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anistarrose · 4 years

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Summary: Stan finds a recording from a fateful puppet show, a few disjointed memories fall into place, and the Pines family has some tense conversations.

Relationships: Ford Pines & Stan Pines, Dipper Pines & Ford Pines & Mabel Pines & Stan Pines

Characters: Stan Pines, Ford Pines, Dipper Pines, Mabel Pines, Bill Cipher (posthumously)

Set in early September, probably a little less than a week after Dipper and Mabel went home.

(It felt good to write some Stangst again! Title is from Monster Town by Go! Child because when I can't think of titles on my own, I go to my GF playlist for inspo, and that song jumped out at me today)

***

“We should probably bring a backup camera on the boat,” Ford mused, in a tone that made it impossible to tell whether he was talking to Stan or just to himself. “Maybe even multiple backup cameras. There’s no telling what the Arctic climate could do to their circuitry, and people hardly take cryptid reports seriously even with photographic evidence, never mind with just an eyewitness account and an excuse about a broken camera —”

“Easy, Sixer.” Stan set down his fully-packed suitcase at Ford’s feet, satisfied with its contents. “I’ve got a camcorder up in my room, or maybe in — actually, I can’t remember where I decided to keep it, but it’s probably still in the house somewhere. If I can find it, you can add it to your camera horde.”

Ford zipped open Stan’s suitcase, revealing hand-knitted sweaters and Hawaiian shirts in approximately equal numbers, and sighed. “Some brave wardrobe choices you’re making here. Or have you forgotten that the first beach we’re stopping at is in Alaska?”

“Well, someone’s gotta lead the fashion revolution in the Arctic Circle, and it sure ain’t gonna be you,” Stan called as he headed upstairs, provoking a resigned “hrmph” from Ford.

Stan decided to look for the camcorder in his bedroom first — because while his memory still had some scattered gaps, his gut instincts rarely lead him astray, and checking his room had been his first impulse. Sure enough, he found it sitting on a shelf and covered in slightly less dust than the adjacent stack of magazines, just as he ever-so-vaguely remembered it.

“Better make sure this thing works, before Ford declares it too unreliable for yeti hunts or whatever,” he muttered to himself, leaning back onto his bed and fumbling for the power button. The camcorder blinked to life, presenting an interface that was probably hopelessly outdated — but Stan didn’t care, while Ford would have no way of knowing what modern Earth technology looked like.

What’d I even record on this thing anyway? He selected a random video from June, was greeted with his own voice singing the first line of the Stan Wrong Song, and immediately deleted the recording. With a sigh and silent vow to never let Ford learn of the song’s existence, he moved on to a video from July.

Once again, it was Mabel’s handiwork — heh, no wonder I couldn’t remember what I used this thing for, since the kids were always borrowing it from me — but this time, Stan himself wasn’t in frame, though the craft supplies strewn about the living room were enough to stir dormant memories.

“Dipper! Puppet Dipper! Smile for the camera!”

Dipper yawned, then somewhat half-heartedly mimicked the motion using the sock puppet on his hand. “Puppet Dipper’s not really feeling up to it this morning.”

“Did Puppet Dipper stay up too late trying to solve a mystery? Bwap!” The footage blurred as Mabel nudged Dipper with a sock puppet of her own. “Do I need to make him a little puppet-sized pillow?”

“How about… some puppet-sized sunglasses, for a puppet detective?” Dipper suggested.

“Good idea!” Mabel agreed. “Then no one will notice when Puppet Dipper falls asleep standing up!”

Stan shook his head and smiled.

Man, I wish I’d found this back when my memories were still a mess — Mabel kinda skimmed over the whole puppet saga in her scrapbook. Wonder what else got recorded from that week…

He selected the next video chronologically, noticing that it was also the final recording on the device, and the smile vanished from his face.

“You can’t stop me!” It was Dipper’s voice, yet not Dipper’s voice — all fury and arrogance, and the camcorder’s cheap speaker crackled with static, like the voice was too much, too wrong, too alien to properly record and then replicate. “I’m a being of pure energy with NO weaknesses!”

Without a doubt, Dipper’s body was onscreen, but he was staggering towards Mabel with arms twisted at impossible angles. He lunged for the journal in her hands, eyes glinting the same gold color as the emblem of the six-fingered hand —

Stan hit the power button, rolled over on the bed, and buried his face in his pillow as the wave of memories crashed into him.

Brushing off Dipper’s sorry state as sleep deprivation, until the kid collapsed on the way out of the theater. Seeing the cuts and bruises all over Dipper’s hands as Stan helped him to his feet, and grilling the kids on what happened the whole drive to the hospital. Not getting an answer beyond “sleep deprivation.”

Not being able to give the doctor an answer beyond “sleep deprivation.”

Telling the twins’ parents it was just “sleep deprivation.”

A tense phone call, assuring Mr. and Mrs. Pines that Dipper’s recovery would be swift and tha Gravity Falls was still safe for their children. Stan’s hands shaking as he holds the phone, having no idea if that’s the truth, if he’s doing the right thing.

Mabel crying over a crumpled-up scrap of paper — a note? — she’d found in the car, and refusing to show it to Stan. Half-overheard secrets, whispered between the younger twins when they think Stan isn’t paying attention — apologies, worries, and murmurs too soft to be in any way decipherable.

Dipper, still with bags under his eyes, spending the next few days doing almost nothing but looking over his shoulder and burying his head in the journal. Stan pretending not to notice, but secretly finding it far too familiar for comfort.

Later memories, too — memories of demons, and handshakes, and feeling his body go numb. Memories of a voice, a furiously shrieking voice — both terrified and terrifying, but more than anything, alien.

Now, far too late, Stan recognized it.

***

“We’re calling the kids,” Stan barked, barging back downstairs, and Ford jumped.

“What’s wrong? Are your memories —”

“Better than they’ve ever been, actually.” Stan stormed directly to the living room table, flipping open the laptop on loan from Soos and clicking the video chat app. “Good enough to figure out something that apparently no one thought it might be important to tell me!”

“Are you sure?” Ford put a hand on Stan’s shoulder. “We can still call them, but let’s talk this through first, make sure you’re not missing any gaps —”

Stan paused, cursor an inch away from the call button beneath Dipper and Mabel’s profile picture. “Did Dipper tell you about the time Bill possessed him?”

Ford started to say something, stopped, and tried again. “I… I assumed you knew. I’m sorry.”

“Did you know I ended up taking him to the goddamn hospital afterwards?”

“No,” Ford whispered, and Stan felt Ford’s fingers dig into his shoulder. “Call the kids, Stan.”

Mabel must’ve been online, because she picked up almost immediately. The video opened with her sitting in her kitchen in Piedmont, Waddles in her lap. “Grunkle Stan! Grunkle Ford! Guess what I —”

The joy drained out of her smile when she noticed her grunkles’ grave expressions. “What’s going on?”

“Mabel, pumpkin,” Stan murmured, trying to tune out the sound of his heart thumping in his chest, “could you go get your brother?”

“I’m here, I’m here!” Dipper slid into view, almost falling off his chair, and Mabel scooted out of the way so they could both comfortably face the laptop. “Is something wrong?”

“Not anymore,” Ford explained, “but Stan and I wanted to talk about… communication, among other things — Stan? Are you sure you’re alright?”

Stan wiped the sweat from his forehead and shuddered, forcing himself to take a deep breath as he stared at the computer.

Dipper’s back home. Dipper’s safe. They’re both safe, and they’ll never have to worry about Bill again.

“Stanley?” Ford echoed, increasingly distressed. “Please, if —”

“I’ll be alright,” Stan managed, because even he wasn’t a good enough liar to convince anyone he was alright at this exact moment. “Promise. But kids, why didn’t you tell me when Bill hijacked your puppet show?”

Dipper and Mabel exchanged a guilty look.

“Was it because you thought I’d take away the journal?” Stan regretted his ‘only self-defense’ stipulation for the third journal more than almost anything else he’d said that summer, because he’d always known deep down that it wouldn’t stop the kids — and in hindsight, he would’ve much rather known what trouble the kids were getting into, not have them hide it from him with their late nights out in the woods and nonspecific excuses.

“At first,” Dipper replied. “But we ended up worrying a whole lot more about you sending us home early —”

“Your parents almost made that decision for me,” Stan admitted. “They were ready to drive up here and come get you when they heard what happened. I dunno how I convinced them to let you stay —”

He sighed. “And maybe knowing the truth wouldn’t have actually helped me that time — but it would’ve been nice to know how big a lie I was telling when I told them this town was safe for you kids, y’know?”

He regretted voicing that thought immediately, but regretted it even moreso when Dipper looked away from the camera, mumbling: “I’m sorry, Grunkle Stan.”

“Stan’s not trying to guilt you,” Ford spoke up, “but we want you to know you can talk about these things honestly with us — and that goes for both of you, Dipper and Mabel. We’d never want to punish you for something that was obviously… someone else’s fault.”

Thank god one of us has finally learned to think through what we say before we say it, Stan figured.

“I’m sorry too, kids,” he added out loud. “For getting angry at you a minute ago — ‘cause I’m not angry at you, I’m angry at Bill for what he got away with right behind my back, and I… I just…”

He brushed a finger across their digital faces, a gesture that no doubt failed to translate to the video feed Dipper and Mabel were viewing, and smiled. “Thanks for picking up so fast, ‘cause I really needed a reminder that the two of you are safe and sound and all.”

The kids smiled back, visible for just a second before Mabel leaned forward to hug her laptop and the screen went dark.

“Anytime, Grunkle Stan.”

***

“Coffee?” asked Ford, ever the early riser, as Stan trudged into the kitchen the next morning. “You look like you need it.”

“Gee, thanks, Sixer,” Stan groaned, slumping into the seat across from Ford at the kitchen table. “I’ve heard of backhand compliments, but now I’ve gotta live with your backhanded coffee offers too?”

“Sorry. I’m sympathizing, not mocking — I promise, when I woke up today, my eyes were just as bloodshot as yours are now,” Ford replied, sliding Stan a mug of steaming coffee. “How are your memories?”

It was a routine question as of late, but Stan still managed to botch it completely.

“Too good,” he muttered under his breath, and earned a quizzical look from Ford.

“Pardon?”

“…Good enough that I can remember all kinda things to feel shitty about,” Stan reluctantly admitted. “Like not even noticing when Dipper was possessed, for one thing. I spent the whole summer worrying about him, except for when he was actually in danger —”

“Oh, Stanley,” Ford sighed, “that’s not your fault. You know Bill was an expert liar; he scammed too many people to count —”

“Yeah, but I shoulda seen through it!” Stan brought his fist down on the table, and the contents of his mug sloshed precariously close to the top. “Of all people, I should’ve known better —”

“Right.” Ford grimaced. “Right. Because no one else who should’ve known better was ever tricked by a dream demon for a whole lot longer than a few hours —”

“Shit. Ford, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean it like —”

With a controlled glowering expression and deliberate motions, Ford stood, marching across the kitchen with all the fury and hesitation of a slow-moving thunderstorm.

“I didn’t mean it was your fault! I’d never — ”

“…I know.” Ford came to a halt at the door, bracing one hand against the frame. “But if you can say as much about me, then… then why can’t you just say that about yourself?”

“What?!”

“You would’ve caught on soon enough, if Mabel hadn’t defeated Bill when she did — I wasn’t there, but I’m sure of that because I know you, and I know how well you know Dipper.” Ford shook his head. “I didn’t catch on to Bill’s lies for years. I gave him free reign to hurt people for so much longer than one evening —”

He crossed his arms, and his imposing silhouette in the doorway seemed to shrink.

“So if you’re not blaming me for anything to happen this summer, then you’d better not blame yourself, you — you knucklehead.”

“Are you kidding me?” Stan leapt out of his seat. “It’s no wonder you didn’t see through Bill’s lies, when your whole life, you had me watching your back — and then I wasn’t there for you, when you needed me more than ever —”

“Because I pushed you away!” Ford shouted, whirling back around to face him. “Do you know what I realized while I was trying to fall asleep last night? That if I’d just stood up to Dad when he kicked you out, if I’d just done the right thing for once in my formative years, then the end of the world as we knew it would’ve been averted altogether! No falling for Bill’s flattery, no arguing over the zodiac, no Weirdmageddon! We could’ve had it all, but we just couldn’t live in that better world, all because I convinced myself you were suffocating me —”

“But it sounds like maybe I still am, huh?” Stan growled. “If all I do is just make you furious like this —”

“No,” Ford gasped, all the hostility in his voice and his glare immediately melting away. “No, no, absolutely not! I’m not furious at you, Stan, I’m…”

“Furious at yourself,” Stan accused, “for being even worse than me?!”

“No! Don’t even say that!”

Before Stan could process what was happening, much less protest it, Ford was hugging him, burying his face in Stan’s shoulder.

“Maybe — maybe I am angry at you, after all,” Ford admitted, “but you’re my hero, Stanley. My inspiration. If am angry with you, it’s — it’s just because you’re too damn stubborn to forgive yourself…”

Stan gingerly placed a hand on Ford’s shoulder. “…Yeah, and you’re one to talk.”

“I won’t deny that,” Ford mumbled. He went quiet for a few seconds, and when he spoke up again, his voice was quieter, yet slightly more composed. “Maybe we need to just… call a truce. Find something positive to agree on. We’re both too stubborn for this argument to end with either of us admitting we were wrong —”

“At least for give-or-take the next forty years,” Stan interrupted, punctuating his words with a bitter laugh.

Ford barked out a laugh of his own, loud and cathartic, and withdrew from the hug, removing his glasses to rub his eyes. “If Dipper and Mabel were here, they would have told us to stop being stubborn old men a while ago. I wish they were here.”

“They’d probably also tell us it’s more Bill’s fault than either of ours,” Stan added. “And… I guess they’d have a point.”

“I can see the logic in that.” Ford smiled faintly. “I’m sorry for making this about me, by the way. You opened up to talk about your own issues, and I —”

“Hey, I made it about you just as much as you did, Brainiac,” Stan reminded him. “…But damn. You think we’ll ever be able to talk about our feelings without shouting our lungs out at each other?”

“We’re still no good at thinking through anything before we say it,” Ford replied, “though I guess we must be getting a little better, since we didn’t even stop speaking to each other this time.”

“Thank god. I’m tired of not talking to you.”

The two of them settled back into their seats at the table, and Stan reached for the morning paper, but Ford spoke up once more.

“I know forgiveness, especially self-forgiveness, can be… complicated,” he told Stan in a low voice, “so maybe I’m biased, speaking as someone who’d rather not grapple with my own personal guilt — but even more important than whether you forgive or blame yourself, I think, is acknowledging that you made mistakes, yet still deserve good things from the universe. And that goes for you and me both.”

Stan took a sip from his mug, pleased to find its contents were still warm. “Good things like coffee, and adventures sailing around the world?”

Ford chuckled. “My priorities exactly.”

#gravity falls #stanley pines #stanford pines #dipper pines #mabel pines #gravity falls fanfiction #rosalia writes fic

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thehoardofthegreatdragon · 4 years

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Urahara Kisuke: "Come on baby, I know the law" But Actually Illegal

Hello and welcome to Coco has Too Many Feelings Hour. Today, it’s a character analysis of Urahara Kisuke because what gave him the fucking right to be so cool? WHAT GAVE HIM THE RIGHT?

Anyway. This is going to be half based on his dialogue, and half based on general action patterns, since both are damn interesting. There will be spoilers for most things but I’ll try to keep things after the Aizen arc vague. Also, it should go without saying that this is all my interpretation and very biased (extra biased because I Love Him).

[AKA: This is like, just my opinion, man.]

Now before we begin can we just pause to appreciate how beautiful he is? If you haven’t, stare at this picture for at least a minute. Go on, I’ll time you.

Now we can move on.

Kisuke is, in a word, complicated. If I had to describe him (and considering that’s the point of this entire goddamn document, I better try), I’d say he’s a man with unstoppable curiosity and a heart that is far too soft to handle the fallout of his own invention.

No matter where you put him, no matter what time he’s born into, he will create a weapon he shouldn’t have. He has this strange bit of naïveté about his science at first, but it fades as he sees what his science has done to people he cares for. He has a good heart-- a soft heart, under it all-- so he can’t just accept the damage he’s done and move on. He turns that genius to invention, so that he can fix the things he broke. He wants to help everyone he can, because he hurt so many.

But that doesn’t ever make the guilt go away, and it doesn’t stop him from using people when he has to— we see this happen with Ichigo in the Soul Society invasion arc. Kisuke uses him to achieve his goals, but he is far from happy about it and apologizes afterwards.

Alright, into the meat of his character. I’m going to skim over the fact that he is arguably one of the strongest characters in the entire show, a man who plans for every eventuality compulsively because he understands that people die in battle (people die when they are killed), and so intelligent that he was one of the few people Aizen actually was wary of. I’m skimming it, because otherwise this already too long essay would be three times as long and wax rhapsodic about every way that he is, in fact, an incredible badass.

[IM SKIPPING IT FOR ALL OUR SAKES OKAY.]

He will and does help people, but he’s very guarded. It makes a terrible kind of sense, because he worked in the Omnitsukidō, and I don’t think anyone can come out of a spy and assassination agency without some jadedness. The exile doesn’t help either, because now he’s been forced to deal with the fallout from a betrayal and the loss of his home too.

That being said, the exile also made him more of his own man. Freer, in many ways. More able to be the eccentric self he wants to, better adapted to life, more likely to see how people could use him and less likely to let it happen. I think the living world suits him in a way that Soul Society never really did.

At his core he's a good person, but he built walls upon walls around himself. And those walls never come down, and some of them are mirrors, and some of them are smokescreens that don’t look like walls, because he can never be simple and he doesn’t want to be understood. And even if someone does see part of who he is, he wants them to only see that particular part.

He is an eccentric free spirit whose drive for invention cost him more dearly than anything else. His will to create, his truest self— the scientist, with inventions to make and the world to explore— started a war. It ruined the lives of people he wanted to be friends, and people who were friends.

And as a scientist, that’s the greatest blow of all. It’s like Oppenheimer and the atomic bomb. He created a weapon he couldn’t control, but he did it with something he loved with his whole heart. It hurts twice as deeply, when it comes from love.

He’s also a follower more than a leader. Kisuke is the support type, for all his fighting skill— he’s ready with backup plans and transportation and research, but he needs a person to follow into battle. For a long time that was Yoruichi. Then he stood on his own as a captain, but the way he did it was by structuring his division into a support division rather than a truly fighting one (his own way of coping with new leadership, imo. He turned the 12th into the division he wanted it to be, rather than really learning how to lead a fighting division).

Then he had to stand on his own, in exile, and he did. I imagine this was mostly fueled by guilt and determination, because he had to fix the mess he had helped create and defeat Aizen. But even still, he still kept to the shadows and planned Aizen’s downfall, rather than stepping on the battlefield and doing it himself (for many reasons, of course— Aizen was still in Soul Society’s good graces and it would have been suicide, Kisuke is not a foolish man who would throw away the best chance at success for a fight).

And at last, he chose Ichigo to follow. But this is doubly interesting because at first he is uses Ichigo to achieve his goals. Supposedly, Kisuke himself couldn’t have gone to Soul Society to rescue Rukia (because of the exile, though let’s face it Kubo’s world building doesn’t explain how Yoruichi could go so who really knows. And Kisuke being Kisuke, would have found a way into Soul Society if he thought it would help their fight against Aizen. Anyone who doesn’t believe that can see the TYBW arc and Fight Me).

But there were many people who had a better chance of going in his stead, and many ways to save Rukia that didn’t involve a straightforward invasion. This is not to mention that Kisuke used Rukia too, with the intention of forcing Aizen’s hand.

So when Ichigo and Kisuke first meet, he views Ichigo as a tool (and a person, because he’s a good man and never free of the guilt).

But with each battle, we see how Kisuke trusts Ichigo more and more. This progression continues until the last battle with Aizen, and then after that Kisuke stands behind Ichigo with absolutely no hesitation. Throughout the last arc, throughout the remainder of the manga, when Ichigo needed him, Kisuke was there— with supplies, with research, with a path to Hueco Mundo, hell even with a path to the big palace up in the sky. And Kisuke trusted Ichigo absolutely— see the panel where Ichigo asks Kisuke to hold out until he gets there, and everything will be alright because Ichigo will handle it. And Kisuke’s response to that is just a smile and a single word— “Understood.”

The trust between them is absolute. This is surprising, if you think of how few people Kisuke has really trusted over the years, and how few he trusts to this extent.

