14 Hundred Hours Novels & Stories

Wind carved through ruins like a blade, howling through collapsed towers and hollowed streets, carrying with it the whispers of a dead age. Deep beneath that wasteland, hidden under layers of ice and reinforced steel, Adrian stood before a glowing digital holomap. Eighteen hours. That was how long he spent each day here. Eighteen hours staring into the skeletal remains of the human world, not as it was but as it would soon become Gone.

Andy seems scandalized by the line of questioning, but it does nothing to unfaze the blond. Millan keeps a straight face. “Fourteen, yeah.” Millan still can’t talk about that day without flashbacks. It’s getting harder to swallow his pasta as he tries to school his expression. “So you’ve just been going through pack territories ever since?” “Yeah.” “You must have seen a lot of them. How many?” Millan shrugs. How is that relevant? Is he saying too much if he answers that? What is Amir’s endgame? “A lot.” “How many is that?”

I asked, fearfully. "940 hours of community service," the head of security replied, with a smirk on his dumb face as I made a sound of disbelief with my throat. 940 hours sounds like a millennium of pain, "This isn't the first time you've done something like this and we all know it. So you can spend those hours picking up trash, helping at the security building, cleaning the stre..." The old man kept naming places where I could spend those 940 hours and each one sounded worse than the other. I couldn't possibly do any of that, everyone I knew would make fun of me forever.

“Since the first confirmed breach.” Six. The number hung in the air. Apollo did not move. He did not need to. His mind had already begun its own quiet arithmetic. Six hours since contact. Thirteen hours since Adelaide’s awakening. He felt the numbers settle into place with a clarity that made his spine stiffen against the throne’s carved back. Cold arithmetic. No comfort in it.

Whatever else was falling apart, my hands stayed steady. The valve repair was scheduled for nine. It was a long case, the kind that runs four hours minimum when everything goes well and longer when it does not. I had assisted on this type of procedure dozens of times. I knew the rhythm of it, knew Tristan's particular preferences and the order in which he liked things presented. What I did not account for was the overhead lights.

"Two weeks." "Two weeks," he confirmed, and I heard him take a step closer. His chest pressed against my back and I could feel his cock, already hard and insistent, pressing against my ass. "Fourteen days. Three hundred and thirty-six hours." His breath ghosted across the back of my neck, his lips barely brushing my skin. "And I plan to use every single one of them learning exactly what makes you beg. What makes you scream. What makes you completely fall apart on my cock." His hand slid around my waist to palm my erection through my jeans, and I couldn't stop the gasp that escaped.

If you feel it is something you must do, then I stand behind you. A warmth spread throughout my chest, I felt content as if a missing piece of my soul was finally in place. I took a second to take in my surroundings again and looked overhead, it was dark. I figured it was pitch black but with my enhanced senses I could see. “How long have when been down here?” Almost 10 hours, the first change always takes the longest. “Ten HOURS? I have to go back, they’ll be worried.” Agreed. “Helen, how do I change back?”

"They'll anchor and move to the basin floor. Six hours minimum. Eight for a complete perimeter establishment." Six to eight hours. Eight to nine hours for the vanguards. Xander looked at the overlap. "We need to hold the eastern approach for eight hours," he said. "Starting now." "Starting now," Elena confirmed.

Kingswood, 2014 I am staring at the clock. I don't think the damned machine is working. My fingers are fidgeting and I keep tapping my legs under the desk. "Ms. Clarkson, stop tapping your feet or I will have to extend the hours for you," Ms. Crook grunts. I glare at her and roll my eyes. "Young lady, did you just roll your eyes at me?" she snaps with her high-pitched voice, her eyes burning with fury.

I was never known to be the overly emotional type. I did really well in school. Numbers were my speciality. So as I sat in the overly large waiting room, I ran them in my head. A woman is pregnant for nine months. Let's say that that doesn't involve February. That would be 275 days. A million divided by 275, that's a little over 3,600 a day. Divide that by 24 hours and we have a total of $150 an hour.