants to marry you. Well, then why didn't he come to rescue me? Good question. You should ask him that, when we get there. But I have to be rescued by my true love. Not by some Ogre and his pet. Well so much for noble steed. Look princess. You're not making my job any easier. Well I'm sorry, but your job is not my problem. You can tell lord Farquaad that if he wants to rescue me properly, I'll be waiting for him right here. Hey, I'm no ones messenger boy, all right? -I'm a delivery boy. -You wouldn't dare. -You coming donkey? -Put me down! Yeah, I'm right behind you. Put me down or you will suffer the consequences. This is not dignified. Put me down. Ok, here's another question. Let's say that a woman 'digged' you, but you don't really like her, that way. Now, how you let her down real easy, so her feelings aren't hurt? But you don't get burned to a crisp neither. How do you do this? Just tell her, she's not your true love. Everyone knows it what happens when you find... Hey! The sooner we get to Duloc, the better. Oh, yeah. You gonna love it there princess. It's beautiful. And what of my groom to be, lord Farquaad. What's he like? Well, let me put it this way, princess. Men of Farquaad's stature are in short supply. Oh no, Shrek. There are those who think little of him. Stop it. Stop it, both of you. You know, you're just jealous that you can never measure up to a great ruler like lord Farquaad. Yeah. Well maybe you're right princess. But I'd like you do that measuring when you see him tomorrow Tomorrow? It will take that long? -Shouldn't we stop to make camp? -No. That would take longer. We can keep going. But there are robbers in the woods. Whoa, time out Shrek. Camp is definitely something that sounds good. Hey. Come on. I'm scarier than anything we're gonna see in this forest. I need to find somewhere to camp, now! Hey, over here. Shrek, we can do better than that. Now, I don't think this is decent for princess. No, no, it's perfect. It just needs a few homey touches. Homey touches? Like what? A door. Well, gentleman I'll be d..., good night. Do you want me to come in and read you a bedtime story, 'cause I will... I said good night! Shrek! What are you doing? I just..., you know... Oh, come on, I was just kidding. And that one, that's Throwback. The only Ogre to ever spit over three wheat fields. Right. Yeah. Hey, can you tell my future form these stars? Well, the stars don't tell the future, Donkey. They tell stories. Look. There's Blodna, the "Flatulent" You can guess what he is famous for. All right. Now I know you're making this up. No. Look. There he is and there's the group of hunters running away from his stag. Man, there ain't nothing, but a bunch of little dots. You know donkey, sometimes things are more than they appear. Forget it. Hey Shrek. What are you gonna do when we get our swamp back, anyway? -Our swamp? -You know. When we're through rescuing the princess and all that stuff. We? Donkey, there is no we. There's no our. There's just me and my swamp. And the first thing I'm gonna do, is build a ten foot wall around my land. You cut me deep Shrek, you cut me real deep just now. You know, what I think? I think this whole wall thing is just a way to keep somebody out. No, do you think? -Are you hiding something? -Never mind Donkey. Oh, this is another one of those onion things, isn't it? No. This is one of those drop it and leave it alone things. -Why don't you want to talk about it? -Why do you want to talk about it? -Oh, Why you block? -I'm not blocking. -Oh yes you are. -Donkey, I'm warning you. -Who are you trying to keep out? Just tell me that Shrek. Who? Everyone, ok? -Oh, now we're getting somewhere. -Oh, for 'the love of pit'. Hey, what's your problem Shrek? What do you got against the whole world anyway? Look. I'm not the one with the problem, ok? It's the world that seems to have a problem with me. People take one look at me and go: AAA... Help! Run! A big stupid ugly Ogre. They judge me, before they even know me. That's why I'm better off alone. You know what? When we met, I didn't think you're just a big stupid, ugly Ogre. Yeah, I know. So, a... Are there any donkeys up there? Well, there's a Cabby. The small and annoying. Ok, ok. I see him, now. Big shining one, right there. That one, over there? That's the moon. Again. Show me again. Mirror, mirror, show her to me. Show me the princess. Perfect. Yeah. You know I like like that. Oh come on baby... -Donkey. Wake up. -What? -Wake up. Morning. How do you like your eggs? -Good morning princess. -What's all this about? You know, we kind of got of to a bad start yesterday and I wanted to make it up to you. I mean, after all, you did rescue me. Thanks. Well, eat up. We've got a big day ahead of us. -Shrek! -What? It's a compliment. Better out than in I always say. But that's no way to behave in front of a princess. -Thanks. -She's as nasty as you are. You know. You're not exactly what I've expected. Well, maybe you shouldn't judge people before you get to know them. Princess! What are you doing? ???mon shery, for I am your saviour. And I am rescuing you from this green...beast. Hey! That's my princess. Go find your own. Please, monster. Can't you see I'm a little busy here? Look, pal. I don't know who you think you are. Oh, of course. How rude that was. Please, let me introduce myself. Oh marry men! Man, that was annoying. Oh, you little... Shall we? ???all the forin??? Whoa, hold on, now. Where did that come from? -What? -That. Back there. That was amazing. Where did you learn that? Well, when one lives alone one has to learn these things in case there's a... There is an arrow in your butt. What? Oh, would you look at that. Oh, no... This is all my fault. I'm so sorry. -What's wrong? -Shrek's hurt. -Shrek's hurt? Shrek's hurt! -Oh, no. Shrek's going to die. -Donkey, I'm ok. You can't do this to me Shrek. I'm too young for you to die. Keep your legs elevated. Turn your head ???. -Does anyone know how to handle... -Donkey! Calm down. If you want to help Shrek, run into woods and find me a blue flower with red thorns. Blue flower, red thorns. Ok, I'm on it. Blue flower, red thorns. Blue flower, red thorns. Don't die Shrek. And if you see a long tunnel, stay away from the light! -Donkey! -Oh, yeah. Right. Blue flower, red thorns. Blue flower, red thorns. -What are the flowers for? -For getting rid of the Donkey. Now, you hold still and I'll yank this thing out. -Hey! Easy with the yanking. -I'm sorry, but it has to come out. No, no. It's tender. What you're doing here is the opposite... -Don't move. -Ok, look. Time out. -Would you... Ok. What do you propose we do? Blue flower, red thorns. Blue flower, red thorns. Blue flower, red thorns. This would be so much easier if I wasn't colorblind. Blue flower, red thorns. Blue flower, red thorns. Hold on, Shrek. I'm coming! Not good. Ok, ok, I can lose it. It's just about it. Nothing happened. We were just a... Look if you want to be alone, all you had to do is ask, ok? Oh, come on. That's the last thing on my mind. The princess here was just... Au! Hey, what's that? Is that... There it is, princess. -Your future awaits you. -That's Duloc? Yeah. I know. You'll shrink things lord Farquaad is compensating for something, which I think needs, he has a I guess we better move on. Sure, but Shrek... -I'm worried about Donkey. -What? I mean. Look at him. He doesn't look so good. -What are you talking about? I'm fine. -Well, that's what they always say. And the next thing you know you're on your back. -Dead! -You know she's right. You look awful. -Do you want to sit down? -You know, I'll make you up some tea. Well, I won't say nothing, but I've got this twinge in my neck. And if I turn my neck like this, look. Au, see? -He's hungry. I'll find us some dinner. -I'll get the firewood. Hey, where are you going? Oh man, I can't feel my thumbs. I don't have any thumbs!!! I think I need a hug. This is good. This is really good. -What is this? -Wheat rat. -Rotisserie style. -No kidding. -Oh, this is delicious. -Well, they also great in stews. Now, I don't mean to brag, but I make a mean wheat rat stew. I guess I'll be dining a little different late tomorrow night. Maybe you can come visit me in the swamp sometime. I'll cook all kinds of stuff for you. Swamp toast, soup fish, eye tartar. You name