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Mind Your Step, Draft 1, CH 24

Tibs placed a hand on Heather’s, stopping her from drawing her sword in response to the bow Rachel aimed at them. Lian was the only one on her team who looked unsure of the situation. Darna and Korl had a hand on their sheathed sword. The barkeep held a mace. He was the only one whose name Tibs didn’t know, but suspected he was one of Darna and Lian’s numerous siblings.

“Oh,” Karliak said. “Tibs, this is one of my teams. They’re the best ones too. They haven’t lost a member in seven runs.”

“We’re doing runs,...

Going Home, Part 09, Interlude, Pekin

Eric opened his eyes, and glee looked back at him. He turned around and admired his workspace. The prickling was silent. He didn’t need it, not anymore. When he was ready for it, the diagram would just come, but for now all he wanted to do was take in the space.

His eyes fell on his tools, scattered on the floor, and he cooed.

He went to them and set them in order. How magnificent they were, still new, barely any scratched on them, waiting, demanding to be used.

He picked up the larger cross-head screwdriver and caressed ...

Harker, year 0-5 Acceptance, Snake

Snake sat in a school bus so old, he wouldn’t be surprised that it still had a combustion engine. It was one of the smaller ones the California penal system used, six seats, three to a side.

Where they were used to take children to school, two easily fit per seat. Three had been squeezed into them, back when he went, his district not being able to afford enough of them from the students crammed into the public elementary school.

Now, he was happy it was only four of them in the bus, not counting the driver and the guard, shotgu...

The Technician's Fight, Draft 1, CH55

Gralgiran looked over the people seated at the meeting table. The only one he wasn’t used to seeing there was his Heart.

“What caused the problem?” he asked the Supervisor. He had the reports, but he wanted their version first. To smell the air as they explained. See if something there would sway his evaluation of their performance.

“As the technician reported, the caused was a defective power controller that didn’t cut the power when one of the printers faulted and pulled in more power than it normally used. The relays...

Update for the week ending on 10-17-25

Chapters written

This week, I wrote 3 chapters for Mind Your Step, 4 for The Technician’s Fight, 1 for The Daughter, and 1 for Harker.

The Redux for the Technician’s Fight is now out of the ‘full rewrite’ section, but I’m not done with it. There are a few more chapters that will need significant adjusting to account for the changed chapters and more that will need minor adjustments.

Chapters edited

Only 2 chapters edited this week, and added to the posting schedule, since th...

Mind Your Step, Draft 1, CH 23

Tibs sat by the room’s entrance and now had a sense of how Jackal felt each time they’d encountered a new puzzle he had to work out, and there was nothing for anyone else to do, or at least the fighter. He’d often had Carina or Don help, and even Khumdar, with his broad knowledge of the world, had been able to assist at times. Jackal was smart, smarter than he let people know. But he had the kind of smarts that excelled in a fight or on the street, not at puzzling out how a lock needed to be manipulated to open a door, or how to know w...

The Technician's Fight, Draft 1, CH54

Jeremy brought up the circuit he’d designed and inserted it into the reactor floating over his drafting table. It was a scaled-down version of what it would be if he were to have it built, not that he knew if it would work. This was a new design, taking his last reactor and applying Kelsirian thought process to it. The theoretical results his table gave him said he’d reduced the heat output by seventeen percent simply by increasing its volume three folds.

His biggest issue was that he kept filling that extra space with more compone...

Mind Your Step, Draft 1, CH 22

Tibs headed toward the bear as soon as he was able to identify the mass of essence in the distance.

“Isn’t the dungeon in that direction?” Heather asked.

“I owe Karliak a bear.”

“You’re going to fight a bear by yourself?”

“No. Just capture it.”

She narrowed her eyes. “How do you capture a bear?”

“Essence.”

*

The bear was curled at the back of a deep hollow. Tibs held it still with Fever, then kept air from entering it. It woke, and he felt how i...

The Technician's Fight, Draft 1, CH53

Gralgiran listened to the silence.

Too many months now. Too many of them without a Spreading Branch broadcast. He was growing concerned there might be nothing left to rescue by the time he found out where they’d been taken.

He contacted his investigation beta. “Batrix, anything on Spreading Branch?”

“Nothing directly, Alpha. People are talking about the silence. Few believe they’re just relocating anymore. The number of them worried who aren’t Earther is surprising. At least half those involved are from Federati...

Mind Your Step, Draft 1, CH 21

Tibs looked over the beams leaning against each other, while Ruppert moved among the top. He murmured comments to himself, that Tibs heard in his mind, and which Karliak also heard, since they complained about the noise.

“And?” Tibs asked.

“It’s like I thought,” the squirrel replied. “They’re leaning against each other exactly the same way as yesterday.”

“We didn’t move them,” Heather said. “That makes sense.”

“I’d change them,” Ruppert replied.

“You try anything,” Karliak sai...

