tell me what you think
They wanted water
Bought it by the spaceship load
Now we have none left
Diabetic blood
Vampire bites and wonders
Why is it so sweet?
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Lyons and Grant Multimedia LLC, a newly formed Black owned and operated New York based book publishing company, is now opened for business. Our mission is to give new writers of color the chance to publish and distribute their work when the big publishing house will not.
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Well, it's been an interesting ride this summer writing the Priestess Saga. Doing the initial drafts on my cell phone was also interesting but not my cup of tea. The main thing was to prove it could be done. In the meantime, I think a well woven storyline in the tradition of ancient stories and myths was produced. I do believe those of you who have followed the story all summer will be pleased with the end. As for what's next for the Priestess? Not sure. But, I'm not ruling out anymore stories, just right now I'm going to concentrate on other stuff. Anyway, thanks to those of you who kept up with it all summer and for those of you who discover the Priestess for the first time.
All Hail the Priestess!
I listen to people. It's just what I do. Pay attention to the words, but even more important, I pay close attention to the tone of the voice......the inflection.....the cadence.....Very subtle clues that mean everything. .
The words on my door tell the story...”Lead Jeneice Roberts, Audio Succor”. Not a whole lot to it.....I help people based on the things they decide to share. The only issues arise when my....clients....omit important parts of their “stories”.
My unofficial office is situated on the 8th floor of the Wilmount building on the northeast side of Linherst, in the great sub-common of Thorson on this ball we call Teeren Prime. I've been here most of my life......since my gens came to help make Teeren Prime habitable. To hear them tell the story, TP was a great wasteland, full of deafening nothing, save for the one water cache just south of the last land mass. At one time, there was great debate over re-organizing the entire planet......allowing the most wealthy first access to whichever acreage they wanted, and leaving the rest of my people to luck and chance. Finally, the planet decided for them....
In 2971, the seven Lower Zone islands suddenly shifted and moved further south. When they were completely out of view of the main mass, a scout drone was sent to investigate. All of the data retrieved indicated that the seven never existed. Imagine that.......the seven prime pieces of real estate....vanished.
No matter what they tried, the Orchestrates could not convince the 6 Primes to reconsider and purchase land on the Main. And the 10 years of construction began.....
Today, Linherst is the cardinal post of TP, housing mostly states and their kindred. On the outskirts, most Ares Elite reside.
Then you have me.
As a genaive, my genfem noticed I had a “talent” for deciphering if someone was lying. She reported this information to the Ares Elite Proper, who suggested intensive testing. It was soon decided that I would be trained to be an Ares Elite Civ, one who works for, but is not part of AE.
The one thing that could jeapordize my position is the one thing I've never shared with anyone. What they call a talent, I call “cast”. It's almost like a faint picture in my head...a scent that no one else can smell.....or just a certain feeling. I've been “casting” for so long, it's truly second nature to me.
Second nature.....
Second chances....
Upon completion of my training, I was given my first appointment as Audio Succor for the AE civ reserves and proceeded to examine ,my first case.
The wife of Grand Marshall Levins had gone missing.
And he lied from the very beginning.
I sequestered him for just under 2 hours. All the while he remained calm and fixated on getting just the right words out.
His last sentence sealed it..... “She was the love of my life....she was my everything....”
I typed on my infopad. “Hmmm.....” just audibly escaped my lips. Grand Marshall Levins sat up straighter in the well appointed young finox leather chair. His sudden movement caused the material to lightly squeal beneath him.
“What is it?” His voice was firm. “Oh......” I placed the pad on my desk. “It's nothing GM Levins....” He interrupted....”Please, call me Aldin.” “O.K. Aldin.....” I stood and crossed to the front of my desk, purposely obscuring his possible view of the infopad. 'Lady Levins has been missing for just over a week. The AEP have looked into every possible explanation....situation.....route......but nothing has turned up. Her family on Rolant has not heard from her, and she has not been recorded as taking a transport off of Teeren Prime. And speaking to you.....to be honest......” I shifted my gaze to meet his. “Well, it poses more questions than it answers.”
His facial expression shifted from a look of absolution to slight confusion.
“Such as?” he demanded. “What question? What questions?” His body language intensified; changed....became more guarded. I felt my pulse rate increase.......heat began to build in my ears.
“Well....Aldin.....” I rested back on my desk. “It took you three days to admit her as missing.....”
“Yes...” he interrupted. “See, Larise has this habit of going off on her own sometimes. I didn't think anything of it until I hadn't heard anything from her....”
“O.K. So you just now deem it important to share this information?”
He turned his face slowly to the side. “I......It should be in the initial report.....”
“I studied the report before this meeting, and there is absolutely no mention of her solo sojourns....”
“Look civ....” his demeanor seemed a touch hostile. “You need to process this information and find my wife!”
“Find your wife? We both know where your wife is.....Aldin.....”
I pressed the indented area on the call unit to summon the in house cap/core team.
He rose from his seated position and smoothed his hand through his thinning hair. His back looked tense, revealing the fight or flight response. I hoped he made the right decision.
“How.......My life......Over......”
The partitian glowed the emergency red for a split second before retreating to allow cap/core access.
“GM Levins.....” The civ attired agent spoke with absolute authority. “Your duty is forefit.”
I averted my gaze, yet I knew what was to come.....
The agent closed the gap between himself and GM Levins. He positioned his dominant hand at the base of Aldin's neck and performed the gene extraction through a small pinprick. Through the same entry point, the injection flowed.
It took a matter of seconds for GM Levins to fall to the floor in a hump of flesh that would never again know a normal life.
One of the Cap/core agents knelt beside him and secured the thin strap around his neck, making sure the command node was situated on the injection site. The light flickered a barely visible yellow prompting GM Levins to stand. “Protocol Delta Prime 4....” The agent spoke aloud. “Follow...” And with that, GM Aldin Levins proceeded behind the agent through the partitian.
“Lead Roberts.....” the remaining agent began. “Please.....
I interrupted....”I know........report.....” I slumped in my chair. “ As soon as Vid forwards the encoded pod recording to me......” He seemed to sense my irritation. “Yes ma'am...” I was happy to see him leave. The vapor at the entrance swirled and settled into the solid closure. It was still clear so I spoke “mute” and the opening became more opaque.
Even after all the times during my intern I had witnessed the agents perform this task, it still seemed to suck the energy from me. My entire being felt listless and wasted. But, as usual, protocol demanded it.
I took a deep breath in an effort to compose myself....while in the back of my mind, a vivid show of what awaited GM Levins haphazardly rolled on like a feature film.
“Jeneice.....” The call unit glowed a faint green. I waved my finger down the right side to respond. “Daylyn.....What is it?” “Just wanted to know if you cared to do a late lunch......”
LYONS & GRANT MULTIMEDIA LLC (LGM), is ready to release their first novel "Supernature" penned by H.V.Lyons. They are looking for reviewers who are interested in reading and writing a review on this upcoming science fiction adventure novel.
