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    90 Results in the "Burned Cover" category


    • Chapter

      01 – A Dazed Awakening

      01 – A Dazed Awakening Cover
      by Tower Curator Erika rolled over and puked straight onto the floor for her first conscious action. The motion of rolling made her head swim and warble, intensifying the welling nausea in her stomach. She vomited again. The second time seemed to help a little, as if her nausea splattered over the old-fashioned tiles on the floor just as much as everything else in her stomach did. Slowly, Erika sat upright, trying to keep from jostling her poor, sick mind. That proved to be a mistake. Spikes of pain coursed…
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      02 – Preferential Treatment

      02 – Preferential Treatment Cover
      by Tower Curator Erika winced and grimaced every time she heard the bone saw whir. Holding a meeting over an operating table was… an experience to be sure, one that Erika didn’t feel like she ever needed. Leah had wanted her to be a doctor once upon a time, and Erika actually considered it before getting her GED, but watching The Doctor hack into Anna killed any lingering interest in the idea. It took effort to hold back her nausea. Erika forced her focus on The Director. “I trust I have you to thank for…
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      31 – i – The Daughter

      31 – i – The Daughter Cover
      by Tower Curator Delilah staggered through the door to her apartment quarters, following after her mother. The air around them was a noxious cloud that smelled of acrid incense with a metallic aftertaste, clinging to them like a sticky, slimy film. Her shoes left burgundy stains with every step, and she couldn’t bring herself to care. “I’m taking a shower,” Delilah said. “We’re not supposed to use hot water after ten.” Delilah trudged past her mother, grinding the heels of her shoes into the frayed…
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      30 – A Surprise Visit from an Unwelcome Guest

      30 – A Surprise Visit from an Unwelcome Guest Cover
      by Tower Curator Erika checked her watch, mentally counting how long each second took to pass. Normally, time moved at a fairly regular pace of one second per second, but her watch accelerated after she broke things. Starting four hours behind real time, she had until the watch caught up to the current hour before the ripples of her power would propagate, thus becoming detectable to The Mummy. The tests with the cubes had gone on for an hour, breaking all five of the cubes during that time. She had also performed a few…
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      29 – Curse Breaking and Ghost Busting

      29 – Curse Breaking and Ghost Busting Cover
      by Tower Curator “How, exactly, do you break curses?” Erika’s eyes lingered on the scenery flying past Rick’s van as she considered her response. In truth, she did not know how she broke anything. The exploit was there, a flaw in reality that she—and she alone—could perceive. Physical things were the easiest and most obvious things she could break; Erika had stumbled across her ability to break things like security, both digital and otherwise, as well as break the more metaphysical connections between…
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      28 – Neutrality is a Difficult Path to Walk

      28 – Neutrality is a Difficult Path to Walk Cover
      by Tower Curator “Hey, Danny, think fast.” With a light, underhand toss, the small metal cube sailed from Erika’s gloved hand through the air, right to a startled Daniel, who, as reflexes dictated, scrambled to catch the flying object. His hands clasped around it, leaving him sighing in relief. For one brief moment, he started to inspect it, only to pause and look up with a frown on his face. He rubbed at one ear while looking around, turning to Rick, then to Anna. “Can you—” he started, speaking louder…
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      09 – Plan to Succeed or Plan to Fail

      09 – Plan to Succeed or Plan to Fail Cover
      by Tower Curator Finding a hotel in Chicago, even on short notice, wasn’t much of a trial. A few hundred hotels, motels, hostels, inns, and bed-and-breakfasts were scattered throughout the city. Erika had no particular preference, as long as the place was clean and discreet. The kind of place she could get into with cash and few questions asked. Cash was the important bit. Perhaps it was paranoia, but after having been in a massive archive that seemed to catalog everything, from street light patterns to the mayor’s…
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      01 – Leah Walker

      01 – Leah Walker Cover
      by Tower Curator Leah Walker moved in a daze. She couldn’t concentrate on what she was doing. Her morning shower went long, but her mind refused to work. She couldn’t think. A fuzzy static settled in between her ears and wouldn’t leave. The kids got off to school on their own. Leah didn’t make it out of the shower in any reasonable time. She stayed under the water, staring at the wall, well past when the water ran cold. A sudden shiver brought her back to reality, but only just. Enough to towel off and get…
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      26 – Prison Break

      26 – Prison Break Cover
      by Tower Curator “I doubt you got visitation approval on such short notice,” Erika said. It was a bit surreal to be seated in a restaurant in the middle of downtown Chicago, happily open on Christmas Eve, while just down the road stood a tall concrete skyscraper with narrow slits for windows—the Metropolitan Correctional Center - Chicago. She had driven past it at least a dozen times, probably more, and knew what it was, but it was still just odd to be sitting here, having a sandwich, while six hundred people were…
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      27 – A New Life on Lease

      27 – A New Life on Lease Cover
      by Tower Curator “Wait… we can’t spend the ten million? What the fuck?” Erika stared daggers at the duffel bag now sitting on the Walker rental home dining table. The whole ride back, Erika had been more excited about that than the whole deal with the devil, thinking it was their ticket to buying a real house again, not having to rob ATMs, and maybe slipping a few thousand to Rick until he could get the arcade up and making money—assuming it ever made money. “The money belongs to Harriet Lavender,” The…
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