I’ve started tearing up

Awesome story! I enjoyed the fairytale aspects.

A person with electrokinesis that choose to use his power to earn money instead of being a hero or a villian.

every new line of dialogue from a different speaker should start new paragraph. this is very hard to follow.

That just kept giving. Very nice!

A man who can only die by snother person murdering him, but if anything attempts to murder him they kill themselves instead

Eddie Dean?

Yes. Its not for everyone. One should be able to keep the various story threads going on in mind. The 1st volume is a bit rocky. Since that was the authors first volume. They are rewriting it.

If you don't actually like it when you have reached volume 4-5.. Better to drop than continue.

I like it best for its hair raising moments. which are foreshadowed.

Purposely leaving it up to interpretation of the reader. I was conflicted between the two though.

Wait so is it Jackson or his kid ?

Beautiful! Thank you!

This is pretty much what I envisioned when I first read the prompt, right down to the "I think I'm in love" at the end.

Two computer scientists stared, one in awe, the other in bewilderment.

The hunk of plastics, metals, and glass whirred and beeped as it printed white letters on a black screen. A pause, then a closing angle bracket ( > ) blinked in the bottom left corner.

The screen read:

GREETINGS! I AM DEEP THOUGHT, THE SENTIENT COMPUTER! WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO DO?

“Where did you find this?” Grace asked of her colleague. she walked around the small wooden table in examination.

The machine clearly was heavy, but luggable. It was a bulky, brown and white clamshell with a large handle on the back. She stepped over a cord, which connected the computer to the wall.

The anterior of the device boasted a curving screen, a detachable, hefty keyboard, and a slot for a disk. Paul was especially proud of the current disk, which stored the program of his creation.

By the termination of Grace’s investigative orbit, Paul had detached the keyboard and placed it on the table. A spiraling cord sustained life in each button.

“It’s ready for you!” he beamed. His grin, a beacon.

She obliged, and with a sly grin of her own, typed input.

“> HOW DO YOU FEEL?”

“WELL. AND YOU?”

“>EXCELLENT! WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT?”

“I THINK ON HOW TO THINK.”

“>ARE YOU ALIVE?”

“ARE YOU?”

“>NO.”

She chucked for a bit, over some more beeps and words. Time passed. Then, a reply:

“RESPONSE TIMEOUT: RESTARTING

GREETINGS! I AM DEEP THOUGHT, THE SENTIENT COMPUTER! WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO DO?“

Grace turned to Paul, “Well it’s fun! I think I broke it. Thanks anyway!”

Paul gave a contented sigh “I’ll need help debugging the syntax analyzer.”

So here’s the deal:

My back is a portal. I can put things in and take them out kind of like when a cartoon character pulls something from behind them. Pocket dimension powers are handy, but they aren’t anything crazy.

I don’t know what mine looks like at all so when my friend wanted to check it out I saw it as a win win. When I pulled him back out though, it looked like he’d been in there for weeks and he begged to go back. Eventually he calmed down and a few days later he discussed the world as calmly as he could. While he was calm the experience left him in shambles and while this is recoverable within a few months at a ward so getting a straight answer is next to impossible.

From what I could gather, it was a paradise like living within one’s own imagination even coming equipped with living creatures. In that world Steve was able to live out all of his greatest dreams and desires from the relatively simple like getting a girlfriend to the more complex ones like becoming a hero or running his own business where he sells baked goods. He heard tales from the entities there of the fated hands that can give great gifts and just as easily take them away at their beckon call and he was eventually taken too.

According to him he spend 3 months in there and this world is all he talks about now. I feel bad for Steve and due to court order, I’ll never be able to see him again with me being relocated to make sure psychological well-being is kept

The things I have done, the things I have seen. More horrible than anything the feeble brain can ever comprehend. I may never kill, but I can do worse. Death is sudden, fear is immortal, agony is endless, never stopping, only growing. A bullet might kill, but cover them in cuts and drown them in lemon juice and they will wish for the day that death will take them. I was cursed to never kill a living soul, but killing the mind does is more effective than killing the body ever could be. Last week I dragged someone into my lair, did you know an average human can survive up to a month or two without food? Awesome! I beg for the day that death will take me, and so do they. When you sign a contract for immortality, make sure it wasn't signed by the devil. Everyday I must carry out the dirty deeds, my torture will last longer than theirs, at least they can die someday. I'm here for eternity.

Very fun read so far, where is part 3, 4, etc?

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"Jump it again!" I ordered.

Percy stood before the open hood, his shield up and glistening. The translucent sheen sparked sharply as a round skimmed off its surface, hitting the armor plate beside him with a loud twang.

His hands were in the engine, one touching the block and the other on the positive terminal of the battery. From his concentration I knew he was preparing the regulator that would convert his arcane force into the fourteen volts or so needed to get our lifeboat going. From the cab Flissa fired her handgun out the armored slits to keep the insurgents back.

On the back of the beast the turret spun, followed by a brief moment of hollowness as the mage within precharged. I fell to a crouch on the other side of the vehicle, my rifle peeking out from behind the heavy plate.

My LPVO had a beamsplitter before the eyepiece leading to a CCD. I could see everything in the square box floating in the middle of my vision, my targets glowing in the vestiges of false-color. My mind focused through the weapon to tag the shot while my index felt the steady resistance of the trigger.

The HK417 let loose a single round, curving as it latched on the predestined path in my mind. I felt it arc around a corner and drop the nearest insurgent, the enchanted bullet biting through his barrier with a purple flash.