The story was inspired by song writer Jean-Marc Cerrone's 1977 smash hit song by the same name, Supernature is a story about genetic engineering gone awry. After a series of strange incidents in the Arizona desert along with unexplained disappearances on a California beach an unlikely team of investigators and scientists join together to unravel a mystery of global proportions. Something is causing animals around the world to mutate, evolve and breed at an accelerated rate endangering the lives of thousands. All of the evidence points to a substance created by a suspected eco-terrorist working for the world’s largest biotechnology company. It becomes a race against time to find a solution to halt the spread of the mass mutations. If they fail it could mean the end of man kind.
So far the reviews have been positive. Here are a few:
This is a great science fiction read. - Barbara Hightower
The story goes full speed ahead. - Ami Blackwelder
This book gave me the creeps, but held my interest. - Brenda M. Lisbon
If you enjoy a suspenseful sci-fi thriller, then Supernature is an excellent choice. - Roger Wilson
Contact us NOW info@lgmmedia.net
From the ansible memoires of Exalted Scout, Glendale Mokoto, Hero of the Exodus Wars and the Fall of Earth. These are an amalgam of the earliest recordings before he was presumed lost one hundred years ago.
Two hundred years ago, I was nothing special. I had no extraordinary abilities or talents. I was not blessed with superhuman strength like members of the New Order, genetically manipulated to be the perfect human specimens, trained and bred to be the ultimate warrior protectors of the human race.
I did not augment my mind with sentient mechanical intelligence like the Cognoseti, who became human predictors of the future of man. It was their wisdom that discovered the Earth's greatest hidden secret; that we were not the first creatures on Earth to evolve into sentience. These human machine hybrids would later house the first true machine-descended intelligences in human history.
I did not mingle my DNA with those of animal species to garner advantages lost by the development of our bigger brains. The Transformed, whose malleable DNA allows them to absorb genetic traits of other species, would lead our Humanity in the exploration of new worlds after we lost our home in the Sol System.
You see, I was just a baseline human, good genes, nice teeth, good skin, and until it fell out in my fiftieth year, a nice head of hair. Two hundred years ago, I was also the most celebrated hero; indeed, I was the last hero of the Exodus of Man. They named a starship after me, they named a continent after me, they named thousands of children after me. And to me that is a strange thing, seeing how I did not actually survive the experience.
To ponder this, and to explain why you are now able to know any of this, you have to know a bit more about Old Earth.
I remember the stink of the war. It got up into your nose and never left. You could smell the burning flesh, the expended rounds, the fear, exhilaration, the bloodlust, the sheer terror of the Henrenki boiling up out of the ground in every major city on the planet.
I remember the fighting, the endless fighting, the bravery of those young men, their ceaseless dying, wheat before the scythe. When we retreated, the Henrenkai came, wave after wave, like the ocean filling in the beach of our dead. I remember them swarming over our positions, and even with machine guns blazing, bullets tearing into their nacreous, resilient flesh, they kept coming.
Things looked hopeless until the New Men appeared, with their mysterious talk about the Art of War, talk of the brush strokes of their weapons, their mastery of the battle-dance. In those days, all we knew of war was the spastic struggling of the uninitiated to battle. We had been too long at peace. Our struggles for survival, even before He came, all but absorbed our attention. But even after generations of peace, we were still a warlike species and returned reluctantly to the field of battle. Every man woman and child was armed because this was a war without quarter and without mercy.
When the Cognoseti revealed His existence, He rose from the oceans, the Ancient Enemy of all who live in our galaxy. We did not know He was legendary. We did not know what scars He and His kind had swept across the face of the galactic empire. We did not know what He wanted, only that He destroyed all that we had, with malice and forethought. We did learn one thing: when He rose from the Pacific Ocean, we realized the nature of our enemy, He had the might of an entire world, buried within our own.
Mechanically-sentient, He created weapons like the Henrenkai from His very flesh, the organo-mechanical body in which He fell to Earth billions of years ago and hid in the iron core of our planet. He hid because He was pursued by the greatest species our galaxy had ever spawned. He hid and waited until they passed away or forgot; we are not sure which. When He arose again, He had been all but forgotten by everyone in the galaxy. How could they not; nearly three billion of our years had passed while he slumbered.
So we were forced to fight Him on our own, tiny simians against a god-like machine who had tried to enslave an entire galaxy. He fought us on land, sea, air, and even in space. What could we do against an enemy so incredibly powerful? He destroyed a third of the human race and had barely awakened. We lost all hope.
Then we received a signal from space. It appeared on every communication band, every wavelength, every technology, all at once. If you were watching anything, listening to anything, it appeared and told you to be ready. A prophecy had sent them back to us, and it was now time to leave our world. They told us to gather as much of our world as we could carry. We did not understand, but we gathered our resources, every animal, every plant, every insect we thought we could find and catalog. We even set aside entire islands, marked with force fields to make them stand out.
We had no idea of what the Sjurani were capable back then. We did not know what to expect, but their message gave us hope, so we fought on.
I remember the first time I saw their ships. They blotted out the sun. We fought a retreating battle to their designated pick up points, and they gathered us up with tractor beams, entire cities, whole islands. It was rumored they took the entire African continent. They landed in their reptilian regalia and fought alongside us, as terrifying as the Henranki in their own way. Garishly colored in silks and metal, reptilian, festooned with gem-encrusted scales, loud, large, and boisterous; think of Old Earth fraternity boys armed with plasma cannons and rocket launchers and you will know something of the Rex, a warrior-breed of the Sjurani. They helped us hold the line against the Ancient Enemy while we fled. They claimed they were dinosaurs who had been born on Earth millions of years in the past. We were too desperate to care. And too foolish to realize why that was more important than we knew at the time.
Evacuation took two weeks, and I and my battle-brothers stayed and fought until the very last ships were leaving the planet. Hundreds of millions were moved to ships every day, each scarred with the loss of someone or something precious.
The Sjurani told us He was soon to waken. Once that happened, we would stand no chance at all. The Ancient Enemy had only one agenda, and that was leaving the Earth. And we could never allow that. Our planet's gravity well was the only thing that prevented Him from opening a gateway to another Universe.
But we could take the fight to Him: A suicide mission. We fought to reach the Ancient Enemy and infiltrated Him with the help of Sjurani technology. We carried into Him an antimatter weapon, created by the Sjurani, with the force of a billion Hiroshima bombs. A weapon far more powerful than anything Humanity could ever create. His arrogance in being shielded from outside, made him believe he was invulnerable. Once inside His armored shell, we could use short range teleportation to penetrate deep into His neural network. Three groups entered the alien machine. Even if all three were successful, they told us our weapons would not kill Him. But we could wound Him, perhaps even lobotomize Him, for a time.
This would allow the two hundred million humans who agreed to stay behind to cover the final retreat. The West Coast of North America was destroyed in this final battle. The Rocky Mountains are all that remain of that coastline. One billion humans left the Earth in that two week period with some of the most terrifying fighting ever seen in any war, any conflict.