[It’s also very interesting that of all the people Ichigo choses to tell to “wait for me,” it’s Kisuke but that’s just my loyalty kink showing up don’t mind me.]

Once the guilt of using him was gone, Kisuke could follow the leader he’d chosen. And he did, endlessly.

On that note, Kisuke’s dialogue choice with Ichigo develops in a very interesting way. In the beginning its challenging and on the ruthless side (“don’t use her as an excuse to kill yourself,” for example), into something much more trusting and less challenging (the “understood” for instance, or the “what would you like me to do” ). This evolution tracks with the evolution of Kisuke’s changing attitude towards Ichigo.

We move from Kisuke only promising to help when he extracts something in return (“Do you really think, there is no way to get to Soul Society? I’ll tell you, on one condition.”) to Kisuke offering to help Ichigo before being asked (“My my, you guys sure are having an interesting conversation. So, this Hueco Mundo trip. Shall I arrange it?”).

[Imagine how much literally anyone else would pay to have a scientist of Kisuke’s caliber basically on retainer. And Ichigo gets it for the low low price of absolutely free.]

All this is to say, that I think that Kisuke can and is always ready for any eventuality but that it’s only after his trust is earned by Ichigo that he gives his plans so easily to other people. He has chosen a king, so to speak.

[Don’t call out my power kink or I will personally end you.]

Moving on to dialogue in general, we see many damn interesting patterns. Perhaps intentionally, Kisuke's a bit on a different wavelength, and no one expects the answers he gives to any questions. Its eccentricity, but honed into a weapon and very self-aware. He often interprets questions in different ways than expected, like he’s purposefully setting people off guard.

Consider the following response he gives to an enemy in later chapters (TYBW arc):

“Asking me such a personal question, is really more of a second date thing.”

He’s never met this person before in his life, and his response is to just, straight up flirt. THIS IS FLIRTING. KISUKE. WHY ARE YOU FLIRTING. HE’S NOT EVEN HOT.

Anyway. In general, Kisuke has two broad categories of speech patterns: completely serious and teasing-playful-fake-humble. Unlike many other characters who use a baiting tone and words against enemies (Frankenstein from Noblesse comes to mind as an example), Kisuke uses them on friends and enemies alike. And his tone isn’t really mocking but fake-humble and fake-playful.

Examples of this—

“Oh? You know of me. What an honor.” (Said behind fan)

“It’s wedged in their rather fatally, Yoruichi-san!” (Said to Yoruichi’s ass)

[Seriously, who does this asshole think he is? Yoruichi kicks him and I’m glad she does.]

He's very often cheerful, and usually smiling as he speaks. I’d say his eyes are the biggest giveaway to his emotion because they dont really ever soften. (And because Kubo has a Thing for drawing them covered in shadows and looking badass, see Exhibit: Oh No He’s Hot, pictured below)

In this playful mode, even when he apologizes it’s usually in a way that somehow makes it worse. He’s constantly either annoying people or throwing them off guard or a combination, but in a much more cheerful eccentric way than say, Frankenstein. For example, after he says the line above to Yoruichi (in the middle of a battle, I might add), he says this:

“Why would you kick me? I came to help. I’m sorry, perhaps the expression “wedged in” was a bit vulgar.”

He’s managed to repeat the thing that made her kick him, in a way that almost makes it worse, but in a way that makes it seem like hes trying to apologize. It’s very clever, and also ideal for pissing people off, intentional or not. (But who are we kidding, this is Kisuke. It’s definitely intentional).

But he can also switch to a serious mode quite quickly, seemingly able to interweave the two modes without really needing to break between them. This most often comes out when there is someone to save or protect.

[Because he's secretly a softie, as mentioned above, god I love him]

For example, when Masaki is in danger, even tho he's never met her or the soul reapers before (and when his very existence should make him avoid Isshin), he says this:

“We dont have time to waste. Both of you, please come with me. I will tell you the choices you have to save her.”

It’s to the point, succinct, polite, and also filled with a desire to save. It’s also completely at odds with his playful tone when he speaks in other times. I think this dichotomy is the core of Kisuke. Of course he's playful and eccentric— and this makes him the delightful character he is— but at his core he's a man who cares about people and wants to help. He doesn’t hesitate to apologize when he is in the wrong either, kneeling before Ichigo after the Soul Society arc and not asking for forgiveness but explaining why he is sorry. (Ichigo forgives him, because Ichigo will always forgive him, and that hurts even more).

But even when there are threats to life, if they've been dealt with and he's in a controlled environment, he pulls out the playful act again, though it often has an edge. For example, after he saves Ichigo for the first time he says this:

“What? You sound upset. Didn’t you want to be saved?”

It’s on the edge of teasing but its also much more pointed than anything else he's said to Ichigo at this point. It’s followed by some of the rawest and cruelest lines of dialogue I’ve ever read, because Kisuke doesn’t flinch back from being harsh when he has to be.

Even his cruelty, when he is forced to use it, comes from a place of care and a desire to help. Doesn’t stop it from stinging like hell.

It’s at this point where I descended into crying about Kisuke and how good he was and how much I love him, and so decided to stop.

In summary: Kisuke is a good man who couldn’t stop himself from inventing the most destructive weapon to exist. But he’s a good man, and so he spent a century crafting his own penance.

General Kisuke Dialogue I’ve collected, in case people find it useful:

Stop fighting, you two. It’s my fault, I should have disposed of it.

We have no choice. We’ve got to find it and neutralize it before it causes any trouble.

No way, accidents happen! Don’t worry, I’ll take care of everything. There now, its okay.

Good, let’s move! Operation “recall”

Well look here. We finally find you, and you’re already incapacitated. What a waste. We lugged all this stuff here for nothing.

I’m going to destroy it. Hmm. I’m not sure how to answer that.

This is serious. I won’t take the fall for you.

No no, Kurosaki-san. Your wounds have barely closed. If you move around too much, you’ll die <3.

Do you really think, there is no way to get to Soul Society?

I’ll tell you, on one condition. For the next ten days, you must allow me to train you.

You don’t understand. What I’m trying to tell you is they’ll kill you.Could you win? If you fought them as you are? I allowed you to fight them this time, because I thought it would make it easier for you to understand. At your current level of ability, you wouldn’t stand a chance in soul society. You’re weak. For you to venture into enemy territory now would be suicide. You want to save Kuchiki-san? Don’t make me laugh. Don’t use her as an excuse to kill yourself.

Of course. If you wish to save Kuchiki-san with your whole heart, then you have at your disposal a power stronger than iron. But if your resolve is half-hearted, forget it. For the next ten days, I’m going to put you through the wringer.

What? You sound upset. Didn’t you want to be saved?

He went home. His wound bled a lot, but it wasn’t severe.

Couldn’t you have come up with anything better? [how lame]

Looks like I was a step too late.

What would you like me to do? Shall I book a ticket to reiokyu? It may take me some time though. [to ichigo]

We dont have time to waste. Both of you, please come with me. I will tell you the choices you have to save her.

My my, you guys sure are having an interesting conversation. So, this Hueco Mundo trip. Shall I arrange it?

[I] its usually like this with Urahara. [K] you know me too well <3

Oh? You know of me. What an honor. (Said behind fan)

To be included in such an esteemed group, I don’t know what to say. Its an honor, but he’s giving me too much credit.

It’s wedged in their rather fatally, Yoruichi-san!

Why would you kick me? I came to help. I’m sorry, perhaps the expression “wedged in” was a bit vulgar (makes fake apologies a lot)

Asking me such a personal question, is really more of a second date thing.

You see, even if I don’t tell you, you’ll be up close and personal with it soon enough.

#urahara kisuke #character analysis #bleach #yes I have too many feelings don't @ me #catch coco crying on main again about kisuke #to the surprise of everyone #im a Kisuke stan

