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Grayson closed the door to the barn and looked over the fields towards the west, as the sun was setting. The horizon was an unbroken line and he followed it with his still youngish eyes. Nothing moved out there, not right now. People had been coming all through the day, as he was working the fields and animals, riding, walking, or driving wagons. Farmers, of course. Nothing else to do out here, in what used to be Dakota Territory. He refused to call it by the name his neighbors were using. "Come with, Grayson" they had said as they rode by. First he had yelled and screamed. Then he had shook his head and looked at them as if they were crazy. Then, finally, he had just ignored them, attending to his work.

He walked into the main house, from which the smell of his wife's cooking came. They had not been blessed with any children, so she and the food were all that welcomed him as he stepped into the kitchen. She looked at him with her green eyes, of late saddened, as his were enraged and slowly turning bitter. He sat down and she put food on his plate. They ate in silence.

"The Joneses came by while you were down by the creek." she said after a while. "Wanted to hear if we were coming."

"What did you tell them?" Grayson asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Just no." she said simply and continued her meal. Grayson grunted and downed the rest of the meal. He watched her clear the table, and as she started the dishes, he got the Good Book out and tried to find something fitting. To himself, although he said nothing to his wife, he thought that nothing the Good Lord had written could have foreseen the predicament they were in. Blasphemy, of course. He knew it. Still...

Felt creepier than this.

"I saw him," said the adolescent boy, fear in his eyes. "The dragon thing came for him. He pushed me aside and told me to run. The thing wanted a sacrifice, it said. He volunteered. He just walked right towards it."

"Wh.." Cheryn couldn't even get the words out.

"He wanted to go." The boy turned his head directly to look at her. "He said he had nothing left here to live for."

Cheryn gasped with pain and confusion. "But...but, me. I'm his wife. I love..." her voice trailed off and she fell to her knees in defeat.

And the boy started laughing; at first a small, raspy chuckle that sounded like a cough then developed into a raging cackle, impossibly loud and reverberating about the walls of the school entrance (what's the word?). When Cheryn looked back at him he was no longer a boy, but a creature of evil. A demon, and his skeletal frame shook with the cruel, supernatural laughter, launching him up into the air, but the reverend mother grasped at him, holding him down. The laughter continued, though, and when Cheryn thought her head would explode, he burst into flame and instantly turned into a charred shell.

The three of them jumped and looked down at the blackened body, "He wanted to go..." the thing whispered as the last air disappeared from its lungs.

"No! Do not listen," the reverend mother instructed Cheryn. "You cannot listen to this creature in his living form, for he will never tell the truth then."

Cheryn was feeling lost. This woman before her had been her own teacher nearly nearly 20 years ago. And she did not seem surprised by this at all. She could only stare up at the reverend mother.

"Fetch me my (voice device)," said the reverend mother to the young nun standing nearby. She ran off and came back moments later with something Cheryn thought looked like a hosepipe from a vacuum cleaner.

The reverend mother placed this over the burnt creature's mouth and flipped a switch that pumped air into him again until it looked ready to burst.

"Now," she said to it, simultaneously weaving her fingers in a strange movement above the end of the pipe, "What are you?"

For a second, nothing, and Cheryn could only gaze on in confusion and disbelief, and then,

"LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! LIAR!" The screaming started and went on, and it wasn't just sound emanating from the end of the pipe, but colored dust and ash, swirling out from the center.

"It is a lying demon," declared the reverend mother, "as I suspected. But lies are sometimes no less dangerous than actions. Beware even now of what this thing says."

But Cheryn wasn't listening to her anymore. There was something about the colored dust. It began swirling in towards the pipe again, and it seemed to draw her with it. She approached, and the screams of LIAR! were still there, but she couldn't hear that as clearly now. Her gaze fixed on the swirling dust, she heard other words. She heard James's voice. Bits and pieces of it. She put her ear close to listen.

"Cheryn disappears every 15 seconds..." James was saying from the end of the pipe. "I can't keep track of her. We have no life anymore."