it. I'd like that. -Ah... , princess? -Yes, Shrek? I'm a.... I was wondering. Are you... a... Are you gonna eat that? Man, isn't this romantic. Just look at that sunset. Sunset?! Oh, no. It's late. It's very late. -What? -Wait a minute. I see what's going on here. You're afraid of the dark. Aren't you? Yes, yes. That's it. That's, I'm terrified. You know I'll better go inside. But don't feel bad, princess. I used to be afraid of the dark too. Until... Hey, no, wait. I'm still afraid of the dark. -Good night. -Good night. Ahh. Now I really see what's going on here. Oh, what are you talking about. Hey I don't wanna even hear. Look, I'm an animal and I got instincts. And I know that you two are digging on each other. I can feel it. Oh, you're crazy. I'm just bringing her back to Farquaad. Oh, come on, Shrek. Wake up and smell the fairemones. Just go in there and tell her how you feel. There's nothing to tell. Besides, even if I did tell her that... well you know. I'm not saying that I do, 'cause I don't. She's a princess and I'm... ...an Ogre. Yeah, an Ogre. -Hey, where are you going? -To get more firewood. Princess. Princess Fiona? Princess, where are you? Princess? It's very spooky in here and are we playing little games. -No, no. -Help! Shrek! Shrek! -No. -Shrek! -It's ok. It's ok. -What did you do with the princess? -Donkey, shhh. I'm the princess. -It's me, in this body. -Oh my god. You ate the princess. -Can you hear me? -Donkey! Listen, keep breathing. I'll get you out of there! Shrek! Shrek! Shrek! This is me. Princess? What happened to you? You're a... different. -I'm ugly, ok? -Yeah. Was it something that you ate? 'Cause I told Shrek those rats were a bad idea. -You are what you eat, I say. -No. I've been this way as long as I can remember. What do you mean? Look, I've never seen you like this before. It only happens when the sun goes down. By night one way, by day another. This shall be the norm until you find true love's first kiss. Then, take love's true form... -Oh, that's beautiful. I didn't know you wrote poetry. -It's the spell. When I was a little girl, a witch cast a spell on me. Every night I become this. This horrible ugly beast. I was placed in a tower to await the day when my true love would rescue me. That's why I have to marry lord Farquaad tomorrow, before the sun sets and he sees me, like this? All right, all right. Calm down. Look, it's not that bad. You're not that ugly. Wait, wait, I'll not lie, you are ugly. But you only look like this at night. Shrek's ugly 24/7. But Donkey, I'm a princess. And this is not how a princess is meant to look. Princess. How about if you don't marry Farquaad? I have to. Only my true love's kiss can brake the spell. But you know, you're kind of an Ogre. And Shrek... Well you've got a lot in common. Shrek? Princess, I... How is it going first of all? Good? Good for me to. I'm ok. I saw this flower and thought of you because it's pretty. And, well, I don't really like it, but I thought you may like it, because you're pretty. But I like you anyway. A.... I'm in trouble. Ok, here we go. Who could ever love a piece so hideous and ugly? Princess and ugly don't go together. That's why I can't stay here with Shrek, but only chance to live happily ever after is to marry my true love. Don't you see, Donkey? That's just how it has to be. It's the only way to break the spell. Well, at least you've got tell Shrek the truth. No, no. You can't breathe the word. No one must ever know. What's the point of being unable to talk? You got to keep secrets. Promise you won't tell. Promise! You know, before this is over, I'm going to need whole lot of serious therapies. All right, all right. I won't tell him. But you should. Look at my eye twitching. I tell him, I tell him not. I tell him. I tell him not. I tell him! Shrek! Shrek! There's something I want ... Shrek. Are you all right? Perfect. Never been better. I... There's something I have to tell you. You don't have to tell me anything, princess. I heard enough last night. -You've heard what I said? -Every word. I thought you'd understand? Oh, I understand! Like you said, who could love a hideous, ugly beast! -I thought that wouldn't matter to you. -Yeah, well, it does. Ah, right on time. Princess. I brought you a little something. What I missed? What I missed? -Princess Fiona. -As promised. Now hand it over. Very well, Ogre. The deed to your swamp. Cleared out as agreed. Take it and go. Before I change my mind. Forgive me princess for startling you, but you startled me. For I've never seen such a radiant beauty before. -I am lord Farquaad. -Lord Farquaad? Oh, no, no... forgive me my lord for I was just saying short... farewell. Oh. That is so sweet. You don't have to raise good manners on the Ogre. -It's not like it has feelings. -No. You're right. It doesn't. Princess Fiona, beautiful fair flawless Fiona, I ask your hand in marriage. Will you be the perfect bride for the perfect groom? Lord Farquaad, I accept. Nothing would make... Excellent! I'll start the plans for tomorrow we wedd... No! I mean I... Why wait? Let's get married today. Before sunset. Oh, anxious are we? You're right. The sooner, the better. There's so much to do. There is the camera, the cake, the band, the guests... Captain! Round up some guests. Farewell Ogre. Shrek, what are you doing? You let her get away. -Yeah, so what. -Shrek. There's something about her that you don't know. -I talked to her last night. She's... -Yeah I know you talked to her last night. You're great pal, aren't you? Now, if you two are such good friend, why didn't you follow her home? -Shrek. I want to go with you. -I told you, didn't I? You're not coming home with me. I live alone. My swamp, me and nobody else! Understand? Nobody! Especially useless, pathetic, annoying, talking donkeys! -But. I thought... -Yeah. You know what? You thought wrong. Shrek. Donkey? What are you doing? I was thinking of all the people, you would recognize a wall when you see one. Well, yeah. But the wall supposed to go around my swamp. Not through it. It is around your half. See? That's your half and this is my half. Oh, your half? Yes, my half. I helped rescue the princess. I did half the work. I get half the booty. Now hand me that big old rock, the one that looks like your head -Back off! -No. You back off! -This is my swamp. -Our swamp. -Let go, Donkey! -You let go! -Stubborn jackass. -Smelly Ogre. Fine! Hey, hey, come back here. I'm not through with you, yet. -Well, I'm through with you! -Well, you know. You were always me, me, me. Well, guess what? Now it's my turn! So you just shut up and pay attention! You are mean to me, you insult me, you don't appreciate anything that I do! You're always pushing me around or pushing me away. Oh, yeah? Well, if I treated you so bad, how come you came back? Because that's what friend do. They forgive each other! Oh, yeah. You're right Donkey. I forgive you for stabbing me in the back! You're so wrapped up in layers, onion boy. You're afraid of your own feelings. -Go away. -See? There you are, doing it again. Just like you did it to Fiona. And all she ever do, was like you. Maybe even love you. Love me? She said I was ugly! A hideous creature. -I heard that you two were talking. -She wasn't talking about you. She was talking about... ...somebody else. She wasn't talking about me? Well then, who was she talking about? No way, I'm not saying anything. You won't listen to me, right? Right? -Donkey. -No! Ok, look. I'm sorry, all right? I'm sorry. I guess I am just a big stupid, ugly Ogre. Can you forgive me? -Hey, that's the friends are for, right? -Right. -Friends? -Friends. So? What did Fiona said about me? Why are you asking me for? Why don't you just go ask her. The wedding! We'll never make it in time! Never fear! For where there is a will, there is a way. And I have I way. Donkey? -I guess this is just my act of magnetism. -Oh, come here, you. All right. All right. Don't get all started. No one likes kissass. All right, hop on. Hold on tight. I hadn't have a chance to install seat belts, yet. People of Duloc. We gather here today to bear witness to reunion of our new king... Excuse me. Could you just skip ahead to "I do's"? Go on. Go ahead and have some fun, if we need you, I'll whistle. How about that? Shrek, wait, wait a minute. You