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vimvarial · 4 years

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A little peekaboo into hell.

~~~

Things have gotten much worse. The energy from the ritual did not disperse as we hoped. Instead it seems to have torn a hole in the fabric of reality. On the other side are a bunch of demons. I can’t describe how horrifying it is to see those creatures clamoring over each other to try to get through the tear. Their malevolence is so great that we can practically feel their greed and hunger as they gaze through that portal into our world. It seems that they can’t quite get through yet (thank god for small mercies). We don’t have much time, but we need to figure out how to fix this.

“So the ritual used the life force of several animal sacrifices in order to anchor the portal to this plane. We’ll need to dislodge it somehow. Maybe purification? Or tearing out the space…” Warren continued to mutter to himself while frantically looking through the available notes and books.

“I may have the materials to purify energies here,” started Natoya while glancing at Warren. “but, I sure bloody don’t have the strength to try to purify full-fledged demons.” In the background, Lynn and Teresa were organizing the various materials the cultists had and trying to mitigate the ritual by clearing away the ritual chalk.

“Well..” Brody rubbed his hand down his jack-o-lantern face. “I do know something we could try. Might be good to have ‘em as backup, but I don’t know if you’ll be down for it bruv.” I sigh.

“We honestly don’t have a lot of options right now. So what is it?” I ask. He shifts a little.

“Considerin’ it’s All Hallows Eve, we could try getting’ someone from the Otherside. We’ll likely get ol’ Samhain at this point.” he explains. Warren scoffs.

“You want to bring a notoriously capricious fae of significant power into this mess?” he questions as he turns to stare at Brody. Brody shrugs.

“Not like he could make it worse. ‘Sides Samhain has a vested interest in keepin’ this world goin’ y’know? More future minions. Just gotta slap down the right symbols and boom! Instant summon.” Warren and Brody continue to argue the merits of bringing the Samhain spirit into the works as I turn to Natoya and gently grab her by the arm.

“Can you set up the purification ritual? I know that you can’t get rid of the demons, but maybe we can use it together with something else. Every little bit helps” She stares at me for a moment before determination lights up her eyes.

“No problem. I’ll get started.” She immediately starts pilfering the cultists’ supplies and works on setting it up. I walk over to Teresa and Lynn. They are now hunched over some notes left on one of the tables.

“You guys got anything?” I ask hoping that some sort of miracle has appeared within the notes. Lynn sighs.

“Not much. Just a bunch of different sources for breaching the planes, especially on Halloween.” she picks up a few notes and hands them to me. I see the symbols Brody was referring to for the Samhain spirit. Another set also catches my eye.

“Some of these require sacrifices.” Teresa adds while nervously turning the pages of a book. “Sacrificing a life tends to create an anchor or debt with the entity or plane being contacted. This ritual already has that anchor in place so we need to get rid of it to stop the demon horde from pouring through.”

“Maybe we can find something that will create a competing anchor?” Lynn suggested. “That would possibly snuff out the one the demons are trying to use.” Her words echo in my head. Their conversation shifts out of my focus as I continue to stare at the symbols supposedly used to summon Death on the page in my hand. A terrible idea starts to bloom in my mind.

Ignoring the conversation, I glance at Natoya and find that the purification ritual is already underway and lessening the demonic influence. Brody and Warren are still arguing, but on the table near them is some leftover chalk from the ritual and one of their fancy daggers. Chills crawl up my spine as I walk over and grab the chalk. The voices of my friends and the slathering demons fall into a dul buzz. I then carefully pick up the dagger. Warren is saying something to me and putting his hands on my shoulders, but I am not listening. I shrug him off and step towards the portal. I walk past Natoya who shows confusion before asking me something that I don’t listen to. I kneel down just out of reach from the portal. I quickly scrawled the symbols I saw on the page. Both for the Samhain spirit and Death.

“Uh mate? What’re doin’?” Standing back up, I drop the chalk and turn around to look at my friends. Brody took a couple of steps forward showing concern in his face. Warren is behind him trying to see what I had written with his brows furrowed before looking at me in worry. Natoya continues with the purification ritual, but she has her eyes on my with confusion written clear across her face. Teresa and Lynn had walked over. Teresa stood on her toes trying to see what I wrote over the distance. Lynn looks confused, before a look of horror slowly dawns on her face.

“Maybe Godfather will be able to bail me out of this, but if they don’t…” I trail off for a moment. “I’ll miss you guys.” Warren, Brody, and Teresa are still confused and even more concerned. Natoya’s eyes go wide in fear.

“Wait Tracy don’t-” Lynn starts, but before she can continue I take the dagger and stab myself in the heart. As I fall, I hear the cries of my friends in front of me and the roar of the demons behind me. I weakly smear some of my blood across the symbols I had written. They start to glow as my vision goes black. I feel more than see someone trying to get to my self-inflicted wound. Their voices fade away as everything just fades to black again.

#drawtober #drawtober2020 #ink #art #demons #its real bad y'all

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the-uptake · 4 years

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Between You and Me

The Uptake, With Symbiotic Self-Indulgence. Book III, Chapter 11. Go to previous. TWs: Shaving, alcohol, drugging, hangovers of both kinds, bondage, epidemic, isolation, bombing survivorship mention, descriptions of lethal body horror. Bite the hand that feeds, tap the vein that bleeds...

________________________

Come third shift that night, the faint hum within the complex’s walls had faded, and only one wall of each apartment’s main room and bathroom illuminated its inhabitants’ way with the pale Wolfram phosphorescence accumulated during the second shift. If not for the potent, unfamiliar scent of vaguely sandalwood aftershave and the dark gold towels, Cecil could nearly have forgotten he stood shirtless in someone else’s bathroom. That, and he’d sooner be caught dead than own bathroom rugs.

His halo lay, turned off, on the counter beside the sink. The internal elements in its opalescent clear plastic emanated faint pulses. To his surprise, he found the tenant owned a rechargeable power bank. Possibly several, he supposed, considering the facility with which he located it in the fluorescent twilight. So as to let ‘Choly keep theirs to get through the night, the redhead gladly made use of the foot-long clear-housing device, so the aural aureole could maintain its juices that night well past the hour it normally flickered off altogether. Unlike the backup electrical source, his boyfriend wouldn’t have any need at the time for the clipper that he then produced from its case. He fished around in the like-new guard attachments, recalling that ‘Choly didn’t use any. When he snapped on the size two, an ebullient nerve jolted through him. He pulled the drain stopper, and leaned into the mirror to get to work.

As the chunks of two-inch hair fell to the counter, floor, and sink basin, the act felt more natural than he’d expected. He’d trimmed himself dozens of times over the years, and maintained his own facial hair, but he’d never buzzed off all his hair. If he’d ever seen a Leveler with their hair this short, they hid it beneath the translucent cranial plates which the Northeast US deemed especially fashionable. Full-scalp plating was unheard of, though: these functional successors to the fascinator always had either brightly colored, vee-reactive, or even fiber-optic extensions wefted through exposed sections, or the wearer’s natural hair pulled through it to be styled somewhat akin to how people used to style hair around combs and other such devices. The reverberations of the clippers on his scalp rendered the sound for him as would a deep bone conduction headset. He wondered how someone might even wear such an accessory without hair long enough to clip it into.

He set down the clippers to run his hands all over his work, and smeared around his chin and jaw with the heels of his palms. The length of what remained on his head now nearly matched that of his third-shift shadow. The more he stared at himself, the more his heart lightened. Content with the catharsis of self transgression, he moved to clean up after himself. With a lock of the longest hair from the top of his head in his fingers, he wondered whether ‘Choly would want it. He flinched at himself, but still tucked the sizable brassy chunk into the inner pouch of his toiletry bag regardless, unable to quit the habituation of such thoughts. He did his best without a broom and dust pan to corral the rest of the trimmings into the wastebasket.

Without building power, the plumbing lacked necessary pressure, so he instead used some of the tenant’s reserve water supply, from the interconnecting clear stackable units stashed in the bathtub, to shampoo and rinse his head in the sink.

Suspiciously well equipped for the unplugged shifts, he noted, of the tenant’s specialized furnishings. The sensation of scrubbing the fine clippings off his scalp with his fingernails got him whistle-humming softly with his mouth open. The small spigot on the side of it made it incredibly simple to measure out cupfuls to pour over his head as he held it over the basin. Having it in these units is so much handier than our repurposed leftovers bins. Maybe he’d help us get set up with something like this.

He tossed the borrowed towel into the hamper by the tub and put his unbuttoned gold dress shirt back on, then reconnected the four flexible ports of his halo and handshaked it. In the next room, he could hear struggling that had, from the labored nasal breathing, likely gone on for some time. He murmured dully to himself, put his glasses back on his face, and took his empty highball with him to investigate.

Though Jacob’s apartment had the same floor plan as Cecil and ‘Choly’s, the furnishings denied any meaningful confusion. The back third had an office area, the middle a series of utility shelves and an L-shaped workbench perpendicular to the wall, and the front a peculiarly spacious third of open floor with a single broad cabinet. Just as theirs, dozens of potted plants peppered the long, narrow quarters. Unlike theirs, rather than literary in nature, the grey-area verbot that peppered Jacob’s was technological and mechanical.

“Hope you don’t mind that I’ve let myself in, neighbor,” he remarked as he approached the upholstered swiveling desk chair from behind. “Decided I’d stay the night with you, to make sure you recovered right from the tranq. My brother and their friend helped me carry you over here before they headed out.”

Jacob stilled at Cecil’s voice, and stopped straining against the ropes that anchored him to his seat. He didn’t bother craning his head to look up over the back of the chair.

“I do still have both kidneys, right?” The snark received deadpan silence. “--Where’s Angel?”

“Powered off, in the front. I could teach you better encryption, if you want.”

Cecil casually refreshed his glass from the small lacquer dry bar in the very corner of the office space. He plunked a few cocktail cherries suspended in lime gelatin cubes from the zippered package, and splashed in whiskey, ginger ale, and some kind of Vek bitters. He sipped at his concoction until he netted one of the bright blue fruits in his mouth and twisted off the stem, and chewed before he spoke again.

“I appreciate your hospitality, really. These jellies are something else. I’m on my third Premier.” Cecil faced into the apartment, skirting eye contact, to lean his weight against the side of the desk. Behind him, rain had probably strafed the naked window for most of the evening already, and would definitely continue through the night. The stem went back in his cup, since he didn’t trust his ability to hit the waste bin two meters away. “Place’s nice, too. See you’ve greened it up. Did my brother do yours, too, like some kinduva traveling snake oil dealer?”

The blond let a slow breath escape flared nostrils, and an intermittent low whine corrugated his affect.

“What time is it? Can’t be super late. Glow’s still going. --Are you sure you wouldn’t rather a slice of confec? You seem like you could use some confec right now. Don’t strike me as the type to drink--”

“--About twenty-two. Not too long before first shift. Then it’s just the two of us. And I’ll be blind, drunk,and deaf.”

“It’s just you and me here?”

Inebriation had misinformed Cecil’s tongue, since he didn’t usually keep a continuous charge in the halo, but he couldn’t be bothered to correct himself. He worked at draining his glass, so he could earn the rest of the fruits that had glued themselves to the bottom of the crowded glass. He nudged the chair back a bit with his foot to slide over to sit on the desk and face him. He just stared blankly at the tall, thick blond while popping the prized garnishes in his mouth one at a time, removing the stems each time and letting them accumulate in the highball.

Jacob slouched when Cecil’s enjoyment of them seemed more like absent cud-chewing, and he shut his eyes, folding to the implicit staring contest.

“Are you all right, pal? Is that a stupid question? Is that okay to ask? --You know you can just eat the jellies without making a drink, right--”

Cecil sat the glass down on the bar, and gripped the edge of the desk, to swing his feet under it.

“I just shot you. You’re tied up, and I can’t let you go. And I can’t even look at my boyfriend right now. Do you even really need to ask?” His mouth scrunched and he glanced at the ceiling before resuming more agreeable eye contact. “Question of my own now, since you can clearly intuit some modicum of transparency: What made you a repairman?”

Jacob’s exhausted eyes stitched in a smile, and he shifted back in the chair.

“Cred’s never been the only currency. There’s lost potential in everything around us. Call it alchemy, in the most abstract sense. Mend and mod. Turn something into something else. In lieu of cred, people used to trade goods and services all the time, back in the day. The tradition never died. It just changed. Like everything else did.” He squinted again, his mouth becoming a wide thin line. “Look, I can’t turn on the poetic charm just like that. If you’re asking why a repairman’s decided to live in Tri-City, with everything like it is, I stayed behind because I knew there’d be survivors who’d still need the building to work right. Simple as that. Why’s it matter to you?”

“How altruistic of you. Of course it matters. You weren’t just fixing the garbage chutes. You were going through people’s trash. Just doesn’t add up to me, though, why you’d put yourself at risk to return something so patently thrown away.”

“Again with that box!” Jacob scoffed, the stress flickering out of his grin. “Would you have rather I just let that stuff get destroyed? Wait. You’re scared I’d tattle. Weak. You’d better freakin’ believe I wouldn’t bring police into the building. Your honey isn’t the only gremlin in this place, you know. I’m not gonna burn the whole house down just to smoke out one cockroach.”

“I know I can’t be the only one with a weapon. What’s stopping you from dealing with the... roaches... yourself?”

The subtext read louder than the text. Jacob knew why Cecil didn’t think he could untie him, but now he’d said it outright.

“You feel personally responsibly for Central, don’t you, librarian? That’s what all this is. You just can’t let it go.”

Cecil let out a broken laugh, and his eyes glassed up as he steeled a snivel.

“How can’t I? I should have been able to stop it. I was working a Level 7 server room when Central became a Roman candle. You snarked about my burn scars and all that shit, but surely from the look of me, you can tell how close I had to be to one of the payloads.” The ex-librarian couldn’t sit still anymore and paced. He quickly conflated the habit with his brother and sat back down on the desk, to lace and fold his hands in his lap with a sour, desperate face. “You know we’ve only got a localized Nikola-web here, repairman. Just what they’ll feed us, accept from us. Have you got an Underweb connection? Has anyone here?”

Jacob didn’t like not being able to watch Cecil pace, but he didn’t like it even more when the pacing halted so abruptly, only for the strung-out stocky little man to perch in front of him all over again. His eyes slowly widened as his brow raised, and he frowned thoughtfully.

“Now just what exactly would somebody like you need the Underweb for?”

The ginger nearly objected, but recognized he hadn’t been shut down. He shifted in place as he formed his narrative response.

“‘Choly needs medical stuff. But he’s scared of billing. It’s exciting to know he’s taken care of all that himself his whole life. You know Stalkers had two options with their medical needs. They either bartered with verbot to get care from this one clinic... or they didn’t. He’s been disabled since before he was a teen. He racked up an awful lot of debt with their lead doc. It got to where he couldn’t afford the emotional, sociological, or physical cost of enlisting the doc’s help.” He stilled himself by chewing at his spider bite studs, but his voice began to break. “He asked me this afternoon about a... maggot debridement kit. And Trylocaine saline. The bullet you asked about. He told me, he got shot in the leg. That night. It’s gotten so fucking infected. You think the 25-line garbage chute smelled bad? Just be glad you weren’t in the bathroom this morning helping him sop up the pus in the first place.”

The repairman huffed, eyeing the dry bar.

“So he wasn’t puffing up to scare me, by describing all the...” He realized he couldn’t gesticulate, and slouched in a sympathetic resignation. “The skin or whatever. Slag, though. Leather. Real leather,” he whooped. “And that much of it. It’s all kind of revolting, isn’t it?”

“Everything about him is so revolting that it’s charming. If there’s a way to keep him... keeping it. Oh, I don’t know.” He caught himself trying to stand to pace and burked the compulsion. “I just don’t understand why he threw it away, when he literally put years of blood and sweat into it.”

“Everybody’s got their own exchange rate, their own value of things. He might just not value the same things you do. Or at least, not in the same way. Whatever value that thing, and crafting it, has to him. Might be past tense. --Why’s it so important to you, that he keeps on like he has? You only just today found out about it, from the sound of it all.”

“Because this has been his ‘normal’ for the past four years!” he cried, throwing his hands up. “I can nearly forgive that he never told me, or showed me. He hasn’t had his hair bleached like that since we first met, and then he goes and does that the day after the bombing. And that tattoo. That triangle thing immortalized in the leather. I know he got it, a month after we started going steady, just to push my buttons.” He rubbed at his tattooed arms and couldn’t look at Jacob anymore, trembling deep in his lungs. “...I guess a part of me’s worried that he’s either trying to move to a time before he knew me. Or a time before he had to be nagged up over all this mess. It’s an understatement, that everything’s gone to shit since Central went dark, but everything really did feel right until that day. We managed. We worked. Like, it was all falling into place, not apart.”

Jacob barked a laugh, disquieted by his inability to unpack the brand of Cecil’s loyalty to ‘Choly.

“Geez, pal. Gonna sprain something, overthinking so hard. Mister Thorn’s on your side, and he’s going to guarantee your Ever After won’t be ending any time soon. Promise.” He got a bit lyrical as he drafted the laundry list. “Is leather working stuff all you think ‘Choly would need? The surgical stuff. I’ve got pharmaceutical connections. Wonder if Trylocaine’s enough...”

Cecil’s head picked up when he heard Jacob humoring him, and a hollow enchantment overwhelmed him at a loss for the spectrum of what the repairman must have had access to.

“I’m... not sure what you’re suggesting here,” he mumbled.

“All you’ve gotta be is specific. I can get it.”

“...And the cost?”

The repairman scoffed, in a wide-eyed detachment.

“The cost? You mean, what’s in it for me?” He thought it over a moment. “All depends on what it is, I guess.”

“What about Ketonamil?” Cecil blurted out, a little too intensely. Worried to have been mistaken for anger, he softly amended, “--Or at least, the stuff to make some?”

Cecil’s head rang in a complex grief, that the cyanogenic steroid was the first thing to fly out of his mouth. Maybe he felt more threatened than he thought by Jacob, in ways the tranq couldn’t adjust for. Or maybe he just wanted to gauge the repairman’s going prices. Jacob melted in a stunned, warm fascination.

“All this couch psychiatry mess has been fun, but if we’re going to continue to be neighbors, I really have got to work on how I keep letting you lot continue to surprise me with gems like this.” A wistful sigh escaped him, stuttering into discomfort. He wagged his head toward the reader on the square pad in the windowsill. “Yeah, I’ve got Underweb access. It should still have a charge. Parked it before third shift. If you... untie me... I could--”

“--Or,” Cecil asserted with a wild glare, gripping the man’s kneecap until he squirmed, then balance back to put the other hand on the device slightly behind himself. “You could just tell me your sequence so I can browse for myself.”

Cecil turned on the screen and waited. Maybe the liquor had loosened his inhibitions. He never got drunk. Was he a mean drunk? A talkative drunk? He’d disclosed to a near total stranger things he’d never come close to discussing with anyone close to him. He could see Jacob sweating.

“...Or that.”

Jacob told him the finger pattern design to draw through the symbols, and the lock screen shut off. He’d never been able to get the hang of ‘Choly’s rooted reader, and he’d purposefully left its updates off for years on top of that. The rooted user interface of the current model had so many more buttons to swipe among, and many menus necessitated the use of manually typing with the keyless entry pad that occupied the last third of the flat device. He didn’t ask Jacob to tell him how to use it, lest he risk inviting giving Jacob good reason to insist, If only you’d just untie me, I could show you myself, I’m no good at explaining things like that with words, et cetera, et cetera.

He’d figure it out himself.

The time in the corner indicated 22:52. If only you’d just untie me. The hypothetical request repeated itself in Cecil’s head. Did he really trust what Jacob told him, or was he being spoon-fed whatever might get him to free him? Though the wine key didn’t look like a reliable option, he pocketed it. Then he picked up the pronged Japanese bar spoon, and twiddled it between two fingers while he browsed with the other hand trying to locate the merchant apps. Apparently, its owner had the news Web app set to auto-load certain tiers of noteworthy news broadcasts. The screen split between three different pieces:

“Bloom Set to Ramp to Full Pandemic Status”

“Bloom Victims Now Sprouting Up on International Soil”

“New Developments in Bloom Survivor Procedures”

He skimmed the first, his brow sinking against his glasses. Something was effectively causing people to spontaneously turn inside out. He could recognize the “plant” and “insect” or“crustacean” traits the article described in the structures that jutted from and leafed out of the bodies knotted up in the apparent agony of such a gruesome death, even with only the photographs included of the casualties. His jaw tightened, recalling his brother mere hours ago making casual discussion over how Vekarix couldn’t graft an exoskeleton donor into a mammal’s genetic expression without lethal consequences. He boiled inside at the incredulity that Ben could be involved. The thylacine hybrid hadn’t seemed remotely out of sorts during the insect grafting discussion with ‘Choly. Had he been about to tell them all about this‘Bloom,’ only to have gotten interrupted by Jacob? By the Box?

The second article, he only skimmed, his ears ringing too much to focus. He gleaned victims had been found on both coastlines of the States, and in the past week cases had been discovered in Scandinavia and South Asia. Investigations had already been underway to pinpoint if a sole food supplier might have shipped out tainted stock, and pressure had intensified once the epidemic had crossed international waters. He spaced out a ways, despising the reality how disconnected from the outside world their apartment building was. Unplugged from reliable transportation, let alone utilities, including Web. Fed only what FEMA deemed suitable to funnel into their location-specific Nikola-based Web broadcasts. He stared at the photos, revolted fundamentally at what could only be some manner of genetic disease.

Speechless, the ex-librarian looked up, haunted, and turned around the reader to set it in Jacob’s lap to observe him.

“I’ve got to keep up on current events,” he lampshaded. “Sue me for having auto-load set on some stuff.”

“--You knew about this then?” Cecil snipped. “Have there been any in Tri yet?”

Jacob shrugged, and decided giving him his closest understanding of the crisis better served them both than instructing specific topic searches.

“Only a matter of time, I guess. They’ve started refining a cure. Made their first survivor announcement a few days ago. Nasty stuff. Comes in flare-ups. Seems to start just turning you green, but every episode after that just fucks you up sideways. Looking like the key to surviving it is catching it before‘crab phase’ or whatever the hell that explosion of sharp mangled guts is. Worst part is, it makes you complacent to the changes, or oblivious altogether. You don’t seek medical help. You stop eating, and seek light and water above all else. The first survivor only got there‘cause he stuck close enough to home his steady found him and took him somewhere.”

All the while, Cecil had stared at the reader screen, not Jacob.

“What... is it.”

“A virus, maybe? No one knows. It’s got to be genetic, ‘cause they reversed it with humanization serum. Look, if you wanna read up on it, that’s fine. I’m probably missing scientifical parts of this whole shebang. Use my reader all you want. I don’t care. Just lemme get up and piss, pal. You really are tormenting me at this point.”

Cecil finally folded, and crouched behind the chair to cut the knots with the wine key. By the time the ropes loosened off the chair, Jacob was already rounding the chair to gently knuckle-scrub the ex-librarian’s fresh buzz cut with a chuckle, and he strolled off to the bathroom. Cecil bundled up the rope, then sat to resume reading the news articles. Without all the bookshelves to dampen the sound, having the door open while he took care of his business echoed awfully. Cecil sneered, but appreciated that even though Jacob saved reserve water by not flushing until in the morning, he at least heard him wash his hands.