Going Home, Part 08, Interlude, Pekin

The reception counter was unoccupied when Eric entered the motel. He looked around for a moment, wondering where they were. He couldn’t remember any time in the two weeks he’d been staying here when the desk wasn’t manned. Samantha was usually there, if not her, it would be Robert, or their father, Marc. He decided they’d probably gone to the bathroom and left it at that.

He had more pressing matters to deal with. Milton had paid him for another week’s work, and he wanted to stash this money inside the air conditioning unit w...

Harker, year 0-5-1 Acceptance, Sanders

Information appeared on his visor as Patrick looked at the building on the other side of the street. Its height; thirty-six feet. Its width; five hundred and eighteen feet. Its depth; a hundred and twenty-seven feet. The composition of the facade; brick. The windows; boarded up with cheap plywood. The font was green and looked as if he was reading an ancient monochrome screen. All dots instead of sharp-edged letters.

He’d never gotten Richard to explain his affectation for the old font, which was odd, considering how up to date he wa...

The Technician's Fight, Draft 1, CH52

“How are you feeling?” Leiha asked, calmly watching Jeremy from the other side of her desk.

The laugh that escaped him was strangled by the almost sob at the utter ridicule of the question. How was he feeling? After what they’d done to him? Jeremy would never have imagined that a species so comfortable with their sexuality could be capable of engaging in versions of it that felt so utterly wrong.

The knowledge it was done, so he’d know what he might be subjected to by his captors, didn’t help. This wasn’t academic kno...

Mind Your Step, Draft 1, CH 20

As Tibs hoped, Lian sat himself next to Heather and leaned in to whisper something. That should keep her sufficiently distracted so she wouldn’t react too much to some of the lies he expected he’d have to tell.

Darna was who brought the ale. She set all the tankards down before sitting.

“So,” Rachel said, “who are you?”

There had been a shift in authority while he was away. Where Darna had been the leader of the ‘team’ before. Rachel now led them.

“I go by Tyrone now.”

“Meaning that isn’t...

The Technician's Fight, Draft 1, CH51

The projection over his desk showed an enhanced view of the Bane, recorded from a ship, by the motion.

Gralgiran had been standing when Admiral Douhane sel Synta Kreftia had appeared for the meeting she’d requested. She’d asked that he sit, as she wanted this to be informal instead of official.

“I am not here as a representative of the Leadership, Alpha,” she’d said. “But as someone who swore to keep Kelser safe, addressing an equal with that same oath.”

He had no way to know how true that was, but their previ...

Mind Your Step, Draft 1, CH 19

Heather rolled her shoulder, looking like she couldn’t believe it worked. “Why was it painful? I’ve been healed before, and it wasn’t.”

“That was a purity cleric. I used Fever.”

She glanced at him. “Just how many elements do you have?”

“Twelve.”

She stared. “How is that possible?”

“I…don’t know. Not really. When I had my first audience, with Water, who appeared to me as a woman, I saw something within her.” He searched for the right word to describe it, then gave up and fell bac...

The Technician's Fight, Draft 1, CH50

The room Jeremy stepped into was…empty.

His orders had been to report for the next part of his interrogation training. As this was hunter related, he wore his uniform, but hadn’t expected he’d have to fight.

The empty room made him think this was no longer an impossibility.

The door closed, and he fought the urge to check if it was locked.

A hunter was to stand while waiting. So he stood.

He checked his tablet to find ten minutes had passed. He, again, fought the urge to check the door. He knew he had th...

Mind Your Step, Draft 1, CH 18

Stepping inside Karliak was no longer stepping into something obviously made. The path was grassy, the walls foliage and rocks at their base. There was something of how Firmen had made his walls mostly of trunks, but this felt more natural. Anyone walking here would question how it came to be, but wouldn’t immediately conclude a person had done it.

Heather stopped at the first room’s entrance before Tibs warned her.

It was larger than before, and the floor’s tiles were no longer uniform, looking like pavers stones instead o...

Going Home, Part 07, Greak Oaks

“How did you know there was a bomb in the bag?” Walter asked.

Eric didn’t answer, watching the lion cut a line from the bottom of his leg to where the knife had entered his leg.

“You’re a Tecker, aren’t you? That’s how you knew. You could sense it, or however it is you do it.”

He thought about lying, but what was the point? Walter had worked it out, and he was helping. He nodded.

“Why did you take the bag?” He nodded to it at the foot of the examination bed.

“I didn’t want them to get it ...

Harker, year 0.5, Acceptance, Orrs

“Thank you, Janine,” Donald said, and the mail delivery woman handed him the stack. “How’s Willie?”

“Doing good, Mister Orr. Off to summer camp so me and Gary can have some time to ourselves.”

“Careful with that. If you enjoy it too much, Willie will have a sibling.”

“We took precautions.”

“Those don’t always—”

She made scissor motions with her fingers. “Snip, snip.”