want to do this right, don't you? -What are you talking about? -It's the line, it's the line you got to wait for. The priest is going to say: "Speak now or forever hold your peace". And that's where you say: "I object". -I don't have time for this. -Wait, wait. What are you doing? Listen to me! Look, you love this woman, don't you? -Yes. -You want to hold her! -Yes. -Please her! -Yes! Then you got to, got to try a little tender love. -The chicks love that romantic crap. -All right. Cut it out. When does this guy say the line? We got to check it out. And as so by the power of these two... What do you see? -I now pronounce you... -There they go! -...he all ready said it. -Oh, for 'the love of pit'. I object! Shrek? Oh, now what does he want? Hi, everyone. Having a good time, aren't you? I love Duloc, first of all. Very clean. -What are you doing here? -Really, it's rude enough being alive, when no one wants you. But showing up uninvited to a wedding... -Fiona! I need to talk to you. -Oh, now you wanna talk? Well it's a little late for that. So if you'll excuse me. -But you can't marry him! -And why not? Because, because he's just marrying you so he can be king. -Outrageous! Fiona, don't listen to him. -He's not your true love. -What do you know about true love? -Well, I ...I'm in... Oh, this is precious. The Ogre has fallen in love with the princess. Laugh. Shrek. Is this true? Who cares. It's preposterous. Fiona, my love, we gonna kiss away for our happily ever after. Now kiss me! By night one way, by day another. I wanted to show you before. Well. That explains a lot. Oh. It's disgusting. Guards, guards. I order you to get them out of my sight. -Now! Get them! Get them, both! -No! This marriage is minding, and that makes me king. See? See? -Shrek! -No. -Don't just stand there, you dogs. -Get out of my way. No! Shrek! -And as for you my wife. -Fiona! I'll have you locked back in that tower for the rest of your days! I will have order. I will have potential. I will have... All right, nobody move! I got a dragon here and I'm not afraid to use it. I'm a donkey on the edge! Celebrity marriages. They never last, do they? Go ahead Shrek. -Fiona? -Yes, Shrek? I love you. Really? Really, really. I love you too. A time for true love's first kiss... Fiona? Fiona? Are you all right? Yes. But I don't understand. I'm supposed to be beautiful. But you are beautiful. I was hoping this would be a happy ending. God bless us, everyone.

While Science-Fiction has been all I've been writing up to now. Fantasy is where my heart has always laid. Thanks to Papyroo for his editing, and to viewers like you! I've got plans to start posting a week early on Royal Road, (though I'm doing terrible at that)
Other Stories By Me: Radio Free Orion Herdless Anonymous
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It had been a few days since Kerich and I had set out on our journey towards Sirocco, the vibrant golden leaves of the aspen groves and meadows quickly transitioning into deep green tones of sparsely-wooded marshlands. Thankfully, even as thick pools of mud and lily-covered bogs surrounded us, the road ahead was well traveled and decently maintained, so we kept up the pace.
As the sun crossed over its apex, I was shaken from my idle musing of the environment by Kerich suddenly running forwards and crouching down behind a shrub on the side of the road. After a moment of confused hesitation I moved over to join him at the bush, giving him a puzzled look. He turned to me and held a finger over his lips, urging me not to speak. I nodded silently, simply crouching down beside him. I followed his gaze, peering through the dense foliage to see what had caught his attention.
To my surprise, I spotted a group of ducks waddling along the edge of a nearby pond, their colorful feathers gleaming in the midday sun. They seemed completely unaware of our presence, happily pecking at the ground as they went about their business.
Kerich’s face be me into a wide excited grin as he reached for the sling at his hip. Without a word, he carefully loaded a smooth lead ball into the pouch of the sling and took careful aim at one of the unsuspecting ducks.
In one fluid motion, he stood up and swung the sling around, sending the ball hurting through the air with deadly accuracy. The duck let out a startled squawk as it was struck, tumbling to the ground with a soft thud.
The rest of the ducks scattered and took flight, but Kerich swiftly loaded another ball into the sling and took aim. As he did, his eyes caught the sunlight and shone a brilliant, ethereal golden hue before he launched it into the air with impossible accuracy, striking down another duck in mid-flight.
I watched in awe as his skill was put on full display, his movements were smooth and practiced. It was a display of marksmanship unlike anything I had ever seen before. As the last of the ducks flew off into the distance, Kerich turned to me with a satisfied grin, his eyes twinkling with pride.
“Looks like dinner is sorted!” he said with a chuckle, gesturing towards the fallen birds. ”Care to help with plucking and cleaning?”
A laugh burst forth from me at the sheer absurdity of his response, stepping out into the marsh to retrieve the unlucky fowl.
We continued pressing onwards down the road to Sirocco, the sun slowly drifting downwards to our right. Suddenly, Kerich and I noticed a small group of people in the distance, walking down the path towards us. As they came closer, I could make them out more clearly, seeing that they were all clad in sturdy armor, armed with all manner of weapons. In an instant, Kerich placed a arm over my chest and stepped in front of me.
My mind eased slightly upon taking a closer look at their uniforms, seeing the golden star of the Auster Empire emblazoned on their gear, signifying that they were not mere bandits roaming the wilds but licensed dungeon raiders.Even still, we watched warily as the group approached, their leader’s gaze bearing down on us..
Kerich stood tall, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword. The group came to a stop a few paces away, their plate-clad leader regarded Kerich with a mix of curiosity and suspicion.
“Who goes there?”
Kerich took another step forwards. “I am Kerich, Guardsman of the Auster Empire. and this is Arin, a Junior Inspector.”
The man eyed us both for a moment with squinted eyes before turning back to another member of his raiding party. “Is Sirocco due for another Guardsman and Inspector, Lieutenant?”
The man to his side responded quickly. “We did receive word that they would be getting a new Inspector, though there was nothing about a Guardsman being sent our way.”
Kerich cleared his throat loudly. “Excuse me, Sir, but I believe it’s appropriate to introduce yourself as well.”
The man turned his attention back to us, his expression shifting from suspicion to annoyance. “Very well then. I am Captain Renald, leader of this raiding party.” They spoke, their voice tinted with an air of self-importance. “We are responsible for continuous subjugation of mid-level dungeons under the purview of the Southern Inspection Center.”
Kerich nodded. "A noble pursuit indeed, Captain Renald. And how has your expedition fared thus far?"
The captain's gaze flickered briefly to his companions before returning to us. "We have encountered some resistance from the creatures that inhabit the dungeons, but nothing we couldn't handle. Our progress has been steady, and we expect to meet our quotas before the end of the quarter.”
“Good to hear, we wish you luck on your efforts Captain. Stay safe on your journeys.” Kerich replied with another nod.
Captain Renald's expression hardened, a glint of determination in his eyes. "We are well aware of the dangers, Guardsman. Rest assured, we will not falter in our duty to the Empire."
With a curt nod of farewell, Kerich stepped to the side as the party walked around, continuing down the path behind us.. “Seems like they’ve got their work cut out for them,” he remarked in a whisper, leaning over to me. I simple shrugged my shoulders and began walking again, sparing a quick glance back at Captain Renald and his crew as they matched into the distance.
I couldn't help but notice the stripe of vibrant gold that weaved through his auburn hair, shining brightly in the sun.