The third piece was almost totally in video broadcast. He started it, but couldn’t find the volume to turn it up, so he tapped at it until closed captioning started streaming. They interviewed a tall, older man with worn features and an angular nose, bespoken in layered burgundy and navy leisure suiting. The man had shoulder-length receding chartreuse hair, and blood-black sclera and fingernails. From his manicured brows and sideburns, he could tell it wasn’t a dye job. He grimaced as he skimmed the text.

Ivory Rasmussen. Prior already renown as the Confectioner responsible for Resin. Lives in Level 22, in the solar sector of still-crippled Tri-City, New Jersey.

He didn’t get anything more from the interview beyond the understanding they wanted to know what he felt, knowing his survival could mean a large-scale success in overcoming the pandemic globally. Except his insistence that, despite the global incidence, he discredited anyone who thus far considered the Bloom a pandemic of any kind. How dare Jacob simply shrug when a Tri-City native was the survivor in mention. When Jacob came up behind him and put a hand to his shoulder, he jerked to glower up at him, but softened immediately.

“Dude looks super wild. Am I right?” He patted the shoulder for emphasis.“Now how about that shopping list? Gotta get it before first shift. My receiver’s in a third shift sector, so their glow-time is in less than an hour now.”

“Leather crafting tools,” Cecil seethed. “Maggot debridement. Trylocaine. ...Antibiotics! And Ketonamil.”

At first, he’d just been sticking to what he’d thought was an accidental request, but certainty laced his voice now as though he hadn’t known he meant it the first time he’d said it before.

“And Ketonamil,” Jacob repeated. He sat on the edge of the desk and took the reader from him, flipping through with routine cynicism as he easily located every item requested. “Sorry for doing it for you. We’re just in a time crunch, is all.”

“You ordered the things!” Cecil nearly bolted up out of the chair. “But we hadn’t even negotiated what it’ll set me back yet!”

“Shh, shh,” he soothed, waving him to mentally sink back down in the chair. “Prices on delivery, neighbor. Prices on delivery.”

“But--”

“There a problem? No questions asked, why you want any of this stuff. I can conveniently forget anything you’ve said to me tonight, if you like. Doctor patient confidentiality, or whatever bullshit you want to call it. Services are the oldest human currency. I’ve got the means and the motivation. You won’t find both so easily in the same individual. Not in these parts. I’m not for anything too violent, I promise. I can already reassure you, I’ve never set a death in motion in providing any of these items in the past.”

“Up to, but not including,” the librarian jabbed dryly.

“Say, I wonder if we could find a genuine purpose for all that genuine leather,” he proposed aloud, stroking his short under-chin beard thoughtfully. “Something the little gremlin might like to keep.”

“He fancies himself an insect,” he corrected. Though the deprecating endearment nettled him, it worried him more that this endeavor might imperil his priceless object so quickly after he’d come into its possession. “I’m sure of it, that if you asked him, he’d consider the leather his chrysalis.”

“And just what do you think it’ll make him, if we can convince him to turn the stuff into something else?” The repairman offered the bag of cocktail jellies with a benevolent glance.

“Something that he might like,” Cecil repeated as he awed up at the taller man, accepting the cherries in a deferential entrapment.

“You still wanna fall back and keep an eye on me tonight?”

“I don’t think I could go home just yet.”

“Wanna talk about it?”

Cecil snorted, and popped another fruit in his mouth.

“Depends on your hourly rates, I guess.”

#biopunk #dystopian #cyberpunk #body horror #dystopia #the uptake #with symbiotic self indulgence #jacob thorn #george cecil #between you and me

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penguin-writes-books · 5 years

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A Study in Fate - Chapter 3

"Are you sure you're okay?" Buffy asked, following Lucy up to her bedroom and looking around. She’d only really agreed to come today because she’d wanted always wanted to see the inside of Emily Kippen’s house - it was just as overdone as she’d assumed it was. However, she found that she didn’t entirely mind hanging out with Lucy Kippen.

"Yeah, I'm okay." Lucy’s voice was dismissive as she started across the room to where she’d left her dance bag on her bed. Buffy’s eyebrows furrowed in disbelief. A decade of being best friends with Cyrus had trained her to notice when something was wrong in an instant.

Something was wrong.

"Really? Because-"

"Yes, really," Lucy huffed, whirling around to face Buffy. Fire raged through her eyes, an icy river through her veins, and thunder chorused through her voice. "I. Am. Fine. God, you don't even know me, let alone how okay I am?."

"Well I'm sorry for wanting to help," Buffy responded, sarcasm dripping from her voice like oil from a rag.

"Jesus, do you ever just fucking drop it?" Lucy snapped. "Clearly I don't want to talk about this!"

"Well, I do!" Buffy exclaimed, jaw tense.

"No! God, just- leave me the hell alone."

"Fine, I will," Buffy sneered, storming back down the stairs and out Lucy's front door. It felt as though the slam of the door shook the house on its very foundation as Lucy braced herself, her entire body tensing.

A deep breath.

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

Lucy did her best to steady her trembling hands as she picked up her dance bag. She slowly ran a hand over the black material, screwing her eyes closed to fight the panic rising inside her. Her chest rose and fell quickly, her lungs felt like they weren't taking in air anymore.

She stumbled backward, sitting down on the edge of her bed. Bracing her palms against the mattress, she struggled to inhale a deep breath as tears fought their way from her eyes. In for four. Hold for seven. Out for eight.

After a few moments, she was able to genuinely breathe, though slightly shakily. Wiping tears from her eyes, she stood up, steadfastly ignoring the way her legs trembled as she walked toward where she'd left her phone on her dresser.

TJ's contact lit her phone up, and she immediately accepted the call, pressing her phone to her ear.

"What happened?" TJ asked, his voice laced with concern.

"Panic attack," Lucy mumbled, voice trembling slightly. "I- I already screwed everything up. I mean, she deserved it, but I can't believe I've already ruined everything."

"Lucy, take a deep breath, okay?" TJ commanded carefully. "Tell me what happened."

"I- I haven't been taking my meds lately."

“Your antidepressants?” TJ asked - Lucy could hear the way his eyes widened.

“I- Yeah,” she admitted.

"Lucy-"

"No, I know. I'll get them refilled. I just- I've been slipping lately. And Buffy noticed, somehow. I tried to tell her I was fine, but she wouldn't buy it. I told her I didn't want to talk about it, but she kept pushing and I just-"

"Snapped?" TJ supplied. Lucy sat down, nodding into the phone. She knew he couldn't see her, but her barely breathed 'yeah' was well enough. "It's okay, Luce. You're allowed to get mad. She should have let it go."

"God, I wish I was at home." Lucy flopped backward onto her bed with a sigh, phone still pressed to her ear.

"I'll meet you at the dance studio in fifteen." Lucy could hear TJ's muffled voice telling Cyrus he had to go; she chuckled as she picked up her dance bag and glanced inside to make sure she had everything.

"See you soon, Teej."

Four pairs of pointe shoes, an emergency leotard, three ballet skirts, several pairs of backup tights, and a few types of TheraBands all fit into the main compartment and a few pockets. She mildly contemplated how it all fit, but decided it was better to leave it alone than to think too hard about the concept.

Water, toe tape, second skin squares, nail clippers, a needle and thread, toe spacers, band-aids, extra toe pads, hair ties, bobby pins, hair nets, a few sets of ribbons and elastic, and a foundation palette all occupied the pockets lining the inside and surrounding the outside.

Standing up, she pulled a pair of tights and a black leotard from her dresser, quickly changing into them. Lucy quickly pulled her hair back into a bun, flattening it with bobby pins and covering it in a net. Finally, she pulled a red dress on over her outfit, grabbing her tutu bag and scooped up the dance bag on her bed.

"Aunt Em, I'm going to the studio!" she called, jogging down the stairs.

"Alright, don't wreck my car please!" Emily called from the couch, giving her niece a small grin.

"Duly noted."

Lucy stepped into the studio number TJ had texted her, only to find him already warm and turning.

"Hey, Teej," she said, dropping her bags and street shoes by the wall and pulling off her dress.

"Hey!" TJ greeted, falling out of a turn upon seeing her.

"Sorry about stealing you away from Cyrus," Lucy said apologetically, pulling on a pale pink tutu and sitting to wrap her toes and put on her pointe shoes.

"I don't really think you did, actually," TJ said, watching Lucy pull a pair of pointe shoes out of her bag.

"What do you mean 'I didn't steal you away'?" TJ shrugged, sitting down to wrap a few of her toes in toe tape and band-aids and cover her blisters in second skin squares.

"He asked why I was leaving, so I told him what happened between you and Buffy- some of it. I told him she overstepped her bounds, and he immediately jumped to her defense. Long story short- I'm pretty sure the Kippen triplets are now in a rivalry with the Good Hair Crew."

"The what?!" Lucy asked, pulling on toe pads and putting a pointe shoe on each foot. TJ laughed as he moved to lace up one of the shoes, explaining that that was the name the trio of best friends had adopted. "Jesus fuck."

"Like 7 hours in Shadyside and we're already in a trio v. trio battle," TJ said, rolling his eyes and helping Lucy up and toward the center of the floor.

"This got so out of hand so fast," Lucy groaned, letting TJ square her hips as she started to warm up.

"She probably thought you were hiding something," TJ shrugged, picking Lucy up in an all too effortless fish dive.

"No shit, Sherlock. I am hiding something!"

"You know, fair enough honestly," TJ snorted. He picked up his phone from the shelf next to the door, connecting to studio #12's Bluetooth. "What are we doing today?"

"I dunno yet... You choose." Lucy could nearly hear TJ's smirk as he pressed play, King of the Clouds flooding over the room through the speakers in the corner. "Has anyone ever told you you're insane?"

"Eh, you and Ambs never fail to remind me."

TJ circled behind Lucy, grabbing her by the waist and tossing her into the air. She landed gracefully on his shoulder, one leg crossed over the other, and didn't stop moving until the end of the song.

They took on new character archetypes as Emperor's New Clothes came on, immediately morphing into self-absorbed monarchs in a battle for power. The triplets had been able to improvise any routine together since they were 13, down to every turn and toss.

“Uh, Luce?” TJ said as the song faded out, gesturing to her pointe shoes. Lucy groaned as he paused the music, looking down to find her fears realized - she’d bled through her shoes. Again. Rolling her eyes, she tugged them off, rolling her tights up and abandoning several of the already bloodied bandages she’d put on and her red stained toe pads.

“Can you grab a new pair from my bag?” TJ hummed, tossing her a pair of pointe shoes and a handful of band-aids.

Kneeling in front of her, he helped her clean her wounds and bandage them. The process of band-aids, second skin squares, toe pads, tights, then lacing up her pointe shoe ribbons, was repeated, and then she was standing and testing out her balance on the new pair of shoes.

“Ready?” TJ asked, taking her hand as she carefully tested her penché. She shrugged, prancing a few times before landing in first position.

“As I’ll ever be.”

Despite the new set of shoes, Lucy falling out of an attitude turn halfway through their routine was not expected. TJ stopped what he was doing, following Lucy's gaze to where the entire Good Hair Crew stood, watching them dance.

"I feel unsafe," he whispered, lips barely moving.

"Where's Ambs?" she responded, still making eye contact with Buffy through the glass.

"I have no idea, but I'm just gonna pretend they're not there," TJ shrugged, tugging Lucy back into the center of the floor as another song started.

"You're alright." A voice cut through the song, prompting Lucy to roll her eyes and turn toward Buffy, who'd just stepped into the studio.

"We know. Actually, sorry, slip of the tongue. We're better than alright." She crossed her arms, raising an eyebrow at Buffy.

"I certainly hope you're not planning on trying out for the Grant dance team."

"And why, pray tell, might that be?"

"Because I'm captain," Buffy said with a smirk.

"Yeah, okay. I don't need your team," Lucy informed her, head cocked to one side. TJ watched as she puckered her lips, taking a silent step back.

"What, and we need you? I don't think so," Buffy snarled, stepping toward Lucy.

"I'd advise you to be very careful with your next words," Lucy said slowly, narrowing her eyes.

"Oh really? What are you gonna do? Hit me with a pointe shoe?" Buffy mocked. Lucy shook her head, eyes sparkling with mirth as she laughed coldly.

"No, I'm not."

"Then what?" Naturally, Lucy did the only thing she could think of.

Lucy Kippen slapped Buffy Driscoll.

#andi mack #tyrus #ambi #luffy #amber kippen #tj kippen #cyrus goodman #buffy driscoll #lucy kippen #a study in fate fic

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spydre · 3 years

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We Don't Have Time For A Gang War

(Game Date: 4/15/2021)

(Or, This Was Supposed To Be A Side Quest)

There we stood, betwixt the carnage of our skirmish with the Masques and the rubble of their demolished drug factory. My ears were still ringing from the explosion (Katrya's suppliers have top-shelf military supplies) when the foxkin began herding everyone into various vehicles. Mostly she sorted them by age and state of injury; those she deemed more at-risk were directed into the "junk" van, while the rest she wanted in Frank. The new mission, as she saw it and I could not dispute, was to clear out Varfana's shop.

I waved them ahead, because I wanted to stay behind long enough to harvest a BANlink from one of the fallen gangers. Gordianus also stayed, because she wanted to try to gather intel from the neighborhood (she actually did overhear a number of conversations, which may prove useful later). I wished her luck, but also bade her be careful. Then I took my stolen tek and mounted the Owlet.

I was headed for the mech shop; Frank for the weapon shop to help clear it out. During the flight, Lohrig got a text which read, "You messed up," and then Varfana's shop exploded. No one was hurt, thankfully, and most of the important equipment was cleared out, but damn. We can be grateful for Katrya's quick thinking.

Another message followed quickly: "Your next delivery is you. One hour. Mess this one up and we order take-out instead."

They needed somewhere to lay low, and I needed to put together a plan. I suggested Sanctuary. If Border Patrol couldn't track down their missing agents, then I highly doubted that any drug-peddling street thugs could, no matter how determined.

I wasted about five minutes with swearing and self-recrimination. We had stopped our little caffeine-pill operation specifically to avoid starting crap with these street gangs, and now here we were, smack in the middle of a full-fledged war. I should have seen this coming. I should have planned better.

And now, here I have this BANlink, which has contacts and records, but without an active call, I can't trace anything. To make matters worse, the younger members of our cabal are badly shaken, and are asking me to leave them out of future schemes that may involve straight-up murder.

We've been hit in the morale. Time to actually use my brain for something besides keeping my hair in place.

Okay. What do we actually know?

The boss recruits by intimidation. When faced with any sort of resistance, he retaliates and escalates. Right now, he wants Lohrig, which means we absolutely cannot let him have Lohrig. But what else? He made an "or else" threat, so if he doesn't get what he wants, then he will move against the kid's family. Maybe he will, even if he does get what he wants.

I sent Katrya, along with her choice of backup, to check out the family residence. She knows what explosives, and suspicious people, look like, and is more than capable of disarming both. I also send Maggy ahead to the spot where Lohrig is supposed to deliver himself. That should buy a bit of breathing room. How much? I had Parker set a countdown timer. Damn. Not much at all.

Next. We don't have any drones that match the kid's body type. I can simulate his face well enough with a FakeFace(TM) necklace, but that's about it. I fed Lohrig's voice, and my plan, to Parker, slung the Dawn drone onto my Owlet, then made book for Sanctuary.

The idea bubbling up was this: If we could pass Dawn off as the dwarf boy, then perhaps we can ambush their pickup. There is bound to be an active call going on, because the Masque boss will not be able to resist monitoring the kid's punishment. That should give me another chance to trace his location.

But, to do that, I need to get my people, and Lohrig's BANlink, all of which are out at comms-dead Sanctuary. The clock is ticking.

It took Vamir a couple of tries to get the illusion right on the drone. If we weren't already in motion, the delay would have made us late for the rendezvous. All I could do was fidget. To keep myself busy, I worked out a new packet for my anthrodrone virus, telling them to beat any Masque senseless, rip off their mask, and send a picture of their face to Border Patrol. Gave it a five-day lifespan, to keep them from weaponizing the order against innocents. It made me feel better.

Only a few minutes remained when we pulled up, invisibly, to the broken-down playground. Vamir spotted a spy-eye, He saw the brand name (Floating Eye) and that it was tagged with the Masque logo. He could probably have read the serial number if it hadn't been filed off. I immediately started hacking into its signal.

About this time, a call came through on Lohrig's BAN. Parker picked up.

"You messed up, kid. You messed up big-time. And now your family is paying the price. How does that make you feel?"

Parker hesitated. I would have liked to guide my VP through the conversation, but the hack was giving me trouble, and I couldn't afford to split my attention. I just told her to keep them on the line as long as possible.

"I... I feel... sad."

"You should. It's your fault, what happened to the family shop. You had a simple job, to make deliveries, but your failure... Well, that's the kind of guilt you're going to have to carry for the rest of your life."

Parker approximated a sobbing sound. Quite seriously, I don't think it would have fooled someone who was expecting a deception, but the caller (almost certainly the Masque boss) was in it for the gloat.

"Hush now. Don't worry. I have something for you. Go to the slide."

"W-... what's at the slide?"

"You'll see. It's a gift."

Bingo! I found the pilot of the spy-eye. Traced the drone's signal back to his ban and heard him describing all the visible action to someone who sounded exactly like the voice on Lohrig's BAN. I started tracing that call back.

About this time Parker (driving Dawn (disguised as Lohrig)) reached the rusty slide, and was directed by the caller to take a package that was taped beneath it. She, being cautious, asked what was in it.

"Like I said, a gift. Something that will take away your guilt. Take it."

"That is a bomb," warned Katrya, who, like all of us, was eavesdropping over the commlink.

This situation really irritated me. I didn't want to lose this 20k hardware investment over some stupid homemade bomb, but neither did I want the caller to hang up before the trace was complete. I told Parker to proceed, but be ready to throw the package at the pilot's location. So she retrieved it, and took a peek.

Wires, flashing lights, plastique.

"Good," crooned the slimy voice. "Now all you have to do, is let go. Let go, and you won't have to carry this guilt anymore."

"Don't throw that, Parker!" I ordered.

Vamir said, "There's probably a remote detonation switch."

"I'm on it," from Ryatt. Mere seconds later, he reported, "Remote detonater is off, but I can't do anything about the deadman switch."

I was past the first VPN, and had the call back to the same sector of the city as before. "Parker," I said, "don't throw -- run toward the drone pilot. Gang, we are going to try to take a prisoner."

I could hear the pilots panicked reaction over my hijacked link through his drone. He was completely freaked out to see the poor sad little dwarf boy kick up his heels and run straight towards his parked hardshell. He was even more freaked out when his remote detonator didn't work - he kept pressing it, repeatedly, screaming over his BANlink, "I'm trying, it's not going off!"

One more creepy, ominous portent arrived over Lohrig's BANlink: "You don't learn quickly. Goodbye, kid. Shame you'll never get to say goodbye to your family." Then the call terminated...but not before I managed to nail the location. Sector, street, apartment. Gotcha.

Looking up, I saw everything moving very quickly. We had the pilot's van surrounded, although he didn't know it yet, as everyone save the Dawn drone had ruthenium cloaking. He was powering up, getting ready to flee. I shut that down quickly -- after so long struggling against multiple VPNs, it was an absolute pleasure to accomplish a straightforward vehicle hijack.

Meanwhile, back at the dwarven residence, a couple of un-masked Masques had received orders and were making their move, reaching under jackets and closing in on the flat. Katrya and Varfana quickly got that under control - they were carrying explosives, as expected. This gang seems to be overly fond of explosives; we'll have to watch out for that. They were not carrying anything that proved an adequate defense against shocking blades and foxkin fists of fury.

At the sad little playground, we dropped our invisibility once we had the hardshell surrounded. I popped open the door and Vamir told the driver to step out. Which he did...but then he opened his hand, and the night light up.

He had been holding a deadman's switch of his own, and the explosion came either from a bomb he carried on him, or from close behind him in the van. Either way, it killed him instantly. Most of our crew escaped the brunt of the blast.

But not the Dawn drone. Parker had to keep the bomb she was holding still, and couldn't employ full range of movement - and could not get the drone out of the way quickly enough. It was disabled, to say the least, and that was a problem, because it was carrying a live bomb.

The second blast also did not kill anyone, but it certainly ensured that nothing salvageable remained of that drone.

Parker's normal voice quavered across my BANlink. "Did... Did I just die, Zeke?"

I made a mental note to have a long discussion with Parker about death later -- and to take some precautions against her actually dying. For now, I simply reassured her that the loss of the drone did not mean that she died, and praised her performance as a frightened Lohrig.

Then, while the healers were patching everyone up, I scavenged what equipment I could from the wreckage, got the hardshell running, and we headed out.

We needed rest, and a plan. We can not afford to let this go on any further.

..::Kai::..

#Æstas #gaming #writing #FreshWebs #text

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uglymanchronicles · 7 years

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UMC:R Chapter 3: Reinstall

Exposition time! This one gets a bit gory in places, so be forewarned if that sort of thing gets to you.

“Monsters exist.”

It was, by all means, a useless statement. It sounded stupid. It sounded like something a little kid telling a ghost story would say, or something one of those wannabe Banksy types would spraypaint on the side of a police station or something. But, nonetheless, an electric shiver, so potent that it made his breath catch in his throat, ran through his body.

Because it was him saying it to himself. He knew his own tells, his own voice… he was being sincere. While it was possible this was all a trick, that password…

“I don’t mean that in a metaphorical sense. You’ll probably eventually notice some big scars on your back. Those are from a wendigo. Or is it pronounced when-dee-go? I don’t know, not the point. Superhumanly strong cannibalistic former humans. Tough, but they still die if you cut their heads off. Try not to freak out when you see the skull in the bedroom.”

“WHAT.”

“So yeah, there’s all kinds of really bad things out there. I’ve kept notes. But there’s also so many good things!” Old Evan’s eyes lit up and he scooted forward on the chair. “New things we couldn’t have imagined! Things outside of physics! New sciences! Actual, real magic! I saw a guy actually jump over a building! Superpowers exist! And here’s the best part: I’ve—shit, we’ve—got one!”

Evan felt his face slacken into an expression of incredulous confusion as the recorded Evan stood up and walked towards the camera. His form loomed over it and ate up most of the frame, but he held the fingertip of his right hand up in front of the lens.

“Watch this.”

From offscreen, a small knife appeared and Evan watched himself drag the blade across his own fingertip. There was an irritated-sounding hiss of discomfort—Jesus, he was cutting deep! His past self shook out his hand, then held up the wounded digit to the camera.

Evan covered his mouth in shock as he realized how bad the cut was. The other him’s bone was visible through the pooling blood. It would require stitches, at least! But…

He looked down at his own, present-time finger. Aside from familiar little cuts, calluses, and blemishes that had been there for years, there was no sign that anything was amiss. Even if this happened months ago, there would still be a scar from it, surely! But there was nothing new.

“Look, here it goes.”

His attention was drawn back to the screen by his own voice. The gashed finger was still front and center, but something was different.

The blood was barely flowing any more. The bone wasn’t visible. As Evan watched, the wound began to visibly narrow, the skin creeping along the edge of the cut like a time-lapse video of lichen growing on a rock. When the opposite edges of the cut grew closer, raw pink skin grew across the gap. Evan swore he could see fibers of skin reach across and connect to the other side. In less than a minute, all that was left of a pretty serious self-inflicted wound was some slightly discolored skin and a scab that looked like it was days old.

“I don’t know why I’m like this, but I don’t think it’s something new,” Old Evan said, sitting back in the chair and idly picking at the skin. “Remember all the times we got hurt and it didn’t seem as bad as it should have been? Getting gored and stomped on by that bull? Getting lost in the woods and finding our way out with that broken leg? The cancer surgery? All the shit Mary did to us? We heal! We heal fast! And from a lot of stuff, too…”

