Coming Soon: "Long Lines" - A Fictional Post-Apocalyptic Maryland-Based Adventure Series!

I feel a real need to write some fiction. Have you ever had a great story inside and just needed to get it out? I've got one that's been brewing for probably twenty years.

I'm calling it Long Lines; it's a post-apocalyptic adventure series that starts in my home state of Maryland! Long Lines is inspired by real AT&T Microwave Relay Sites that I worked on de-commissioning when I was a project manager for American Tower Corporation.

"Long Lines" towers used to connect local phone company branch exchanges to the actual long distance exchanges until the end of the late 90s, and are located in quadrants spaced about 20 miles apart all over North America. Many of them have been rented to wireless carriers, but some remain in service in 2025 for very remote areas, or as backups for emergency phone traffic.

They're every bit as intriguing and creepy as they sound. Most of them looked like an abandoned outpost of some kind inside of the shelter building where the equipment was once running. Most of them still seemed like they could be turned back on if they needed to be, even though everything seemed frozen in the 1960s.

River, the main character in this story, will find several of these sites as he attempts to find out if there are any pockets of survivors left, and how they're organized, because in this future trust doesn't really exist anymore.

A Nuclear Blunder Triggered A Strange Mutation ...

An adversarial country accidentally launched a missile at Washington, D.C., which went off-course and accidentally hit Baltimore instead.

The epicenter of the low-yield weapon was close to Back River, where sewage is treated and locals believed government experiments were being conducted.

There weren't many direct casualties from the initial blast, but a research lab that no agency would claim was heavily damaged, and they were studying ways to reverse the effects of microplastics using complex marine biology to avoid ethics violations in testing.

Some of their subjects got out and multiplied.

A Volley of Missile Strikes Resulted. Earth got Cooked.

All major cities across the globe were impacted by nuclear fallout. No one is completely sure which nations launched what at whom, because all nations were hit or severely impacted by radiation. Media blanked out early; some say intentionally. As governments began to collapse, tribes and gangs began to take over as the governing forces.

Most modern ammunition was exhausted in the subsequent ground wars for land and resources; violence is now done up close and personal, but much less frequently than before the change.

Survival is the new science, and survivalists the new scientists.

Technology is Mostly Loathed. Mostly.

Technology was ultimately blamed for things becoming as bad as they did, but for different reasons according to different perspectives. Some said media was used to deceive the people, and technology fueled media misinformation, others contend that hard data was just too inconvenient for leaders, but aside for bare necessities to run society, technology is shunned.

Radio, electric light and light machinery are the only things tolerated.

Unknown Things are Coming Out of the Water ...

Cracks are something resembling a horseshoe crab, but one that has evolved to handle and feed on mammals as large as dogs. They regenerate several poisonous short-range projectile barbs that they expel from an opening by the protruding antennules they developed.

Imagine if a king crab and a beetle had a baby. Oh, yeah: aquatic insect life has also substantially changed ...

"Numbers" Stations are Everywhere ...

They began benevolently as local HAM operators set up shortwave, AM and FM beacons along common travel routes so that travelers would be able to fixate their point based on signal strength.

But the general discontent, the general anger at everything that led to the collapse and the lies around how it happened, have led many to set up their own transmitters with their own spoken manifestos and commentary.

Basically, numbers stations are the new tin foil podcasts in a true disaster era, and they occupy almost every frequency on every dial.

River Desperately Needs Someone he can Trust.

The story begins with River finding a state highway communications shelter that still had working equipment and supplies inside, and takes off with where he goes after being able to hear many distant broadcasts for the very first time.

River is schizophrenic, and often delusional. He's a foundling, named by his father, after finding him almost newborn near a river after a raid. He's mostly able to take care of himself, but not completely, and feels a longing for his pack, which he was separated from.

River knows he can't miss any more Insulin injections.

Three Participation-Based Installments are Planned!

I'm planning on at least three volumes in 2025, with the first being released rather soon. The installments after them will heavily incorporate reception, feedback and ideas from readers.

I am really excited about this one! And, I hope you are too! Stay tuned!