Once the antimatter was placed, I, the last survivor of three dozen of the finest warriors of two races, made my way to the surface, killing everything in my path. I waited. The never-ending supply of Henrenkai continued to boil forth from the Ancient enemy. In that last moment before detonation, I lay down my exhausted weapon and the Henrenkai stopped, confused by the act.
With seconds remaining, I assumed the battle occurring in space had interrupted my teleport, and I resolved myself to dying, free of anger and the corruption of war. I vowed never to wage war again. My death would keep my promise.
I opened my arms and the battle-enraged Henrenkai charged me, their razor sharp talons poised to shred flesh from bones. In those final seconds, time slowed as I watched them. Close to me, I studied them in a way I had never before. Their anatomy was a marvel: Bones of carbon fullerenes, talons sharper than the sharpest steel. Wide, predator-set eyes, excellent for determining the distance to me, their prey. I could smell their hot breath, a cinnamon overtone, and I closed my eyes, ready for death. No fighting, no resistance. I felt the antimatter as it detonated. A shockwave swept through me. I could feel it in my very atoms.
Suddenly, I could see the blast wave of energy and could feel my atoms snatched away protectively within the teleport sheath. I felt my body dying as the waves of antimatter, converted to gamma rays and cosmic radiation, were transformed into the most powerful kind of destruction in our universe, in the perfect release, the ultimate annihilation of matter. No man can ever say he sat in the heart of a star and lived to tell others of it. Neither could I. It would have been breathtaking if I had a breath to take.
In that eternal second, I violated causality and was in two places at one time. I was trapped in the containment field, experiencing a quantum reality, existing in two places and in neither. I was onboard the ship in a viewing chamber teleported, so they thought, to allow me, with the remnants of my species, to see the death of my world. Such a weapon would destroy the Earth as we knew it. I watched, both detached at a distance and intimately aware of the death throes of my home planet.
For a moment, as I violated causality, I could be anywhere and any when; I moved through time and space, and I could see the Ancient Enemy's arrival on Earth three billion years ago, fleeing, He crashed into a small planet in an unidentified star system with a small yellow star. I could feel His terror, I could feel His near dissolution, His flesh, burned with a fire like a solar flare, tearing His substance apart. He submerged Himself into our planet, and the rocky surface extinguished those flames and His terror subsided. He sank into our world, and His screams grew quieter, until after an eon, He slept and forgot.
As I stood there in the middle of the greatest energy release since His arrival, I realized He would not die. He would survive just as He did before. Our work was almost in vain. His massive, nearly indestructible bulk would provide one benefit. Those who remained behind would not be wiped out from the weapon. They would be stranded on a world still trying to kill them. The thought was terrible, and the last thing I remembered.
I was the last human to leave the Earth two hundred years ago, an unwitting and unwilling hero of a war we all but lost.
I woke several years later on our way to Toranor, a system of Gaian super-worlds created by a race of highly-advanced beings called The Precursors. No other race in the galaxy has ever come close to their level of technological capability. They were as far beyond even our Sjurani benefactors as we were beyond ants.
The Toranor star system had trillions of sentients living in harmony in what was called the jewel of the Corvan Empire. Now homeless, Humanity and the Sjurani were offered a place on one of their lesser worlds. I knew I would never call this place home. I had seen too much, done too much. There would be nothing for me here.
All that I valued died with Earth.
I asked what a single man could do in an Empire of sentients with magnificent technologies, making our human achievements, even in the year of our Lord 2475, seem like children's toys? How could I distinguish myself?
By providing the one thing all Empires need: New boundaries. I became a Scout. I was told the role of a Scout was a solitary one. I would be provided a robot companion if I desired. My job would be to map stars toward the center of the galaxy for planets capable of being terraformed by the Mariovel at some point in the future. I was promised the knowledge of the Empire at my fingertips and all the time of my life to read and learn it.
It was then the Sjurani revealed to me that I had died during the teleportation. They had never tried to teleport during an antimatter explosion. No one ever had. My mind was able to be reconstructed, but my body had died. They took my mind and placed it within a robotic shell that mimicked my own form so well that I was never aware of the change at any time.
I was angered at first. I walked around for almost a year, on Galtan II, our new home, knowing something was different, but not knowing what. Galtan II was like all of the worlds of Toranor, beautiful, diverse, fantastic. The knowledge that all of these worlds were created by a sentient species that was not God, boggled the imagination. Imagine a star system with twenty habitable worlds. The knowledge would turn our ideas of science and religion on their ears.
Galtan II boasted a forest that spanned the entire equatorial band of the planet, one giant forest whose myriad trees were connected by their root system into one organic supercomputer, a single hive mind which could separate segments of itself to communicate with other forms of life. One of the most amazing world-minds in this part of the empire. Yes, there were others. Since the Botani did not choose to live in the colder parts of the planet, we were offered the other two thirds of the world to live responsibly on. With the technology of the Sjurani supporting our own, we could be good neighbors.
The Sjurani told me that what they did, they did for love of my heroic sacrifice. They created an entire technology around saving my life. I learned later they held my psychic resonance in an energy field that consumed the energy of a world for years. I felt guilty once I learned what was done on my behalf.
I learned that my condition, once successful, because of my heroic stature, spurred a whole division of baseline humans to make the transition to the robotic. We were called The Transcended. They gave up their flesh to become the first robotic-human hybrids. Were there consequences? Certainly, but none of them ever considered it an unfair trade, except perhaps for me. I would have liked to have had the choice.
When I was appointed a Scout, the Corvan empire made a starship for me; since I was no longer a living organic, they made something faster than had ever been created before. I named it Hayward's Reach after a small seaside town where I lived the quiet life of a writer before the end of the world came for us all. Before activating the ship, the greatest generals, admirals, and Sjurani Rex came to see me off. They said wonderful things, heroic things about me and my sacrifices. I didn't listen.
All I could hear was the loneliness. No, the alone-ness that space offered me. I thanked them. I climbed aboard my ship and synchronized my ansible to an ansible station here on Galtan II which would relay my reports. Since an ansible could only be paired once, something about quantum entanglement, it was the most critical thing I could do unless I wanted to communicate relativistically.
My pilot was a Conscentia, a sentient intelligence housed in the mechanical body of a woman. She was the first of her kind, a mechanical version of myself. I started life as a man and became a machine. She started a machine and became a woman.
Her name was Pele. She named herself after the mythical goddess of the legendary Hawaiian Islands that are no more. When I asked her about her name, she said once she had studied human history. The tale of the Hawaiians fascinated her, and she had taken it upon herself to study all of the notes on Earth's Polynesian cultures. Our ship was equipped with a distillation of all of the knowledge of the human race. We would also have an upstream of new ideas and achievements when time and bandwidth permitted. When I asked her why she was coming with me, she said since she would never get to see Hawaii, the next best thing was to discover a place like it somewhere else.
She arranged our path through the empire and indicated we would reach the edge of the Empire in as little as three jumps and three months using their Gate system. After that, we would be on our own, moving at approximately thirty-two times the speed of light. It would take us three thousand years to cross the galaxy. We would be taking the scenic route, flying through as many star- dense systems as possible. We were the fastest things in the Empire, streaking away from all that I knew, and I was glad to be doing it. It was unlikely we would survive the journey across the galaxy. The Sjurani estimated we might live for four hundred years with careful maintenance. We promised to change our oil regularly. Pele laughed. The Sjurani just looked quizzically at me.