As the sun finally dived downwards past the horizon, we stopped to the side of the road and set up camp for the night. Kerich skillfully began the process of plucking and cleaning the ducks, his hands working deftly as he defeathered them, revealing the sleek mottled skin beneath.
I helped where I could, which mostly involved gathering kindling for the fire. As I did, I could see Kerich skewer the plucked birds and placing them atop a makeshift rotisserie. The anticipation of enjoying freshly roasted duck fuelled our efforts, and before long the savory aroma of cooking meat filled the air, mingling with the earthy scent of the marshes.
I sat by the fire, seeing Kerich idly rotating the spit across from me, the fire below sizzling and crackling as the melting fat drips into it. Leaning forwards, I decided to ask him a question that had been lingering in my mind since our encounter with Captain Renald.
“Kerich, can I ask you about being a Guardsman?”
Kerich glanced up from the spit, his expression thoughtful. "Of course. What would you like to know?"
"Well, you asked me why I became an Inspector, so I'm curious: why did you become a Guardsman?"
Kerich's demeanor shifted slightly, a flicker of something unreadable crossing his features "Well, my journey to becoming a Guardsman is somewhat similar to yours in becoming an Inspector, though my path took a different turn a few years ago."
His words piqued my interest further. "Wait, really? What were you before becoming a Guardsman, then?" I pressed.
A hint of unease flashed across Kerich's face, and he shifted uncomfortably. "Before becoming a Guardsman, I was a Dungeon Warden."
I blinked in surprise. “A Dungeon Warden? how’s that different from being a Guardsman?”
“Well, Wardens are a subset of The Guard. They’re responsible for controlling and maintaining Dungeons. It’s a Warden’s duty to keep a Dungeon’s monsters from coming to the surface, and posing a risk to the local populace. They’re the ones whom your inspection reports are sent out to first. Though, some Wardens do also have inspector licenses themselves.”
“Do you?” I asked curiously.
He shook his head with a smirk. "Nah. Couldn't pass the damn test. People can complain all they want about you paper-pushers, but you're something special, alright."
His response made me chuckle, but my curiosity continued to prod at me, wanting more. “Well, why’d you stop being a warden?”
Kerich's smirk washed away, looking away with a solemn expression. "As a Warden, I had to fight monsters day-in and day-out. As you can imagine, that's not terribly good for ya’. Takes a toll on a person. I'm lucky to have gotten out of that game with as little corruption as I did."
“What do you mean? couldn’t you get cleansed?” I asked. surely the Empire would provide for them… right?
He sighed. “To be cleansed requires gold. And while they always told us just how important Wardens are to the protection and security of the Empire, the pay never seemed to reflect that. As such, we couldn't afford to get a cleansing after every single shift…”
His face took on a pained expression as he fell silent, just staring into the crackling fire as the spit turns. I opted to remain silent as well, looking down at my empty hands lost in thought trying to come to terms with his words, feeling the realization of just how serious the path forward would truly be tugging at my chest.
Not long after, he pulled the skewered birds from the fire and set them aside to rest, before expertly carving them with his belt knife. I reached over to one of the duck legs already cut away and took a bite, savoring in the crispy, smoky flavor that filled my mouth. A second bite, and I glanced back over to Kerich hoping to strike up another, more lighthearted conversation with him.
But the words quickly died in my throat as I watched him begin dumping heaps of carved meat onto his metal shield with reckless abandon. He looked up, seeing my absolutely bewildered and slightly disgusted expression, and just gave a lighthearted shrug before throwing more meat onto the pile.
I just shook my head and took another bite.
The two of us eventually finished our meals, myself still feeling awed watching Kerich devour the massive feast he prepared for himself. Where in the seven hells did he even put it all?
The campfire still casting its warm glow between us as the last vestiges of daylight slid away, we both slid into our bedrolls and laid down for the night. I once again stared up at the countless stars dangling above me as I drifted to sleep, still eager to see what awaits us tomorrow.
Although this time, I did not rest for long. An overwhelming sense of unease stirred me from my slumber and I sat upright, seeing that Kerich had awoken as well, seeming just as troubled as I. Wordlessly, we stood and scanned the landscape around us, the once roaring fire at the center of the camp now barely more than embers. Suddenly, a terrible sense of vertigo washed over me in waves, causing my head to spin and my stomach to churn with unease.
The flickering flames of the campfire and the dim lamplights around us were suddenly extinguished in an instant, plunging us into an inexplicable darkness. The air grew still for a fleeting moment, pregnant with anticipation, before a powerful gust of sickly warm wind slammed into us, nearly knocking me off my feet.
The earth began to rumble as the pungent stench of brimstone filled my nose and stung my eyes. A thick, unnatural fog began to surround us, spilling out across the bogs between the sparse trees. Wide cracks began to split the earth open, streams of purple light pouring out from them as the ground began to flex and undulate, as if breathing..
Slowly growing up from the marshland in front of us, a tall, foreboding tower began to emerge, it's silhouette cutting across the sky. . The very space around us began to tear asunder, acres of land peeling apart and unfolding in ways that should not be possible. .
“Wicket,” Kerich shouted over the rumbling. “Wicket, we have to go now!”
My heart pounding in my chest, I reached down to my bag and began to run, seeing Kerich sprint out beside me. Glancing behind, I saw as stones tore through the ground, pavers pushing up from the depths replacing the dirt road.
I felt my lungs burning as we ran, watching in horror as the landscape around me changed with unnatural speed. What was once a tranquil marshland now twisted and contorted, morphing into a labyrinth of stone corridors and ominous structures. Another violent tremble in the ground nearly made me trip, as if the earth itself were protesting from this otherworldly intrusion.
Kerich and I dashed through the shifting terrain, our breaths ragged and hearts pounding with adrenaline-fueled urgency. The purple glow emanating from the towers behind us grew ever brighter, casting eerie shadows across the landscape. A gnawing sence of dread tore at my insides as we spirited away, feeling the arcane energy crackling in the air.
"We need to find shelter!" Kerich shouted over the din, his voice barely audible above the cacophony of shifting stone and roaring winds.
My head snapped around, desperately searching for anything to grant us safety. “Over there!” I shouted, spotting a cluster of rocky outcropping along the side of a nearby hill.
The two of us swiftly dive into the the safety of the rocks, a deafening roar echoed through the air behind us as we escaped.. I glanced back towards what was once our campsite, my heart sinking as I beheld the full extent of the monstrous form before me.
A dark castle stood tall and foreboding, its spires reaching towards the darkened sky like the claws of some ancient beast. Sickly purple fog continued to bellow out from its gates and poured over the twisted landscape.
“Kerich…” I spoke quietly, my breathing still ragged in shock. “Kerich, what's going on?”
“...A Dungeon Bloom…” he whispered breathlessly, his eyes wide and shell-shocked. “Gods above…”
Before I can even speak, my attention is drawn back to the castle in the distance as even more purple lights appear along the battlements and gates. Heaps of bones begin floating up from the ground and piecing themselves together, tendrils of sinewy flesh wrapping over their form loosely as dark steel warps and bends into menacing armor and weapons of war.
For a chilling moment, all was silent again as the skeletal figures stood motionless in place. Then, all at once, every single one snapped to attention, their empty eye sockets glowing red with malice.
Auster Empire Gilt Services Division
[Confidential - Employee Evaluation Sheet]
Employee Name: Arin Wicket
Position: Junior Inspector
Evaluation Period: Training
Performance Summary: Arin has exhibited consistently strong dedication to his studies. His knowledge of dungeon classification, creature identification, and inspection procedures exceeds expectations for a trainee at his level. While demonstrating strong potential, certain areas still require refinement to ensure he meets the Empire's rigorous standards.
