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Violet Odyssey: Chapter 8

  2018 Rain sputtered against the huge curved window overlooking the launch tower. Mother Nature couldn’t have chosen a worse time to be a total bitch, swatting the NASA grounds in rippling waves. Overhead, the inverted Brass City opened wide, swallowing the sky from one end of the compass to another. It was an incredibly strange Odyssey Year. Astronomers, mathematicians, soothsayers, and every kid with a hobby camera were going bonkers over the unusual presentation of the Violet Incursion. In fact, it was being called the Umber Incursion this year, owing to its tilt toward swirling clouds of ochre-yellow and earthy brown. Adding to the somber mood was the fact that the City was presenting itself upside down. The tops of its towering spires of brass and steel stabbed down toward the surface of the Earth instead of stretching toward the heavens. While this wasn’t the first time in Odyssey record that this sort of thing had happened, it was the first in over a century and a ...
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Violet Odyssey- Chapter 7

 “I want every researcher and technician from ACH out of bed and in this lab—now.” Doctor Lindström’s voice thundered over the cacophony of overlapping arguments. As Head of Communications, she was the de facto administrator over all research departments. It was a pretty elegant solution to a big problem, really. Every field of study thought it was more relevant and authoritative than the rest, so how did you decide who was in charge? Who mediated disputes? A born manager with diplomacy in their DNA. Someone from Communications. It was a shame Naomi Lindström was such a grating person. She marched over to my desk, her steely curtain of smooth gray hair barely moving beneath a sea of product designed to maintain her untouchable appearance. “Ryan, I want three different criteria applied to your findings immediately. Relationships with Linguistics, Cryptography, and Rocketry.” She paused to shoot a wide-eyed glare at an assistant who was jabbing a clipboard at her insistently. “In fac...
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Violet Odyssey: Chapter 6

  I trudged out into the noisy lab, already missing the stuffy quiet of the conference room. The lights shut off behind me, the door sliding closed and cutting off my retreat. My eyes went straight to the windows. A breath of relief filled my lungs at the sight of the sky, dyed deep Tyrian and dark verdigris. I let the breath out slowly, completely floored by how the sky of an Odyssey Night could shift from nearly black purple and deep blue into brighter greens and reds, like rainforest canopy and cardinal robes stirred together in the clouds. Astounding , I mouthed silently. The bang of a steel canister snapped me out of my daydream, if you could call it that this late at night. A box full of tragically mismatched supplies was shoved across a steel table at me. Evelyn’s scowling face glowered at me from the other side. “Since no one else knows how to deal with you, I’ve been volunteered to get you up to speed,” she sneered, the word volunteered dripping with resentment. “...
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Violet Odyssey: Chapter 5

  The air inside the dusty portable was, if possible, hotter than the scorched sand outside. I grimaced as I peeled my sweat-soaked back from the sticky plastic chair and stole a glance outside. The trio of executives in their crisp polos were still talking with my acoustics professor beneath the shade of a tan canopy strung from the side of the temporary office. I couldn't make sense of their conversation over the squeaking of the dangerously off-balance ceiling fan threatening to tear itself from the shoddy ceiling with every revolution, but I silently thanked God for its blessed reprieve from the New Mexico heat. I sat back and let out a long sigh. I thumbed through the trial application in my lap for the hundredth time, pausing on the page headed: SCHMID SONIC ENVELOPE TRIALS An Endeavor into Spatial Isolation Through Waveforms and Phase Manipulation A final gambit by the disgraced Dr. Schmid, bankrupting himself and his foundation for one last shot at a proof of conce...
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Violet Odyssey- Chapter 4

  I felt warm sunlight on the side of my face as I lifted it from the desk, blinking and yawning loudly. I groaned and rotated my wrist. My forearm was numb and red where my head had been resting. Wiping a line of drool from the corner of my mouth, I looked stealthily around the room. "Good morning, sleepyhead." Evelyn's voice made me jump. I grimaced, peeled a damp research assignment off my elbow, and looked over my shoulder. "Nrrhhh... Is Professor Falk still out?" "Lucky for you, yeah." She smirked. "What's wrong with you? Falling asleep in waveforms again? It's a nine o'clock class. Even the party houses can slug through that." Her usual frown settled back onto her face as a strand of ash-blonde hair slipped across one eye. Evelyn Strauss was uncommonly pretty for a graduate student in Stellar Orbit Numerology. Most women who looked like her had already escaped academia with two- or four-year degrees in law, com...
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Violet Odyssey - Chapter 3

  The rest of the ride was eerily quiet. For my part, I couldn't put any useful thought into words. Colonel Killough had retreated to his enviable stoicism, wearing a glower that would've made Plato nervous. The Staff Sergeant and Crew Cut had disappeared behind their professional masks again. I pressed my cheek against the cool window glass and let my mind wander out of the jeep and into the sky, following ribbons of teal aurora over not-quite-solid stone battlements and into clandestine towers of gleaming brass. I imagined what it would be like to sit on the edge of those hard-light walls and watch the sunrise race toward me, or see the moon skim over the Sierra Nevadas. Normally, thoughts like that would've lulled me to sleep. Not tonight. Not after the bone-chilling revelation Chuckles—the comedian Colonel—had just dropped in my lap. Two weeks after graduating high school, I'd watched the Aeris kick the laws of matter and energy squarely in the teeth befo...
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