Retrofuture ATL

Please Fill Out the ATL Reader Survey (+News Update)

Hi, a request from your Friendly Neighborhood Thedude: Please fill out the ATL Reader Survey. As of this writing, there is only one response, so I’m really hoping for more feedback to help me change up ATL and make it better. You do NOT have to be caught up in the story to fill it out, so if you’re behind or you only read some, your feedback will still be heavily appreciated. Anyone who’s…

Dog Days in Hotlanta – Chapter 48: Downpour

Basically, the entire planet is currently chasing after Ohata King right now. Atlanta Nebuta may have been canceled on account of rain and gunfighting, but if someone far above were to look down at the street right now, they might think this is the parade right here. It’s got your assortment of clowns, bozos, and dancing fools. It’s got a huge object floating along in the sky, occasionally…

Dog Days in Hotlanta – Chapter 46: Food and Fun and Danger!

The chase started a few seconds ago, but it REALLY starts the moment I collide into a food stall and get a bunch of kebabs all over me. Falling to my lesser nature, I do take some of that meat and shovel it into my mouth as I stand back up and hope the deliciousness of it can fuel me to catch back up. I’m not sure how well it works, but I do sprint as fast as I can and reach back up to the front…

Dog Days in Hotlanta – Chapter 45: Tensions Ratcheting Up

“Put this on. You’ll blend in better,” Kusata says. One of his men hands me a bright pink yukata and beckons for me to take it when I hesitate. “Blend… in?” “Look around you. Everyone’s enjoying themselves, and you should look the part. Bright colors are less suspicious.” “Uh, but why pink? I feel like my color is more of a red, maybe a green if you’re pushing it.” “Just put it on. You too,…

Dog Days in Hotlanta – Chapter 44: Let’s Go to the Summer Festival

The Summer Festival is here! J-District is decked out in all sorts of colorful glee. Banners up everywhere in countless symbols I can’t possibly read. Booths snugged tightly against each other that stretch on down the entire street, selling poppingly bright cotton candy, or mouth-watering yakitori sticks. Half the people here are wearing yukata, sparkling with the reds and purples and yellows of…

Dog Days in Hotlanta – Chapter 43: Crusading

The Crusader isn’t a lot like I thought he’d be. A balding, skinny Black man with a mustache and glasses. Without the armor, he looks absolutely nothing like the part of a vigilante warrior who patrols the streets at night. He does, however, look like a lonely old man who pretends to be a hero out of boredom. “Welcome to my humble abode,” he says, beckoning me into his domain. R8PR’s robot…

READ THIS - Dog Days in Hotlanta - Chapter 36: Handcuffed and Wild Top Web Fiction: http://topwebfiction.com/listings/atl-stories-from-the-retrofuture

I run around the Japanese mafia headquarters with the grace of an enraged goose. All action, no thought. My arms are trapped behind my back in electro-cuffs, and my body still hasn’t fully recovered by intentionally shocking myself for an extended period, and anyone watching me can see that pretty plainly from my stupid waddle. A few dudes with sunglasses (indoors) short swords barrel down the…

Dog Days in Hotlanta – Chapter 35: Let’s Get Beat

In a makeshift cell, AKA just some storage closet mostly cleared of supplies, a young Morgan Harding sits there in a chair, in three pairs of handcuffs, awaiting a new kind of torture and pain devised by Ohata King and his Japanese mob enforcers. I’ve been waiting here for a good thirty minutes, with no sign of anyone coming to inflict suffering on me. I’m really, really tempted just to bust out…

NEW CHAPTER - Dog Days in Hotlanta - Chapter 34: He's the King

I’m… somewhere. In some large, windowless building that’s decorated with fake Edo Period prints and tacky samurai suits of armor everywhere. There’s a katana on the mantle of practically half the walls I see as I’m dragged around the place. I can only guess that this is the location of the Japanese mafia headquarters, and I’m finally about to meet its leaders face-to-face. What a fortunate turn…

Dog Days in Hotlanta – Chapter 33: Making Waves

All it took was another phone call. I didn’t even have to say anything, just call and hang up as soon as she connected, and she was right in the right location before I even got here. That is, here at the abandoned boardwalk arcade, same as last time. And the person I contacted is Nami, that blue-haired thug working for the Japanese mafia who really did a number on me the first time we…

Dog Days in Hotlanta – Chapter 32: Helmet

I got a request this week: Please vote for ATL on Royal Road. There’s a new ranking system involving votes, a lot like Top Web Fiction but with votes that last two weeks instead of one. It’s super easy, so please try it. Here’s this week’s story shout-out: Please read Music Masters, the famous web serial about teens with song-based superpowers. If you read far enough, you might see a familiar…

ATL returns very soon, just next week. Updates will resume on May 10th (and Systemless will resume on May 9th), and I hope you’re here to read each chapter as it comes out. When ATL returns, I’ll post advance chapters on Patreon (in addition to all the other amazing bonus content). But for the time being I won’t put paywalled advance chapters on the main site. Readers didn’t like getting chapter…

NEW BONUS STORY - Morgan vs. the Kudzu [Vines]

This chapter was written to promote my new satirical xianxia action story Cultivine, now available on Royal Road. Make sure to read that story too; it’s really stupid! But for a retrofuture twist on that same stupidity, read on: It started with a knock on the door. Morgan Harding was getting ready for work in the morning, just like any other. They had fallen asleep on the couch while playing…

Cyberpunk – The ATL Prototype [Quinlan Vault]

I actually completely forgot this existed for many years: Cyberpunk, an unmade story concept from 2015 that bears some striking resemblances to what eventually became ATL itself. So I thought I’d share it with the Quinlan Vault as a fun behind-the-scenes feature. Continue reading

Another ATL News Update (Read or else)

Hi, it’s been long enough since my last post that I thought I’d give a few news updates for ATL: Good news: The site has been revamped and updated since the last time you looked at it, probably! It looks a whole lot better than before, I think. My favorite part is that now news posts are, uh, posts, instead of just sort of being on the main page. There’ll be a few more upgrades to come before…

YO, NEW CHAPTER - Dog Days in Hotlanta - Chapter 27: A Medley of Bullets

“Run away! Run away!” I scream at the top of my lungs. A medley of bullets ring out of the house in front of Bill and me, and they barely miss us. I dive just in time to knock Bill down before a second volley sprays at right where we were standing one second earlier. I’m on top of him in a quite compromising position. This is… really awkward. But also we’re in the middle of a gunfight so I don’t…

The Social Media Killer – First Draft (Chapters 16-19) [Quinlan Vault]

(Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3) Chapter 16 “My, your apartment is as bad as I heard,” Donald Blyth says as he enters my home. He is wearing all-black, from his jacket to his tie to his leather gloves; everything except his pale face and balding blonde hair. He grabs a plastic cup out of my sink and pours some water from the tap. “I wanted to check up on you, Morgan Harding. Oh, your arm was hurt…