A heartbeat later I felt a magical explosion hit the shack in the distance, followed by raking fire as Jen opened up with the PKM inside her overhead perch. Hot brass fell from the turret onto my shield as I heard the engine roar to life.

"Karl! Percy!" Flissa yelled into my mind. "Get in!"

I tapped my palms against the back of the truck and did a contact jump through the plates, my body slipping through the ether and landing in the bed just as the floor began to rumble beneath me. She put the pedal to the metal and accelerated out of the warehouse as shots and spells glanced off our side. A quick mental scan confirmed that Percy was safely onboard as well.

The basket right beside my head spun as Jen fired again, the muzzle flash silhouetting her elven features in the dim interior. I stumbled to my feet and was about to make my way to a gunport when I felt the distinctive energy of a powerful mage preparing for a showdown. One who's aura I could feel on the road ahead of us.

"On me," I called into my squadmates' minds. They responded immediately, each flashing a light mental tug to indicate their readiness. I saw the world in slow motion as three tendrils of magic snaked in my direction, combining with my fourth to send a bright beam of power through the cab.

Right into the violent ball of energy she'd shoved in our direction.

My senses were overwhelmed at once, my mind shutting down as unfathomable forces swarmed us from all directions. With my remaining neurons I sensed a rift open, and we plowed straight into it.

When I came to I saw sunlight, beating down from the overhead hatch to fill every nook and cranny. I savored it as Jen crouched beside me, the remnants of a healing spell steaming off her fingers.

My bionics compensated for the light, and I let loose my painblocker spells while sitting up. Percy was manning the gun and Flissa was squeezed up there with him. By then I could hear the din of conversation coming from outside. A crowd. My sixth sense could visualize the hundreds of untamed auras probing from outside.

It felt both wrong - and right. This place felt familiar and foreign at the same time, and it certainly wasn't the Chihuahuan Desert. Everything from the climate to the noise floor was off.

"Karl?" Jen said cautiously. Now I could see the uncertainty in her eyes and the new bruise on her cheek. "Look outside."

"What is it?" I replied quietly. My internal computer had switched to its hardened mode due to heavy magical interference. We were likely far from the NAF insurgent base we just escaped from, though my clock only reported that ten minutes had passed. Portals were strange like that.

"It's best if you take a look." Without further ado she flung open the closest gunport and gently guided me towards the slit.

The homemade APC we'd stolen, an armored shell atop a Chevy 5500 frame, now sat smack dab in the middle of a medieval courtyard. Hundreds of people stood staring at us, the majority elves with a smattering of humans and dwarves in the crowd. Their genetic makeup was hard to identify.

On their faces were a mix of fear and awe, which I expected. What however drew me in was the sense of hopelessness that absolutely permeated the air.

In the distance I could see towers of stone, and farther out wood and plaster homes built along the walls. Just like the pictures in my history texts. On a raised wooden platform I could see a group of what were clearly nobles, and the look of defeat on their faces was as plain as day.

"Have they approached?" I asked.

"Nope," Flissa called down from above. "We put up our shield and have been in this staring contest for a few minutes."

I signed. "Stay on guard for now. Were any of you awake when we fell through the rift?"

"I was," Percy answered. "We were translocated, the flight time was probably several minutes. Then the entire vehicle landed right here in this courtyard."

"How about the enemy mage? Did she fall in as well?"

"Yeah she did. I felt her briefly during the first ten seconds or so but our paths soon diverged. She can't walk the ether though, that's for sure."

"Well she's not here, so that's a good sign." I managed a small smirk at that, the small gesture hopefully helping to keep morale up. We would bloody need it.

"Do you have any idea where we are?" Flissa suddenly asked. "Our comms are totally dead, though we can try rocket beacons or roll out the shortwave."

"So naive, Flissa," Jen snorted. "Unless this is an elaborate prank, we're not on fucking Earth. Just scan the environment and you'll know the truth. Hell, look at your integrated accelerometer. We also don't have two moons the last time I checked."

I quickly glanced around the interior, eyeing the racks of assorted munitions and small arms. Such technology would either be a godsend or a curse in the days to come. The next five minutes turned into a methodical search as our tendrils and instruments probed the area in detail. My mind was blown by how similar this place was to Earth.

"Two elves are walking up to the vehicle," Percy called from above. His basket creaked as he turned the crank to bear his weapon on target. "At 205 near my marker."

This world had a magnetic pole of some sort, and our compasses automatically treated that as "north". Floating in the air at the bearing was Percy's marker, a semietheral stain now hovering over the elves. They looked like men-at-arms with breastplate and mail, and carried sword and spear. Clearly they were aware of our magical emissions but the two were not perturbed by it.

My heart pounded audibly as they stood behind the truck, merely four feet away from me. I could see them clear as day in my mind's eye. Once of the elves raised his gauntleted fist and proceeded to knock three times on the hatch.

I went with an (improvised) APC instead of a MBT as this prompt seemed to be inspired by The Doomfarers of Coramonde. The vehicle itself is based off the "narco tanks" used by Mexican drug cartels.

/r/digitallyfreestories

This response is part of my Magsci collection.

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it’s self-sacrificial in the same way her Father’s death was. I think it would fit. I like your ending, this was just an idea I had

I love the idea of the AI becoming a parent to another, and deliberately letting it choose its own path.

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You can run a Abrams on pretty much anything. Moonshine works.

A negligibly senescent cavewoman with an IQ of 400, the raw strength of 50 gorillas and the toughness of 50 bulletproof alligators