Key Strengths:
Intellectual Drive: Arin actively seeks opportunities to deepen his understanding of dungeons and the challenges they present. His natural curiosity and willingness to challenge himself will serve him well as he encounters progressively complex scenarios.
Composure: Even during high-stakes mock inspections, Arin remains remarkably composed. This steady resolve under pressure ensures that he will be a reliable asset in demanding situations and supports effective team dynamics.
Collaborative Spirit: Arin fosters a positive, proactive working atmosphere by offering support and sharing knowledge. His enthusiasm for his duties and team-oriented focus enhance overall morale.
Areas for Development:
Professional Punctuality: Arin must address his tendency for tardiness. Timeliness is of the essence in the Dungeon Inspection Corps. Strict adherence to schedules and deadlines reflects upon his personal commitment as well as negatively impacting the team's ability to meet inspection mandates.
Meticulous Observation: While Arin successfully completes assignments, refining his attention to detail is crucial. Missed information could put colleagues and himself at risk during future inspections. Emphasizing precision and diligence will yield more comprehensive and reliable reports.
Proactive Initiative: Arin should strive to anticipate obstacles and think strategically, taking action to overcome potential issues before they become problematic. Encouraging greater ownership of problems and greater foresight in risk evaluation will help him achieve a higher level of professional success.
Recommendations for Development:
Accountability Training: A structured program dedicated to improving time management and reinforcing the critical importance of meeting deadlines should address Arin's occasional tardiness.
Specialized Coursework: Additional training, specifically focusing on the complexities of undead identification and their unique weaknesses, will give Arin an edge when facing this common dungeon type.
Mentorship Program: Pairing Arin with a seasoned Senior Inspector within the South Dungeon Center will provide invaluable practical guidance in the field and ensure that he effectively integrates theoretical knowledge into his work.
Overall Assessment: Arin Wicket demonstrates undeniable aptitude for the demanding requirements of a Junior Inspector. With consistent professional development and reinforcement of specific skills, he possesses the potential for valuable contributions to the Empire's dungeon inspection teams.
[End of Evaluation]
Evaluation Completion Date: 35th of Cuprifluer, 450 D.E.
Evaluation By: Cardinal Dondetto of Notus

Saylor Meets John (Excerpt)
K.R. Crush
Saylor, dazed, bored, and cross with heat and mosquitoes, kept close care of the fact that the sun started out on his right that morning, even as it was just approaching high noon. When it finally rose too high to determine east or west with certainty, he sat against a tree and tossed his pack to the side. He whistled to keep the stillness and heat of the forest out of his mind. It wasn’t working. He stopped whistling and looked around. Pines. He looked the other way. Pines. He thought again of the broad oak trees and tulip poplars and willows back home, and the Clearwater and stone fences and red-brown roads—
Ringing. Saylor strained his ears. A steady clanging noise sounded off to his left, and he could barely discern voices. He thought he also heard singing. He slung his pack back on and nearly cried as he ran toward the sound. He saw golden sunlight fill a gap beyond the edge of the infinite forest and he ran, faster and faster.
He stopped, realizing he might soon be in the company of complete strangers in the middle of the wilderness. He crouched his way between pines and stumps until he was half a stone’s throw from the laborers. Their hammer strikes and singing became clear, especially the voice of a bass who nearly shook the trees with his timbre. He sang:
“STAAAA-and aside my brothers!”
CLANG!
“And let my ham-MERRR fall!”
CLANG!
“I be the meanest man for to lay down the rails—”
CLANG!
“Fro-OM heah until Goman Falls!”
CLANG!
CLANG!
CLANG!
CLANG!
“Everyone, now!”
“STAAAA-and aside, big country!”
CLANG!
“And let our hammers fall!”
CLANG!
“We are a-binding this land u’neath ‘dese rails—”
CLANG!
“From heah until Goman Falls!”
CLANG!
CLANG!
Saylor got up from his position to approach the laborers. Seeing no other boss watching them, he supposed that the solo singer must be in charge of the gang. He was certainly intimidating— coal black, easily six foot three or four, probably eleven stones of solid muscle. The man’s hammer was bigger than any Saylor had ever seen in a man’s hands, its head nearly as big as his own. The bright sun caught every bit of sweat dripping off the curly hair on his head and beard and chest. Don’t fuck with the big fella, thought Saylor to himself. And with that in mind he left the shade of the forest and walked up to the man.
“You in charge, here?” Saylor yelled.
CLANG! Saylor’s teeth rattled in his head. He realized now why everyone else kept their distance from this behemoth. The man raised his hammer and rested it on his shoulder, and extended his other hand to Saylor. Saylor’s hand was swallowed in it, but he shook it as gamely as he could.
“Da’s right, da’s right, I’m in cha’ge of this heah outfit. Keep workin’, now!” he roared to the other men who had slowed down to look at Saylor. They returned to their work, their hammers in rhythm just as they were during the song. The big man faced Saylor again. “And how’s might I oblige you?”
“Well, I won’t say I’m lost, but I haven’t been sure where I was for over a week or so now. Where’s this funny-lookin’ road lead to?”
“Ha, ha, ha!” His laughter was cannon fire. “Dis heah funny-lookin’ road is goan make us rich an’ prosp’rous when it laid down, uh-huh. We’s a-headin’ nawth and west, towahds Goman—” he gestured toward the grassy stripe between the trees where the rail was not yet completed, “—and dat way is wheah we come, towahds Trop’lis,” pointing in the opposite direction where the rail disappeared into the horizon.
“Y’all on a straight shot from here to Goman Falls?”
“Mo’ o’ less.”
“Well, thank you. I’ll make my way now. My apologies for interruptin’ y’all’s work.” Saylor turned to walk away, but the big man’s hand clasped his entire shoulder.
“Like hells, you are. We’s goan’ to fix you up a big dinner tonight an’ a bigger breakfast ‘morrow mo’nin’. Crew!” Everyone turned up again to look at the boss. “Say hello to (wha’s yo’ name? Saylor?) Saylor! He be our gues’ tonight and ‘morrow mo’nin’. Be gracious hosts, y’un’erstan’?”
“Yeah, boss!”
“You gotcha, John!”
“How’s goan’, Saylor!” The men replied, and after giving their greetings returned to their work. The boss named John did as well, and Saylor slacked his jaw as the hammer fell.
CLANG!
CLANG!
“’Scuse me again, John,” said Saylor, feeling as awkward as he thought he looked, “I reckon I can pitch in with the work if you want it. I ain’t sure what else I could be doing right now.”
“Well, many pa’dons! I a’cept yo’ offer, but first, go on ‘head and head over theah—” he pointed to a camp a few hundred yards down the finished portion of the rail, “—and set down yo’ pack and git yo’self some water, uh-huh. When you’s satisfied, we got any dozens o’ hammers to choose from. And hammer size ain’ a pride thing, Saylor: i’s a comfort thing. No use swingin’ my hammer if I can’ do it all day, y’un’erstan’?”
“Yeah, John. Thanks kindly again.”
“Uh-huh, take yo’ time.”
CLANG!
CLANG!
Clang!
Clang!
clang!
As Saylor made his way toward the camp, he pondered how far north he must be at this point. For John to be talking about Tropolis the way he did suggested that they were well north of it by this point, and certainly the whole pine forest would confirm that as well. But how close could they be to Goman? He pulled his map out again. It could be anything from ten to three hundred and fifty miles, since he had not crossed back over the Gomantchee River. He resolved to ask that night, but it pained him to think he might not be anywhere close yet.