Vid-Evan paused, sounding slightly troubled. “Look, I’m not sure how strong this is yet, but… okay, if you haven’t yet, you’re going to notice there’s a gigantic, awful-looking scar right here on the left side of your…our…dammit, these tenses are fucking me up. Here.” He ran his fingers along his left side, a few inches below his pectoral… right where the mangled hoodie had been repaired. “I can’t go into all the details, but someone I was hanging out with got…enchanted, mind controlled, something like that. It didn’t work on me for some reason, but I’d probably have been better off if it did, because he came after me. And he was a HUGE guy, plus he had superhuman strength, so... I didn’t stand much of a chance. After he beat me down, he took this huge ax he carried around and…” The recording pantomimed an overhand swing. “If I hadn’t rolled he’d have split me in half. As it was, the cut stopped just a couple inches from my spine. Organs pulped, bones shattered… I was out in seconds. I woke up about an hour later and, well, it still hurt and my shirt was ruined, and I got a MASSIVE scar from it, but…” he spread his hands in front of him. “I was alive. Breathing, blood pumping, the whole nine yards. And that’s not all. I’ve been shot a few times, stabbed, clawed, punched by things a lot stronger than people… it heals in less than a day. I don’t know why some of them leave scars and some don’t, but… well, let’s just say we’re not gonna win any beauty pageants. Sorry.”

The image on the screen raised his hand to his cheek, and Evan suddenly felt a deep sadness coming from his doppelganger. He could see something sparkling in his own blue eyes, and realized it was the backlight reflecting off his tears. The recording took a deep, shaky breath, and continued.

“Look, I have to get to the point. There’s a lot of bad shit out there, but there’s a lot of good, too, and I want to be a part of it. With all the things we know, the things we know how to do… with the right tools, we could really make a difference. Save people from things they can’t protect themselves from. But don’t just hunt things down if they’re not hurting anyone. Everything’s got a right to exist as long as they don’t impede on that right of others, right? And go out and make the world better, don’t just fight, y’know? We’ve always had big ideas. We’ve got money, we know how to fight. And we were bored, just tooling around staying out of trouble. Let’s put all our skills and talents to good use, yeah? Um…”

Film-Evan’s gaze drifted away from the camera. He pursed his lips and shifted his jaw, twisting his expression as he seemed to struggle with what to say next. After a few seconds of silence, he reached behind himself and pulled something out of the back pocket of his pants. He stared down at it for a few moments, then held it up.

“Just being able to heal fast won’t be enough to make a difference, though. I’ve built some weapons and gathered supplies—there’s an inventory on this computer—but this is the key to us really making this whole thing work.”

It was a small, worn-looking book, bound in faded leather with a cover decorated with several small inset beads. It wasn’t much bigger than the average paperback novel and a little over an inch thick, and some of the pages were clearly made of different materials than others. It had a distinctly cobbled-together look, but the man on the screen ran his fingers over the cover with something resembling reverence.

“This thing’s had a lot of names, but in more recent times it’s referred to as the Book of Fate. Kinda cliché, I know, but it’s the real deal. This thing is both the instruction manual and a key reagent for a magical ritual that’s been in development for centuries. No, make that millennia. And, like, tons of cultures. Most of this thing isn’t in English. Some of it is later translations, but… anyway, a whole lot of people have been working on this thing for a very long time, but it’s never actually been cast. Performed. Whatever.

“But what this thing is intended to do, as far as I’ve been able to decipher, is to give the, uh, ‘target’ probably isn’t the right word, but you get what I mean, right? The target of the ritual. It’s supposed to give them the ability to develop their own… powerset? God, it feels weird to use that term to refer to a real thing, but that’s the gist of it. It’s a bit vague on how, but… well, I always wanted to be the first one to try to do something, didn’t I? We? Fuck.

“Anyway, I don’t have time to explain everything here, but I’ve got tons of notes and personal research stashed away on this computer, and there’s backups in the filing cabinet in the bedroom if something happens. I’ve gathered most of the ingredients for the ritual, and I’ve got all the steps written down. Do it. Go through with it. And after that, well, don’t worry. Trouble will find you.

“So why am I telling you this instead of you just remembering it? Well, I can’t go into any details beyond I learned something literally dangerous. Just me having the knowledge in my head has the potential to make something very bad happen. So I have to get rid of it.”

The recorded Evan stood up and pulled the cloth off the chair. The chair was huge, made of dark wood, and clearly very heavy. The angle of the lens cut off the bottom of the legs, but Evan thought he could see angle brackets anchoring the bulky thing to the floor. There were straps, made of leather even more aged and ragged than the book’s cover, on the arms and legs of the chair. Attached to the top was a strange colander-shaped device studded with wires, lights, and glass tubes filled with several colors of liquid. Topping it off was what seemed to be the innards of a power drill, tipped with a strangely gleaming bit and angled to point straight down towards the top of the wearer’s head.

Evan suddenly felt a wave of nausea as the twice forces of confusion and understanding smashed into each other in his brain. He suddenly knew what he was about to witness. He realized why his head was so empty. He knew the path he’d set himself on and was, in a sort of giddy, manic way, excited about what he’d told himself. He knew everything he needed to know. But he couldn’t stop watching. He didn’t even realize he’d been squeezing Mr. Nex like a stress ball until his knuckles cracked from the force. He could hear himself on the recording: “blah blah combination of drugs and corrosive chemicals blah blah specially coated enchanted drill bit blah blah many calculations blah lots of expert help blah blah prevent regenerating brain tissue from retaining recent memories blah blah reset pattern of consciousness upon completion of healing process blah”, but Evan was focusing on very gently setting Mr. Nex out of his arm’s reach. If what he thought was coming was indeed coming, he was worried that he might accidentally pulp the stuffed giraffe between his fingers.

After setting his old friend well out of reach on the passenger’s seat, Evan sat back down in the kitchen just as his recorded self finished strapping himself to the awful machine. There was a small remote control clenched in the shaking fingers of his left hand, and his head had been fixed in place by several thick straps. He locked eyes with the camera again.

“I’ve been wondering if this counts as me actually dying, since this portion of my consciousness won’t be sustained. I honestly haven’t come to an answer, but…” Decisively, he thumbed the button. The drill began to whir. Somewhere off-camera, something large and volatile crackled to life. “Fortune favors the bold!” The vials on the helmet started to bubble and drain. Already shaking slightly from the electric charge, Film-Evan reached out with his tongue and pulled a block of wood on a string between his teeth. Evan watched his own eyes bulge and start to roll wildly. The drill had hit bone.

Since his head was strapped in place and largely obscured by the helmet and bandages, there wasn’t much to watch. The sound was the bad part. The former Evan was screaming as the bit ground noisily through his skull, the gag doing little to muffle the sound. The machinery, the screaming, the wet crunching of pulverizing bone—it all blended together into a nightmarish vomit of noise, and Evan realized he was screaming, too, a low, guttural scream, one of low volume and pitch but utterly panicked intensity.

The background noise suddenly stopped and Evan found his scream lowering to a drawn-out groan. His digital counterpart had stopped screaming and the drill had gone silent; as he watched, the machine slowly withdrew the bit, dripping with blood and pink-gray pulp, from his own ruined skull. The other him groaned softly and spit out the gag, his eyes struggling to focus on the camera. Though blood was leaking from his mouth, he managed to grin. His lips trembling, he took a breath and slurred weakly:

“It’ll be worth it. We’re going to make a real difference. We’ll be a force to be reckoned with, I just know it. I believe in myself. I believe in you.”

He’d just taken another breath, perhaps to try to continue his inspiring farewell, but suddenly the lights on the helmet lit up and there was a soft sound of liquid sloshing. A split second of a sharp hissing was audible, then old-Evan shrieked as wisps of smoke began to rise from the top of this head. The scream was so sudden, so shrill, so agonized, and so ear-piercingly loud that it only lasted for a couple seconds before a hideous gurgling-tearing noise preceded the noise lowering to a hoarse wail.

Despite what he’d seen thus far, the scream took Evan by surprise. He involuntarily jerked backwards, the chair’s legs caught, and he toppled over backwards. Luckily, the corner of the kitchen counter was waiting to break his fall, and graciously did so with a tap to the back of the head. Pain surged from the impact, but was rapidly overtaken by surging, suffocating darkness.

Just before it all went black, Evan found himself thinking:

Well, I’ve had worse.

#my writing #Ugly Man Chronicles #Ugly Man Chronicles: Reignition #chapters

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joylee56 · 7 years

Text

Have You Tried Turning It On and Off?

For Ifishouldvanish; Happy RCIJ!

for the prompt ‘Hey, you’re the jerk...’

Rating: Explicit; Also Lacey has a potty mouth.

“I’m pretty sure nurse maid isn’t part of my job description.” Lacey said.

“You’re the project manager. Babysitting is pretty much what project managers do.”

(Part 1 of 3)

The data center was dark.

“Crap!” Lacey flipped the light switch again. Nothing. Not a blinking light to be seen.

Using her phone for light she crawled along the floor to locate the surge protector/uninterruptible power supply. Which clearly had not lived up to it’s name.

Except everything had been unplugged from the uninterruptible power supply and there were now extension cords run from the mains. “Fuck!”

This despite the half dozen signs she had posted specifically telling people not to do that. Their equipment was flaky enough as it was. It could not take power fluctuations.

They’d caught the edge of a hurricane starting Friday. It had been storming like a bastard the whole weekend. God only knew when the circuit breaker had gone out. Except it was a certainty that it was after some idiot had disconnected the surge protector. She pulled all the plugs. Making a complete sweep of the room to make sure she had gotten them all.

Then she headed for the main switch box.

“Circuit breaker out again?” LeFou, their database administrator, commented. “I already had to fix that once this weekend. You really need to do something about that. Gaston has enough on his plate without having to worry about unreliable hardware.”

“What did you do?” Lacey demanded.

“When I came in on Saturday morning the storm had tripped the circuit breaker. So I turned it back on.” LeFou looked very pleased with himself. “When that didn’t get the system back up and running I figured out that the surge protector you had everything plugged wasn’t working. So I found some extension cords, all with built in surge protectors as you can see, and plugged everything in to the wall sockets. Once that was done the whole system booted up like a charm.”

Words failed her. As she headed back to the data center, LeFou called after her. “You really make too big a deal out of your job, Lacey. It’s mostly just common sense.”

Which was clearly in short supply around Megacorp if nobody had thought to stop that idiot from putting their entire rickety old system at risk. But it was not like bitching about him to the head of IT would do any good. LeFou was an old buddy of Gaston’s, which was how he had gotten his job.

It was also how she had gotten her job. She had already been living with Gaston when he offered her the position as project manager, so it was not like the sex had been a quid pro quo, despite what the gossip said. And she had worked damn hard since she got hired to learn how to do the job properly. Hell, she was doing most of Gaston’s work these days.

But this was way beyond her ability to fix. And Gaston’s fancy computer science degree that had been long on theory and short on the practical. Not to mention she strongly suspected that his gentleman Cs had been earned more on the football field than in the classroom. He would be even less use. At least she had some self taught hardware knowledge.

Gaston was also halfway to Burlington to attend some regional company meeting. She texted him, with a brief summary and telling him she would be calling in outside help.

A Google search on her phone showed there was only one computer repair company within an hour’s drive that said they worked on servers.

Crossing her fingers, Lacey called them.

“Golden Hat, our work is as good as gold.”

Praying their tech guys were better than their marketing people, she quickly explained the problem. “Can you get someone here to fix it now?”

“As it happens Mr. Gold is available. What system are you running?”

“Windows Server 2003”

“You’ve got to be kid…, that is, let me check with Mr. Gold.”

He forgot to actually put her call on hold so she heard him call out, “Rum, you think you remember how to work on WS 2003?”

Another voice came from farther away, “I remember. Why would ye want me to?”

The guy she had been talking to came back. “He’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

She spent the time waiting for him sending out an email explaining what had happened. She also printed out actual paper notices which she posted in the coffee room as well as the data center.

At least the guy who showed up was the right vintage to work on the equipment. A tiny little guy, probably only a few inches taller than her in her heels, he had graying brown hair past his collar, but an old fashioned air which was not completely due to the dress slacks, tailored white shirt and dark tie, with a name tag on his blazer reading ‘Mr. Gold, Golden Hat Computing’.

Clearly he was an old school computer nerd. But the laptop he carried was state of the art and his backpack of tools looked reassuringly full.

Noticing he used a cane she asked, “The data center is downstairs. Is that going to be a problem.”

“Shouldn’t be.” He told her brusquely. “Now what happened? Storm knock out your system?”

“That’s the least of it.” She sighed.

By the time she laid out the chain of events they were in the data center and he was taking a good look around. “How often do you overwrite your back up tapes?”

“We got two that alternate every other night at midnight.”

He winced. “You’re not even set up to use a RAID?”

Which was Lacey’s turn to wince. “The company backs up it’s data to the Home Office every twenty four hours and so with the tape back up on site my boss didn’t think we needed to spend the money to upgrade.”

“That’s not the only reason to use a RAID.” He shook his head. “Let me run some diagnostics and see how much of this is salvageable. These aren’t hot swapable so pulling the drives is going to be slow.”

“So I need to tell everyone they’re not going to be able to access their data this morning?” This was not going to be a fun morning.”

“If you get lucky it will take a couple of days to get things up and running. Uhm, don’t expect to get lucky. This stuff is old enough I’m no hopeful.” Looking around he added. “I could build you a new system in less time than that if you’re not dead set on Windows.”

“It has to talk to the Home Office.”

He shrugged and started opening up the first server.

She left him to it.

Despite her email and signs half of the office came up to her and demanded why the system was down and what was she doing to fix it.

Mr. Gold appeared shortly before lunch. He had a clip board out and was making a lot of notes on it.

That was fast. “You fixed it?”

“Uhm, no. You’ve got several disk drives that are dead, but all of them are reading as threshold exceeded and are on the verge of failure. I’m amazed the whole system didn’t die on you years ago. I’ll need to order new drives and you might as well replace them all.

“After we get you new drives, we’ll need to run a complete set of diagnostics on both the hardware and the data. I’m not optimistic about your backups, so you probably should see if your headquarters can get you the data you need.”

He finished writing something and tore the top sheet off the form he had been writing on. He glanced up briefly to meet her eyes as he handed it to her then looked away. “That’s my proposal and cost estimate. I’ll need it signed, uhm by someone authorized to approve that large an expenditure.

“And, uhm...” His voice got softer, “We’ll need half down before I do the work.”

“Half?” Squeezing half of this cost estimate out of corporate was going to take a lot longer than they could afford to have the data center down. She smiled her sexiest smile at the guy. “Can’t you get started right away? It’s not like Megacorp isn’t good for it. And I’d be ever so appreciative.”

She figured she would not have to go further in her ‘appreciation’ than having drinks with this guy. After almost a year at Megacorp she could read a nerd at twenty meters and this was one of the shy ones. He probably would not even try for a good night kiss.

“No.” He glanced up briefly to meet her eyes and then back down to fidget with his pen. “Megacorp takes 90 days to pay their invoices. And that’s if they don’t try to dispute the bill. We’re a small company. We can’t carry accounts receivables that long. Half down.”

A shy one with a back bone it seemed. And he knew just how cheeseparing corporate Accounts Payable was. She sighed and pulled up the spreadsheet where she recorded the petty cash account. “How much can I get done for 1497 bucks?”

“I can get you new hard drives installed and a proper uninterruptible power source hooked up.” He shook his head. “What you’ve got down there is a piece a… that is, it’s completely inadequate for what you’re running. By rights you need a stand by generator as a back up.”

“So, I keep telling them.” In detail. She had a whole proposal written up about what they needed to upgrade and how a new system would pay for itself in costs savings. She had gone over Gaston’s head and forwarded it to corporate. Where she strongly suspected it was sitting unread in somebody’s inbox.

Gaston never did make it back to the office from Burlington. Leaving her to take the flak from everyone else about the system being down. She was nursing the bottom half of a bottle of wine when he made it home.

From what had apparently been a golf game with the Regional VP in charge of tech. She came close to heaving the bottle of wine at him when he asked what was for dinner.

“Whatever you can find in the fridge. And while you’re fixing it we need to talk about how we’re going to get the data center running again.”

At least he had apparently read her texts so was up to date on the issues. He read through Golden Hat’s proposal and cost estimate while he ate his sandwich. He was frowning by the time he finished them.

“We don’t have the money for this, Lacey.” Gaston shook his head. “Corporate is breathing down our necks. They’re going to be combining divisions to cut costs. We need to show a higher profit or we’ll end up merged with Vermont. And they’ll only need one IT department.”

“We don’t have a choice, Gaston. The thing’s not going to fix itself.” She nibbled the sandwich he had the grace to make for her while he was making his own.

“Maybe you could, you know, flirt with him a little?”

“You’re so desperate you’re willing to pimp me out?” Clearly the time had come to re-evaluate her relationship with Gaston. She let him sputter about how it was not like that for a minute before she told him. “I tried. He’s a hard headed Scotsman. Not the ‘Capt, the engines canna take it’ kind, although since he fixes computers I guess he’s that kind too. But a full on Trainspotting gives no fucks kind.”

Mr. Gold came back the next day to replace the drives and set up a new uninterruptible power supply. When he was done Gaston cornered him and in his best buddy to buddy manner tried to talk him into completing the job. “… it’s the bureaucracy, you see. It’s not that you won’t get paid.”

Out of petty cash over the next two years if Gaston was not going to send the bill on to corporate Lacey figured.

But Mr. Gold was having none of it. “As I told your… Assistant?”

“Project manager.” Lacey corrected him.

“Uhm, right.” He sounded dubious. “You could upgrade to a Linux system at a lot less than it will take you to fix this one. And you’d have something that was actually being supported with updates.”

At that point Gaston gave up on friendly and tried for intimidation. “Look if you don’t fix this you’ll never work for Megacorp again and I’ll let everybody in the industry now how lousy your service was. It’ll ruin you.

Mr. Gold was staring at his shoes and the fingers of his right hand were rubbing together in a circular motion. His voice was quiet, but firm. “Not working for a company that’s no going to pay me and makes impossible demands will be no great loss.”

He glance up at Gaston looming over him and backed up a step before continuing. “And I’ve been in the business since before you could read. Besides being the only service and repair company this side of Bangor. I’m thinkin’ you’re over-estimating your influence a bit.”

Probably a by a lot, Lacey had to agree.

Gaston fell back on what was plan C. “At least reinstall the back up for us. That won’t take you long and we can pay you for it today.”

With what? Lacey wondered. They had already used all the petty cash.

“You can’t just reload your backups.” Mr. Gold told him. “You need to review the data to see how much has been corrupted. There’s a strong likelihood that your backups got overwritten after the first crash and if so they’re almost certainly corrupted. Reconstructing your data is about half of my bid.”

“But you don’t know for certain the tapes are corrupted?” Gaston insisted.

“I’m sure enough of it that I’m not willing to reload that backup onto a clean system without a thorough review.” Mr. Gold told him.

“If you won’t do it we’ll get someone else.” Gaston threatened.

“You’ll have to because I’ll no do it.” Gold started to pack up his gear. “I’d recommend going with the Nerd Herd at the Buy More over in Bangor. They’re competent and I’m pretty sure at least one of them is old enough to drink and so may have worked on WS 2003 at least once.”

They did not get the Nerd Herder who was old enough to drink. But despite Gaston pulling the same intimidation on him as he had on Gold, even he was not willing to reload the backup data. Although he was not as certain as Gold had seemed that the data was corrupted. Instead he fell back on squeaking out, “It’s Buy More policy to check the back up data first,” before running for his little car.

Lacey spent several hours trying to convince Gaston to bring back Gold. “The guy clearly knows how our system works, Gaston. I mean he probably was working on servers back when it was introduced.”

Gaston was still maintaining they could not afford to do that when she finally left in a huff.

Gaston did not come home that night. Which was probably just as well because Lacey was completely out of patience with the guy. She did bring him a smoothie by way of a peace offering the next morning.

“The system’s down again.” LeFou greeted Lacey with before she got her jacket off.

“Damn it! He said he’d fixed the drives.” Lacey turned toward the data center.

“It’s not the drives.” LeFou told her. “Something happened to the Home Office’s system. The entire company’s down.”

Lacey had a sinking feeling. Instead of going to the data center, she headed into Gaston’s office. He was on the phone with someone, who by the tone of Gaston’s voice was way further up the food chain than he was.

She waited for him to get off the phone and asked, “What did you do?”

“Don’t you start, Lace. I just had corporate IT crawling up my butt.”

“You reloaded the backups without having them checked, didn’t you?” They were in serious shit.

“The guy from the Nerd Herd said they were okay.”

“The guy from the Nerd Herd was maybe all of twenty and you brow beat him into saying they might be okay.” Lacey pointed out.

“Yeah, well, don’t say that to anybody else and we might come out of this with our jobs.”

“Gaston, there is no way in Hell that kid did not go back and tell his boss what you wanted him to do. And you can be damn sure the boss wrote up a report to cover their asses. They’re sure to tell corporate as soon as our crash hits the news.” She checked her phone. “Which happened about two hours ago.”

The hit squad they sent from corporate to investigate the ‘incident’ came armed not only with the Nerd Herd’s version of events, but with Golden Hat’s ever so meticulous proposal and cost estimate which she, like a good little corporate shill, had forwarded for approval. So it did not take them long to figure out where the screw up had been.

It really hit the fan when the hit squad dug up her old proposal pointing out the inadequacies in the system along with how to fix it. She had worked her butt off preparing that thing and now they were going to screw her with it.

Gaston got axed in the first wave. They did not outright say it was for incompetence, but anyone with half a brain could read between the lines and figure it out.

They announced the merger of the Maine office with the Vermont one a week later. Everything was going to move to Burlington. Keeping her job would mean being hours away from Dad which would make taking care of him a problem. Not moving meant she would be out of work. Again.

It turned out they did not give her a choice. “Why am I being fired?” Lacey demanded of the HR people.

The woman sighed. “You’re not being fired, Ms. French. We are merging the Maine office with the one in Vermont. With this merger there will be a downsizing of the IT departments. Positions within the department will be determined by seniority and qualifications and I’m afraid you are the lowest ranked in both areas.”

“But I’m the one who discovered the cause of the problem and put together the proposal for how to fix it. Before it happened.”

“Which has been duly noted in your personnel file.” The HR woman continued. “You are welcome, in fact encouraged, to apply for other positions within the company. But Megacorp has guidelines for these matters and frankly you should never have been hired for the position you held.”

So Lacey took her severance check, a crappy one month’s salary, and checked the company Positions Available page.