Sitting down, I called up a data-screen. The words were queued up from earlier in the day, waiting for me. Pele was sitting at the nav station monitoring the ebb and flow of the aether. I read out loud as would become a tradition for the two of us in the decades to come: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair..."
I had always wanted to read A Tale of Two Cities, and at that moment, it seemed appropriate. I never had the time before. Taking my companion's hand, this new season of light illuminated our souls as we fled into the core of the galaxy, to see things no man had seen before. I, once being the most ordinary of men, had transcended the human experience for something never done before. It was, indeed, the best of times.
Hayward's Reach © Thaddeus Howze, 2011, All Rights Reserved
Superior species:
Ants, bees, elephants, grass, trees…
No human beings
All of humanity was outraged and soon afterwards a committee was formed to appeal the decision from CILF. Not long after the committee was submitted the appeal, the committee disappeared and was never heard from again effectively ending all attempts at diplomatic solutions.
Saturday Morning, April
Kisanii was in her room on the floor, sitting on her legs, drawing again. Looked like a dog, or another wolf. She loved to draw, especially animals, but she could manage people pretty good, too. I smiled at my little artist, proud. I glanced around the room, at the varying posters of wolves, dogs, and pups on her walls. I walked on past the room without saying anything, thinking, leaving Kisanii to her art.
When the phone rang, I knew who it was. I didn't want to answer, because I knew what she wanted. It was the same thing she had been asking about for weeks now, and I keep putting it off, keep giving her the run around, but summer was almost here and I needed to decide...
“Hello?” I heard my husband ask. His voice was softer as he spoke, more soothing, and my suspicions were confirmed. Yes, it's her. He only talks like that with his mom. I froze, waiting.
“Let me go ask her,” I heard my husband say, and his voice was getting closer. “Hey,” he approached me, touched my arm, gently. “It's my mother. She wants to know if Kisanii can come out there this summer. I told her I would talk to you.” He lifted his eyebrows, pleading with his puppy-dog eyes.
I knew he wanted me to say yes, and I hesitated, because I wanted to say no. But I really had no reason to. Not really. He waited, then said, “I'm ok with her going out there.” I hesitated again, thinking, knowing. Deciding. He put the phone on speaker, and I took the phone from him.
“Hello,” I said into the phone.
“Well, Miss Kali! Long time no hear from! How are you?” she asked me, enthusiastically. I knew this was for my husband's benefit.
“Hey, good; how are you doing?” I felt I was forcing it in my attempt to sound light-hearted.
Don't get me wrong. I do love my Mother-in-Law, especially after eighteen years of knowing her. But until me, she hadn't been used to anyone telling her no, or going up against her. I do try to be respectful of her age and knowledge – that's how I was taught – so sometimes I give in to her. As long as it doesn't interfere with my family's needs, I was good.
It's not that she was pushy. She was just a true Alpha-female, just expected a yes out of everyone, and always had good reason why everyone should be in compliance with anything she wanted. Me, well, I just always marched to the beat of my own drum, and my hackles rose almost unconsciously whenever she and I interacted. Today was no different.
“Well, I'm alive,” she responded, and I knew she was smiling. I laughed slightly at the familiar phrase she always used. It didn't matter what was going on with her, she was always just glad to be alive. She had reason.
“I'm just trying to get something locked down for Kisanii to come out and stay with me this summer,” she continued. “What does you all's calendar look like?”
“Well,” I said, “I think we are clear, I mean, we hadn't made any definite plans,” I said, stressing the word definite.
“So, can she come out in early May? I can keep her for the whole summer. I have a lot of things going on that I know she would enjoy – some art shows, church functions – she can spend some time with her cousins – they will be out here in June...” She quickly listed several things, several activities that she was sure my daughter would want to participate in, giving me no real reason I could say out loud, to reject the plan.
“Oh, ok,” I said, which was all she allowed before going on, providing more reason for me to say yes. I slowly walked into our bedroom as she continued. My husband followed, a hand on my shoulder, the back of my royal blue silk blouse.
“I figured we could meet you all in Atlanta and get her from there, so you all wouldn't have to come all the way here – and then just do the same at the end of the summer,” she said, everything figured out, as usual. “When does school end?”
“The second week in May. We can bring her the following week.” I curled on my bed, laying the phone down, and stroked the coils behind my ears.
“Ok, good! I'm looking forward to seeing her. I know she has grown six inches since I last saw her.” Her voice sounded amazed, amused, proud her granddaughter would probably be as tall as she was, at 6 feet even.
“Yes, I think so. She's at my height now.”
“Wow, Kali. What are you gonna do with her?” My Mother-in-Law laughed, an unspoken understanding of her double meaning between us. I sighed, “I do not know. She's not my baby anymore, I guess.”
“Not anymore,” my Mother-in-Law said. Neither of us spoke for a second. My husband knelt by me at the side of the bed, continued the conversation, oblivious to the tension. I was lost in thought. What was I gonna do with Kisanii? She would be an official teenager soon.
“Alright,” my Mother-in-Law said, “I'll let you all go. I just wanted to go ahead and get a plan together -” like she didn't already have one “- and get her out here, before the summer was over.” She chuckled.
“Ok, then,” I said, looking at my husband, wishing he could help. “I need to get these kids outside for a little while, anyway. Take them to the park or something. It's a nice day today; I'd hate to waste it indoors. I'll talk to you later.”
“Alright,” she said. We all said our goodbyes, and I hung up, torn.
Three months later
In Kennesaw, we met my in-Laws at Laredo's off Barrett Parkway. When Kisanii got out of her Grandfather's car, her younger sisters and brother all ran to her, hugging her and keeping her from walking properly. They'd missed her. I took a minute to take in my child as she and I walked toward one another.
Kisanii was carrying a new medium sized, black bag with a picture of a gray wolf in a wood, turning its head toward a glowing moon. I glanced at my Mother-in-Law, who just watched me, triumphant.
Kisanii looked like a different person. Her jet black, springy curls had been straightened out, and was in a long ponytail down her back. I clenched my teeth but was not surprised, since every time my daughters visited their Grandmother for an extended length of time, their hair was always hot-comb straightened, no matter how much I objected. What was different was her face. Kisanii always had the slanty deep brown eyes that reminded me of mine, but now there was something about them, something...knowing, that had been there only barely, before she left in May. As she looked at me, after enduring the pawing of her siblings, I had to catch my breath at my daughter's apparent maturity. What happened to my daughter?
Kisanii gave me a wide, warm smile, and I suddenly felt choked up. She doesn't resent me, she's still my girl, I said to myself. When I reached her, wrapped my arms around her, and she held me with a power and confidence I knew was from her summer of activity, I felt my eyes burn a bit, my body betraying me in its sentimentality. She is my girl, but not my girl, and now she knows it. The only relief I felt is that she didn't seem to mind. Apparently her Grandmother hadn't attempted to turn her against me, which I was grateful for.
