"A wind howled across Los Diablos, a darkened skyline betraying the tall, glittering towers of bone and steel that made up the city....

"It was going to be a great night. Paul had been invited to a club, or had heard it from a friend, anyway. His friends were in the car...

"The war had gone badly. It was desolation, a harsh, mechanical streak crowding the skyline. The war-torn areas were all sad and burned, and a holocaust of the unimaginable had happened. The corporations had invaded America secretly, keeping low to the ground as they had infiltrated every stratus of the American government, every nook and cranny of American life, every patch of American soil stained. There was nothing left. A few had resisted. The elite military of the United

"Pavlov rung his bell. The dogs approached, wretched and scurrilous, after a hard day of not being fed. Nothing occurred to Pavlov,...

"They were breaking down. These things. Apparently, they just kept coming to the same conclusion. Must go on. They terrorized, mainly...

"Matthew Stone rolled down the window on his Honda Civic. A homeless woman commissioned him, beckoning him as she came over to his car. She inquired as to his well-being, nodded happily for the dollar and a cigarette, and returned to her position by the road. Not a word, and he noticed it immediately. He drove on, unaware of his whereabouts, skeptical of the passersby as he reckoned his situation. Who was he in this town?   He had come around career success on a television sh

"The dingey creak emanated through the empty hallways. Elfonse shook his head at it, oblivious of the source of the noise. The dust...

"They were marked everywhere. Little water labels, showing how high the level of the water was. But they were on bottles. You had to...