The camp was better-furnished then Saylor expected. It spanned each side of the rails, but most of the tents were on the side he was on. He looked around until he found a big barrel that was slowly dripping water out of the spigot. He pulled his canteen out and let it flow. The drippings that hit his hand were as warm as the day, but that didn’t bother Saylor at this point. He drank heavily and drew some more. As he did, he heard a rattle.
Without thought, he turned, drew, and fired at a snake not five feet from him. He hit it just behind the head, and it flopped over, writhing until it was still. It was every bit of eight feet long. Saylor stared for several moments until he remembered the spigot. Horses he didn’t notice before were on the other side of the rails whinnying and rearing, so he went over to calm them. As he did, he heard John’s footsteps thudding closer behind him. The hammers had stopped falling.
“Saylor, wha’ was dat! Comin’ in heah, shootin’ yo’ gun, and— damn!” He followed Saylor’s finger to the snake across the rails. “Da’s a big fucker. You saved da hawses.” His smile was irresistible. But before he said anything further, they heard brushing, and turned to look. They caught the snake slithering back into the pines. They were silent again.
“Huh. Da’s no good. Saylor, git yo’self a hammer. Judgin’ yo’ size, I sugges’ the fo’-pounder o’ the three an’ a half. We’s goan’ worry ‘bout dis snake business after work. Keep yo’ gun handy. Get to WORK!” he bellowed at the crew, and their hammers started ringing again over the distance.
“I swears, dey’s all goan’ be the death o’ me,” he confided to Saylor as they walked back over to them. “If it were’n’ fo’ me, all o’ dem would be shot dead or drunk in some city in de Yonara Desert, I tells you. Doan’ ever let a man say to you dat hard work is a bad t’ing. It saves souls every day, uh-huh.”
“My pa said the same thing. If you don’t mind me asking, what exactly are you doing out here? I can’t figure why y’all are putting so much effort into a road that’ll do nothing but trip up good horses.” John responded with more cannon-laughter.
“Has you ever heard o’ steam-carts, Saylor?”
“No, just regular carts. What’s steam got to do with it?”
“Well, I tells you. Over in Trop’lis, dey has big engines made of iron that work ha’der den a hund’ed hawses. An’ wit’ dose engines dey pull carts an’ carts an’ carts of anythin’ you could ask fo’. Dese carts has special wheels dat only ride on rails, so i’s the job of men like us to drive in de stakes dat hold down de rails. Dere’s men from Goman comin’ dis way wit’ the notion of joining us somewheah in dese woods, and we will happ’ly oblige dem when dey do. Den Goman and Trop’lis will be unified by a railway, an’ we gets paid big fo’ ou’ troubles.”
“Huh. So where do I start?”
“Take a spike from dat box and let one of de boys help you.”
The work was simple, and as soon as he got the rhythm of the hammers he stripped his own shirt to swing more easily. The songs whittled the day away, and before he noticed it the sun was nearly touching the western horizon when John called out,
“All right! Work’s over! Le’s get on back, now!” The crew hollered and whooped and stormed to camp. John and Saylor followed. The stars were peeking in the east.
“John,” asked Saylor, lower than necessary to keep his question private, “you ain’t just a man, are you?” John was silent for several moments, and his steps seemed to thud more heavily as walked.
“Why you askin’ me a funny question like dat? My mama and daddy raised me u’neath the care o’ de Lawd, and dey was a man and woman like any you ever seen.”
“Okay, John. I’ll let it slide.”
“What be yo’ meanin’, Saylor? I doan’ figure you.”
“John, I can swear on a stack of anything you put before me that I personally met the lumberjack they call Big Paul. He’s a bigger man than even you, but for the life of me I can’t decide between his axe and your hammer. You drove those spikes in with just a tap and swing, and everyone else is huffing on the same spike for a minute or more.” “Well, dey jus’ lazy. An’ you’s inexperienced.” His eyes looked with concern for offense on Saylor’s face.
“You ain’t just a man, Bossman John.”
“Ha! Ha! ‘Bossman John,’ I like dat. You say nice t’ings ‘bout me, Saylor, but doan’ you worry ‘bout me matching Big Paul ‘cause I ain’ playin’ fo’ dat. I jus’ wan’ my pay and to gets on home to my baby.” Saylor saw that John would not discuss the matter any longer, so he kept his silence for the rest of the walk back. The men had already made a bonfire and had rigged a rotisserie with two deer stuck across it. Their raucous laughter subsided when they noticed John coming, not out of fear, but to feign a sense of respectability.
“Gen’l’men,” declared John, “Saylor heah came out de woods today and soon’s he arrived shot dead a snake bigger den I ever see up heah in dese woods. Unfo’tunately, it didn’ stay dead, but dat’s no fault of Saylor’s. An’ den, he works as hawd as anybody else on de rails when no one asked him to. Because o’ dis, I’s allowin’ y’all to pull out t’ree barrels of beer and one o’ whisky. I’s a celebration ‘night!” John swung his hammer and buried the head in the dirt, and the men cheered, rolling out the barrels as soon as he allowed it. One of the men pulled out his fiddle and started playing while others got up and danced. John challenged anyone within earshot to “a wrassle,” but no one took him up on it. The venison turned out to be as good as Saylor had ever had, and the whisky burned far hotter than even Big Paul’s. John started singing once he finally drank enough beer to subdue him, and it was lucky for everyone else that he sang in tune, because he certainly sang strongly. Saylor, never fancying himself much of a dancer, couldn’t help but finding a place along the bonfire that night. The northern summer air seemed nearly as intoxicating as the whisky, and as he danced, thoughts of far he was from home or Goman no longer mattered to him, just the chance now to be precisely where he was. The nature of John didn’t matter much either, nor did the woods or—
The snake. He sobered at the thought, and made his way to the edge of the ring. He cursed his stupidity for looking into the fire while dancing, and now he could see nothing in the darkness. Always look around the edge, he told himself, creeping amongst the tents so that no one would notice his absence. He strained his ears until his night vision returned, but could hear nothing save for a whippoorwill and the tops of the pines swaying in a light breeze. The stars were brilliant, and Saylor could hardly believe how many there were after not seeing more than a handful since he had first entered the forest. He checked his pistol, extending the chamber and inserting two bullets in the empty slots, and closed it again. It spun well. This time, he supposed, he’d have John smash the snake’s head with his hammer as soon as he shot it. He doubted anything could survive that.
His night vision was almost restored, and he kept close vigil over the camp as everyone partied. While he did so, his mind wandered. He had never heard John’ accent, but it sounded more like his own than anyone else in the north. He may well have been born and raised farther south, well past the point where the Gomantchee merges with the Muddywater to form the Tularahissi. It wasn’t unthinkable. Then Saylor wondered how John could travel so much without his reputation doing the same. If he was as humble as Saylor gathered, he was a very different man from Big Paul. At least he wasn’t wasting his talents: as little as Saylor understood, he knew that a clear route from Tropolis and Goman could only help the people in both cities. People might not remember John, but they would be indebted to his to what he did for everyone who would ever rely upon this railroad. Big Paul, meanwhile, would die and soon after would either leave behind civilized country or restored forest, with nothing permanent to his credit. Saylor determined he must still be pretty drunk at this point to be thinking the thoughts he was.
