Rogue Fury Preview

‘Love is all that I can give to you’
‘Love is more than just a game for two’
‘Two in love can make it’
‘Take my heart and please don't break it’
‘Love was made for me and you’
‘Love was made for me and you’
‘Love was made for me and you’

A slender finger switched the studio DAC to standby as the song ended. Taking a short drag on his cigarette, the DJ toggled the old condenser mic to life.

“That was Nat King Cole with L-O-V-E, oft-requested and ever-loved. It’s ten twenty-four westgate standard this freezing sunny morning, and this is your host, Bill Ryder transmitting live in glorious AM mono to all you wonderful ladies and gentlemen out there like it’s Earth nineteen twenty-nine. Remember, there’s someone for everyone. We don’t all find them, but there’s comfort in knowing that they’re out there…somewhere.” The smoldering embers glow bright red as he drew another breath. “Up next is something for the most reliable courier harpy out here in the peaks. Fair winds and clear skies to you, Miss Goodfeather.”

Ryder started the next track and stretched his lanky frame. He checked the length, 4:45, plenty of time to grab a cup of coffee. Snuffing the butt out in his ashtray where it joined a graveyard of filters, he rolled back his threadbare chair and dropped his boots to the concrete floor.

The hum of transformers, amplifiers, and other equipment permeated the small studio. This was his domain: electricity and long wave radiation. He walked almost automatically down the path polished smooth by generations of feet, the once rough brown concrete given an unnatural shine. It felt like he’d been here forever in this technologic hermitage, manning a little radio station on a frozen mountaintop near old Coralia. It was as boonies as you could get and still be in the Gatelands. They used to call it the Farlands in ancient times, though that meant something totally different now.

A gust of wind washed over his back as he opened the steel door to the rest of the building, positive pressure keeping contaminants out of the electronics. The cold slammed into him like a hammer, the air outside crisp and metallic. He looked down the hall. Past the storage area and the small barracks that served as his quarters, lay a flat gray lounge door. Beyond that, coffee.

Thirty-year-old fluorescents flicked here and there overhead as he wandered down to the old break room. A handful of thumbnail-sized torch stones gave light where too many of the manmade bulbs had failed. It was chilly as the grave, but downright cozy compared to the howling ice of the summit beyond the crumbling prefab walls.

Well-greased hinges opened welcomingly at his destination. He passed the couches and the cooler dug into the foundation, making a beeline for the pot of coffee simmering on a rusty hotplate. Truthfully, coffee was too kind a name for the concoction that had sat bubbling there for six hours. Rider had arrived at the outpost almost six years ago with a tin of stale Folgers, and he had been cutting that one can with some kind of local root like chicory ever since. By his estimation, there was probably three grains of real coffee left.

“Not like the climate is good for coffee cherries up here anyway.” He muttered to himself. “This ain’t the tropics.”

The radioman thought it sure would be nice to have a drink with caffeine in it every now and then as he poured a cup of the noxious brew. At least the local beer was good.

On the counter next to the heavily-corroded hotplate was an unmistakable sign of the other more temporary occupants of the station. A pile of sweets over a foot high had been painstakingly arranged into a model of a Mayan pyramid. At least, that’s how it had started. By this point, it looked more like a game of jinga than a building. Local treats shored up sides once supported by Snickers and Kitkats.

A little post-it sign stuck to a toothpick graced its steps.

‘Crag’s Snack Temple. Please leave something if you take something.’

Ryder still didn’t know how she kept the lemmings and the mice off it, but she did, some kind of magic to be sure. He looked over tower of candy, cookies and pastries, and picked a nice structurally-safe choice, one of the rocklike preacher cookies at the foundation.

The entire temple of treats rumbled threateningly as he drew back with his sugary prize.