《Ancient Bones: The Changed Ones book 1 (Post-Post Apocalypse LitRPG)》Book 2 Prologue - At the End of the World 2
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Colonel Wesley Denvers was a generally composed man. He never overstressed nor obsessed. That helped in his line of work, and more specifically, the monitoring of the Pentagon’s main Situation Room.
In peacetime, The Room was lightly staffed. A handful of duty officers sat at triple-screen posts, which displayed the results of multiple intelligence feeds, both real-time and filtered by layers of analysts. And Col. Denvers got the main summary displayed on his own post, with red flags to direct his attention to any specific event that those duty officers found important enough. He could then bring up the summary, or usually, go and chat with the appropriate duty person.
Like right now. Without a world war underway, “attacks” targeted infrastructure through the Internet, not air bases and missile silos via ballistic attacks.
“Got that on cyber-threat board about 10 minutes ago. The cyber defense command says we have a large-scale outage of the Internet in western Washington State. Looks like a number of data centers and tier-one links went down.”
“Yummy,” his non-regulation comment almost made the officer smile.
“Anything else?” Denvers added.
“No,” she replied, before the duty officer on the next post interrupted.
“Got a notice of part of the electricity grid down. Around Seattle.”
“Could it be the cause?” Denvers asked, turning back to the first duty officer.
“Unlikely,” the cyber officer replied. “All those high-tier facilities have batteries and generators. In a few hours, maybe. Not after…”
The monitoring officer checked again and specified.
“… 12 minutes. Or about so.”
“So? What threat model?” the colonel asked.
“Looks like the gaming mecca of the world is in trouble. The West Coast will probably have lots of frustrated gamers tonight. And… yes, that e-commerce-slash-infrastructure provider has some outages too. Its northwestern and main data center is among those down. Okay, this is a major world-ending crisis.”
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Denvers allowed himself a chuckle. That lasted until a third voice from one row behind him added a new element.
“Space command status board just notified of a GPS satellite down. They lost comms and the signal is… ah, no. It’s back.”
“Back?”
“Spaceforce command channel indicates the satellite is restarting. Looks like it went on safe mode due to… power bus shutdown?”
“Does that happen often?”
“I don’t think so. I don’t think anyone mentioned that type of problem during my training, let alone a procedure to even do a restart from scratch… ah, looks like it’s going to take several hours just to recalibrate the ephemeris. Consider it offline until then.”
The first duty officer said, “You know the adage. Once is happenstance, twice coincidence, thrice enemy action.”
Denvers shook his head.
“Well, that’s only two out of three. The last is in space, not in Seattle…”
The fast-clicking of keys was his answer. Denvers looked at the space monitoring officer, seeing his face scrunch. The duty officer waved to him and the colonel moved to see what it was about.
“It was… crossing just over the Seattle area when it went down.”
Denvers swore internally. The joke suddenly wasn’t funny anymore.
He raised his voice.
“Listen everyone? Anyone got anomalies in Washington State?”
The rest of the duty officers made negative signs, save for one.
“PacWest says they got an interruption of service in the northwest. They don’t have status updates on a number of cell towers and are trying to get… new status updates. They just lost links to another set of cell towers.”
“Link types?” he asked.
“That’s the direct line-of-sight antenna relays,” the telco monitoring desk replied.
“Don’t they have fiber links as backup?” Denvers asked.
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“The line-of-sight are backups. The fiber went down earlier… the main nodes are all at the edge of Seattle.”
“Okay, everyone, looks like we have all sorts of cascade failures in the Seattle area. Start doing active checks on whatever you can get.”
He debated with himself mentally. Most of the upper echelon was probably gone home, or maybe on the road for those working late. The situation didn’t make sense. Coordinated Cyber-attacks on the infrastructure could explain a lot, but not a GPS satellite falling briefly. Besides…
“Can’t raise Jitsap base,” a voice said. “I’m already trying satellite coms, but nobody’s answering.”
“Get me any local base. Or facility.”
He almost ran back to his desk. General Markus would be annoyed, but he would be the one to decide to call in the Joint Chiefs, not him. Once military bases went offline, it was a serious attack on the USA.
“What do you mean, is there any disturbance?”
The duty sergeant at the supply depot found the person on the phone odd. But it was a secure line, and the call came straight from the Pentagon.
“What do you mean, all military installations west of here are down? Okay, I’ll have a look. Switch to Satcom.”
Duty Sergeant Milton picked up the bulkier military satellite phone, waited a few seconds until it rang, and confirmed that the Pentagon Situation Room officer was back on the line before he headed out.
“Okay. I don’t hear any bombing or someth… WHAT THE FUCK!”
He almost dropped the phone, as he looked up in the late afternoon sky.
“What’s happening,” the tinny voice of the distant duty officer came.
Sergeant Milton didn’t answer immediately. He was looking at an utterly baffling sight.