A twig snapped in the darkness near the forest

Hey there,
I am in the market for a new pad and I am not sure which pad to get. 88kg, 188cm height. Currently use a regular old Xlite but it’s annoyingly loud. Conditions will be Scandinavia or mountains but probably not in high summer. Winter only for ski tours but never done it so that’s a big if. Camp selection is difficult especially in Sweden because you have dedicated areas to camp and there are a lot of trees. So the pad should be durable (no uberlite). I use a 450 Cumulus Quilt so even if too hot I can use it as a blanket or just skip on it completely (sleep in skiing underwear). Starting this year I use an Aeros pillow. Currently looking at:

• Xlite NXT Large/Max
• XTherm NXT Large/Max
• Tensor All Seasons 2024
• Tensor Extreme 2024

I am not a weightweeny but a trash/rotissery sleeper. I know its too early to know about any durability issues with the tensors but I am a little bit hesitant to spring so much money and than have it break in the outback. Anyone know if the lifetime warranty is also offered in Europe? Would love some input from this community and recommendations, anecdotes, etc. Checked most of the other threads about this topic but my thirst for knowledge is not yet satisfied. Hope that’s alright. Questions I have now: - Which R Rating for my use case? - Rectangular or Mummy Wide? - Durability? - Everything I did not think about yet
Thanks everyone for chiming in!

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I did a 4 1/2 lbs rib roast on the Joetisserie. I also have the ash basket with the divider, which i had setup to have the coals banked up with a drip pan underneath. The problem was, even with the divider, the roast still leaned over the coals, which is where all the drippings went, creating a ton of smoke for the entire cook. I had the Joetisserie as far forward as I could,but was still over the coals, and it definitely left and off flavor that I did not enjoy, so i am definitely not in the drippings in the coals camp. But what can actually be done? I thought about having the coals on the east west ends (if that makes sense), but then you’re not getting the heat on the sides of the roast. And the same would go with using the deflector plates, I would think it kind of kills the point of using a rotisserie. Any suggestions?

I miss seeing people camp on the Great Wall of China, spend the night at beautiful resorts on isolated islands, helicopter through the jungle, and do cool stuff like cave diving and rafting. Even if they’re not gonna go back to different locations every season, good rewards could still happen in Fiji.
Everything now goes through the sanctuary, where good things supposedly happen. Giving them a meal in a little beach shack that’s probably like 50ft from where they live is not an interesting reward. The meals themselves have even been lame. The tacos were fine, but the god damn rotisserie chicken was pathetic. Rewards used to be massive buffets of various delicious looking food.
At the very least they could make the sanctuary cooler. Put in a few cabanas where people can spend the night. Build a pool. Build some showers. If they have to get exactly the same reward every time forever, at least make that reward cool. A big part of the rewards is spending substantial and exciting time with other survivors and get an opportunity to bond. Sitting in a little beach shack for an hour eating one chicken and then going back to camp does not provide the same strategic benefit that a long and exciting excursion does.

I am NOT THE OOP. OOP is u/throwrapickyeater
Originally posted to relationship_advice
This is a new mini update to a story already posted in BORU in February 2023. It was posted here.
Note: I have marked the newest update with 🚨🚨🚨 below so you can skip the older updates posts if you don't need a refresher.
trigger warnings: emotional, physical and sexual abuse
Original post: My husband cannot accept I don’t like mustard. Things came to a head yesterday, posted on Nov 01, 2022
We’ve been married two years, dating five. We are both 34- I’m a woman, he’s a man, if it matters. I’m not a picky eater. In fact I’m quite adventurous and every time I’ve traveled I’ve always made it a point to try dishes with unusual/uncommon ingredients to say I’ve tried them. There are very few foods I won’t eat. One of them is mustard (the condiment).
I don’t like it. I just don’t. The taste is very strong and overpowering and it’s an unpleasant taste. I’ve tried yellow, stone ground, honey, artisan, brown, spicy, you name it. I have tried them all. And I just don’t like them.
My husband for some reason never understood this. He loves mustard, especially honey mustard. He puts it on all his sandwiches, dips his fries in it.
And everytime he tries to force me to try it. He’ll insist I’ll like it this time. I’m a grown ass woman. I know what I don’t like! And I don’t like mustard. So I’ll say no and it’ll devolve into a mini-argument where he’ll call me picky.
Well, last night we were on the road home from a weekend trip we took together and he stopped at a gas station to get us a quick bite. He got a hot dog slathered in mustard. I got one but decided to keep it plain. I don’t really love hot dogs to begin with but I will eat them.
While we waited in line he asked what I got on mine. I told him nothing.
He actually got furious and grabbed it from me. He marched over to the condiment station and began putting mustard on my hot dog, telling me to grow up and stop being picky.
I just walked out and sat in the car. I didn’t even want the damn hot dog anymore. My appetite was gone.
He came back and began screaming at me for embarrassing him even further. The word divorce was said for the first time ever. I secretly recorded his screaming because I was genuinely afraid I would die. He was driving erratically, swerving and speeding.
I’m in a hotel tonight. He ignored me all day at work and then the calls started around when he realized I wasn’t coming home. Nonstop voicemails and texts. He sent me a screenshot of a Google search for local divorce lawyers. I haven’t eaten all day and I’ve been sobbing in this damn hotel room. I don’t want to get divorced and I wish I had just ate the fucking mustard.
Someone, anyone, please give me an explanation. Am I in danger? Why would he react this way to a preference of mine? I’m completely broken right now.
Update #1: I can’t respond since my post got deleted sorry submitted on Nov. 2, 2022
Some answers I guess to questions I saw:
Regarding when I said no to sex. He respected if I said no to having sex but he would ask for blowjobs over and over. I used to give in at first until I started dreading doing it. He tried buying all this stuff to make me like it, to make it easier or whatever. I used to like blowjobs. I don’t like giving them to him. But he’ll still ask over and over. I started responding with, “I said no. Are you going to force me to do it?” And he’d get squeamish and offended that I’d implied he would rape or assault me.
If I have a support system: no. I’ve always been a very small circle kind of person and I lost touch with casual college friends. My friends are his. It makes me feel like a loser but I don’t really have friends of my own. My parents are dead; my dad died when I was a teen and my mom passed recently of heart failure. I have no siblings.
I’m financially capable of living on my own and I could pay for a divorce. I just… really didn’t want things to be this way. The mustard thing was always just an annoyance to me. I didn’t consider it a deal-breaker, but obviously it is for him.
We have no kids and no equity. Our finances are separate save for one joint account we equally contribute to for bills. We were looking at buying a house.
I’m safe. I’m at work and I’m staying in the hotel until further notice. He has continued to text. One message said that he loves me and doesn’t want to lose me, but I’ve forced his hand by refusing to communicate or come home. I haven’t answered. I don’t know what to say. I forced myself to eat my favorite takeout late last night but it tasted like cardboard. I stayed up late compiling a list of every time he has shown worrying behavior. I guess the mustard is the tip of the iceberg.
Update #2: Thank you all for being so kind… a quick ramble before bed. submitted on Nov. 2, 2022
Sincerely, thank you all for your kind words as well as sending me links to resources. He has reverted back and has told me that he never wants to see me again, so I suppose that gives me time to read that book that someone on RA suggested to me (I forget the name).
I will admit while I was at work and thinking of the lonely room waiting me after five, I considered just going home. But I knew what awaited me. I’m too drained to muster up the kind of apology he would be expecting in order for things to go back to normal. I honestly fear that our “normal” is detrimental to me. I also don’t want to apologize. I don’t think I did anything wrong, and you all helped validate that.
I always felt like I was the one disturbing the peace. He’d get so upset over things that were little to no effort for me to just do or go along with because I loved him. And somewhere along the way I think I lost myself. I never liked mustard. I never liked golf, or camping, or red wine. But he loves all of these and wanted me to love them too. He said he was introducing me to his hobbies so we would have shared interests as a couple. But I have realized that out of all the things I used to like, he has either refused to try or ignored my interest. Our shared interests are just his.
