The Office of Strategic Assets was responsible for a number of things: planetary deuterium stockpiles, mothballed military bases, and reserve nuclear weapons.

We'd all been shocked three years ago when the order came down to unseal one of the black sites…

Lenn hated the way her spasms, electrified her face in pain. “Oh my God, Liv.”

“It sounds worse than it is.” Liv said with a wan smile. Lovingly she scritched his thigh.

“I hope so.” Lenn unzipped the mouth of his backpack and fished out one of the ther…

I tapped the mute key on my terminal.

"Boris! Where's the QS-19 document safe?"

The sleepy NCO looked up from his morning tea. All our shifts had been rearranged by the crisis.

"Nineteen? Sub-basement. In the vault."

"Seriously? Okay…" I unmuted the m…

Inside the safe was a rack of thin metallic briefcases, bearing coded nameplates.

Badger, Dragon, Efreet… Raven.

I tugged on the case, but it wouldn't come free. Then I noticed the warning placard inside the door of the safe.

"NOTICE: Secure Files wi…

Together they walked into the softly lit apartment. A half of dozen candles offered warm light and Lenn could feel some heaviness lift off his shoulders. After a moment the front door closed behind them and Ruger's footsteps followed them.

“You'll have t…

“Come on, man. Just move. I'm not leaving the cat out here in the storm.” Lenn said. “There's no food, it's wet, and it has nowhere else to go.”

Ruger hunched down. “I told you, I'm not letting you bring your damned cat inside.”

Lenn didn't move any clo…

We weren't ready for the aliens, but should have been.

They first got our attention with a series of six X-ray bursts out beyond the orbit of Neptune, one for each of their massive ships. Each was so bright, it took hours to tell that this wasn't a comet…

Beckton felt Newkirk slip a handful of bullets for the Springfield into his pocket.

"Were you expecting this, Beckton? They have two heavy hitters."

"We knew they had an interest in you, but we didn't think they'd move like this."

"I can't take them. I…

Story is marked as mature

There is no Christmas morning planned this year.

We might not even see a Halloween.

The doom-predictions' date will soon be here,

And our defenseless bones will be picked clean.

.

We can see the waters rising, see the waves;.

They claw and grope and maul …

The hallway wasn't long enough to break into a full run and Lenn barely registered the pictures of strangers that lined both walls as he went by. Guided by the only light coming out of one of the three doorways at the end of the hall, he felt like the cap…

Beckton smoked a cigarette himself while Newkirk scribbled down a long note for his factory chief.

"It is a shame. I was almost finished with this. We put Fireball in a Bofors cannon - quite a lot better than Firebolts coming out of a Browning machine g…

"Where are the time travelers?"

Excuse me?

"Where are they? Shouldn't they be crawling all over us?"

Oh, you're worried about the Temporal Fermi Paradox?

"Like, 'where are the aliens' but for time travelers? Yeah."

The same things apply, but it's wor…

“My names Lennart Larsson. I'm looking for the occupant of 163 C.”

“Goddamnit, Lenny.” A disgusted voice said.

Lenn's gut twisted. The voice belonged to Liv's brother, Ruger. What was he doing here? He didn't even live in Japan. Still, he rallied gamely…

Lurking in the corner of Michelle's basement, the partygoers gathered in groups all around me. My eyes followed him as he mingled.

"I love that dress!" he said to Sara.

"Hey, the pass you made was awesome, bro!" he called to the quarterback.

He chugge…

An explosion echoed outside. The pair, seasoned veterans both, were in motion without a word. Beckton drew his pistol and ducked behind a workbench. Newkirk joined him a moment later, handing him a Springfield rifle which he took gladly. Both men watched …

The ceiling lights cast yellow pools of light, but did little to keep the space from feeling gloomy and deserted. Huge constructions of steel stood here and there in the vast hangar, silent and dark at this time of night.

The stillness was interrupted by…

Threading through the streets, past storefronts that still had power, Lenn kept one hand on his wallet and used the other to hold his poncho's hood closed. The rain had been hammering the city for five unrelenting days and it wasn't scheduled to let up fo…

Three-hundred twenty-three mind-numbing steps later, he had crossed the second street, and followed the labyrinthine path through the body of Liv's apartment complex. There must have been stoppages here because the water flowed slower and he didn't have t…

"Sensei," I knelt and bowed low, forehead touching the mat before the master. I sat up and he regarded my face and my demeanor.

"What troubles you, child?"

"I keep trying and failing to execute my new move."

"What makes it new?"

"I've been adding an e…

Lenn struggled against currents of howling wind and driving rain so strong they felt like the spirits of speeding buses. Keeping the cat protected was almost too much for him. He tucked the arm cradling the cat further back like an American football playe…

“Goddamned cat, you're like a living jump scare.” Lenn muttered.

The cat meowed plaintively, tail up in the air. Matted fur clung flatly to its body outlining a starved frame.

“Yeah, I don't like this weather much either.”

Cautiously, the cat padded fo…

He thumbed the keys upward so that they sprouted beyond his knuckles like metal spikes. Should he retread his steps back into the driving rain and try a different cross street or move through the alley that might house something in it? Straining his sense…

There was no way Lenn could bring himself to stuff the cat into his backpack. Not only would it be uncomfortable, he didn't think it would be safe either. Unzipping his windbreaker, he docked the cat into the the crook of his arm. Then he slowly rezipped …

Liz' thoughts were interrupted by a flash of fire and a dragon's roar.

Across the small park, a winged beast, its crimson scales glittering in the midmorning sunlight, loomed over a trio of fantastical figures standing knee-deep in the sea of swirling gr…