Fiction Archives - Scott Bradford: Off on a Tangent Scott Bradford is a writer and technologist who has been putting his opinions online since 1995. He believes in three inviolable human rights: life, liberty, and property. He is a Catholic Christian who worships the trinitarian God described in the Nicene Creed. Scott is a husband, nerd, pet lover, and AMC/Jeep enthusiast with a B.S. degree in public administration from George Mason University. Sun, 01 Jun 2025 02:32:20 +0000 en-US hourly 1 Coup Underway at Magic Kingdom https://www.scottbradford.us/2025/05/31/coup-underway-at-magic-kingdom/ Sun, 01 Jun 2025 00:56:23 +0000 https://www.scottbradford.us/?p=89403 A pro-democracy protest at Disney’s Magic Kingdom escalated into an apparent coup d’état Saturday afternoon. The protest against King Iger, which had been organized on social media by the Disney Freedom Front, began around 10:00 a.m. at the north end of Main Street and soon moved into the King’s Park area outside Cinderella Castle, known informally […]

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]]> New IAD Runway Dedicated https://www.scottbradford.us/2025/01/26/new-iad-runway-dedicated/ Mon, 27 Jan 2025 02:03:54 +0000 https://www.scottbradford.us/?p=88699 On January 19, 2024, Southern Airways Express flight 246 departed Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD) bound for Lancaster Airport (LNS) in Pennsylvania. The aircraft operating the flight was a small, single-engine Cessna 208B commuter plane. It carried five passengers and two crew. Shortly after takeoff from Dulles’s runway 30, the engine started losing power. The […]

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]]> Roanoke Rain https://www.scottbradford.us/2007/03/26/roanoke-rain/ Mon, 26 Mar 2007 19:29:45 +0000 https://www.scottbradford.us/2007/03/26/roanoke-rain/ I drove up Mill Mountain after work late on a Thursday afternoon to stand beneath the Star and look at the city. It had been a hot, sticky day—the kind where a few seconds in the open air left you longing for a nearby pool to dive into—but the view was worth the lingering discomfort. […]

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]]> When Nobody’s Watching https://www.scottbradford.us/2004/12/01/when-nobodys-watching/ Wed, 01 Dec 2004 19:29:01 +0000 https://www.scottbradford.us/2004/12/01/when-nobodys-watching/ In the winter, the woods were bare and exposed. With all their leaves brown and damp on the ground, the trees were little more than clusters of bare, dead branches. Light shone through during the day, and the cold wash of moonlight at night. I loved the cold; I hated the exposure. The woods were […]

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]]> The Ultimate Machine https://www.scottbradford.us/2004/07/15/the-ultimate-machine/ Thu, 15 Jul 2004 19:28:20 +0000 https://www.scottbradford.us/2004/07/15/the-ultimate-machine/ Dr. Stephen Millbloom, Director of Advanced Computer Technologies at the George Mason University School of Computer Science and Engineering, rubbed his temples with the first two fingers of each hand. He always did when he was immersed in a complex problem. For the last six days, the fastest and most powerful computer on the planet […]

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]]> The Thaxton Light https://www.scottbradford.us/2004/06/08/the-thaxton-light/ Tue, 08 Jun 2004 19:27:29 +0000 https://www.scottbradford.us/2004/06/08/the-thaxton-light/ Connor picked out a seat near the door in the back corner of an anonymous classroom, nervously awaiting the start of his first class at Freedom High. He wasn’t happy. He had asked his parents to put the move off for a year so he could finish high school with his life-long friends, but they […]

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]]> Parking Vulture (writing as Tamera Finn) https://www.scottbradford.us/2004/02/24/parking-vulture-writing-as-tamera-finn/ Tue, 24 Feb 2004 19:26:38 +0000 https://www.scottbradford.us/2004/02/24/parking-vulture-writing-as-tamera-finn/ The vultures were out, circling B-lot. B was a great parking lot. It was close to the classrooms, close to the Student Union building, close to the freshman dorms, and close to most of the classrooms. It was close to everything. It was also small. The lot only had a couple hundred spots painted out […]

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]]> A Touch of Personality https://www.scottbradford.us/2003/11/03/a-touch-of-personality/ Mon, 03 Nov 2003 19:25:44 +0000 https://www.scottbradford.us/2003/11/03/a-touch-of-personality/ “There is one possibility. Highly experimental,” Dr. Maureen Wiest told her dying patient. “A technology that’s never been tested on humans.” “I’m all ears.” Actually, he was hungry. Terminal cancer was no match for Vernon Ames’s appetite. He pulled a Three Musketeers bar from his pocket and began to unwrap it. “But you said it […]

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]]> Roberta Lystron https://www.scottbradford.us/2003/10/05/roberta-lystron/ Sun, 05 Oct 2003 19:22:22 +0000 https://www.scottbradford.us/2003/10/05/roberta-lystron/ I was a bank investigator for Wachovia branches in Washington, DC. It was my job to look into fraudulent charges on accounts, track people down when they hadn’t made necessary payments, and occasionally I would become involved after a customer’s death. It was on one of these last occasions that the file of Ms. Roberta […]

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