“Pledge!” I called out to Cassandra from across the room. She was one of the few remaining pledges, and I had to get in all the fun I could. She looked up, staring at me from across the crowded living room and then made her way over, weaving through a line of dancing bodies belonging to both DAM and GAT members. I grinned a bit, noticing her discomfort at the entire situation. She probably wasn’t one for social settings; probably shouldn’t have joined a sorority then. As she neared, I pointed to the empty glass in my hand, rattling the half-melted ice cubes. “My glass is empty, pledge.”

“So,” Ms. Trace said, folding her hands atop the conference table as she regarded us smugly. “You’re telling me that after all of this, you’re not unable to produce Audrey, you’re just unwilling.”

“Correct,” Aleah nodded.

“She’s going through a lot right now,” I added. “If the chapter can’t stand on its own, without her, then so be it.”

“Mason, open the door,” I cop-knocked against his dorm room door as hard as I could. “God dammit, Mason-“

Before I could finish my sentence, the door flew open and a rather annoyed looking Mason appeared in the entryway. He was dressed in a worn green bathrobe atop a white t-shirt, and his hair looked as if it had just gone through a blender.

“The fuck do you want?” He demanded.

“Mason,” I frowned. “Why are you asleep right now? It’s like seven-thirty in the evening.”

“Hamburger, soup, or what the fuck do you want?” I asked the next man in line, an older guy in a scally cap with a worn army jacket. He glared back at me.

“Young lady, you need to work on your attitude,” He lectured me.

“You need to work on your fashion choices,” I said, gesturing to his outfit ensemble. “Soup or burger?”

“I’ll take the fucking burger,” He growled. I reached into the pan on my left and slapped a hamburger onto a plate, handing it to him.

“Don’t you think you ought to wear gloves?” The man asked me, glaring at me intently.

“So according to Melissa, we’re meeting her here and she’s giving us a spare key to the theater,” Aleah informed as she turned left into a parking lot behind what looked like the shadiest building in the city. That’s a lot coming from me, by the way. Woodcrest had seen its fair share of ‘shady’ buildings, with one of my favorites being an old record store that housed a pallet of cocaine in the back room. I guess at some point the police realized that a vinyl record store was a little bit out of place in a college town. I wondered what kind of drugs this shithole was hiding.

I heard two loud mechanical ‘thuds’ as Aleah threw the van into gear and rumbled down the GAT driveway. As we emerged onto the street I cast a wayward glance at Leina who was busying herself with her phone. I glanced at the screen silently but couldn’t make out what she was doing. I shrugged and looked toward the window, observing the world as it blew by.

“Do you want to ask me something?” Leina asked. I looked back, she’d set her phone on her lap, hands crossed over it, her gaze fixed directly on me.

Stepping over to the table where Leina, Aleah, Courtney, and Lauren sat, I dropped a thick folder onto the surface and opened the cover.

The Fields of Identity have no Monocultures just Endless Varieties of Wild Flowers

LGBT+ themes running through a tale in which DNA resequencing and mental repsyching are the norm for a secretive hightech group that hides in plain view.

This is a story of technology pirates, revenge and redemption, and someone caught in the middle. "John Smith" is a technology wunderkind, and the owner, head and chief innovator for the Naismith conglomerate, which includes Azimuth, Inc., or AI, the conglomerate's main thinktank and world leader in computer-based animation.

In an attack by the Yellow Dragon Syndicate, he puts his life on the line to safeguard AI's world-changing tech from these criminals, and only through the use of this tech is his life saved.

But the use of this tech also had far reaching consequences, to Johnny and the world.

Lisa and I, plus our moms … The ‘River Oaks 4’ arrived at the mall like so many Tasmanian Devils. The cloth would fly, the price tags almost completely ignored. All we left were rejects to most likely be marked down and a great deal of money in digital format. The cashiers were more than willing to clean up our mess; their commissions would be substantial and well deserved.

In early spring of 531, 3 simultaneous assaults began on the Asian mainland. Army Group Liang and Army Group Wei, 25 armies of 849,000 Raven Raiders each, would invade Liang in the south and the Northern Wei in the north. The remaining 15 armies of 509,400 Raven Raiders of Army Group Korea, would advance against the Korean Goguryeo. The Goguryeo were the largest of the 3 Kingdoms of Korea having expanded north and west and east into Manchuria.

Everyone was really great yesterday. I went to the bathroom and washed my face so I didn't look like I was crying my head off. By the time I came out everyone had already eaten and the movie of the night had just started. They all said how nice I looked and then Emily let me eat on the couch with a tray and plenty of napkins so I didn't miss more of the movie. At least when I promised to be really careful, which I did. I didn't want to make a mess on their nice furniture at all, or my pretty new clothes.

I haven't been to a lot of malls but this one seemed big. Because it was friday there were a lot of people here too. For a bit I was almost looking forward to this even in the dress. The twins kept talking about how fun it was going to be. This was their world. Some of their excitement was rubbing off on me maybe. No less than two nurses said how cute I looked at the doctors. It was a different cute though, the cute of a little girl looking like her mommy made her all pretty.

Stepping out of his room he felt alive sort of, like reborn. What ever happened now he was just going to do what he liked. He finally didn't care what other people thought. Before he just pretended he didn't care, he knew that now. Now it was real, he was really free to just be “self” whatever prefix the world wanted to add to it was fine.

Mostly I just stared out the window as we drove to the new house. Kelly sat in back next to me which seemed to annoy John who was our driver again. He had to take out one of the car seats, likely had to put it back in later too. If I had my way he would have taken both of them out but I was use to them by this point.

Sunday morning Kelly was a couple levels above normal perky. Honestly I don't know how she does it all the time. I was getting use to it though. Seeing her happy all the time did make me feel a little better. There are many ways to wake up in the mornings and a chipper all too happy Kelly calling me honey, sweetie or the dreaded sweetheart was far from the worst.