Cheryn felt a stab at this, but couldn't bring herself to stop listening.

"(I can't remember what else he said.)"

The pipe was yanked out of her hands and Cheryn jerked back to find the foyer full of teachers, all looking extremely distressed and wary.

"What did you hear?" demanded the reverend mother.

"I heard James."

The reverend mother looked uneasy.

"You still cannot believe the words, dear, no matter what was spoken. But all is not lost. James may still be alive."

April 1st.

At least the rain had stopped as the couple followed the guide through the night-black jungle. He was half a head shorter than either of them and had a weak flashlight that he waved back and forth, sometimes shining on their feet to see the not-quite path beneath them, sometimes shining forward to see what was ahead. What was ahead seemed to be a neverending slog through damp jungle; broad, flat leaves slapping them wetly in the face as they passed.

"Here! Here!" The guide excitedly waggled his hand to indicate something. (His name) and (her name) crept forward hoping against hope, but were confused and disappointed.

In the small clearing before them was a deep pit which had previously been covered by thin tree branches, but these were nearly all gone or broken; no one had used this place for some time.

Third random story in progress...

She never would have thought they'd come so far inland, to such a small place as Elba. She knew the bots sometimes used infrared to find the humans. She had no protection; nowhere to run. The water level in the irrigation ditch was low. The water was run-off from the snow farther up the mountain, and it would have been cold enough to disguise her from the heat-seekers, but there hadn't been enough snow in years; it wouldn't cover her. She couldn't breathe underwater anyway...it would have been a foolish plan.

Then Jessie remembered the old potato cellar at the abandoned house across the street. With vaulted brick ceiling, covered in earth, it may be enough to hide the warmth of a human body. At least buy her some time. If she could get through this particular raid, the bots would leave again, not patrolling this area again for several hours. Staying low to the ground, she ran across the dirt road, climbed through the ancient, rusty barbed wire, avoiding getting caught on the sharp barbs. There weren't any trees just on the other side, but the grass was long and yellow; she could crawl through it to the potato cellar and hopefully not be spotted.

She crept forward to the old hand pump in the yard, all the while staying very low in the long June grass just on the verge of turning red despite the fact that July was nearly over. It had been a cold spring, too cold, and all the plants were behind their usual schedule. Fortunately, there had been a great deal of snow falling further up the mountains and the spring run-off from Mount Harrison had been cool and plentiful. Jessie pumped the handle vigorously a few times and water began to splutter out, spitting and gushing a rust-colored liquid first, and then gradually evening out to a crystal clear, steady flow. Thrusting her face directly into the water, she took a huge gulp, coughed a bit, surprised at the coldness, and drank deeply again.

A soft moaning sound behind her made her stiffen in fear...

-----Much later with something needed in the middle-----

Jessie came through the door and in the dim light, she saw a familiar face; handsome, blonde and tall, but she could not quite place him. Then the others closed in behind her, grasping and dragging her down so her back was on the floor. The handsome man appeared above her and knelt down.

"Who are you? Why are you here?"

"I-I...My name is..." She couldn't quite get her words out. Thoughts were coming too fast. Why did this man look so familiar? Who were all these people? How could all this underground space be here for so long with no one knowing about it?

One of the others held Jessie's head and pried her left eye open, squirting in a few drops of some stinging liquid. Jessie struggled but could not move her head from the clamp-like hands. After a moment she felt calmer and decided the liquid must have been some kind of truth-relaxant. The man questioned her again, more gently this time.

"Who are you?"

"Jessica McFarlane. I used to live across the street. You're all here under my potato cellar." The drug was beginning to make her babble.

"Why are you here?"

"I was trying to stay away from the bots. I thought the potato cellar would hide me from their heat-seekers. Then I found the portal down here in the corner. How is this even possible?" Jessie began to cry, and felt stupid. The drug, the stress, the unlikelihood of it all had been weighing her down, and now she just couldn't stop herself.

The handsome man nodded curtly to the others and they let her go. He helped her sit up and whispered, "I'm sorry, Jessie. I had to be sure it was really you. Please forgive me." And then leaning in closer, he kissed the corner of her mouth.

