《Remnant.》Chapter 2
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I am awoken from my nap by the soft breeze.
Considering it slightly odd, considering that i rest in the deepest part of the hospital with no windows in my room. Moreover, due to my health, doctors are very careful about leaving the door open, so the chance of it being open enough to feel a breeze of this force, is rather low.
The next sensory impression i get is smell. There is a heavy scent of iron and smoke in the air. Moreover there is also a slightly sweet, yet sickening scent nearby.
Third sense to come online is hearing. Instantly, i am hit by a cacophony of noise. Screams, gunfire, explosions etc. sound out somewhere off to my right. There is also an odd sound intersecting all of it, an odd “Bzzzzzt” hum-like sound. if i had to make a comparison, it almost sound like Star Trek lazers, or something along those lines (i have been confined to my bed for the last 14 years, i have had a loooot of time to watch the old classics.) I can also hear some snorting, garbling sound that “sound” like language but is completely incomprehensible.
Last sense to come online is vision. Opening his eyes, Alan looked up and saw 3 things. 1) He saw the bright blue sky. 2) he saw black smoke and fire coming from a nearby, maybe attached to the hospital, high-rise structure. 3) he saw a large sleek-looking object, hanging from the bottom of a larger objekt, gathering a large amount of blue light, before releasing it with a low “bvroooom”. In the next moment, half the high-rise simply disappeared, and in its wake there was only ash and glowing trail. After annihilating the building, said object started moving forwards, revealing a large floating “ship”.
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“Well, shit” Was about the only thing i could say to the events that displayed before my eyes.
A massive, almost worm-like ship slowly glided above me, large circles on its sides and bottom sending out pulses at regular intervals, seemed to be what kept the bugger airborne. A small searchlight or something on the front of the ship was streaking around the area, until it suddenly landed on me.
Initially, it seemed as though it would quickly pass by, and i am almost about to release the breath i have been unconsciously keeping. But it suddenly jerked to a halt and instantly went back to my body lying on the bed. My heart instantly goes into my throat as a small floating orb detaches from the ship and flies towards me a high-speed.
It must be said, im not the bravest of people. Comes from being secluded and kept like precious porcelain all my life. So, seeing this metal orb coming screaming towards me, i did the only sensible thing i could think off, i jumped off my bed.
Did i mention my body being crap?
Upon impact, i slipped and landed on a broken piece of cement, breaking a rib. i know it is broken because, whilst screaming my lungs out, i felt an incredible amount of burning pain in my chest. Oh, and i have tried it before as well, so there is that.
As i lay writhing on the floor, i see the probe (looks like a probe) slow down and move towards me. Upon getting within a few meters of me, it begins emitting a light from a small hole on the front.
It doesn’t take a genius to realize that i am being scanned, though for what reasons, i do not know. It seems odd for a race that would erase a high-rise just because it impeded the path of their FLOATING SPACESHIP, which could likely just fly to a higher altitude. They might have their reasons, sure. But….
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While my mind went on a small trip away from reality, the probe finished its scanning. Emitting a few strobing light and some odd noises it seemed rather cheery about its findings. This did honestly not do anything to bolster my mood, i mean, anything that building-destroying aliens find good, must be bad for me, right?
As it turns out, yes, yes it does.
From the bottom of the massive ship floating quietly above me, a smaller ship suddenly detaches. Quickly making its way down here, it crushes one of the remaining corners of my room (remember the ceiling being blown off somewhere?). The rear opens and reveals…
What the F*** is this?
Ok, give me a chance here, it is kinda hard to explain exactly what i am seeing.
Right, imagine a large slug. Said slug has legs and 4 arms. It is very slimy. It has 2 very small beady eyes, and next to those are another pair of eyes, pointing to its sides. Kinda like a wall corner from the outside. The nose (if you can call it that) lies exactly between the center eyes. It has mouth filled with sharp, crooked, and beastial teeth. No lips, just raw flesh all the way from the teeth to its nose, properly a 10-15 cm long piece of raw flesh. Seems as though its mouth can open to an extreme extent. 3 double chins and balder than a 90-year old tibetan monk.
All in all: ugly af f*** and a guaranteed appearance in all my future nightmares.
Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on who you ask (i consider not having to watch that trainwreck of an alien any more a blessing) the alien lifted something that looked like a gun at me. It fired and i felt a small pain in my left shoulder, though it quickly became numb. I looked down at my shoulder and saw a small futuristic looking device. Given the liquid it seems to be injecting into me, i guess it is a tranquilizer-dart.
