ScreenWar Updates

Working hard over here on the Timeline sequel, ScreenWar. Coming along nicely and we can't wait to see how it all turns out. Super cyber villain to the left, Resistance rebels to the right and our hero stuck in the middle all the while trying to save us from ourselves!

Here's latest ScreenWar excerpt with updated Dome details. A residence like no other!

THE DOME.pdf

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THE DOME

As experienced from the inside the Dome was, first and foremost, enormous. A residence like no other.

Built high upon a hill at the western end, the immediate living space was modest enough. Link and Rita choosing to live in an open area. Not a house “but a home” as Rita said.

The bedroom at the far end of their home was surrounded by staggered stone partitions, curved to create an oval sleeping space. The bed in the middle had hardwood night stands on each side stacked with books, and a long bench covered in pillows at the foot. There were four free standing solid cedar closets, half full, along the partitioned perimeter of the area.

The lighting included wall sconces mounted on the stone partitions between the closets and four free standing light fixtures, one each side the bed’s plain wooden headboard with posts, one each side of the entrance opening.

Separate bathrooms, one on either side of the area, was one of the few indulgences they afforded themselves. Each was tiled, floor and walls with a modest blue and white mosaic design. The floor everywhere else was bare wood smooth and stained, all kept toasty warm by the same energy that provided lighting and heat all throughout the Dome, an energy Link was still coming to understand.

Area carpets were scattered strategically throughout the entire living space where the clear Dome ceiling, also the roof, was at its lowest point.

Coming out of the sleeping area into the living area the ceiling sloped dramatically up to a hundred feet high, a glorious impression each early morning.

The living area was established not by partitions but mostly furniture. Four long sofas, two coffee tables and four end tables were placed in a square, box pattern while a variety of chairs were scattered about. Overall the furniture was loosely set around a low octagonal stone fountain, water trickling through a green, sweet smelling ground cover speckled with small fragrant flowers, yellow, red, pink and various shades of blue over rock and small boulders in the center. Most of the furniture here was fabricated from oak like trees growing wild nearby.

Off to left of the living area was a dining area that included a long polished wood table that could seat forty with modest matching chairs. Two fireplaces, strictly ornamental with traditional stone hearths, had round stone chimney stacks three stories tall standing straight up, twenty feet off each end of the table.

A smooth plaster covered freestanding interior wall on the far side of the dining area, ten foot high and painted as a pastel sunset, looked somewhat out of place as it added a finished, almost elegant touch. The wall ran undecorated and unbroken from the sleeping area to the kitchen. Beyond, concealed by the wall was the edge of the smaller south forest.

On the right walking towards the kitchen was the recreation area where both Link and Rita exercised regularly.

Side by side, first an Olympic size pool, then a tennis court with a running track around it, all perpendicular to the living area. Next and closer to the kitchen was a gym with free weights and the usual exercise equipment. All this was separated and concealed from the living area by a thin row of tall pine trees (Link loved the smell of pine) and various shrubs set up on a small grassy knoll, the mound running the length of the space, from the far side of the sleeping area to well beyond the kitchen. Small gaps through the knoll had gravel trails from one area to the other located every twenty feet or so.

Rita walked through the living area towards the kitchen. Staring, like every morning, straight ahead and upwards.

She approached the long smooth stone counter separating the two areas, her attention still drawn to the massive, unique vista beyond that made this residence truly amazing.

Rita paused at the first kitchen counter then decided, as she did most mornings, to continue past and around the low wall of cabinets, counters and pantries opposite the first counter, her eyes fixed on the amazing view beyond which she appreciated as much now as the first time she saw it.

From where she stopped and stood on a wide balcony over thirty feet above the ground, the clear Dome ceiling sloped again upward, gradually, and as it rose the earth below kept pushing up to fill the space created, until it was almost a mile high at the summit four miles away. Unseen was the slope back down the far side a mile further.

Set inside this enormous expanse, three miles wide side to side, draped within the forest, was a small mountain range.

She watched and could hear the constant roar of Rice Falls up a half mile and two miles off. Two hundred feet high the falls provided a faint, soothing white noise back here in the living space, day and night. Then a second waterfall another 100 feet high just beyond that, feeding the lower falls. Both could be seen through dells in the thick tree line off to the left, trimmed by granite cliffs with birds soaring, gliding through the mist coming off the brink of each.

Rita and Link on a hike early in their stay found the water source for these falls as well as the rivers and streams which fed the small fresh water lake just a half mile east of the living space. An access point through the Dome that provided fresh air and melted snow feeding the entire ecosystem here.

She slowly turned her sights across the scene, left to right, surveying the heavy forest treetop cover, the river breaking through here and there, watched a small herd of Elk slowly roaming as they grazed across a sloping grassy plain far away at the foothills of the enormous granite backstop.

Looking out further she could make out a few clearings that revealed brooks and streams up high which were otherwise buried under the broad branches of the forest, hidden from where she stood. All feeding the rivers downstream. Stones from pebble to boulder were spread throughout the mountain’s waterways.

Deer, otter and beaver all enjoyed the clean, cold fresh water. The deer sipping while otters played and beaver worked the wet timber.

The smaller creatures, snakes and butterflies, insects of every type, chipmunks and lizards all filled the forest from floor to canopy. And above all the eagles flew right up to the Dome top and down again.

Panning around right the mountains went higher until they scraped the roof, or so it seemed, the summit capping a solid granite monolith with a horizontal profile. Link and Rita had climbed this mountain, Table Top, many times.

All throughout, up and down from side to side for years they enjoyed exploring the Dome and would find each newly discovered space sprawling with life.

The trees everywhere were filled with birds of such a variety as found nowhere else on the planet. Various species coexisting peacefully. Exotic, colorful, tropical toucans cohabitating with powerful, majestic bald eagles.

Fish filled the rivers and flowed down into the lake here at ground level just a short walk down from the kitchen balcony where Rita now stood. Link would often spend a morning fishing for treats to feed Mutt and Jeff and an occasional fish dinner the two of them.

Rita, not realizing as if in a trance, had been slowly walking away from the kitchen’s cupboards and closets out towards the railing at the edge of the balcony.

Another day beginning with grateful morning.

Her gaze still following the roof she was now watching the hawks fly, each taking turns up and down from the mountain to the lake. Then after soaring low just overhead, waving good morning, they flew around and back up.

Link and Rita were living in perfect harmony here with the environment AL had created, and the environment was embracing them in return.

Lost in thought she did not notice Link sneaking up behind her.

“You’ve gaped at that view every morning for the last three years” Link said.