“Thank you, Janine,” Donald said, and the mail delivery woman handed him the stack. “How’s Willie?...

Update for the week ending on 10-10-25

A bit of a warning to those who join my stream, next week will be a short one. I am off for the holiday on Monday, then have my surgery on Thursday. I should be back home on Friday, but I won’t be writing.

Chapters written

This week was a regular one, so 3 chapters for Mind Your Step and 3 for The Technician’s Fight, all of them part of the Redux of Jeremy first hunt. There was also one chapter for the Daughter and Harker, as well as some stuff on the side taking place within the world of the Harker Project, ...

The Technician's Fight, Draft 1, CH49

Gralgiran returned to his apartment, puzzling over the request. That the male knew of his Heart wasn’t surprising; by now, what had happened to Jer had circulated through all the news media, not only the pirate broadcast. But that couldn’t be enough for him to want to meet his Heart.

He found him nursing a coffee at the table.

“Had a good time, I see.”

Jer snorted in his mug, but the smile said he had. “Didn’t realize how long we stated out until I returned and found out the station isn’t on the same schedule ...

Mind Your Step, Draft 1, CH 17

The rest of the trip wasn’t the chore Tibs worried it would be, having to play entertainer all the time so Ruppert could talk. After a few days of constant jabbering, the squirrel grew tired of it, and Tibs could rest while eating around the fire with the others.

The one group Ruppert never got tired of talking with was the children. As soon as he realized he could tell them anything, and they wouldn’t question it, he regaled them with stories of being a monster trapped in the squirrel. He even tried his terrifying roar on them. Mu...

The Technician's Fight, Draft 1, CH48

The door buzzed as Jeremy put his shirt on. A tap on his tablet opened it. “Come on in! I’m just about ready!”

He grabbed the new jacket and threw it on, turning to exit the bedroom, and stopped. Toom and Xen stood in the opening, looking at him.

“That’s not going to work,” Toom said, displeased. He wore pants of an almost sheer material that, when folds created shadows on it, let him see the fur it covered, as well as enough hints to the cock and balls that he’d know what his friend’s private part looked like eve...

Mind Your Step, Draft 1, CH 16

The city wall came into view further down the road, and Heather ran, Ruppert chasing her.

Tibs didn’t.

He knew Alistair wouldn’t be there. His old teacher might have spent some time searching the city for him, but he would have had to return to the guild eventually. He might even have realized Tibs had escaped if Heather had worked it out, so there were no dangers to him going in.

But it didn’t feel that way.

As irrational as he knew it to be, he was afraid that while in there, someone he’d hurt would find him...

The Technician's Fight, Draft 1, CH47

Gralgiran stood to the side as the medics, with the assistance of the Quartermaster’s people, brought the pods to their species representatives. Each was accompanied by their own medics, as well as a security contingent. The prisoners were still within the ship, waiting for his signal. He wanted the patients taken away before bringing them out. The only ones still had to remain were the Kelsirians. The Fleet Commander had yet to arrive.

She did when most of the patients were being taken away. She seemed to be accompanied solely by s...

Mind Your Step, Draft 1, CH 15

With going through their morning routine, then packing and their leisurely walk, it was well into morning by the time the sentry noticed them and ran off to warn the bandits of their approach. Tibs had decided not to tell Heather about the sentry, since it wouldn’t change what was coming, but she’d noticed something that caused her to search the trees in that direction.

Not long after that, the bandits spread among the trees lining the trail.

“Get ready,” she whispered. “They’re on both sides, a hundred paces ahead.�...

Harker, year 0, Selection Process, Colby

The sky didn’t match Colby’s mood, and that was a shame. It was gray, while he was excited to be in the pickup with his father, arriving at the state’s auction house. It was Colby’s first time taking part, and marked his coming shift to working fully at the ranch, instead of splitting his time between that and school.

He didn’t mind school. He understood it was important for him to learn the basics of the world, although why what happened hundreds of years ago mattered always escaped him.

But he was a rancher. Like his ...

Going Home, Part 06, Greak Oaks

Over the next hour of his walk, the neighborhoods became more affluent, not so much that he worried he’d be chased away, but the people, an even mix of human and Furries, as far as he could tell, had more money than anyone where he was staying.

Even the stores looked wealthier, with large parking lots in front of them instead of lining the street. People were enjoying shopping today.

It was in a quieter plaza that the prickling surged without warning. Diagrams appeared all around him, street lights, cars, phones, stop lights. A...

Update for the week ending on 10-03-25

Chapters written

This week was ordinary. So three chapters for Mind Your Step, three for The Technician’s Fight, one for The Daughter, and one for Harker.

The initial chapters, the one for last weeks, didn’t have as many changes as I expected. Altering the setup to how Jeremy’s first mission happened, and the ‘making time pass’ chapter didn’t require as much as I expected. Especially the waiting chapter. I fully expected that one to be completely altered, but most of what happened to Jeremy still fit....