Even if I was not happy she had gone against my wishes with Kisanii.
Her Grandmother and I exchanged another look, and I detected a challenge in her eyes. I challenged right back - Don't test me - but for the sake of the family, neither of us said anything as we all entered the restaurant to eat. There would be words later.
That night, back at home and after everyone was in bed, I went downstairs and called my Mother-in-Law. She answered almost as soon as the phone rang.
“Kali,” she said by way of greeting, all business.
“Rita,” I said. “I take it you know why I'm calling.”
“Yes; I figured you would,” she said, unconcerned, “and you're probably not happy.”
“No,” I said. “I really didn't want this now. We talked about it before, and I thought we had agreed...”
“She was ready. It was my duty to take advantage of that,” she told me, matter of fact. “You can't keep the child from being who she is.”
I remained calm. Why did grandparents think they could do whatever they wanted? “Rita,” I said, keeping an ear open for my husband, or the kids. “I know you mean well, but 'Sanii is only a kid. This would be a lot on her.”
“She'll be thirteen in three months. She may as well go on and start now. That's the best way for her to get used to it, get proficient at it.”
“Yes, maybe so, but I really wanted her to wait until she was older.” I was getting agitated. I sighed, knowing the real reason was I didn't want my daughter to be any more than she appeared to be – a typical tween girl, with typical tween girl problems. “Being a Wolf Warrior is a lot for a thirteen year old girl,” I said almost to myself.
“And you know that how?” I bristled at her words. “She should have started training a year ago, Kali. That's how it goes with us. Hell, I started at nine, and I turned out fine. You Cats don't seem to understand, for some reason, how important it is to start Alphas out as soon as you see the signs. Being one yourself you should know.”
I took a deep breath, let it out, slowly. She said the word 'Cats' like it was a bad thing. This 'Dog' was testing me, but I would not respond to that. Insults and rudeness were beneath me, just as she was.
We didn't speak for a minute. I guess what was done was done, what had to be, had to be, but I didn't like it, didn't like her attitude. Who was she to judge when it was right to begin the training, I thought. But I knew that when tweens started showing an increased interest in particular animals or activities, when the dreams began, when the body became stronger and full of unreleased energy, it was time. No motherly over-protectiveness could change that.
“You straightened her hair.” I said this because what I was thinking would not be polite.
She scoffed. “When was the last time you saw a curly-haired wolf?”
I stiffened at her sarcasm. My Mother-in-Law went on, quickly. “She'll need to be training with us, on a regular basis. She'll need to study with her own kind -” her tone was snotty as she said this, then quickly added, “- so she doesn't get rusty. You may want to consider letting her stay with us.” She paused. “Unless you want to find a pack there for her to live with.”
She knew I would not do that. They would not treat me as “kindly” as my Mother-in-Law would, because I was an enemy, one of the Cat People. My status as Queen Warrior would just barely be respected, if at all. Even she only tolerated me because of her son and our children. Another pack may not accept my daughter, not until she had proven herself as one of them, and they wouldn't make it easy.
I decided to be cool. Rita was right, in a way. If I wanted to look out for my daughter, prepare her for the double life she would have to live because of her heritage, it needed to start now, should have started earlier. I guess I just wanted her to be a normal kid for as long as possible, in a world that only understood and accepted what it believed to be normal. Even if none of us really were.
“I know you really don't understand my point of view, Kali,” she assumed. “But Kisanii knows who she is, and has decided to accept it. She began her training, and it was her decision to begin. She took it well. I think you need to let go. It could be worse, don't you think?”
That better not be some kind of dig at my feline heritage, I thought, knowing Rita was familiar with the rough training my kind had to endure, worse than hers had been. Rita was being disrespectful, and I began stroking the curls at the back of my neck, calming myself. She must have forgotten. She was just an Alpha. I was Queen, and stronger. If we were face to face, I could destroy her.
I just said, “Yes. It was going to happen at some point. I know.” I was sad, but she didn't need to know that. “I will talk to my husband. But I don't think he'll understand this.”
“No. I've tried to talk to him about us, but once he got older, he didn't believe. Thinks I just like telling stories about our family line to make us appear more than human." She laughed bitterly. "It skipped him, anyway. And...you've never told him about you, have you?”
“No.” I waited, thought. “I will let her live with you. Give me a chance to talk to him. I'll make him believe.”
I hung up, before she could object that I could do what she had failed at for years.
I didn't want to let my baby go live with her Grandparents, but I couldn't teach her what she needed to know, not about that part of her. I made my way up the stairs, and thought about what I would say to the man I married about our little girl growing up.
The total number of ISEA 2011 Istanbul participants was around 1,350 people between local and international participants. I was one of the international ones and here's what I presented:
This research is becoming a basis for my cognitive science work this semester... and I had a blast in Istanbul!
HYDE
Portrait of a Modern Monster
The Doctor is In
"Mr. Hyde I presume?"
A quiet and subtle voice, barely heard above the howling wind outside the hundred and second floor of Grayson Tower, the tallest building in the center of Hub City. "I suppose I will have to have those claw marks buffed out of the front of my building." The speaker has his back to the window, sitting down, hunched over a desk. "You know, we do have an elevator."
A thick cane leaned against the desk with a large black stone on its tip. He was writing something slowly. Once done, he folded the letter meticulously and placed it into an envelope. Slowly he rose, gripped his cane and turned around to face the window and the towering form of Hyde.
He wore a grey suit and over it a white lab coat. His suit, obviously expensive and his cufflinks flash in the brightly lit room. His face was brown like a burlap sack and his age was indeterminate. His eyes, black as coal, peek out from underneath wide and bushy eyebrows. He is bald but his face bears a well-manicured goatee. His full lips are peeled back in a predatory and menacing smile. His eyes however, do not share the smile. He leans back onto the desk. "Do you mind if I smoke?"
The man is calm, I'll give him that. "Enjoy. It will be your last." Hyde's voice is gruff, coarser than usual. He was just finished healing from the beat down, he received two months earlier from the super-soldier commandos. The only thing that made that drubbing worthwhile was watching them turn into smoking, cancer-ridden piles of rotting meat. Whatever technology they were using was not ready for prime-time. It had taken two months of hunting, limb-breaking and old-fashioned detective work. The trail led him here. It was time for some payback.
Hyde turned his head to take in the room and saw an extensive laboratory filled with a variety of computers, autoclaves, other machines, some familiar, others not. A flash of memory sweeps over him and he remembers a biometric monitoring system across the room. He is not sure why he recognized it, but the memory was strong. Whoever this doctor was, he had money to spare. Not just anyone could afford this setup. Another mystery.
"You like my lab? It is only one of many. I will take you on a tour tomorrow, if you like." The man uses his cane to point around the room.
Hyde snorts, "What makes you think you'll be alive tomorrow? I plan to rip you limb from limb."
"Really? Before you get the answers you have been searching for? Or should I say, Carlucci is searching for? That would be so anticlimactic."
