Christopher B. Wright's Blog, page 7

The Points Between: Chapter 22

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Consequences

The next morning Matthew feels sick.

He pushes himself out of bed, forces his way to the shower, and does his best to ignore the heaviness in his arms and legs. He’s feverish. It hurts to breathe. He feels slightly dizzy.

It’s a familiar feeling. More familiar than he likes.

He dresses quickly, forcing himself through the motions, and makes his way downstairs. Catie is in the li...

The Points Between: Chapter 21

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Silence and Song

Matthew wakes up feeling as if he’s falling: a sudden, violent jerk, as if the entire world has pulled out from under him. The feeling passes quickly, but Matthew is wide awake in the Gardener’s guest room, staring at the shadow-covered ceiling.

Something’s wrong.

He lies in silence, listening intently. Nothing sounds out of place—there’s nothing to hear. It takes a moment for ...

The Points Between: Chapter 20

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The Painter’s Gift

Catie skips and dances her way around the trees, occasionally stopping to crouch and peer intently at the ground, just as quickly laughing and running off in an apparently random direction. Matthew follows her, trying to keep track of their path so they can find their way back. He’s not having much success.

“Where are we going?” Matthew asks.

“Fishing!” Catie shouts, laughing...

The Points Between: Chapter 19

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Decisions and Consequences

Matthew struggles to stay awake as the heat and humidity of pre-dawn morning settles over him like a thick blanket. His eyelids grow heavier and heavier, until at last his head droops forward. He feels a slightly dizzying rush as his consciousness begins to fade.

“Here we go,” Buck says.

Matthew jerks awake, spilling some of his coffee. He winces as the hot liquid rol...

A Supervillain Examines AI: Sudowrite

Original Image by Gordon Johnson from Pixabay

The way it functioned was very interesting. When the Drink button was pressed it made an instant but highly detailed examination of the subject’s taste buds, a spectroscopic analysis of the subject’s metabolism and then sent tiny experimental signals down the neural pathways to the taste centers of the subject’s brain to see what was likely to go down well. However, no one knew quite why it did this because it invariably delivered a cupful of liq...

A Supervillain Examines AI: Prologue

Image by Gordon Johnson from Pixabay

The Internet is all about Artificial Intelligence these days. At least, the parts of it I hang out on. ChatGPT and Bard and an army of other AI conversation bots are filling up all the empty space with speculation about how AI will replace human art, human writing, and other human creative things, because AI Bots are cheaper and less argumentative than human beings. There are all kinds of AI Bots out there specifically designed to draw things that are real...

The Band of Broken Blades: Chapter One

Image by Bernd from Pixabay This work is distributed under a
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Moldy Bread, and Other Existential Terrors

Note: I am not committing to a new series, though this is a fantasy setting I’ve been working on for a while. This is up here as reference for this article. Also, I like it.

“Binnah says they found mold on the bread again.” Varik said this as if no one had noticed the ragged pieces of bread torn out from the loaves they’d passed...

The Points Between: Chapter 18

The Picture and the Dream

“Here we are,” Buck says.

Matthew leans right as the pickup trick turns sharply into a long gravel road that slopes down into a thicket of trees.

“This is River Road?” He looks at the road doubtfully. It’s narrow, barely wide enough for two cars to pass each other by. Large gashes where the gravel has been stripped away are half-filled with dirty, stagnant water.

Buck snorts, amused. “Someone just outed himself as a big city boy.”

“Guilty,” Matthew sa...

The Points Between: Chapter 17

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Unexpected Reunion

The house is grand. It has seen better days, but hasn’t quite fallen into neglect: the paint is faded but not peeling, the windows are dingy, but are neither broken nor caked with grime. The car in the driveway is an older model Bentley Continental, outdated to the modern eye but as far as Matthew can tell quite serviceable—definitely more modern than the thing Henry drives.

Mat...

The Points Between: Chapter 16

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Missing Days

Daylight’s public library is modern by any standard, which makes it feel out of place compared to the rest of the city. Matthew is surprised to learn that all public records, including a very comprehensive selection of newspapers, are archived digitally. Mrs. Elliot, a middle-aged woman with evenly-dyed reddish-brown hair, is brimming with pride when Matthew asks about them.

“Mr. Vern...