Dime Novels From Oblivion

They seethed from the Earth like a swarm of insects. Countless thousands that had been laying dormant in the soil waiting until a sufficient number of them were ready to emerge to fulfill a singular purpose. These were not the organisms forged by the pressures of nature that erupted from the ground whenever the rhythmic cycle of life demanded. These hives were the machinations of a scheme hatched by moribund creators who were cognizant and rational enough to know time was short but still delusional and optimistic enough to believe they could reach across the chasm of death to direct the reincarnation of a civilization whose ashes blanketed the globe.
The project was the brainchild of a cabal of intellectuals and engineers who faced Armageddon with the same poisonous optimism that had made the approaching doom a foregone conclusion. The power wielded by the technological mages would seem just as mythical to the people that came before them as it would to the people who were destined t…

The city was scattered across a rugged and uneven terrain surrounding tree covered mountains with snow-capped summits that pierced the canopy of clouds being pierced by golden rays of Sun giving way to the bright blue sky. The winding roads that bound the densely populated patches were paved like a spiking pulse. Roads ascended into 45-degree slopes and twisted along a bumpy plateau before suddenly giving way to a sharp descent. The storm of rockets launched by the besieging forces battered the city inundating the already precarious roadways with rain-filled craters.
The lumbering tanks and loaded APCs sent into to deliver the finishing blow were bogged down in the narrow rubble filled avenues. Heavy vehicles trying to escape fire slid down muddy slopes into the wet sands of the shorelines of the lakes the city was built around and shock troops moving up the steep grades were vulnerable to all manner of small arms fire. The fight for the city quickly came to a standstill as the battl…