The last thoughts to go through my mind before everything went black could be summed up as:
“Oh right, its f*cking monday, isn’t it?!”
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Entangled Fates Book 1 - Quantum Beginnings
“By far, the greatest danger of Artificial Intelligence is that people conclude too early that they understand it.” —Eliezer Yudkowsky Hey all, we're moving over to book 2. This content is in a state of transition. The book is now availble on Amazon (includes extra chapters): https://www.royalroad.com/amazon/B07W1534R8 Artificial intelligence was nearly mankind’s last invention. AI took off like a rocket, then when it racked up an impressive death toll, it crashed before it could blossom and took most high-tech industries with it. Resistance and fears became deep-set. Two decades after the infamous Rev. 4.6 incidents, humanity hasn’t quit dreaming of the wealth and power that could be at their fingertips. A new generation of mega-corporations rose from the ashes. When one melds a quantum computer to a barely functional mental patient as a PR move, there are those who seek to profit, those who want to destroy it, and Alex. Alex Sage is a typical college student trying to keep up his grades and maybe find a meaningful connection with the fairer sex. Then, an automated semi crashes into his home, killing his family and turning his head into a pin cushion in the process. Alex awakens to find most of his memories gone and an illegal AI hidden in his brain implant. Now the pet project of a tech billionaire and heavily in debt, Alex struggles to stay valuable enough to be kept online. Still grappling with the repercussions of his injuries, and threats from a dangerous anti-augmentation political movement, there are no easy answers and threats loom around every corner. Alex must use whatever resources he can to escape from under the thumb of a ruthless corporation, while keeping those he comes to love safe. Chapters will stay up on RRL until Aug 10. It'll go up on Kindle Unlimited after that. How do you get those extra chapters I didn't have planned for RR? If you want them, they'll be in the published book. Book 2 will still make sense without them - I made sure of that. But... isn't $3 a lot for extra chapters? Think of it as tipping me for a good job and you'd also be getting my eternal thanks. If you enjoyed it so much that the idea of missing out a few chapters haunts you, I did my job as an author and made an engaging story. What's in those extra chapters? Resolving a few issues, set up for the cybernetic revolution, a rather intense sex scene with a new partner, revelations of who's really pulling strings, and a bit of set up for book 2. Complaints that people missed out on it when it was published here won't help (sorry!). I posted this for the folks who helped me shape the book, which is you all! (Again, yay!) But... Why! Why not keep it all on RR forever? My editor likes being paid for one. For two, I'd like the ability to get broader readership. If I break even on editor costs, I'll be incredibly happy. What about book 2? Drafts for Book 2 will go up around Sept 10. My draft of Book 2 is done, and it will be handed to the editor once Book 1 is published. Feedback has been even more positive. Beta readers devoured it and wanted more. I'll add a link to Book 2 once it's up on RR. I'm more or less, using you all for Beta Readers, so you get it before it's "canon" and edited. I invite active and meaningful feedback during this process. In return, you get early access to chapters. That does mean that the book content or plot might be adjusted before it gets published as I refine it. Sex Y/N? Yes. I heard the feedback, 90% wanted it explicit. You all will get the "full" experience. Will I dump all of book 2 here? Honestly, I'm not sure yet. At a minimum, it'll be up to the 75% mark as we collect feedback, much like what I did with book 1. It really depends on how good the feedback is and how nice people are. Lots of support + meaningful feedback to make it better = higher likelihood you get all the book. Will be it up here indefinitely? No, it'll probably go up on KU at some point, but I'll make sure there's enough time for a large readership to grab it here. Then we move to book 3 which already is around 60K words already. What about other adventures in the same universe/characters? Yep. Absolutely. Nothing ready to share yet though. I plan to keep those side chapters and more slice of life stories as RR exclusive. Since I'm carving this off in book-sized segments, I'll have to figure out where those disconnected story arcs belong. I'm open to suggestions.