God, how do I feel like my own person again? My world broke not two days ago and now I’m drunk at a hotel bar switching between Reddit and researching divorce lawyers.
I still don’t want to divorce. It’s so permanent. I never pictured myself a divorcée. I used to think that every choice I made, I made deliberately. It used to be a point of pride for me. But he’s making this choice for me. And it hurts.
Update #3: I’m leaving him. submitted on Nov. 7, 2022
First of all: I took this week off at the encouragement of my employer. I plan to spend it finding a therapist that specializes in domestic abuse and sexual assault, which I’ve come to realize I am a victim of. I feel completely numb. I’m also looking into a divorce lawyer.
Secondly: he found the hotel where I was staying. I guess he followed me from work. He was waiting in the lobby. God, my heart skipped a beat and I realized that I did NOT miss him at all. I was afraid of making a scene (I need to unlearn that), so I sat with him in the lounge area and talked.
I’ll summarize it.
I pointed out the security camera and said if he tried to hurt me, there’d be footage and I would press charges without a second thought. He was completely shocked and said he’d never hurt me. I reminded him how I feared for my life in the car. He ignored me. He asked why I wasn’t coming home. I was completely blank faced when I told him, “Because you’re divorcing me.” He said he didn’t mean it and was just upset. I said, “when normal people are upset, they express it in a healthy way. You threatened the end of our marriage. I’m taking you seriously.”
He got pissed and asked if I was saying he wasn’t normal.
Honestly, I just wanted the conversation to be done, so I told him if that’s really all he heard then there was no point in talking anymore. I told him I was looking for a lawyer and he should probably do the same if he hasn’t found one. He lashed out and said, “All this over one mistake?”
And I just stared at him. As I made to stand up, he grabbed my wrist hard and I pointed at the camera again. This just made him angrier. He never could handle slights to his ego.
One mistake. It wasn’t one mistake. It was a pattern of abuse over years. It was threatening me, intimidating me.
I told him if he tried to contact me again beyond sending me his lawyer’s details I’d be calling the police. He let me go.
I want to say I was badass and celebrated in my room. I collapsed onto my bed and began sobbing. I was just so sick and angry and sad. He truly doesn’t care about me. I’ve been crying on and off while calling local therapists. God, why is it so hard to find one? The amount of therapists that advertise but turn out to not be accepting new patients is unacceptable. I’ve looked into victims of DV/DA support groups as well.
In the span of less than a month my life is completely changed. And he isn’t remorseful at all. He just thinks it’s all my fault.
OP's last comment: I will probably move. I saw my RA post get reposted on Twitter. I’m terrified he’ll see it and come for me. A lot of people commenting on it were saying he would try to kill me and I believe them.
Update #4 posted on Nov. 26, 2022.
I have a divorce lawyer. That’s all I comfortable with revealing on here for the time being. I will also mention that I have moved locations. I am safe and secure. My work has allowed me to go fully remote. My STB-Ex does NOT have my location, nor are there any trackers on my phone. I am in contact with people and organizations who are helping me.
Earlier this week, the calls and texts really ramped up. I was advised to leave him unblocked and simply muted so his messages would come through. I read a few since I was curious. He wanted me at thanksgiving dinner with his family. He begged me to stop being this way and what was he supposed to tell his family?
Well, Thursday came and went. I had bought a couple of ready meals the night before so that was my feast.
I do want to take a break here to talk about my mom. Since it was only three of us every holiday (except the rare times friends would come over), my mom wouldn’t make a turkey. She would buy a rotisserie chicken and dress it up with stuffing, etc. She’d make dishes we loved rather than traditional thanksgiving dishes. My favorite side dish of all time was French fries. My dad loved grilled asparagus with cheese. So we would have a rotisserie chicken with French fries, asparagus, and some garlic toast (my mom’s favorite). The first time I had real traditional Thanksgiving food at a friends’ house, I apparently told my mom loudly I didn’t like it and asked where the fries were, haha.
So this year, instead of my STB-ex husband’s family’s thanksgiving food, I bought asparagus, fries, garlic toast, and a couple of slices of rotisserie chicken. It wasn’t half as good as my mother’s meal. But when I say I cried eating it… it felt like they were with me that night.
I guess my absence at the dinner forced my STB-EX to tell his family that I was separated from him. So Friday morning I got a phone call from an unfamiliar number. I answered it, thinking maybe it was my lawyer’s home phone or another person I was in contact with.
It was my mother in law. She begged me not to hang up on her. So I stayed on the line. She went on about how I was her daughter, she loved me, her son loved me, and how could I leave him over something so minor.
He only told his mom about the mustard, and even then it was a watered-down version that made me look like a neurotic control freak who needed everything my way. According to my MIL, he just made a side cup of it for me and asked me to just try it in the car. And I started screaming I’d divorce him.
She then started probing about which lawyer I was seeing and what I had told them. She also reminded me that lying in court was a crime. My lawyer had warned me to not reveal anything we had discussed to his family. It took all my willpower not to say anything. Instead, I hung up and muted her number, too. She hasn’t texted or tried to call again.
Trust me, I would’ve loved to send the recording of her son screaming saying he ought to smack me upside the head, calling me a stubborn bitch, that he would divorce me, and that he would run the car off the fucking road if I didn’t start acting right.
I wanted to scream into the phone that her precious son started this mess and I was simply doing what he wanted.
I have come to realize you don’t treat someone you love like the way he has acted. Normal people don’t want to have sex with someone who has already said no. Normal people don’t keep pushing and obsessing over food preferences. There is something seriously wrong with that man.
He texted me last night (Friday) calling me a bitch for making his mother cry. He also said he would come find me and it would take more than a locked door to keep him from getting me and taking me home. I forwarded those to the right people.
I know this isn’t a happy update, but things are moving along quite nicely.
Update #5: I am okay! posted on Feb. 9, 2023
I moved! I will not say where but I have found a new home. My job let me stay on as permanently remote.
I can’t go into details about my divorce or other current legal proceedings, but I can say I was granted a protective order due to something that happened back in December. Due to the nature of what happened, I was hospitalized for a time.
That was what I guess made me realize I wanted to get the fuck out.
I traded my car, had my phone checked for tracking apps/devices, and changed my number. He cannot contact me or have anyone contact me on his behalf.
I am now several hours and state lines away from him and his wretched family. I moved with only two suitcases and a duffel of my stuff. I cannot wait to furnish and decorate my new home the way I always wanted it.
I’m in therapy and I have a survivor support group I see weekly. I will be okay. I feel like I can finally breathe.
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Update #6: posted on Nov. 14, 2023
Hello! It’s been a while. I’d sorta forgotten about this account until I saw screenshots of my posts uploaded to Instagram, ha. Some key points:
I am still going to therapy- individual counseling and biweekly group meetups for victims of DV.
I am absolutely not dating. I saw some comments that said they hoped I found a fairytale man. That’s the last thing I want or need. I strive for independence and self love before I consider finding a new partner. It’ll probably be years before I’m ready, and that’s okay!
I have discovered a love of cooking and trying new cuisines. I didn’t realize how boring my ex’s taste was until I escaped him. Slathering mustard on a $2 hot dog does not mean you have superior taste buds. (Sorry, I had to get a jab in somehow)
Nothing new or dramatic has happened, and that is the way I like it. What matters is, I’m alive, and I’m happy. I didn’t realize how little I’d made myself until I was given the space to be. That’s all I’m willing to give for my update for now! Peace and love.
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Reminder: I am not the original poster.