There were lines in the sky. Blue on blue, like neon inked on the sky. Drawing some kind of mesh. There were a few wispy clouds, but despite some being between him and the lines… the lines still showed somehow. He looked at the edges of the mesh, trying to gauge how far away the thing was and noticed the lines were slowly advancing.
As he watched, two lines joined up, making another distorted hexagon. Something, like colorless light, was falling down from the netting. Then a new line started from the angle, moving in another direction. Almost straight toward Tiger Mountain.
“Sergeant? Sergeant???” the distant voice came.
Milton didn’t even bother replying. He fished out his non-regulation cross necklace and kissed it. That terrifying view was all that he needed to know the End of Days was coming. Then he sprinted toward the parking lot, sat phone dropped and forgotten. He was going to get his wife and two kids, and bug out, army duty be damned.
We… we should get east. The wife’s cousin, Josh Valetta, got a pair of cabins out of the way, at his diner off the 90 near Montana.
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Chasing Experience
Alex Hunter lived a life of missed opportunities, fear of what may be giving way to what might have been. Just when he thought he was getting a second chance, it turned out he was one of a small fraction of humanity immune to the complex gene therapy that was providing his peers with eternal youth. At 82 he's informed that he has weeks to live in a rapidly failing body, while those around him turn towards an eternity amidst the stars. Alex chooses to cut what life he has left short. He wakes to find a strange dragon offering him a second chance in truth - a new body of his own design, and fantastic new abilities, all for helping out a few gods in need. Alex finds himself on a planet populated by the incredible, where even children have the strength kill him. Still bound to complete the tasks sent directly to his mind, Alex struggles to wring what he can from his second life, all the while trying to stay alive and Chasing Experience.
8 149Legacy Unbroken
For six generations, his family has held the title of Hero of Farathun. Now, his father lies dead, dishonored, stripped of his title. He is only a boy, untested, unnamed, unready to take up his father's sword. But that doesn't matter, because he has a plan. Three simple steps. 1) Master the sword 2) Earn his name 3) Take back his father's title It doesn't matter that it's impossible. It doesn't matter what challenges he will face. His family's legacy will continue, unbroken. But when opportunity comes knocking at his door, will he be ready to seize it? When a new teacher finds him, and challenges all that he thought was true, the boy is whisked away on an adventure that will take him far beyond the bounds of his home. He'll learn, and grow, and gain strength. He will find his place in the wider world, and leave his mark in history. Or die trying.
8 101Masking Tape
“Well, I do sometimes wonder why we’re sent here, considering we never consented to be born. I’ll just go about living my life, I guess." A supposedly ordinary year in Semangat Junior College proves to be anything but normal for its students when a freshman gets attacked by a mysterious creature prowling around Bishan. That is just the beginning. Unexplainable bursts of magical energy begin mushrooming all over Singapore following the attack. An intern at Divyane is sent on a mission to investigate these strange happenings. Unfortunately for him, nobody told him that the life of an intern was not going to be easy. For one, there is an overly-enthusiastic supernatural fan who insists on following his every mission. Then there is the issue of the rogue mage who has been attacking the school's students and the unresolved disappearances around the island. Will Frankie be able to find the answers to his investigation? Most importantly, who is the rogue mage responsible for the unexplained attacks on regular students? What do they want? The first novel in the planned Rugged Backpack Series, Masking Tape combines elements of the magical girl genre with Southeast Asian mythos through an ensemble cast as they get tangled up in the affairs of a realm they never knew existed beneath their feet. New chapters every Monday and Friday!
8 54Journals of Cultivation
When I was born into this world the first book I ever read was the journal of the Demon-Mage Nichoals Freeney. For millennium, this journal has been a requirement for every apprentice mage, and most you warriors have read this book, and gained insight into the true world of Martial Cultivation and Magic. Yet, unknown to all the journal was not complete. Now, many, many millennium later I have reached the pinnacle of power. Soon, I'll be ascending to the higher-realms and feel that it is time. Time to tell the remainder of the story that has captivated an entire world for thousands of years! Hopefully, you'll gain some insight from the journal's of mine. Good luck, You'll need it.- Nicholas FreeneyA/N: Once Weekly Updates (minimum) Please Review/Comment/MSG me. As an author, feedback is crucial to my motivation since I'm doing this not just for me, but for you too.ChitP.S. I'm also working on another project, Sacrifice, which you can find here. http://royalroadl.com/fiction/3864
8 150Her Five Protectors
Athena is trying to adjust in her newfound freedom but she is forcefully ripped away from it. But sometimes everything happens for better!Cover made by @anne0tm0
8 191SUMMER CAMP || NAMJIN✔️
"I'm not gay." "Neither am I. Now let's fuck." One night at summer camp will change these two males lives forever...;Ranked #2 in #kimnamjoon Ranked #3 under #joonRanked #7 under #namjinCOVER BY @yoonienetflix
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