"Spare me the small talk. I think I will prefer the answers you will give me when I am ripping open your chest. People lie less when I am eating their ribs before their eyes."Something's wrong.
"Spare me the posturing, Mr. Hyde. I know who you are. I know what you are. In a way, I helped to create you." He stood up from leaning on his desk and squared his shoulders. Though not quite as tall as Hyde, he was nearly six feet tall himself. "Now we can have this conversation, the easy way or the hard way. Your choice."
Hyde clenches his hands and his knuckles crack with a rhythmic precision. He turns his head and his neck bones crack as well. A hot, metallic smell starts to rise from his person and his ragged jumpsuit begins to smoke. "You know what, let's do this the hard way. I am sure I won't break a nail on that nice Armani, you're wearing. What do your friends call you? I want to know who to mail your head to."
"In Japanese tradition, it is considered polite to give your name to your enemy. You have chosen the nom de guerre, Hyde. I will be Doctor Jekyll to you, sir, after all, I did help create you. And like the good Doctor, I too have a dark side." Stepping out of his shoes, and taking off his lab coat, he throws it over the chair. "Anytime you're ready, sir."
Hyde needed no more prelude than that and leapt across the room arms outstretched, his carbon-hardened claws, extended, fangs opened in a bestial roar. In a movement Hyde can barely see, Jekyll steps to the side and grabs Hyde's arm and whirling him around he slams him across the room into a bookcase. The bookcase crumples under Hyde's massive weight. The two hundred pound teak bookcase crumpled like tissue. Hyde laughed, knocking books and wood off of his back. "Nice throw, Doctor. I hope your plan does not include Aikido to save you. It's not nearly going to be enough."
"Not at all Mr. Hyde. I am not counting on Aikido to save the day. I was simply giving you the chance to see you were out-classed and offering you one more opportunity to see reason before I have to actually hurt you." While Hyde was climbing out of the bookcase, the doctor had taken off his suit and laid it upon his desk. He was wearing a skintight undergarment that covered him from neck to the ends of his extremities. Only his hands and feet were naked. "I await your pleasure."
Hyde turned to the doctor again, trying to figure out what his senses were telling him. The smell was not one of fear, it was one of excitement, and something else, something chemical. It reminded him of the metallic scent of his own transformation. But the doctor looked completely unchanged.
Hyde exploded across the room, books flew from under foot as Hyde moving as fast as a train, reached out with a clawed hand directly pointed at the doctor's face. And again, with only a minimum of movement the doctor spun and avoided Hyde's hand. Completing his spin he kicked Hyde right out of the window. The doctor stopped to grab his cane and looking out the window, leapt after Hyde to the nearby rooftop where Hyde would land, hard.
Hyde crashed into a concrete stairway rising onto the roof. Tearing through it, he lay stunned. As he tried to get up, Jekyll land squarely onto his chest, driving Hyde into the reinforced roof of the building. Jekyll bounces away lightly and lands nearby. Hyde's response was immediate. He swept rubble with both of his arms toward the Doctor and bounded to his feet, while the doctor used his cane to deflect the rubble, Hyde began attempting to close the distance between the two.
Despite the fact, he had just jumped thirty stories out of a building, the doctor didn't even appear to be winded or surprised. Hyde kept up his assault his clawed hands lashing out as fast a cheetah's killing blow and with as much power. The doctor used his cane to block Hyde's strikes but did not attack. This only seemed to infuriate Hyde further. Their exchanges were faster than the eye could see and the doctor retreated the entire time. Hyde pushed the doctor back to the edge of the rooftop. Leaping over Hyde, he landed twenty feet away.
Hyde pushed his body further, and felt his arms growing longer, muscles changing in texture and tone, hyper-oxygenating them, exchanging strength for speed. Hyde rushed the doctor and his clawed arms slashing out, striking the doctor on the belly and shoulder. The strange undergarment acting as an armor, the blows drew no blood. But Hyde was testing its strength and knew he could overcome it. His nails sharpened into needle-like points. The doctor withdrew outside of Hyde's assault. He held his cane in two hands. Twisting the head, it transformed into a sword cane and armored sheath.
The two of them clashed together, a blur of motion, both landing strikes and taking blows, the sound of claws on steel range around the glass canyon as the two titans struggled for dominance. The doctor began to give ground as Hyde blows landed and one even tore his left arm's armor away revealing muscular flesh beneath and the lacerations of Hyde's diamond-tipped claws. The doctor, using his sheath, smashed Hyde in the mouth and knocked him across the roof.
Hyde shook his head, wiping away blood, "Nice. You've survived a lot longer than I expected. But this fight is just about over." Hyde's jumpsuit was bloodstained and nearly completely destroyed. Carlucci bought them in bulk since their arrangement. He was crouched and studying Jekyll for any sign of weakness. He didn't see one. Palming a piece of rubble, an idea formed.
"I was trying to show you the pointlessness of this exercise and how we could work together. With my genius and your brawn, we could rule Hub City and remove the criminal scum that infests her."
"You care about Hub City? I don't think so." Hyde stood gauging the distance between the two of them.
"But you do. Once we clear away Hub City's vermin, I will show you things that will make Hub City worst criminals look like Girl Scouts."
"You do realize I am an unreasonable person, right?" Hyde began to breathe faster and deeper. His muscles and bone density began to multiply. The scar on his chest began to heat up and his overall temperature rose.
Doctor Jekyll's eyebrow rose in surprise. He is altering his nervous system, attempting to increase his reaction time and attack speed. He is reducing his mass to increase his speed. This was unexpected and exciting to learn. What is the source of his transformation energy?
Cupped in his hand, Hyde threw the piece of rubble with supersonic speed. As his deadly projectile crossed the distance between he and his target, his mighty legs were already propelling him right behind it.
Jekyll, momentarily stunned by the speed and ferocity of this improvised attack was struck by the deadly projectile in the left shoulder and dropped his sword. The missile exploded into dust.
"So you can be surprised." Hyde landed his punch squarely across the jaw of the doctor and the doctor's head snapped to the right with the force of the blow. With a reflexive backhand the doctor knocked Hyde sailing across the roof.
Hyde rolled with the blow and landed on his feet sliding across the rooftop. What the hell was that? How did he do that? I thought he was on the ropes. What did I miss? I need to buy some time. "The commandos, they were yours, weren't they? They move like you do, fight like you do, mixing martial arts with superhuman strength and speed. But they turned into piles of rotting meat. But you don't appear to be about to turn into a pile of organ-bursting goo. Why is that?"
"Nice strategy, make me talk while you look for my weaknesses." Doctor Jekyll smiled. He rubbed his jaw. "That was a surprise. I didn't know you could do that. I see why you refuse to use a weapon; its visceral, primal, savage. You see, there is so much we can learn from each other. But I think our time is done. I have learned all that I think I can today." Dropping his sheath, he turned toward Hyde, dusting himself off. "You, for instance, will learn..." He disappeared from where he was on the roof and reappeared in front of Hyde. Hyde never saw him move. He punctuated every word with a powerful strike from his fists, driving Hyde's face into the rooftop with each blow. "I." Boom. "Don't." Boom."Have." Boom. "Any." Boom. "Weaknesses." Boom. And then Hyde lay still. Smoke rose from the hole in the rooftop. A light rain started to fall.
