Tag: collective thinking

Chapter

A Flight to Catch

by Tower Curator — “She woke up?” Dyna said, slumping in the seat in front of Beatrice’s control panel. “Ruby’s okay?” That gave her some hope for Id. “I intercepted a call from Ruby’s phone to the Carroll Institute. Would you like to speak with her?” Dyna’s eyes flicked up to the clock displayed on the screen above Beatrice’s waveform. After Dyna had spent the last hour trying and failing to make an exit from Beatrice’s core straight to Puerto Rico, Beatrice had worked her magic and chartered a…
1. Collective Thinking
  
  402.5 K Words • Completed
3.0 K Jun 5, '25 0

Mature M
Chapter

Arrival

by Tower Curator — Flying was a nerve-wracking experience now more than ever. It wasn’t that Dyna was nervous on a flight. She had been on a number of them in the past, including the one she had taken to get to Tartarus in the first place, all without incident. It wasn’t an incident that she was worried about anyway. Beatrice had chartered this flight just a few hours ago, working her technological magic to smooth the bureaucracy of a sudden flight to the fifty-first state. In the time between receiving its destination…
1. Collective Thinking
  
  402.5 K Words • Completed
2.8 K Jun 5, '25 0

Mature M
Chapter

Monologue Room

by Tower Curator — Avoiding the gondola, Dyna stuck to the road. It was… eerie. The entire trip had progressed in silence. Beatrice highlighted which turns to take but had stopped talking, wanting to allow Dyna full concentration. She wished she had Walter’s car here. Beatrice could have handled the road while Dyna kept her eyes to her mirror and watch. The most eerie aspect of this trip was the utter lack of opposition. She had been driving for a little over one half hour. According to Beatrice, she was coming up on…
1. Collective Thinking
  
  402.5 K Words • Completed
3.2 K Jun 5, '25 0

Mature M
Chapter

Escape

by Tower Curator — “Activate the Continuity Engine.” As soon as the words left Alpha’s mouth, Dyna gripped her watch and turned the bezel. “—name is Marybeth King,” Alpha said. Dyna tuned her out, closing her eyes as she tried to focus. Alpha did not have a Continuity Engine. How could she? It was at Tartarus. Even if her tulpa had been inspecting the device for reverse-engineering purposes, it had only been a few hours. She might have been trying to build one. There was no way she had managed. It was…
1. Collective Thinking
  
  402.5 K Words • Completed
2.9 K Jun 5, '25 0

Mature M
Chapter

Composition 4

by Tower Curator — Dyna slammed the door shut to the control room, not sure if she should spin the wheel to lock it or not. If Specimen Seven followed her through the halls, it might delay it. If it went straight for the vents, it might delay her. Casting a quick glance upward, she quickly found a grate dangling from a single screw in the cylindrical ventilation shaft that ran overhead. The other screws looked like they had been ripped right out of their sockets. Leaving the door partially locked, Dyna hurried further…
1. Collective Thinking
  
  402.5 K Words • Completed
2.9 K Jun 5, '25 0

Mature M
Chapter

Continuity Collapse

by Tower Curator — Knowing there was something lurking in the darkness made the tight corridors of the Psychic Detector’s underground all the more claustrophobic. Her bullets hadn’t done anything to it. Or anything obvious, anyway. That only served to make her more tense. If it did pop out of the ventilation and attack, Dyna’s only defense was to reset time and hope that changing her actions changed its actions enough that it didn’t rip her apart. This place was designed to manufacture tulpa. She couldn’t…
1. Collective Thinking
  
  402.5 K Words • Completed
2.9 K Jun 5, '25 0

Mature M
Chapter

Debriefing

by Tower Curator — With the emergency situation dying down, or at least not escalating any further, Dyna found herself able to sit still and relax for the first time in what felt like days, even though it had only been a few hours. The alleged safe house was little more than an abandoned arcade building. Dyna wasn’t sure how safe the blue and yellow checkered building actually was, but wood covered all the windows and a storage garage around the back hid the station wagon from any passing eyes. With Emerald casually…
1. Collective Thinking
  
  402.5 K Words • Completed
2.8 K Jun 5, '25 0

Mature M
Chapter

Makeshift Protection

by Tower Curator — “I can’t believe this.” “I can’t believe we’re here,” Dyna said, peering out the small window in the door. “What if somebody comes?” “Then we tie them up and gag them. More importantly… Why?” “You’ve been complaining the entire time. It’s not that bad.” Ruby stood over a counter, carefully applying a solution of likely caustic chemicals to a flat sheet of aluminum foil. It was thick and sticky. More of a gel than a runny liquid. Ruby had an overlarge mask on and…
1. Collective Thinking
  
  402.5 K Words • Completed
3.2 K Jun 5, '25 0

Mature M
Chapter

The Other Side

by Tower Curator — Ruby’s neck itched. Her legs itched. Her body felt wrong, which wasn’t something she had ever felt before. She had often heard of people feeling uncomfortable in their own skin. She had honestly thought that was just a phrase people used. A long-winded way of saying they were uncomfortable. And maybe that was true. But at the moment, Ruby didn’t feel like her skin fit properly. It was too tight for her bones. Or maybe too loose. It wasn’t easy to tell. It was a recent development. Ruby…
1. Collective Thinking
  
  402.5 K Words • Completed
2.7 K Jun 5, '25 0

Mature M
Chapter

Chaos

by Tower Curator — Dyna’s gun barked three times as she fired down one of the long aisles of the department store. She didn’t stand still after firing, immediately ducking down and moving, keeping a close eye on her mirror to know if she should dive for cover or swap directions. Someone returned fire in her direction. The mirror didn’t change, so they didn’t have eyes on her, but she heard a nearby display case shatter and the bright muzzle flashes momentarily flashed the store with white-orange light. Distant…
1. Collective Thinking
  
  402.5 K Words • Completed
2.9 K Jun 5, '25 0

Mature M
Previous 1 … 11 12 13 Next