'Nother random story in progress...

Constance stepped out of the temp-controlled air of the burping, steaming hypertrain onto the platform and the baking air wrapped itself around her head like cotton wool. She gasped at the sudden heat and the taste of hot dust filled her mouth and dried her lungs. Putting a hand up to shade her eyes, she peered at the world around her. The desert even looked hot. But a dry heat, which many claimed was more bearable, though Constance wasn't sure about that as she felt all her energy sapped away just standing here. The sun was low in the sky, now, however, and the temperature was gradually cooling for the evening, but the sand still sent up ripples of heat distorting the two pale moons in the sky.

She felt the first beads of sweat roll down the small of her back and fidgeted with her blouse. Sighing, she took her suitcase from the porter and proceeded through the station to the horse-drawn cabs that waited on the other side. She wasn't looking forward to this.

Just as expected, she was greeted by a short, local man in a thick, woolen sweater holding a sign with her name.

"No sweat on his brow," she thought, as she sighed again and walked up to the carriage.

"Ms. Heart?" the small man asked politely with a warm smile.

"Yes. Pleased to meet you." She smiled dutifully but wearily.

"My name is Ahmad and I'll be your escort. Let me get that for you." He gestured to her bag and Constance was too tired to argue. He opened the door for her to step in, before hefting the large suitcase onto the carriage roof.

Inside the carriage, Constance plopped down into the seat a bit less graciously than she would have liked, but smiled in relief as the cool air massaged the back of her neck and her forehead. She began to perk up again and reminded herself of the planet's greater gravity and that she needed to be more cautious. She opened her purse and retrieved her datapad. Might as well read up a bit on the way to the dig.

* * *

The city on Hurghada Prime had grown up around a large, natural oasis, nomadic tents gradually being replaced by mudbrick huts, and then two or three-storied adobe houses made from the clay found deep beneath the sand. The first builders had always been cautious to replant vegetation even as they used it, and in so doing, the oasis had actually grown.

When the United Delegation had first arrived from Earth, the small city was already well-established, though hopelessly primitive according to the new arrivals. But, they found a few reasons to stay; the curative effects of the lothan blossom, the beautiful women, and the excellent gin that could be made from the seedpods of the jinzo palm that spread its roots right out into the waters of the oasis.

After some exploration, the colonizers also found that the distant moon, Malo, was rich with a strange mineral that was malleable and easily mined, but hardened incredibly when mixed with the clay of the planet. With this discovery, skyscrapers sprang up, rails were laid for the steam trains, and channels were dug to bring the coastal waters in.

The Delegation was less concerned about preserving nature, and more adept at manipulating it. And not without a great deal of success. The meteorologists constantly monitored the atmosphere, helping the scientists to make use of every bit of information, such as finding distant clouds so they could be seeded in order to collect the rainfall for use in the city.

The extra water required huge cisterns which were placed some distance from the city, and dug deep into the clay, which both helped to keep the water cooler and kept the surface landscape from being scarred by eyesores. Once there was a group of five or more cisterns together, a new location around the perimeter of the city was chosen. It was during the excavation of a new cistern location that the ruins were discovered. And the bodies within those ruins.

* * *

Random story in progress

The sleeves of her shirt got all wet as she pushed the plastic cage with the cat down into the bathtub. The shrill cries from the animal ceased as the water drowned all sounds.

She saw the horrified look on Mitchell's face as he realized what she was doing, and he made a move to stop her but something made him decide not to. Maybe it was easier for him, not having to make the decision. Easier just to leave the hard choices to someone else.
Tears ran down her cheeks and she bit hard on her lip to keep from making any sobbing noises. They waited.

The footsteps could once again be heard, moving slowly, carefully away. Time dragged while they waited for the footsteps to completely disappear. Jenna's hands shook violently as she, inch by inch, lifted the cage out of the water, trying her hardest not to cause the water to make a sound as it drained from the cage.

Mitchell finally moved in and looked into the cage.