"I know you are teetering on the edge of consciousness, Mr. Hyde. I trust I have made my point. I will have need of you at some time in the future. When I do I will call for you. And you will come. Otherwise I will destroy everything you hold dear, Mr. Carlucci."
Doctor Jekyll walked to the edge of the rooftop. He stopped to pick up his sword cane and sheath. Locking them together he leapt away into the night.
Hyde sank into unconsciousness.
Hyde © Thaddeus Howze 2011. All Rights Reserved [@ebonstorm]
It's set in a fantasy world populated by orcs, elves, and humans. The hero is a human warrior who chooses to fight for elves to feed his people, but experiences a conflict of consciences...
Just wanted to throw out a piece of another novel I'm working on about a war between a great "Roman" empire and a large island off the coast of a fictional Africa. This isn't a final draft, but then again is there ever truly one?
Prologue
“Prince Vessius, please slow down!” The servant’s plea echoed down the marble column hallway futilely. It was answered by the young prince’s giggle as he ran on. Ladies of the court, couriers, poets and politicians alike were nearly knocked down by his reckless glee.
Today was an important day. His favorite uncle, the great Talgia Idrian, was finally back after nearly three years of exploring the Southern seas. He couldn’t wait to show him how much he’d grown, how much he’d advanced in his sword training. But most of all, he couldn’t wait to see what his uncle had brought him.
The servant finally caught up to him as he stopped in front of the large double doors leading to the Governor’s Round. He marveled every time he had the chance to see them, losing himself in the carved exploits of his great-great grandfather, Emperor Gideon. There at the top was where he subdued the Timock tribes, securing the Western plains. Next to that was were Altus himself heard Gideon’s prayers and sacrifices, causing a great earthquake to swallow up their enemies. Vessius smiled as he ran his hand along a smoothly carved horse. One day, he would have his own battles and have carving and statues erected for him.
“Prince Vessius,” the servant whispered, nearly out of breath. “You can’t be here. The governor’s are meeting.”
Vessius looked back, annoyed. “Who are you to tell me what I can and cannot do? You’re just a slave.” He pulled open one of the doors slowly and carefully. “Besides, this is the upper level. They’ll never see me.”
“But my prince-,” was all the servant managed to get out before the boy slipped inside.
Vessius crept to the edge of the upper gallery, peeking in-between the railing supports at the meeting of old men below him. There was the Grand Governor sitting at the head of the circle of men, looking as serious and boring as ever. Behind him, sitting in the golden chair of his ancestors was the emperor. Vessius smiled. His father had let him sit in the chair once, just to indulge him. He’d been amazed at how powerful he’d felt, looking out over the empty oval room. He couldn’t wait until it was his turn to preside over the fate of the empire.
His attention perked up when he heard the lower doors open and his uncle swept into the room. The young prince’s breath caught in his throat. Talgia’s armor shined in the light nearly blinding him. His clothing was crisp and white to the point where it almost glowed. His hair was freshly combed, his beard nonexistent, and his skin had been recently oiled. He looked like no less than a god.
Talgia stopped in the middle of the room taking his turn in bowing to all the distinguished men in attendance. “My good governors, Grand Governor Heridos, and my dear brother and my dearest emperor, I greet you after three long years away.”
The emperor leaned forward in his seat. A smile formed. “You look as if you have news for us.”
“Yes, my emperor.” He looked around the room in the dramatic fashion he was known for. “I and my men have found the island of Agara.” He waited as the shock and surprise spread across the room.
One of the governors scoffed. “You can’t be serious, General Talgia. That island is just an old fisherman’s tale from the Southerners.”
“Ah, I am serious. We’ve been there. We’ve sacked villages. We’ve even set up a colony there since some of my men found the climate and the women very... alluring.” He smiled up at his brother again. “And I’ve brought back treasures to share.”
He quickly went to the doors pushing them open and waves of men came in carrying chests. Vessius’s eyes opened wide at the sight the suspense of what was inside eating him up. But what caught the governors’ attention was a handful of women being pulled in. Each had a collar about her neck and a chain held by a smirking soldier. Talgia nodded and his servants began opening the chests. The first five were filled with silver and gold coins, the next few with fabric, and the last with other strange items from this mysterious land.
Talgia bowed toward his brother again. “My emperor, I present to you the bounty of our first excursion to Agara.”
The emperor was nearly speechless. “Talgia, you’ve done well. You’ll be greatly rewarded.”
“The chance to explore is reward enough, my emperor.”
Vessius barely paid attention to what was being said next. His eyes were firmly set on the treasures. In particular, one of the chests in the back. Something was glittering in the faint sunlight. He leaned forward just a little bit farther to get a better view. It was round and looked to be nearly at big as his hand. It was bluish in color, but as he moved his head the hue shifted to greens and even a hint of purple. It looked almost like a fish scale.
His eyes widened to saucers. It couldn’t be.
He started when he realized the meeting was adjourned and the governors were heading out. Vessius tore his gaze away from the treasure and made his way out, as quickly and quietly as he could. “Come on,” he harshly whispered to his servant as he ran past the man. He had to speak to his uncle and he had to do it soon.
He ran, making his way through the palace until he could come down a hallway the opposite direction of his uncle. He needed to make this look like a chance meeting. He couldn’t let on that he’d been eavesdropping on a governors’ meeting. Finally, he saw his uncle walking up with his entourage behind him. “Uncle!” he called running up.
Talgia looked up surprised. “Prince Vessius? That can’t be you.” He gave his nephew a loving clap on the shoulder. “When I left you were a boy and now you’re practically a man.”
Vessius laughed. “They say I haven’t even hit my real growth spurt yet. I’ll probably be as tall as you in the next couple of years.”
The general put an arm around the prince’s shoulders. “I wouldn’t doubt it.” He looked about suspiciously. “I’m actually very glad I caught you before I got swept up in all the celebratory parties and such. You won’t believe what I’ve found.”
“What?” Vessius asked, doing his best to feign ignorance.
“I’ve finally found the island of Agara, just like I promised you.”
“Really?”
Talgia nodded. “Vessius, it’s beautiful. A warm and inviting place. I’d go back right now if I could.”
“Are there dragon’s there, like in my old nursemaid’s story?”
“Dragons?” The general chuckled. “Not that I’ve seen, but we haven’t seen the whole island yet, so who knows, my boy. Maybe some day we will and I’ll be sure to bring you back an egg.” He laughed again. “You’ll be the first emperor with a dragon under his control. You could fly to the farthest reaches of the empire to inspect them and be back in Caravae by dinner.”
Vessius smiled like a fool. A dragon. It would be an absolute dream to have one. He would be the most powerful man in the world if there were a dragon to back up his every word.
“Now, Vessius,” his uncle continued snapping him out of his reverie. “I do have something for you and I should hope you take good care of them.”