8 142BASE Status: Online [An Unlikely Hero's Journey]
2042-04-02 The Next Generation VRMMORPG will be released: Helheim Fallen!Sign up NOW and win the chance to be a beta-tester! Willow's life hasn't been easy. She was diagnosed as autistic at a young age and she's been on the 'enough to survive' track for all her life. The only place she feels normal is when she plays VRMMORPGs on the BASE platform with her guild and close friends.That is, until her best friend Violet gets a beta-invite for the new VRMMORPG Helheim Fallen and suddenly disappears.Now, Willow has to follow the clues Violet left behind to find her and save her. Willow has to face her biggest fears and struggles and accidentally stumbles into a dark side of the BASE platform that she never realised existed.Can she save Violet before more people go missing?
8 155Interface
Welcome to the World-City of Thousel, the sixth iteration of life on the planet. These are the recordings of the people of Thousel. Thousel is believed to be the second longest iteration of life, and the overall most prosperous compared to what we know about the past five iterations. Medicine and technology have all progressed abundantly, and the world itself has been turned into one great city, governed and managed by the Governmental-Company Alliance, or the GCA.These particular recordings concern the discovery of a peculiar machine. When two very different people find themselves bound by the fate of one mysterious bot, life in the World-City begins to change… Interface is a cyberpunk webnovel set in an ecumenopolis world where people evolved with electro-sensory abilities. These senses shape the face of modern technology and life in a world where the three largest corporations run what has effectively become the government. Each of these three companies control various aspects of life in the city, and they all constantly vie for domain and power over one another.The world stands at the precipice of biological, technological, and historical breakthrough. After decades of study into microbiology, archaeology, and geology, it has been discovered that sentient life has lived on the planet multiple times over. These past peoples are referred to as the “prior iterations of life,” and it is believed that five great civilizations were constructed before the rise of the modern world. No one can be sure for certain what caused these peoples’ extinction long ago, and the theories range from simply dying off over time to massive tectonic fractures in the face of the planet. Advanced technology, far more complicated than anything the people possess today, has been uncovered in multiple locations. This has lead scholars to speculate on exactly how long each iteration of life survived and how far they progressed as a society. None of the companies have been able to find a way to make this ancient technology work for their own profit. It is as though they are each missing the final key needed to unlock these centuries old secrets. What could this knowledge reveal about the nature of life across every iteration? What power could it give to the one who wields it?Far from the investigation into the origin of life, two kids unlock a new mystery – one that ties their fates to the discovery of an old, mysterious robot. Suddenly, eyes begin to turn towards them as life in the city of Thousel changes wherever they go…
8 107Draconic Transcendence: Cinders and Ashes
In the world of Aesir, there lies magic and beasts, gods and heroes. A world amongst many. In a particular era of prosperity, there lies the Apollyn Empire, a large Empire stretching across most of the western continent, and the most powerful nation in the world. It is during an age where Humanity turns away from the Gods, turning from Faith to Science. From this viewpoint, magitech exists, miraculous inventions that make life easier than before. But the world is vast, and filled with myths. Legends point to a select few individuals, who throughout history are born from magic alone, and gifted with immense power. All are destined for tragedy, however, and to wreak chaos. With power surpassing that of the Gods and Dragons, it is they who have been behind nearly all the major calamities of the world; these are beings known as "Harbingers". In the slums of Harlup, Capital of Apollyn, a young girl is found in the ashes of a burnt building, and adopted by a homeless woman searching for something of value. Raised from the ground up, and evemtually finding her way to the Gran Sars, an organization of magicians dedicated to war magic, she will rise through the ranks with her partner, and eventually discover that she too, is destined for tragedy. Her path forced by the Gods, she must fight to save the ones she loves, and at the same time face her destiny, and surpass it. Because if she does not, the world will burn, and all she knows and loves will crumble to cinders and ashes.
8 166Out of Place
TRIGGER WARNING: SUICIDE, SELF HARM, AND VIOLENCEHave you ever been out of place?Well, what happens when you spend your whole life trying to get back in place, only to realize that you don't even know where your place is anymore? Do you find a new place? Or continue searching for your original place forever?And what happens if you have no place at all? What then?Contains DimentioXMr.LSome characters and ideas belong to @LuigiDaisy2 and @SilverStarWarrior
8 205I'm in Lesbians with You (momoJiro)
Jiro is a raging homo, everyone knows and are all accepting of her. She always knew she had some sort of feeling for her black haired friend, but she realizes just how bad it is when her crush cuts contact over a stupid boy. ••••••Momo is a lesbian, nobody knows and she plans to keep it that way. When she realizes herself falling for her purple haired friend she scrambles to distract herself. Her real feelings come rushing out when she finds her best friend hurt and finds out why.
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