The only ones she actually had the qualification for all sounded suspiciously like file clerks and gofers. She filled out the applications anyway. She needed the money.

To put the icing on the cake, she tripped over Gaston’s packed suitcases when she got home that night. “What’s this?”

“Dad got me an interview at Blizzard.”

“Were you planning on telling me about that or just have me come home and find you’d left?” Lacey demanded.

“Now don’t be like that, Lace.” Gaston tried to placate her. “It wasn’t like either of us thought this was a long term thing. We had our fun, but I need to go where I can find work. Tell you what, once I get settled I’ll see if they have a job opening for you.”

“I can’t move to California, Gaston.” Lacey pointed out. “Dad can’t leave Maine and I have look out for him. I wasn’t sure I could move as far away as Burlington.”

Gaston shrugged. “Well, then I guess I’ll be going. Hey, I don’t suppose you could drive me to the airport?”

She did not.

“It’s not like I’m gonna miss his sorry ass. The sex was nothing to write home about. But he covered the rent.” Lacey complained to Ruby the next day at the diner. “I couldn’t pay the rent on that place even with my old job and you know Megacorp is going to contest my unemployment.”

“That sucks.” Ruby agreed. “We can give you three or four shifts a week here and any you can pick up from the other waitresses. That’ll get you by while you look for another job.”

“Thanks.” Lacey tried to be grateful. But she had so hoped to have put waiting table behind her.

And it wasn’t like there were a whole lot of tech companies in coastal Maine. She was probably going to have to move south to find work. Which meant the headache of looking after her Dad from out of town.

She had been working at Granny’s for about a week when late in the lunch shift two men came in. One of them was about medium height, fairly good looking in a broody poet sort of way and dressed like he was in a period drama complete with a weird top hat thing.

The other was Mr. Gold.

They sat down at one of Ruby’s tables, but Lacey marched over to them anyway. “Hey, You’re the jerk who got me fired!”

Gold reared back and blinked at her. “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, that’s good. I was at Megacorp and you came to fix our data center, remember? Only you wouldn’t do it.”

“Well, I remember her.” The other man put in. “You talked about her and the ghastly server system they had for about an hour when you got back.”

“I remember the job.” Gold told him testily. “I no remember anything about anyone bein’ fired.”

“When you wouldn’t do it...”

He interrupted. “You weren’t goin’ to pay me. Of course I wouldn’t do it.”

She ignored him. “My idiot boss reinstalled the corrupted backups and managed to take down the entire company’s system.”

The guy in the top hat whistled. “Now that takes talent.”

“So corporate closed the office here and I got fired.” She finished. “And there aren’t any other tech companies hiring in the entire state. I’ve looked everywhere.”

“None of which is my fault.” Gold denied.

“What do you do?” Top hat asked.

“What?” Lacey asked.

“What did you do at this job Rum so inconsiderately got you fired from?” Hat guy was smirking a bit.

“I dinna’...” Gold sputtered.

“Well, not directly, but it does seem like you were in the chain of causation. You’re the one who’s always lecturing on how actions have consequences.”

Hat guy turned back to Lacey. Grinning broadly now. “So we should help the lovely lady...”

Gold snorted at the description. Lacey glared at him. Hat guy continued. “...Find another position.”

“I’m a project manager.” When Gold raised an eyebrow at that, she declared. “I’m certified and everything.”

Granted the certification came from an on-line course and she had fibbed a little about having a college degree.

“Perfect.” Hat guy clapped. “As it happened we need a good manager.”

“We do?” Gold asked.

“You’re the one who’s also always complaining about all the time you spend on paperwork.” Hat guy’s smile had changed to a smirk. He clearly was pulling something on his… partner, Lacey guessed. “You were bitching only yesterday about having to waste half the day on the Google advertising.”

He turned to Lacey, “How are you with Google ad words, Ms…?”

“French. Lacey French.” Gold smirked slightly at that. She glared at him some more. “Sure I can do website maintenance.”

They had covered it in the on-line course when she got her certification. It had looked easy enough.

“How about bookkeeping?” Hat guy leaned forward conspiratorially. “Rum spends a couple of days a month just on bookkeeping.”

Here she was on certain ground. “I’ve done the books and taxes for my Dad’s florist shop from the time I was twelve. What program are you using?”

“Just a spreadsheet.” Mr. Gold, who was apparently named Rum, muttered.

“No wonder it takes a couple of days.”

“It’s an excellent spreadsheet. I wrote it myself.” He was indignant.

“So it sounds like she’d be perfect.” Hat guy clapped his hands. “Come on, Rum. It’ll be fun to have someone else around to play with.”

She did not like the sound of that and looked at Hat guy suspiciously.

“Jeff designs games.” Gold quickly explained. He sighed, “I suppose we could use someone to help with testing.

“You’ll meed to be flexible. We’re a small family business.” Gold told her. “And it would be temporary.”

“To start anyway.” Jeff put in.

“And we probably can’t match what you were making at Megacorp.” Gold frowned at his partner. “Say eighteen an hour?”

That was actually more than she was making at Megacorp. “I can live with that.”

“Come by tomorrow at 9:00.” Gold handed her a card. “Now can we get some lunch?”

The address on the card looked like somebody’s house. Somebody rich. It was a three story pink Victorian which was really nicely kept up.

Gold answered the door and showed her around. “You’ll be answering the phone along with the paperwork. I’ve prepared a script for you. There’s a database of customers. The ones who have service contracts with us get first priority.

“Your station will be there.” He pointed to a standard cubicle set up in what had once been the parlor of the old house. There were a couple of others which looked like they were primarily used for storage. Behind them an old oak table was stacked with paper.

“This is Jeff’s office.” He led her through into what she guessed had been the dining room. Solid mahogany desk and credenza held computer gear, stacks of papers and a strange collection of toys and gimcracks. Another matching desk held a lot of organizers. Which did not look very organized. “For God’s sake don’t touch anything in here unless Jeff has put it on this desk. Incoming materials go here as well.

“The toilet is off the main hallway. Kitchen is through there.” He waved at a set of sliding doors. “You can get to it from the hallway as well. Help yourself, but make a note if we’re running out of anything.

“I’ll be downstairs if you have any questions.” He paused. “Uhm, Jeff can be a bit… whimsical. If he asks you to do anything that seems… odd, you might want to check with me.”

“We talking strip to my knickers odd or pick shit up from his dealer odd?” When Gold blinked at her she added. “I can handle him either way. I just want to know what to expect.”

“More like do a census of the fairies at the bottom of the garden odd.” Gold’s mouth quirked. “Jeff has a head injury from a car accident. He’s functional, well most of the time, but sometimes he has a little trouble distinguishing reality from fantasy.”

“Is that when you hurt your leg?” Great. She was working for a nut job and a gimp. First thing she was going to do was check their bank account and make sure her paychecks were not going to bounce.

“No.” His lips thinned. “Not the same accident. Mine was courtesy of the Taliban.”

“You’re a vet?” He was only a couple of inches taller than she was.

“Aye.” His voice became sardonic. “The army’s physical standards aren’t nearly as high for their techs. Especially not ones who speak Urdu.”

“Where’d you learn Urdu?”

“Glasgow. Lot of our neighbors were from Pakistan. And the Mother of a mate of mine didn’t speak any English.” He led her back to the cubicles.

“That’s should get you started.” He looked her up and down. “Uhm, about your clothes...”

“What’s wrong with my clothes?” She demanded. She looked good today. Her best pair of nude heels showed off her legs like nobody’s business. Granted the little blue pleated skirt was short, but so was she. Anything longer looked dowdy and she was damned if she was going to dress like some librarian just cause her boss was a prude. She had enough of that from her Dad growing up.

Gold sighed. “Never mind. It’ll probably be good for him to have to practice minding his manners and not staring.”

With that baffling statement he turned toward the stairs. She called out to stop him. “You want to see my Green Card now?” She pulled it out of her purse.

Gold blinked at her. “Not particularly. Why would I?”

“So you can fill out the form showing I’m not illegal?” She held out the documents.

“Undocumented.” Gold corrected her. “There’s a form?”

“Yeah.” She said. “You never hire anybody before?”

“Not really.” He admitted. “Leroy does the occasional odd job for us, but we just pay him as a contractor.

“But since you clearly know more about it than I do that can be your first task.” He waved in the general direction of the computer. “Find it. Fill it out. I’ll be downstairs in the workshop trying to catch up on the work I should have been doing while doing your orientation. You can bring the form down for me to sign when you finish it.”

He headed toward a door under the stairs. She called after him. “I suppose you expect me to bring you a cuppa while I’m about it?”

“Thank you, yes. Lemon, one sugar.” He called back over his shoulder.

Lemon her ass. She tossed her purse under the table. She would show him she was no tea lady.

Her good friend Google had no trouble finding the forms she needed. The only problem she had in getting them filled out was figuring out how to turn on the stupid printer which appeared to be nearly as old as she was.

Because she was going to be the best damn manager in the whole damn state and show that nerd what for, she actually made a pot of tea while she was waiting for the print job to finish. And fixed him a cup just as he asked, using a nice china tea cup and saucer from the hutch.

“I have your tea and the forms ready for you to sign, Mr. Gold.” She called our sweetly as she descended the stairs.

She set the tea down on a clear spot at the U shaped desk he was working at and handed him the papers as she described them. “W-4 for the IRS, I-9 for immigration, whatever this thing for the Maine Income Tax people is called, and a standard non-disclosure agreement.”

Gold blinked at the stack. And started to read the non-disclosure agreement. “That’s very… efficient of you.”

“You really should have had me sign that before you gave me your log in codes.” She kept her voice sweet. “Why I could be up there stealing all your secrets.”

“I dinna figured you’d be around long enough to learn any.” Gold muttered as he read.

He absentmindedly picked up the cup of tea and took a sip. Then he looked at her suspiciously. “This is perfect. You didn’t spit in it did you?”

“I’m too good an Aussie to mess with a cuppa.” She smirked. “Otherwise you’d of gotten salt instead of sugar.”

“Uhm, in that case, thank you.”

She looked around the basement as he read through the forms. At first glance it looked chaotic, but looking closer it sort out into sections. New parts sorted into bins. Old machines in various states of disembowelment set out on tables around the edge of the room, which looked like it took up about half of the house’s footprint. She spotted a door that probably led to the rest of the basement.

Half the U shaped desk was actually a workbench along the wall under one of the windows. Tools neatly hung from the rack on the wall under the window. What looked like several projects with pieces and wires each confined to it’s own section. Computer keyboards and monitors took up the other side of the U with papers covering the joining section. A couple of comfortable chairs sat facing him from the other side.

It was actually a nicely set up workroom. Orderly without being anal about it. It must be connected to the HVAC system because it was a comfortable temperature and did not have any of the musty smell you usually got in the basements of old houses.

One thing did stand out. “Is that a spinning wheel?”

Gold looked up from the paperwork. “Aye. I use it when I’m waiting around for things to cool or code to compile.”

“I’ve never run across a programmer who spun. Juggle, play guitar or other odd stuff, but not spinning.”

“Me Aunts ran a yarn shop. They taught me when I was a lad.”

He glanced at the copy of her green card she had attached to the I-9 and smirked. “Your name really is Lacey French?”

“Yes, it’s my real name. No, I did not pick it because I was getting a job as a stripper.” She huffed. “And I’m not sure you’re in a position to comment, Ragnor.”

She had found his name on the company tax forms.

“Touche.” He agreed. “It was the sixties. I blame the drugs.”

“There were some of those going around in the 80s too.” She took back the forms. “What do you want done next?”

“That stacks of stuff on the table needs to be filed.” Gold told her. “And remind Jeff when he comes in that we’ve got a conference call with the artist for his game at two. Then remind him again every hour until then.”

She finished the filing before Jeff showed up at 11:30. Wearing the top hat, a different frock coat and a yellow ascot with burgundy polka dots. And Gold had the nerve to comment on her clothes.

Before she got the chance Gold came upstairs to remind him about the conference call. And to ask, “Did you take your meds this morning?”

“Yes, mother. And I ate my breakfast and brushed my teeth.”

Jeff was less demanding than Gold. He did give her a bunch more filing to do.

When lunch time rolled around Jeff made a couple of sandwiches and took them downstairs. “I’m going to go over the specs for the graphics we’re going to be talking about this afternoon. The artists always want to use way too much memory. Help yourself to whatever is in the fridge.”

There turned out to be a really nice cheese and fruit plate in the fridge. Lacey had it for lunch.

Gold and Jeff had been on the conference call for over an hour when Lacey noticed a couple of kids running up the front walk. At the last minute they veered around the edge of the house toward the back. Lacey headed down the hall and almost made it to the kitchen before she heard the back door open and a little girl’s voice call out. “Daddy, we’re home.”

She found the girl, (grade school age? Lacey was not good with kids’ ages) and an older boy hanging up jackets and stowing backpacks on a shelf clearly set up for just that,

They both looked up as she came into the room. “Uhm, hey.” Said the boy, who despite dark curly air had to be Gold’s son. The genetics were obvious.

“Are you the new project manager?” He asked. “Dad said you were going to start today.”

Nice that somebody got briefed. “Yeah, I’m Lacey. And you are?”

“He’s Neal and I’m Grace.” The girl put in. “What’s a project manager?”

“I’m suppose to help your Dads,” That left it nicely vague as to whether Gold and Jeff were together or not. “Get their work done on time and not forget stuff.”

“That will be good.” Grace said solemnly. “Because Daddy forgets things and Uncle Rum is sometimes too busy to remind him.”

At least that clarified the genetics.

Neal made a bee-line for the refrigerator. “Looks like Dad forgot our snack.”

Oh, Hell. She had eaten his kid’s after school snack. She had never managed to get herself fired on her first day before.

Quickly she joined the boy at the refrigerator. “How about I make you a proper Tea? You like scones?”

The scones were coming out out the oven when Gold and Jeff emerged from the conference call. Grace ran to hug Jeff. “Daddy, Lacey taught me how to make real scones. Just like the Queen eats.”

“Excellent, dormouse. We’ll be all set when she comes to call.” Jeff told her.

Neal was just finishing setting the table with the nice china from the hutch that Lacey had used earlier for Gold’s tea. He had insisted that, “Aunt Flora would rise out of the grave if we served a ‘proper’ tea with the every day mugs.”

“So you’ve all become acquainted then?” Gold took the seat at the head of the table.

“We have.” Lacey set the tea pot in front of him. “Such a pleasant surprise when they arrived home.”

“I did say it was a family business.” Gold smirked.

A test passed apparently. “If you’ll be mother, I’ll serve the scones.”

“How do you like your tea?” He asked starting to pour.

It was actually a nice afternoon break. Grace informed them in detail about the latest chapter of Charlotte’s Web her teacher had read to the class.

Neal’s responses to Gold’s questions about his day were more monosyllabic. Lacey upped her estimate of his age by a couple of years. From the amount of food he was putting away he had to be a teenager despite his small size.

When he finished his fourth scone he got more talkative. “Can the team come over Friday? We need more practice.”

“I’ve got a repair call in Ellsworth.” Then glancing her way, he smirked. “But if Jeff and Lacey can supervise you I don’t see why not.”

Neal, glanced Jeff’s way then turned to her. “Would that be okay, Lacey? If we’re going to get anywhere in the competition we really need more practice and Dr. Jekyll, our coach, won’t work later than 4:00.”

And from what she had seen of Jeff so far, nobody was going to trust their kid to his supervision alone. She had to wonder how he was looking after Grace. Great. Tea lady and babysitter. This was clearly another test on Gold’s part. To see how far he could push her. “What kind of competition is it?”

“The STEMletics. It’s like the Mathletics but covers science, technology and engineering as well. Teams compete against each other like in the old College Bowl. We really need to get faster at coming up with answers to have a shot at winning.”

Clearly Gold had majored to sire a baby nerd. She had no idea what the College Bowl was but it did not sound like it would be all that hard to ride herd on a few teenagers. After all she knew what sort of mischief they were likely to get up to from experience. “Sure I’ll bring refreshments.”

After tea was done, Jeff took Grace off to his office to do her homework and Neal disappear to where ever boys his age disappeared to. Gold told her. “Leave the dishes. I’ll do them tonight when I do the washing up from dinner.”

At least she was not expected to be the maid as well.

#ifishouldvanish #Rumbelle Christmas in july #Have You Tried Turning It Off and On #rumbelle fic #rcij

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zenruption · 5 years

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10 Essential Things You Need When Kitting Out Your Office

Whether they’re setting up home offices or starting full-scale businesses, new business owners need to give some serious consideration to their offices. It’s tempting to assume that all that’s really necessary is a desk, a computer, and a good pen. In reality, though, this just isn’t the case.

Modern offices should feature supplies chosen carefully to improve worker productivity and make it easier to get things done. New business owners can read on to find an in-depth look at ten of the most essential items they’ll need. As long as they follow these simple guidelines and purchase their equipment and materials from a reliable supplier like FilmsourceInc, they will be in good shape.

The Right Computers

There are few, if any, modern businesses that can operate without sufficient computer power. Choosing the right computers is largely a matter of understanding the business’s unique needs and working to accommodate them. While someone who is self-employed and working from a home office can usually get away with purchasing a solid desktop computer and saving some money, business owners who have multiple employees might want to consider laptops.

The Right Furniture

A small home office will still need a sturdy desk, a comfortable office chair, and at least one chair for guests if any part of the business requires client or contractor consultations. Full-scale offices will require everything from desks and chairs to office partitions and conference room furniture. When selecting furniture, it might be wise to consider factors like ergonomics to ensure maximum comfort and versatility.

Printer and Copier

Even a relatively small office should still have a printer and copier. Even if they don’t expect to be working much with paper documents, most business owners will eventually find that they have reason to be copying receipts, printing contracts, or producing other types of documents. A high-quality printer and copier for consumer use are musts, although most business owners find that purchasing a commercial printer is worth the money.

Document Processing Equipment

Professionalism is key when it comes to attracting new customers or clients to just about any small business. Make a point of having the right equipment on hand to process documents, including paper cutters, binding systems, and finishing equipment. It will make producing professional-quality documents easier if business owners and their employees don’t have to waste time looking for supplies.

An Adequate Reserve of Supplies

Don’t just buy a pen and a pad of paper and call it a day. Even those who are self-employed or have just a few employees can still benefit from buying office supplies in bulk. After all, there are few things more stressful than rushing around throwing together a last-minute presentation before a meeting with a client only to find that there are no report covers or binding supplies left from the last order.

Remember all the basics. Pens, notepads, printer paper, ink, and post-it notes all make it to the top of most business owners’ lists. Many offices can also benefit from at least a small whiteboard and some dry erase markers, as these make it easier to brainstorm, and a calendar for each room or cubicle. While it’s true that these tasks can be accomplished using computers or even phones, collaborating with other employees is easier when everyone can access the information.

Organizational Equipment

Get organized early and stay that way with filing cabinets, hanging folders, and plenty of labels. Make a point of planning for the future and purchase more filing equipment than seems necessary, rather than less, as having the right equipment is important to ensuring ongoing organization and efficiency.

It’s a good idea to keep both electronic and physical copies of important documents. Just make sure to treat any documents that contain sensitive client or employee data with adequate care and purchase locking filing cabinets for any sensitive documents. It’s also a good idea to pick up a high-quality paper shredder to ensure confidentiality.

Headphones or Headsets

Any office that has multiple employees should provide headphones or headsets. High-quality headsets allow employees to take phone calls without having to stop what they’re doing to hold a physical phone, making it easier to work on projects with long-distance clients or check information. Headsets come in both wired and wireless varieties and are compatible with both PCs and Macs.

Employee Areas

Those who are kitting out offices for small businesses with multiple employees might want to consider outfitting at least one small area of their offices for use as a lounge during breaks. It doesn’t have to be an official break room. Just dedicating one portion of the office space to comfy chairs, a coffee machine, and table where employees can gather during lunch or breaks to discuss their days can go a long way toward improving their productivity and satisfaction.

Plenty of Power

Evaluate the space’s available electrical outlets. Make sure that it can safely accommodate enough computers, lighting, equipment, and other electronic devices. Purchase surge protectors for every outlet and consider a backup power supply or, at the very least, setting up all systems to back up data automatically to protect against outages.

Personal Touches

Now that all the basics have been covered, take a moment to consider personal touches. Put up a few pictures of the people or places that are most motivating. Those who are preparing to work with new employees should make a point of allowing them to personalize their spaces at least in a minimalist way, as it will help them feel more committed to the company and keep them inspired.

The Bottom Line

While it’s true that every office is a little different, most business owners’ basic needs will be largely the same. They’ll need enough equipment, supplies, and furniture to accommodate each employee comfortably at his or her workstation, a way to stay organized, and a few little touches to give the office more character and make employees and clients alike feel more welcome. As long as they purchase their equipment through a reliable supplier, business owners only have to invest in most of these items once so spend the extra money now if necessary instead of buying cheap supplies.

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originaldetectivesheep · 7 years

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A Life of Riley Part 4: The Dumptrucks of the Gods ch 4

Chapter 3

With all the work that we had to do in the lab over the next two weeks, I almost forgot about Mel and the fish – Mel and her bizarre grinckle-reducing station that turned out to be, exactly as Carolína must have half-suspected, dug in to the machine room under the undergrad lab members' condo. She was down there, under a fume hood with a gas mask and a kitchen knife, probably making the ghost antsy by stealing its food to run through her essentializing processes, and after we'd finished getting all of the rest of the dislocator parts out of the machine room, we were back day and night in the lab, finishing the assembly as Riley converted prior versions of the dislocation machinery into this new so-called Raging Potato. I slept under the drill press again, missing Simon terribly, and in every waking moment I ate, drank, sat, fidgeted and daydreamed high-energy physics and circuit design. In a fugue of machinery noise from everyone working around us mixed with abrasive Ash Borer and Netra echoes from the buds on the top of my ears, I worked and reworked the abstract mathematical calculations required to parse through the state space, built DIs and cannibalized old printer cables into control harnesses, and fabricated random chunks of metal to Riley's inexplicable, incomprehensible blueprints.

We were all in; all of us, Carolína and Sajitha and Riley and me switching on and off through every single part of the Potato's subsystems from control software to turning bolts in the outer housing, and because the work was so great, and Riley was so adamant about its completion, we ended up impressing the others: Leo assembling parts together, running harnesses and checking cables, and Remy building the larger parts of the frame together and checking the composition of our few coolant or hydraulic systems, making sure there wouldn't be a corrosion or fault risk once the horrific energies we planned to operate at started thundering through this imposing pile of metal and wire wrapped around the better part of a thermonuclear bomb. There was well more than enough work for all of us – even as we got the frame assembled and the control systems built and integrated, there was always something more to do: automation routines that needed optimization, heavy-duty power cables from the capacitor cells in to the reactor that needed to be audited and repaired, more capacitor power supplies that just needed to be built and sealed and tested for function. Check it, test it, rebuild it, repeat, continue.

