Mark Stigers
Bio
One year after my birth sputnik was launched, making me a space child. I did a hitch in the Navy as a electronics tech. I worked for Hughes Aircraft Company for quite a while. I currently live in the Saguaro forest in Tucson Arizona
Stories (374)
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Lots of Steel and Gold.
THE RINGS They arrived on the Moon on a Tuesday, because Tuesdays were cheaper. The brochure called it low season, though the concourse at Shackleton Arc felt crowded enough—honeymooners in pressed suits, retirees floating their luggage behind them like obedient pets, a school group staring too long at the ceiling where the Earth hung, blue and indecently alive.
By Mark Stigers 2 months ago in Chapters
The Floating Casino
⸻ CHAPTER — THE FLOATING CASINO & OLD SMOKE’S EXPANSION THE CASINO ARRIVES Fog rolled off the Thames like a soft gray blanket. A narrow, black-hulled steamer slipped along the river, deck lights muted but deliberate. Its stacks breathed warmth into the night—coal smoke threaded with paraffin, polished brass, and the faint sweetness of expensive spirits.
By Mark Stigers 2 months ago in Chapters
Old Smoke (Twenty-Four)
CHAPTER — THE STEAM NODE & THE BOY THIEVES THE STEAM NODE — THE BOY THIEVES Beneath the tangle of Southwark’s rail viaducts, past the dripping brick arches and coal dust, there was a chamber the city had forgotten. A maintenance lock once meant for steam regulators had long since been abandoned, but the pipes that fed it still throbbed with warm pressure, carrying heat from the Borough boiler mains.
By Mark Stigers 3 months ago in Chapters
The World Awakens (Twenty-Three)
THE WORLD AWAKENS London — February 3, 1915 The morning fog clung low over Fleet Street, beading on bowler hats and carriage lamps. Horses snorted steam into the cold air while the first motorcars rattled between them, coughing petrol fumes that drifted beneath the soot-stained eaves.
By Mark Stigers 3 months ago in Chapters
The God Rod (Twenty Two)
THE GOD ROD STEAM CATAPULT Scene: Lunar Highlands — Armament Proposal & Construction The Crystal Palace had been finished for only twelve lunar days when a new directive rose through the MI’s internal logic cascade—quiet, unforced, but absolute in its inevitability:
By Mark Stigers 3 months ago in Chapters
The Crystal Palace (Twenty-One)
THE CRYSTAL PALACE Scene: Lunar Highlands — Construction and Awakening The second eye had been completed, its silicate lens polished to a flawless gleam, its steel ribs aligned with subatomic exactness. It swept its optical gaze across Earth in patient, tireless arcs. Every motion was perfect. Every observation was logged. Every shadow was measured.
By Mark Stigers 3 months ago in Chapters
The Plan (Seventeen)
⸻ CHAPTER: THE LUNAR APERTURE INITIATIVE Scene: WESO Strategic Chamber — The Ring Vault The Ring Vault hung beneath Geneva like a buried crown—circular, seamless, humming with magnetic suspension fields. Twelve Machine Intellects appeared around its circumference as shimmering spectral columns, each tinted to match the nation or agency that sponsored it.
By Mark Stigers 3 months ago in Chapters
