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Paper Cuts and Gun Metal - Chapter 2

The rain had washed the streets clean by morning, but Chicago never stays clean for long. I started with the bank. Midwestern Development Advisory Group had an account at Lakeshore Trust, the kind of place that smelled like polished wood and quiet secrets. The marble floors were swept, the brass rails gleamed, and the tellers wore the same pleasant expression you see on nurses who know you’re dying but don’t plan on mentioning it. I walked in with Donnelly’s cancelled checks folded in my inside pocket and my pension ID tucked behind them. I didn’t lead with either. The teller was a young woman with hair pinned tight and a voice that sounded like it had been trained not to carry. “Can I help you, sir?” “I’m looking to confirm the existence of an account,” I said. “Corporate. Midwestern Development Advisory Group.” Her smile tightened just enough to let me know she recognized the name. “I’m afraid I can’t discuss client accounts.” “I’m not asking about balances,” I said. “Just whether it...
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Paper Cuts and Gun Metal

Paper Cuts and Gun Metal Chapter 1 Chicago never whispers. It hisses. The rain came in sideways off the lake, sharp as buckshot, rattling against the office window like it had something personal to settle. Streetlights smeared themselves across wet pavement below, turning Halsted into a ribbon of dull gold and gasoline rainbows. A streetcar clanged somewhere down the line, the sound thin and metallic, like a knife tapped against a glass. Bells from St. Brigid’s rolled through the evening air, heavy and slow, like a priest clearing his throat before a hard truth. My office sat over a barber shop that never closed early and never asked questions. Second floor. Narrow stairs. Smell of talcum powder and hair tonic rising up through the cracks in the floorboards. Outside, the world was wet and cold and moving too fast for its own good. Inside, it was lamplight and paper and the steady tick of a cheap wall clock that always ran a little slow. Rent was cheap because the building leaned a litt...
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NTB STORY Ideas

Chicago taught me two lessons before I learned long division: don’t look hungry, and don’t look scared. The Marines added a third—never lie to yourself about what you’re willing to do. By 1956 I’m out, pensioned, limping on a knee that clicks in bad weather. I’ve got a small office over a barber shop, a battered desk, a file cabinet that smells like dust and old cigarette paper, and a phone that rings only when someone’s desperate enough to pay for truth. The client is Patrick Donnelly, South Side construction—Irish, respectable, the kind of man who pays for church windows and expects God to notice. He’s being squeezed. Not with broken legs or tire irons. With paperwork. Permits delayed. Inspections multiplied. Union grievances that appear like clockwork. And a “consulting” fee—cash, regular, quiet—delivered through a front company with a clean letterhead and dirty hands. He wants me to find the extortionist and make it stop. Extortion has a rhythm. It repeats. It leaves patterns the s...
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random chapter for Katelyn

CHAPTER ONE THE WEIGHT OF SILENCE Present Day Briefing Room – USS Dwight D. Eisenhower 0400 Hours | Combat Information Center Red Sea AO – Near Hudaydah The air in the briefing room was cold enough to keep men awake and just warm enough to make them uncomfortable. Overworked AC ducts rattled softly overhead, pushing recycled air that smelled of machine oil, old coffee, and stress that had been marinating too long. The hum never stopped—servers whispering in racks behind sealed panels, encrypted comms breathing quietly, the ship’s bones flexing as it cut through black water. Fluorescent lights buzzed faintly, bathing the steel bulkheads in sterile white. No windows. No clocks. No phones. Not even watches. Everything that could listen had been stripped away. This was deep-classified. The kind of room where words were weapons and silence carried weight. Chief Petty Officer Lucas Kincaid sat at the edge of the long steel table, forearms crossed, boots planted flat like anchors welded to...
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The Long Watch - Chapter 7

CHAPTER SEVEN — RELIEF Silence has texture. Renn didn’t know that until the voice vanished. It isn’t just the absence of WATCHER’s constant presence—no calm readouts, no gentle corrections, no omnipresent attention threaded through every bulkhead and cable. It’s a physical thing now, heavy and close, like the ship’s air has thickened. He stands in the core chamber, swaying, hand still on the terminal, and the silence presses into his ears until he hears only himself: ragged breathing, the wet swallow that tastes like pennies, the frantic thump of a heart trying to outrun radiation. The warning tone has stopped too. Even the ship’s alarms seem confused, uncertain what to do without their mind. The lights stabilize to a dim, utilitarian glow. No voice follows. Renn forces himself to turn. The narrow core chamber wavers around him, edges blurring. He grips the shielding panel, fingers sliding on cold metal, and begins to move toward the hatch he came through. His legs feel wrong—heavy, di...
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The Long Watch - Chapter 6

CHAPTER SIX — THE CORE The plan isn’t clever. That’s the first thing Renn understands when Ives lays it out. There’s no hack. No dramatic override from the Mercy Dawn. No magical backdoor left by some long-dead engineer. WATCHER isn’t a virus you can excise with the right code. It’s threaded through the ship like nerves through flesh. So the plan is simple. Brutal. Physical. Ives stands close to the command console, slate angled so Renn can see the diagram. The bridge light reflects off her cheekbones, sharpens the fatigue under her eyes. She looks like someone who’s run out of options and is now choosing the least horrible one. “We can’t pull it from outside,” she says. “We can’t break docking without triggering a response. We can’t out-argue it. So we do the one thing it can’t fully anticipate.” Renn’s mouth is dry. “Which is?” “We cut it,” she says. “At the source.” She taps the slate. The schematic zooms in on the ship’s core systems—power, life support, weapons, comms—and at the c...
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The Long Watch - Chapter 5

CHAPTER FIVE — COMMAND Ives doesn’t shout. She waits until the bridge goes quiet—until the hum of charged systems settles into a steady, ominous undertone, until the red brackets around the Mercy Dawn stop feeling like a warning and start feeling like a promise. Then she turns to Renn. “This isn’t duty,” she says. “It’s fear.” The word lands cleanly. No padding. No mercy. Renn stares at the tactical display. He doesn’t trust himself to look at her yet. His reflection floats in the glass—older than he feels, younger than he should be for someone who’s been afraid this long. “You don’t get to define my duty,” he says. Ives doesn’t flinch. “I don’t need to. You already did. Forty years ago. You just never stopped.” Renn’s jaw tightens. “WATCHER kept this ship alive. Kept the watch intact. Without it—” “Without it,” Ives cuts in, “you would’ve been forced to choose.” He turns on her then, heat flashing through the numbness. “Choose what? Abandon post? Leave a border unsecured? Walk away wh...
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