I was in the middle of one of these cycles adding in a few functions to the control software for the power-transfer circuit board that was going to manage the dump-in of the initiation energy for us – there were too many supplies and not enough cables to do this by hand – when Riley brought me out of my trance, banging on the top of my monitor with a wrench. "Yuping! Yuping! Wake up! Are you done with the commit on the state-pathing decider? What are you working on?"

I blinked and pulled my earbuds out. "Yes, finished; commit is done back and build is building. Making new control break in power-transfer onboard controller; almost done."

Riley held up a hand. "Don't bother. What we have should be good enough – if the lab doesn't melt when we shoot this off, we'll think about improvements for v2. For right now, I need you to back up your station onto the department cloud share, and anything important that you have local on your phone or a flash drive, any paper drawings that you have notes on that you didn't put over to digital anywhere, you need to come over and throw it in Leo's duffel bag." I stood up, following Riley's thumb back over to the doorway, where Carolína was struggling with a stack of rolled-up paper schematics and how to fit them into a barely-large-enough duffel that looked to already have a couple laptops inside.

I leaned back over and started the backup, then ejected my thumb drive and took the headphone cord out of my phone. "Okay," I said, "Only drive and phone, not much on them, but why?" Riley was already heading back over, and I followed, hoping for some kind of explanation before I got there. There was a strange tang in the air, a taste even beyond the usual strange tastes we got in the lab from ozone and atmospheric metal pollution – a feeling like something was about to happen, like we were about to cross over a border.

"Your phone goes in the bag because I want to insulate us from observer effect," Riley said, shuffling at the insides of the duffel to make room, "and we're doing the backup and loading in everyone's removable data because I'm like eighty percent sure that after we go up, any state that we transition back to is going to be one where we smashed the Potato right up through the goddamn roof, and the lab is going to be wrecked." I pulled up, stunned, thumb still on my phone, and Riley noticed, hastening with more of the explanation.

"Mel texted me a couple minutes back, and the grinckle potion is good to go. So, we're going. I know there's stuff that we want to fix, that we want to get improved, but we've been more or less ready to start up the Potato for most of the last fifteen hours, and it just happens that Mel is done with the fish stuff right when we're coming up on a flyby window where we'll have a relatively less-shitty path up to the ship. I'd prefer to go in another three hours, when they'll be on their closest approach, but apparently there is some garbage about the fish chemicals having to be fresh that would make that harder – I don't pretend to know chemistry, much less alchemy, so I'm taking Mel's word on this one – and so we're going now, or at least as close to 'now' as we can get all our shit together.

"The cannon is loaded. There are a couple of our modded nailguns already inside. If you want to take a machete or something to mess up any aliens in person, you can go and take it. Sajitha's downstairs picking up confined-space rebreathers from her co-workers in Facilities in case the oxygen concentrations inside the grinckle spawn areas are shitty. And Melanie is on the way over with this filterized and essentialized or whatever theoretical pure concentration of grinckleness, which according to the stuff she was putting out in alternative journals about ham and crap, probably ought to modify our state coherence enough that a path to the grinckle originating point will be doable with our energy budget if we can get a close enough approach."

I was trying to think this through, to put all the pieces together, and with that, I could finally speak. "Riley," I said, "so – plan is – plan is start up Potato and go to space? To stop grinckles by fighting alien?"

Riley nodded, like there wasn't anything wrong or crazy in that sentence at all. "Yeah, that's about the shape of it. Maybe we'll be able to rip them to bits with the cannon and that'll be it, or maybe the satellite is an automated probe that someone else somewhere else is using to strew grinckles for the lulz, but if there are aliens on this alien satellite or alien spaceship, we're going to go kick the shit out of them till they stop. You think we're not set up for it? I think that between the five of us we should have things pretty well under control: the nailguns aren't that great, but Remy's a taekwondo champ, Carolína's a mean hand with a machete, you're not so bad with one either, and I certainly wouldn't want to be in front of Sajitha when she's got her brass knuckles and a mad on. Maybe some molotovs would help, but I dunno if we've got the time to buy gas, or if they'd burn in that atmosphere." As usual, Riley was looking at this as a purely operational problem, with any ideas about the wisdom of going to space in an iron bucket by shifting its quantum reference frame to go fight aliens in the first place completely ignored.

"Five?" I asked, "Not Leo?" I wasn't looking to try and talk Riley out of this plan, or to poke holes in it – I certainly didn't have a better and smarter idea for us or anyone else to do something about something that wasn't just in orbit but discontinuous with the observed local quantum state – but if I was going to go to orbit strapped in on top of a nuclear bomb, I wanted to have as much information about what we were trying to do as I could get.

"If you haven't noticed, it is kind of super cramped inside the Potato," Riley said, nodding over at the massive pile of steel and cables hogging most of the middle of the lab, "and even five is pushing it, but we can fit, and I need as much skills as we can lift up. Honestly, I really wish that I could leave you here and take Leo, because you're the only one on the crew that's really attached to anyone not stuck in it with us, but even with the autotune, you've got the best hand for state coherence out of all of us. We're going to friggin space pasted on top of a self-containing tokamak: there is zero room for error here, so I've got to take the best, no ifs ands or buts.

"If we had the spare power and the internal volume, I'd want to take Leo, too," Riley continued, slapping him on the shoulder, "but we don't, and so he's got another important job down here: not just holding our stuff in the short term, but maybe holding onto the lab in the long term. I'm not gonna say 'if anything happens' – if the engine's got something screwy in it that we couldn't get out with the diagnostics, well, that's a megaton and change of a physics package in there, and all our component atoms are gonna end up looking for new jobs real quick. But if we don't turn this campus into a glowing hole on startup, and something happens later, then in that case, some future day when the administration wants to fund an AP lab again, then Leo is, not just by accident, exactly who I would want as a designated-survivor to continue the traditions of the Applied Physics lab as we are – not as we were, as we are – I'm not planning on getting any of us killed, or crushed by the roof, or marooned in space, not if I have anything to say about it." Leo still gulped at this; looking at him, I wasn't quite sure whether he was getting emotional at receiving Riley's trust, or about to have a panic attack thinking about what might go wrong when we started the reactor.

"You can, and you really should, take some time and like text or maybe call Simon," Riley said, nodding over at me unconcerned. "We've got some time before Mel gets here with the grinckle juice, and I know it's not fair to put this on you with like, just today. Just make sure that you get your phone in the bag, and you get your coveralls on before we have to load up." I nodded and took a few steps off sideways towards the isolation fridge.

I opened up the phone contacts to call Simon directly, because I didn't want to end up vaporized and the last thing I said to him was something about making sure we ground up that one last avocado for guacamole before it went completely mushy. The phone clock was showing 13:10, though; by now he was teaching a class, and if I called him, it would take him out of his class, and take him out of himself, and he'd be worried sick about me because I'd called instead of texted and that meant that I was worried, that it was not just possible but likely that I would actually end up dead in space. I took a deep breath, and another, in and out. I thought about what we were going to do, the state that the Raging Potato was in, everything we'd built and all the problems that we'd had, all the things that we fixed; where the last little bits were that we might have improved or reinforced if we had another day – the urgent ones that we might have been grinding on right now if we had another hour. I knew everything – nearly everything – in this jumped-up dislocation chamber backwards and forwards, and in my view, everything was coming down to the very same thing.

There was exactly one point of significant difficulty in this entire system. There was, in a high-level analysis, only one thing that could go wrong. It would be hard to move the Potato into orbit by directly pathing across time-sequenced quantum states to displace it in x-y-z, but it was possible – it was what the dislocation circuits were kind of built to do. If we had to board an alien ship, the atmosphere might be crap, but I knew enough astrobiology just from living with an astronomer that there were practically no atmospheric mixes that were both friendly to any of the possible energy-transformation paths associated with complex life and not fixable with a confined-space rebreather. No, if something was going to go wrong, really wrong, it was going to go wrong from the start, when we dumped ninety gigajoules of energy into a decades-old nuclear weapon and crossed our fingers that the fusion reaction would start burning in exactly the way it was supposed to in order to contain itself, rather than expanding aggressively and immediately like every other hydrogen bomb of its generation. That was it – that was the only part we hadn't tested forwards and backwards. If the Ceiba worked as designed, we could go to space, and I would probably come back in one piece. If it just blew up, there wouldn't be any time for regrets – and Wetmore Hall was only a couple hundred meters away, well inside the primary fireball at the yield Riley was estimating. If we went, we would go together.

I thumbed down to open a new text conversation and punched in my message:

> riley has me kind of stuck on a lab thing > I probably can't make dinner, out too late > and might be dangerous > well, little bit dangerous > so if something happen, remember, I love you

I held the power button down on the side of the phone, and walked back to toss it in the duffel. Simon probably wouldn't see it until the end of his class, but it was okay: it would be less time for him to be worried, and if I could do that for him, I would. Leo zipped up the bag around the phone, and I picked up my coveralls to start getting ready.

There was kind of a stir from out in the hall as I pulled the top part up to put my arms through; I looked back, and immediately saw why. There were people passing in the halls, and Mel Wolfram had come through the middle of them carrying a large thermos bottle wrapped in biohazard caution tape and wearing an army-surplus gas mask. And not wearing it on top of her head, wearing it on the front of her face – it was Mel's hair and Mel's lab coat, so I could know it was her and not some cybergoth or something doing public performance art, but I had no idea how campus security had managed to not see her and decide she was a biological terrorist. I zipped up quickly to get back with the others and get whatever Riley wanted with the contents of the bottle done before the police showed up.

This turned out not to be a thing: Riley hustled Melanie inside the lab, then securely closed the door behind her. "Yuping, Remy, bring it in; Leo, you probably want to back off a little if you don't have a gas mask. It's better if you stay inside for this part and then get clear with the bag later. Speaking of gas masks," Riley continued, turning to Mel as she started cutting away at the tape around the thermos with a pocketknife, "what the hell? I thought this was the deal that you would come up here with the stuff under containment. And it at least looks like it is – why the mask on?"

"It is under containment," Mel replied, her voice muffled and modulated by the rubber mask and the charcoal filters, "but you can't be too careful. It's metastable short-term, mostly, but if it let go in the car, I wouldn't've had time to pull the mask down and probably would have crashed into something." The caution tape and what looked like several layers of plastic shopping bags were cut through, and the thermos bottle was now clear enough that she could start opening the top. "And it's not just the smell – as it turned out, the best carrier compound for the Lebensfisk is high-proof tequila, so a significant spill would also be packing enough alcohol fumes to knock out a horse." This was sounding immediately bad for us as well as abstractly horrible – especially since Riley was scrounging up five mugs or cups or plastic screw caddies.

"Well, all right," Riley said, obviously not feeling it, "what matters is that you're here, not how much cop aggro you did or didn't pull on the way. Hold off on pouring for a second; I've got to explain this to the crew, and if it's that bad I don't want to have it sitting out breathing while I convince them to stop wibbling and drink it." Melanie nodded, keeping a hand over the bottle's screw-off plug, and the rest of us looked around at each other in open dread and horror as Riley began the explanation.

"So before you durfing mud turtle impersonators go and lose all your shit meeping about ham potions and 'scientifically ludicrous' and 'self-intentionally toxic' and other crap, look, this is the rules. Melanie has consumed a lot of her time and her effort and your basement demon's grinckles in order to make this valorized attunement solution, which she is calling Lebensfisk because she invented it, she gets to name it, and in recognition of that achievement, we are going to do shots with it before we fire the capacitors that are loading right now into the Potato and get moving." I shot a quick look back at the capacitor banks; Riley must have started them up while I was getting changed, but they were loading in, the lights on the indicators showing them ramping on and on towards full charge.

"And I know, that's where you're gonna go next, omagawrf, you're gonna do shots and drive a nuke-powered high-energy relativistic Faraday cage to space. Right, smart. No. Look, it is one shot, nobody here is that lightweight, and we're gonna be lifting off by autotune anyway, there's no way that human beings could manage the state transitions manually until we get clear of the atmosphere and there's less particles to care about. That is the point of the autotune, to handle state displacement in a 3-space-shifting frame of reference." Riley took a deep breath and stabbed down with two fingers at the workbench.

"The point of this Lebensfisk thing is that when we intake it, in some form like this with the tequila carrier that gets the right concentrations in in the right way to make them biologically available – I'm stressing that it's done this way to not poison us, so can it – we shall attain a degree of elemental grinckleness that will make us stickier on states with high grinckle prevalence than would otherwise be the case. This will help us conserve power as we approach the alien ship, because once we get above the atmosphere, that thing is going to be, relatively speaking, a goddamn grinckle gravity well, and we are going to effectively fall down the state space through it and then light up their shit."

"A grinckle gravity well," Carolína interrupted, her forehead in knots like she was having trouble wrapping her brain around how horrifically weird this whole idea was. "A sort of philosophical presence turning into a fundamental force, which we tune to by magic. By magic fish tequila." She was speaking for, I think, all of us – all of the rest of us who were struck dumb by how idiotic and unscientific this was, even in comparison to all the intensely strange and dubiously possible things that we usually did around the lab.

"Look, do not call it magic," Riley said, obviously put out, "this is a scientific institution and we are going to do goddamn science with this fish potion. It's not magic: say rather 'experimentally indeterminate theorized applications of unverified principles responding to inadequately-investigated problem domains'. We reason under incomplete information all the goddamned time; I don't know why this is special or why you're kicking about it."

"Because, Riley, the last time someone drank one of Mel's meat alchemy things, she had to go and get her stomach pumped," Remy answered, his voice cracking and hoarse. "And that was with a neutral carrier – we're at college, ain't you heard that just tequila by itself is kinda constantly awful?"

"Mel had to get her stomach pumped because she drank a friggin gallon of the ham potion – you try drinking a gallon of something with that much salt in it and see how you feel," Riley shot back. "This is a shot. This is for like today – it is not a whole life rejuvenation or in this case grinckleization treatment. You will pound a shot of the Lebensfisk tequila – we will all pound a shot of the Lebensfisk tequila – and it will probably be awful, but we will get on with it and fire up the Potato and get over it. Like I said: this is going to be hard as crap, and we have no room for error, so every corner I can work, I will do it – and if I'm doing it, then you're going to do it for state consistency."

This wasn't getting anywhere. Riley was going to make us drink this fish poison, one way or another, and the only thing that would change would be how mad we all were at each other before we stuffed ourselves into a packing crate sitting on top of a hydrogen bomb. I put up my hands. "Okay," I said. "Okay, it's bad. Will probably be very bad – might make worse. But if works, then it's better – and if doesn't, we'll live. This lab, we build cannon – we overvolt capacitor even if sometimes melt down – we find nuclear weapon lost in jungle and take home. Can drink a fish cocktail that was in blender. This is maybe least dangerous, least dumb, least bad thing we do today – let's do it, let's go." I dropped my hands onto my knees with a slap, in resignation as much as anything. The rest of the lab was looking at me; they still weren't any more enthusiastic about drinking Mel's grinckle thing, but at least it looked like the fight might be over.

Sajitha shrugged, and put her hands on her head. "Fine! Fine – all right, I'm in. I'm with Yuping: this is going to be awful but it's got a long way to go before it's the dumbest thing we've done this week. Let's just shoot 'em and forget this was ever a thing." Remy nodded, and Carolína took a deep breath to pull herself together. Riley lined up the cups, and Mel braced herself over them, like she had to gather herself, even under her gas mask, before she opened up the bottle and released the horrifying stench inside.

Of course, she would – she'd made it, she knew what she was getting into. The bottle opened, and the rest of us were almost bowled over by the indescribable brain-gnawing tidal waves of rotten, fermented fish stink somehow married to dead-at-ten-paces rotgut tequila fumes and blended up with the back-alley effluvium of a paint factory that decided illegal dumping fines would be cheaper than hiring someone to drag their garbage away. The smell was so violently bad that I almost wondered if one of the capacitors had shorted, and was throwing a fatal arc through me, rewiring all my senses backwards before it burned the nerves completely away. But no, I was not dead – I was still alive, and that meant that there was still my own tumbler of pureed dead grinckle sitting out in front of me.

I grabbed for it, and somehow around the weird blue and purple shadows that were blotching my vision from the fumes and the stench, I could see everyone else having the same idea: the longer these stupid, vile, insane beakers of poison were sitting on our lab bench rather than setting our guts on fire, the longer they were going to stink up the lab. I threw my head back and slammed the shot – the double shot, there was more liquor in this cup than there had any right to be – at a single swallow, feeling the tequila hit my stomach like an exploding cannon round, and I fought down the urge to puke as the dirty-rutabaga-skin taste of a hundred or a thousand grinckles charged back up into my throat, back up into my nostrils. This had better work – this had better frigging work – because if it didn't, there was nothing on earth that could redeem this obscenely stupid shot.

I braced myself on the bench, breathing hard; Remy was holding his stomach, wincing, Carolína had her coveralls ripped open at the neck, squeezing her throat and grimacing, and Sajitha, fists clenched into white knuckles, was shuddering with her head vibrating at a frequency we could barely get out of our power drills. Even Riley was looking knocked out, bleary-eyed and coughing, and Leo was backed up to the door, wide-eyed, like he couldn't wait to get the hell out of this place, the hell away before Riley came up with anything worse.

"All right," Riley said, back in command despite a last spluttering cough, "all right – that's it, that's it, let's go. Get yourselves squared away and get in the Potato – we're gonna hit full power in about a minute and there's no need to wait a second longer than we have to. Leo, Mel, get clear, close the door, lock up behind you; no observers, no observer effect."

"Good luck," Leo said, his voice showing exactly what he thought of our chances, as he closed the door behind them; inside the lab, Carolína had got her coveralls back together and her rebreather onto her belt, so I could give her a boost up into the Potato and climb up the Ceiba housing into the chamber after her. Riley finished checking the cable connections from the capacitors in to the reactor initiator a few seconds later, and followed me up, locking down the panel to close us in.

"Sajitha, turn on the interconnect panel." Sajitha turned on the panel that Riley meant, and because there was barely any way not to see it, how close we were all packed inside the metal dislocation cell, we all saw the capacitor banks all coming up green. "Right – we're coming right up on full power. Carolína, open the power-connection interlock, that's the key under your right elbow." Carolína turned around, sort of, and fiddled with something in the wall of the chamber. Something clicked up by the ceiling, and Riley opened up a metal latch cover to reveal an impressive button with a heavy idle-contact shield all around it.

"If you want to grab on to someone or something," Riley said, glancing over at the interconnect readout panel, "now would be a great time. Otherwise, you're probably going to be holding mostly the floor until we get the hang of this. Full power – firing in three – two – one –" Riley's finger stabbed the jumpstart button, and ninety billion joules of electrical power dumped in through the ignition manifold, summoning Hardtack Ceiba forth from its sixty years of silence. Just like that – that was it.

Chapter 5

#nanowrimo #alifeofriley #fiction

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thecoroutfitters · 7 years

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Written by Guest Contributor on The Prepper Journal.

Editor’s Note: This post is another entry in the Prepper Writing Contest from Xavier. If you have information for Preppers that you would like to share and possibly win a $300 Amazon Gift Card to purchase your own prepping supplies, enter today.

When planning your preps, you’re faced with a myriad of options and contrary to the popular social campaign to be unique, I urge you to follow the masses. Not only do the masses USUALLY get things right in aggregate, but it can make your life easier in the long run to just go with the crowd. There’s no need to be exotic with your preps. Consider a tiny slice of prepping: bug-out vehicles, electronics, and firearm selection. The same concept can be applied to almost anything you’re prepping for!

Cars and bug-out vehicles

When looking for a car: don’t be exotic. Play the numbers. The most popular small car in America for MANY years going back decades is the Toyota Corolla. The most popular minivan in America for MANY years going back almost a dozen years is the Honda Odyssey. Care to guess which two vehicles I own? They’re not the most stylish vehicles, not even the best performance or features. That’s not why I own them. I own them because they’re EVERYWHERE! This makes it cheaper and easier to find parts for them NOW, and will make it that much easier to find the parts I need after SHTF. If I were to buy a pickup, I’d likely end up with a Ford F-150 for the exact same reason.

The ability to find spare parts shouldn’t be overlooked.

Consider your geographic area where you live now, your path to your bug-out location, and eventually your bug-out location when making these decisions, and what you’ll need to do with the car. I’ve heard that AWD Subaru’s and Toyota 4Runners are common in Colorado and for a good reason.

Having a popular car makes it easy to find parts. Knowing which cars are compatible make it even easier. For example, the Toyota Corolla and the Toyota Matrix (and even the Pontiac Vibe) use the same 4-cylinder engine & drive train & suspension for any given year. When I do work on my Corolla, I use the Matrix repair manuals. The Honda Odyssey, Honda Pilot, and the 6-cylinder Accord share their frame and most engine components. The Toyota 4Runner, for instance, uses the same size oil filter in 2015 that it did in 1988. If you can, having two cars that share the same frame/engine components can simplify purchasing parts; this way you only have to keep one type of spare on-hand. Even if you can’t, at least keep them all metric or SAE, so you only need to carry/own one set of tools.

This can also come into play when you’re planning your preps with a group. If everyone in your group has the same or realistically similar vehicle and one completely dies, it can serve as a Frankenstein parts donor for other vehicles in your group. Your group can share the cost of a parts-pool for your bug-out camp, as it will benefit every member. Even something simple as having the same oil filter or tire-size may save a life in a pinch. Be wary of aftermarket parts on your vehicle if it prevents you from using standard parts as a rip & replace and doesn’t require welding or metal work.

Electronics

Solar Panels give you a tremendous grid-down advantage.

