." I don't want to hear it," Mom insisted. "Do you want a twenty minute timeout instead of ten, Noah?" No," he answered mournfully. Connor wisely star...ed towards the designated time out spot. Noah stamped his feet as he followed his brother."Ten minutes on the top step, Connor," Mom directed. "Stop stamping your feet, Noah. You have twenty minutes on the bottom step. Do you understand?" Yes, Mom-Mom," Noah agreed. My nephew was slowly learning the lesson I learned a long time ago – don't fool. “What happened to the planet is an event as transformative as an asteroid strike, only without all the rocks,” the Commander said in a calm and measured voice as she studied the faces of the woman in the hall.“All we once had is gone. SkyFire has marooned our high-tech Society in a low-tech world. Cities are in rubble. The grid is down. Forever. The Age of the Internet is over,” she said with a sad shiver and paused for a moment before smiling.“In other words, we’re precisely where we need to. With its hands curled and yellow claws extended, it stepped forward slowly with a low growl. Another step, and another. When the orc was just outside of arm’s reach, the elf twisted her hips and threw her arms out, swinging the heavy poker in an arc toward the creature’s head. It flinched and lifted its arm, too late to block entirely, but enough to lesson the impact with the side of its head. The blow seemed to merely anger and embolden the monster, and it lunged forward. Its arms wrapped. Those legs went all the way from the red pom-poms that peeked from the back of her white running shoes to the hem of her denim miniskirt, and then some. The rest of her was pretty nice too. I guessed her at about twenty-five. It’s hard to tell with women, but with her looks, age wouldn’t matter much to any guy. Her snug tank top was filled to overflowing, and that shining, dark-brown hair hung in waves well below her shoulders. “Looks like you’re havin’ some trouble here, Ma’am.” She scowled..