When thinking of survival electronics, the same rules apply – play the numbers. The most likely ways to use electronics after grid down are AA batteries, 12vDC and USB. Without reliable grid power or a generator the most common way of using portable electronics is battery power. The most common battery is the AA. All of my flashlights and most of my radios use AA batteries. They’re readily available, and can be scavenged from many household accessories such as TV remotes or children’s toys if needed. Don’t be exotic. Don’t get stuck trying to find specialized batteries because you bought a tacti-cool flashlight.

Next up is 12vDC power. This is available from just about any car battery so there should be no shortage, at least in the short-term after grid-down. They can be recharged using solar power generators. Inverters are available to make 120vAC available in a pinch for devices such as laptops, though they’re not always electrically efficient. Many popular survival related electronics operate on 12vDC power, such as CB or HAM radios and GPS units. I would recommend having a 12v deep cycle battery and a way to recharge it at your bug-out location. Having cigarette lighter adapters for your accessories can help while bugging out if you encounter an abandoned vehicle and need to make a quick contact with a radio or to recharge. Many smaller capacity 12v batteries can be found in lawn-care equipment, or as backup power for home alarm panels and garage door openers. There are even personal computers that run completely on 12v. These may be useful in short-term grid down events such as local natural disasters or for EMCOMM groups that have a need for digital communications.

USB ports and accessories are ubiquitous in today’s technological world. Understand that USB isn’t a /source/ of power, but rather an interface that I wouldn’t want to be caught without. Most cell phones and tablets charge using USB. Many small FRS/GMRS or even HAM radios can charge via a USB port. I have a small solar chargeable battery with USB interfaces in my bag. Again, having charging cables for each of your devices along the way can facilitate your travels. Travel adapters to take a 12v cigarette lighter to USB port are also very convenient. Try to make sure your devices use the same USB interface or at least stick to the most common plug types such as usb-micro for most Android phones, or the lightning style plug for newer Apple devices.

Ammunition and Firearms

guns, pistols, rifle, revolvers, and ammunition

When looking at purchasing firearms for self-defense or hunting, one of the first and largely asked questions is “what caliber”. Often it comes down to what’s the most powerful round you can reasonably handle or what has the most ‘stopping power’. However, the most powerful handgun in the world is useless if you can’t find ammunition for it. Don’t be exotic. Picking and standardizing on the most common rounds works in your benefit, and thus often cheaper to acquire now; and more importantly are the most easily obtained after SHTF. Even if you create a substantial stockpile at your home or bug-out location, there’s no guarantee it will not be plundered before you arrive, destroyed by malicious individuals or natural disaster, or that you can remain indefinitely at your bug-out location. You may have to abandon it; how much ammo can you carry with you?

For a standard loadout, you pretty much can’t go wrong with NATO rounds or those inspired by them. This means 9mm for handguns, 5.56mm for your light rifle, and 7.62mm for your long-range rifle. A word of caution: use only ammunition that fits your particular firearm. Many other articles available online explain the differences between the NATO 5.56mm and the common .223 Remington round and the inherent compatibility issues that are involved with these two related rounds. A similar discussion should be had regarding the .308 Winchester and the NATO 7.62, as well as ‘standard 9mm’ vs ‘9mm +P’. Also be aware if you carry a backup/pocket/ankle gun in .380, it’s very similar in size to a 9mm. .38 special and .357 magnum rounds are both basically physically identical. Don’t put the wrong round in the wrong gun or you could have disastrous results.

These rounds pack enough punch for what we’re likely to encounter and are small and light enough to carry a substantial amount. If you own multiple firearms for the same caliber, it would be wise that they are identical. This gives 2 primary benefits. The first is part compatibility. You only need to stock one style of part that can match both of your guns instead of having a plethora of parts for different guns. Your accessories and magazines will be interchangeable. If one gun is incapacitated or damaged, it can be used for loaner parts for your other firearm. The second benefit is weapon familiarity when training. Muscle memory built on one weapon can fail you if you resort to your secondary or backup gun in an intense situation. If you are prepping with a group of others, the same wisdom applies: get the same weapon platform.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the ubiquitous .22LR. It’s never a bad idea to have a weapon in this caliber and to stock up on plenty of ammo for it. It’s suitable for both handgun and long-gun usage. All in all a very versatile round. Another highly popular and useful gun not to neglect is the 12ga shotgun. They’re considered very reliable and pack a punch. There are a myriad of options available for ammunition that are almost 100% compatible with any modern 12ga shotgun.

Consider this just food for thought as you plan your preps. This mindset of shooting for the average can not only minimize your costs for prepping, but stretch your ability to survive after SHTF. If we end up WROL and there’s a need to barter something, having the most popular items makes your trading agility that much higher, rather than the high-priced exotic item that can only be used by a select few.

Be the gray-man!

The post Prepping by the Numbers appeared first on The Prepper Journal.

from The Prepper Journal Don't forget to visit the store and pick up some gear at The COR Outfitters. How prepared are you for emergencies? #SurvivalFirestarter #SurvivalBugOutBackpack #PrepperSurvivalPack #SHTFGear #SHTFBag

#SHTF #TEOTWAWKI #MARTIALLAW #BUGOUT #PREPPERBAG #USAF #USSOCOM #ARMY #NAVY #SurvivalFirestarter #Sur

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webpostingpro-blog · 7 years

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New Post has been published on Webpostingpro

New Post has been published on https://webpostingpro.com/shea-porter-seeks-to-restore-education-benefits-for-veterans/

Shea-Porter seeks to restore education benefits for veterans

Concord, N.H. (AP) — Veterans who misplaced their GI Invoice advantages due to the closure of for-profit faculties might get help beneath an Invoice co-subsidized via Democratic U.S. Rep. Carol Shea-Porter.

The Publish-9/11 GI Bill affords help to veterans to pursue schooling and successfully transition to civilian existence. After some of the for-earnings colleges closed remaining year, the Branch of schooling started out discharging scholar loan debt for the affected students, however, does now not have the authority to restore GI Invoice advantages for veterans.

Start system restore

Shea-Porter says too many veterans have been left without the opportunity to complete their levels because the for-earnings faculties they attended — such as Daniel Webster University in Nashua — went out of business.

Abusive Boss? Recover Your Power, Restore Your Health

Don’t allow your abusive boss damage your soul. Recover your strength. Repair your fitness.

Why Your Abusive Boss Has A lot of power to Harm.

We, humans, are wired for courting. We live on and prosper in the community. Isolate and marginalize us, and we suffer.

Rejection isn’t always only painful, it is psychologically devastating if from someone critical to us and us on whom we rely.

This is why youngsters, the ultimately based people, may be damaged for lifestyles with the aid of abusive parents.

So, being abused via a mod who can deprive us of our income and experience of dignity is particularly painful. If the abuse is day by day, we may additionally without problems emerge as depressed, demanding, and physically unwell. This is why so many personnel “go out on stress depart.” Region a bad boss in an already stressful paintings situation with an excessive amount of paintings and the too little assist and the situation can be toxic. The downward cycle is lousy. We’re depleted, and consequently much less resilient, and consequently, the next day’s pressure is even tougher to undergo.

Processes to Cope with an Abusive Boss

Here is a listing of some counter-Methods. Note the Procedures all consciousness on you, not your boss. You cannot exchange your abusive boss. You can exchange your personal moves and mind. In spite of the pressure, believe the alternatives, and use them:

1. Relying on the severity of your state of affairs, Do not wait for an entire meltdown. Take clinical depart now. Give yourself a while away to Get better and reorient.

2. Tune in. Your body is being effected by way of the strain, but you are in all likelihood pushing on, ignoring the signs. Ultimately the signs and symptoms will crush you. So, take a hint.

3. Exercise mindfulness meditation. This Practice is intellectual schooling. It teaches detachment and observation and allows emotional distance from worrying events.

4. Pray, when you have any foundation of the notion of a higher power. Prayer produces consequences. The source of those results may be debated, however, humans of religion cope better.

5. Live off sugar, caffeine, and alcohol. Never use illegal pills. Use pharmaceuticals as needed to transition via a bad time. prescription drugs can take the threshold of a stressful situation, but they are now not an answer. You are the solution.

6. difficult although it’s whilst you’re the target, realize it is now not non-public

Your boss is generally abusive and seeks out the weak for greater bullying. you are no longer awful, and you’re now not the cause of the attacks. Your abusive boss desires to bully for his own ill personal reasons. He is in dance, and you’re the companion referred to as “sufferer.” You may be absolutely everyone.

7. There are individuals who Deliver, and people who put off. Connect to the givers to make amends for the abusive boss who’s depleting you. Reach out to the energizers. Spend social time with people who enjoy laughter, appropriate meals, or fun sports. Locate individuals who share the activities you revel in, and make time with them to percentage those sports. permit your self-chortle once more. revel in the feeling of letting down your project. Create and use these opportunities to the identical routine you will take a prescribed anti-depressant.

8. Get extra sleep. It allows to exercising, despite the fact that only a brisk stroll of 15 minutes, a few hours earlier than going to mattress.

9. Take rest breaks mentally and physically throughout the day. Rise up from your work, and take a walk. Breath deeply. Stretch. normally, develop a host of one-minute interludes to replenish and renew. increase a bit intellectual repetition of a superb phrase of the wish. Repeat it silently all through the day.

10. Be patient. You’ve been beneath stress so long your frame is in a nearly non-stop stress response mode. you are possibly hyper-vigilant and reactive, and unaware that this poor state has emerged as your “new every day.” It takes the time to unwind from the pattern. Simply Live with the restoration plan.

Is the Carrot and Stick Method Useful in Higher Education

Bear in mind how the process of gaining knowledge of starts of evolved for students. As a widespread perceptual rule, when students begin their degree applications they wish to reap proper grades, beneficial capabilities, and relevant knowledge. The lessons paid assures placement in a category and there are implied results that students anticipate as a manufactured from their involvement in that elegance. In the evaluation, instructors assume that scholars will obey the instructional regulations, carry out to the fine in their skills, and observe particular magnificence necessities that encompass cut-off dates for completion of studying activities.

For college kids, grades function a hallmark of their progress in class,

A symbol of their accomplishments and failures, and a report in their standing in a diploma program. I have heard many college students nation that their primary purpose for the magnificence became to earn what they confer with as “top grades” – despite the fact that they’ll now not be completely privy to what constitutes a good grade for them. when students are not reaching properly grades, or the minimal expected via instructors and/or the college, teachers can also try to nudge them on – both through effective motivational strategies inclusive of training and mentoring, or negative motivational methods that include threats and a demeaning disposition.

I found that many educators dangle a carrot in the front of their college students thru oblique methods

Inclusive of the potential to earn a better grade, as an “A” in a trademark of the last success in school. There can be incentives given to activate higher overall performance, together with beyond regular time or a resubmission allowance for a written task, as a way of encouraging college students to perform higher.

My question is whether or not the point of interest of coaching in better education have to be the carrot we hold in the front of college students to carry out better or ought to there be greater of a focal point on what motivates each individual student to perform to the best in their competencies? In different words, do we want to be dangling something in front of students to serve as a supply of motivation?top private high schools in us

What’s the Carrot and Stick Method?

I trust that the majority understand the that means of dangling a carrot in the front of college students to encourage them. The phrase is actually based totally upon a tale approximately a technique of motivating a donkey and even as the carrot is dangling in front of it, the stick is used to prod the animal alongside. The carrot serves as a reward and the stick is used as a form of reinforcement and punishment for non-compliance.

This method continues to be used in the workplace, even subconsciously by managers, as a technique of motivating personnel. The carrot or incentives may additionally include a promoting, pay growth, one-of-a-kind assignments, and the list continues. The stick that is used, or the punishment for not achieving particular desires or performance ranges, can also encompass demotion or a job loss. A hazard of that nature can serve as a powerful motivator, even though the essence of this technique is poor and worrying.

Toward Depoliticization of the Department of Veterans Affairs: Donald Trump’s Constitutional Mandate

Most Americans who supported President-opt for Donald Trump weren’t anticipating him to publicly claim outright his particular aim of depoliticizing the Department of Veterans Affairs by way of removing it from cabinet-level repute. No, Maximum were not watching for a logistical grasp like Trump to show his sport-changing plan before he’s inaugurated because of the forty-fifth U.S. President. But, I, and might different patriots, were fully looking ahead to him to straight away announce the plenty wished replacement of the present day politically aspiring V.A. Secretary, disabled veterans benefits

Robert McDonald, who changed into appointed by Obama in 2015 for precise political motives, and who’s presently referred to as having been modified greater inside the previous months by the political strategies of the V.A. bureaucracy than he has changed the bureaucracy for the higher. Mr. Trump’s astute and unprecedented nomination of an experienced and devoted medical doctor, Dr. David J. Shulkin, as V.A. Secretary, is a sport changer, when you consider that all preceding V.A. Secretaries, because the yr 1989, had been natural political cronies of the appointing presidents, starting with George H.W. Bush’s appointment of Ed Derwinski, who was a career federal flesh-presser.

Federal benefits for veterans

It has been said at various times in the course of the records of the American republic that when federal politicians are not kissing infants, They’re stealing their candy. This sardonic cartoon might be laughable to a degree, but it is sadly a truism that jewelry with a clarion call in an age when there are over 1000 federal regulatory agencies, administrations, and commissions, with their million-plus federal employees, occupying Washington, D.C. And the federal places of work via the fifty States. The V.A. currently has greater federal employees than some other federal Branch, except for the Department of Defense, and this isn’t always to be applauded to any quantity. There currently exists a lot of mediocrity, redundancy, flippancy, and duplication of bureaucratic work methods inside the V.A

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pressography-blog1 · 7 years

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Suggestions For buying A new Laptop

New Post has been published on https://pressography.org/suggestions-for-buying-a-new-laptop/

Suggestions For buying A new Laptop

First, you have to determine which sort of Computer will pleasant healthy your needs. Are you looking for a desktop, laptop, tablet, backup, superb let, or full stop?

A new Laptop

New York n NY

Do your studies and pretend to gain even a cursory understanding of what it manner for a Pc to have a single-middle 2GHz processor.

To keep money on high-priced warranties, secure a promise from a Computer-literate pal to assist installation your new tool and perform everyday preservation on it in the course of its lifespan.

Today’s today’s tech products come in quite a number vibrant, specific colorings. My god, so many colors. Simply examine all of them. They’re incredible.

Before finishing your buy, make sure to invite your self whether or not it wouldn’t be greater price-effective to Simply grasp out inside the public library loads greater.

Buying A new Computer? Right here’s Your Plan For Putting in Packages – Old And New

So, you finally determined it turned into a time to upgrade your computing revel in. You have executed the legwork, searched the nice income websites and found the right fit of “bang in your greenback” in an effort to match your desires. Excellent for you!

Now you are confronted with the daunting mission of Installing, configuring, and basically respiratory life into your new Pc. You’ll have to name your new child, inform it how to discover its manner round your community, determine which of these pre-installed packages you may surely preserve and use, then get your printers and e mail working once more. The one’s Applications you had been the usage of on your Antique Computer, they all require your attention, too. You have got a few paintings to do.

You are probably surprised to discover which you can not truly switch your Programs from your Vintage Computer to the brand new with the aid of doing a backup and repair of the data from the Vintage tough drive. It definitely does not paintings that manner. Right here is some other potential wonder for you; the Applications you have been strolling on Windows XP may also require an update when you flow to Windows 7. It’s miles very possibly which you now have a sixty-four bit running machine, where you had a 32-bit operating gadget on your Vintage Computer. To take benefit of that new computing electricity, you will need to carefully pick out the software you put in. That equal recommendation goes for printer drivers and other peripheral device software program you may download to get things working.

Your first question must be; “What Programs do I have, which variations, and what serial numbers will I need to sign up them again, wherein this is required?” that is a task for Belarc Marketing consultant, to be had from belarc.Com. Go to that internet site, find the loose down load, get it and run it. It will produce a comprehensive document on the entirety approximately your Computer, along with software program set up and license keys for all certified products. An entire different article may be written approximately how to use these statistics, but for the motive at hand, it is good for supplying you with what you want to continue. you may need Those license keys later, in particular for Microsoft Office.

Now that you know what Packages you had, You have got a baseline that will help you determine what you need to install on the brand new Computer. You could not need or want the whole thing you had and this could gift an opportunity to create a leaner computing environment for your self. The factor of this exercising is to determine which Packages you may set up, which of these require serial numbers, which require updates, and which ones are absolutely needless. Later, we will speak how to get all of those unfastened matters, like Adobe Reader, Flash, JAVA, and like gadgets, with a superb on line utility named, Ninite.

Permit’s stroll thru these things one after the other. we are able to take a look at printers and e-mail first, as they gift the exceptional example of the way downloads are frequently better than CD installations. Then, we’re going to move directly to the Packages You could have on discs, like Microsoft Office, and so forth., where saving money by way of no longer Buying the upgrade is a choice. ultimately, we can cowl the unfastened installations noted above.

Password Suggestion List

Assuming You have got some call brand printer, like HP, Brother, or Epson; you can genuinely Visit their internet site (typically aid dot manufacturer call dot com – e.G., support.Hp.Com) and down load the perfect driver to your model. Just be sure to pay attention to get the correct OS model, probable to be Home windows 7 – 64 bit to your new Pc.

e-mail is more of an “it relies upon” scenario. In case you are the use of a web email carrier, which includes Gmail, or Yahoo, or even AOL, your desires are easy. AOL software installation is elective. For the opposite services, you, in reality, log in to anything website you had been the use of and keep on. AOL customers may want to take this opportunity to trade electronic mail services, or pass in advance and down load the state-of-the-art AOL version and set up it to your new Pc. If none of those on-line services presents in your modern-day e-mail desires, You have got extra work to do. For the reason that email configuration is not the reason for this text; you’ll work out that info along with your service company.

In case you are using software like Mozilla Thunderbird (loose), or Microsoft Office Outlook (part of the MS Workplace suite), or a few different e-mail purchaser software, you may both download that modern day version and installation it, or reload your MS Workplace from the CD’s You’ve got reachable. this is where that serial quantity from Belarc Advisor will be helpful, as you may need your license key for the MS Workplace set up. this can be a good time to recollect shopping the ultra-modern model of MS Workplace to go along with your new Laptop. In maximum cases, the Packages you want to make your printers work and get your electronic mail up and jogging are to be had as downloads from their respective makers.

You can have numerous Applications on discs which you want to run for your new Computer. On the hazard of being redundant, you should test for updates or compatibility Before you really load and set up from CD. New Home windows 7 computer systems will run older, 32-bit variations of the software program, but when you have the choice to upgrade, now will be the time to achieve this. You understand the way to pop in the CD and run the installer, so go in advance and do that. You can want to know that there are two directories for software documents on your new Computer. One is called “program files” and one is called, “application documents (x86)”. You can have guessed that the first one holds the more modern Packages and the opposite one holds the Antique 32 bit Applications. This records can be useful later when you need to recognize where things are.

Best Laptops

Now which you have your printers, e-mail, and Vintage Applications up and strolling, you’re Right to move, proper? As quickly as you release certainly one of your Programs that used to have statistics in it, you may realize You may not be completed with this task. Assuming You have access to the records from your Vintage difficult drive, you will have to pull over some folders that contain that missing information. There is a directory on your Vintage pressure known as Utility statistics and in it will likely be other folders, a number of which incorporate the facts you may need. One instance would be MS Workplace, in which Phrase may have some vehicle textual content records and where Outlook must have all of your Vintage email, contacts, and calendars in a record. You could really replica that entire Software information folder onto your new hard power and then select the precise directory for each of the imports you must do to get your information again in order.

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webpostingpro-blog · 7 years

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New Post has been published on Webpostingpro

New Post has been published on https://webpostingpro.com/shea-porter-seeks-to-restore-education-benefits-for-veterans/

Shea-Porter seeks to restore education benefits for veterans

Start system restore

Abusive Boss? Recover Your Power, Restore Your Health

Don’t allow your abusive boss damage your soul. Recover your strength. Repair your fitness.

Why Your Abusive Boss Has A lot of power to Harm.

We, humans, are wired for courting. We live on and prosper in the community. Isolate and marginalize us, and we suffer.

Rejection isn’t always only painful, it is psychologically devastating if from someone critical to us and us on whom we rely.

This is why youngsters, the ultimately based people, may be damaged for lifestyles with the aid of abusive parents.

Processes to Cope with an Abusive Boss

1. Relying on the severity of your state of affairs, Do not wait for an entire meltdown. Take clinical depart now. Give yourself a while away to Get better and reorient.

2. Tune in. Your body is being effected by way of the strain, but you are in all likelihood pushing on, ignoring the signs. Ultimately the signs and symptoms will crush you. So, take a hint.

3. Exercise mindfulness meditation. This Practice is intellectual schooling. It teaches detachment and observation and allows emotional distance from worrying events.

4. Pray, when you have any foundation of the notion of a higher power. Prayer produces consequences. The source of those results may be debated, however, humans of religion cope better.

6. difficult although it’s whilst you’re the target, realize it is now not non-public

8. Get extra sleep. It allows to exercising, despite the fact that only a brisk stroll of 15 minutes, a few hours earlier than going to mattress.

Is the Carrot and Stick Method Useful in Higher Education

For college kids, grades function a hallmark of their progress in class,

I found that many educators dangle a carrot in the front of their college students thru oblique methods

What’s the Carrot and Stick Method?

Toward Depoliticization of the Department of Veterans Affairs: Donald Trump’s Constitutional Mandate

Federal benefits for veterans

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