Talgia led him along back to the prince’s chambers, ignoring his nephew’s constant questions as to what his present could be. He opened the door to the young prince’s playroom, ushering his nephew in.
Vessius looked around in disappointment that there wasn’t a dragon waiting for him, until he saw the two children sitting in the middle of the room. His mouth hung open. They were beautiful, their chestnut skin scrubbed and oiled, their onxy colored hair. The little boy stared at them, terrified, his eyes darting back and forth between man and boy. The girl, a little older, wrapped her arms around the boy protectively her gaze fixed warily on him. He couldn’t breath. Her eyes seemed to pin him to the spot. She was the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen.
Talgia beamed. “This is a brother and sister we captured during one of our first attacks. “The boy is Jekaram. We think he’d about seven. The girl is Sefra, nine years old. She’s picked up the language pretty well since her capture.” He looked over to the children. “Stand up.”
Vessius watched silently as Sefra spoke quietly in her tongue to get her brother to stand. “Uncle,” he breathed, “they are... beautiful.”
“And they are yours. Take care of them. It’s not as if I can get more tomorrow.”
Vessius looked up, smiling. “Thank you, uncle.”
“You’re welcome. Now, I have to get back to grown up matters. I’ll see you at the banquet tonight.” Talgia patted his nephew on the shoulder again and left the room.
Vessius couldn’t do anything but stare at his new slaves. They were too beautiful. Then girl, this Sefra, considered him. “You... are... a prince?” she asked shakily.
He forced himself to shallow and speak. “Yes, I am.”
“The other man said we will do what you say do.”
“Yes, you are my slaves now. You will do what I say.” He looked between the two and started laughing, startling the boy. “We will have such fun!”
Vessius began rattling off all of the things they would do together, all the games they would play, how Jekaram would be his fighting partner for his sword training. At the celebration banquet, that evening, he showed them off to his father and each and every noble in attendance. He even made Sefra dance with him to everyone’s delight.
They dragged themselves back to his bedchamber exhausted, Jekaram nearly drunk from the glass of wine the prince demanded he drink. Taking their hands, he pulled them into his huge bed with him, lying in-between brother and sister. “Tell me a story, Sefra,” he said curling up.
Sefra looked at him confused. “I do not know any stories of your people.”
“Tell me a story of your lands, tell me in your language if you have to.”
She looked around, thinking furiously, then began an old story her mother would tell her. Soon the prince was soundly and happily asleep.
I stare at the amusement park ride, remembering another contraption a lot like it. All this one did was go around and around, faster and faster, tipping as it rose up, to the delight of the riders. The ride stops in a few minutes, and the riders return to the ground, thrilled, with a happy memory, and the option to go again.
My boyfriend asks me, “Do you want to ride that one?” I hesitate. Do I? The sounds of the park quiet as I remember not all contraptions like this brought happy memories.
There had been a camp, out of the way as camps tended to be. But this camp was special, for special kids. Kids like I used to be, those who had “potential.” We would go to camp with many others, our special peers, take all sorts of tests they called activities, and if the Master Commander found us to be...extraordinary, he would choose us, and take us. Take us to the Planet of the Mines.
My last day on the Planet of the Mines was similar to the day I arrived there, in that I rode something like this amusement park ride. Only my emotions were different from the first experience to the last. That first time, twelve of us special kids were taken aboard a transporter, similar to the ride my adult eyes were now staring at, in a secret room in the main building at camp. It had seats and we were strapped in. It spun, faster and faster. We barely felt it, the way it was designed, and we were told it was a cool ride that would take us out of this world.
We thought that part was just a gimmick.
We had felt privileged to be the Chosen Ones, to ride the transporter in the secret room, with only a momentary disorientation at the darkness and spinning sensation. Then a humming, a slight jolt when the device “landed” on the Planet of the Mines, a stillness before being led out to another place.
We were brought to a world outside our own. A world that at first looked like a child's idea of heaven, with plenty of space to play, every favorite food a child would want, toys, cartoons, decorated rooms of our choice, to suit our individual tastes. There were children from all sorts of planets, cultures, and tribes. We were given “group guides” to show us the ropes and help us with any questions; they were cool, kids like us. No rules there, except to participate in the “activities” and to have fun. Paradise for the Potentials.
Soon, however, we were made to lie on special cots, and funny lights would shine into our eyes, onto our skin, and things would probe into open places on our bodies - embarrassing. We were told each time they were checking to make sure we were healthy. But the “treatments” were painful to our young bodies. We were forced to cooperate, and the weekly ordeal slowly drained us of some of our youth, our energy, our powers. We learned to detach.
When we were not being “treated,” we were made to work metals using our powers - which ranged from the ability to heat things up with our hands, eyes, or minds to melt the metals, to being able to use telekinesis to build walls, robots, lasers, and other odd machines. Some children who had been there long before us, barely had any special powers at all. Those were the ones only a few heartbeats away from the Sunlight.
The “guides” were good to us at first - friends, allies, confidants, comforters when the little ones cried for their parents - but soon turned to hard task masters, relentless and cold, and we discovered they weren't children or teens at all.
We were fed bounties in the beginning, but scraps near the end. Taken to nice rooms to live with a roommate our own age, then forced into cells, alone, with barely any room for movement. Nicely decorated walls turned into rust-colored metal boxes. And the air conditioning turned to heat. Water became scarce, baths were denied, grooming was non-existent, and those who were finally broken or disobedient were thrown out into the Burning Sunlight.
A demonstration of the Burning Sunlight was shown months after we had been taken to the Planet of the Mines - when the treatments became more painful, when the food became less and less, when the “guides” grew mean and cold toward us, and when some of us began to rebel. We had been gathered in a sepia-toned auditorium, along with many other kidnapped children, and forced to watch a child being thrown out into an above-ground hallway, where she fell on her face, and struggled to rise. But before she could really move, a sky-door opened above her, and the Sunlight came in, to shine on the disobedient girl. In seconds her skin began to burn, and her silent scream stilled as her body disintegrated, the blood and tissue evaporating, the bones becoming ash, then specks on the wind.
It caused a gasp all around the auditorium. Cries of the little ones rang out. The “guides,” cyborgs, we discovered, were stone faced. The Master Commander's face was all business as he looked at each one of us. The niceness ended completely.
Innocent children, Potentials, with all these abilities, and we were being utilized, dehumanized, then discarded.
When I later found a new friend of mine lying in a crevice - her body bruised, weakened, barely able to move because of her recent “treatments,” attempting with her last bit of strength to hide from her jailers - I became angry. This could not continue, and I realized we could stop it.
About two hundred children were delivered from a Master Commander who was in need of “special” resources, and weaponry. The Master Commander had to keep stealing pure and innocent power from children, because his body could not retain it for very long. He needed a steady supply, and had spent decades kidnapping children before he came up with the camp idea, where parents sent their children willingly, not knowing it would be the last time some would see them. He had just begun the camp on Earth.
But my group of recently captured Earth-children escaped, using the spinning transporter to go back to Earth. I led a second group to the transporter, using underground tunnels, so the sky-doors posed no threat. My brother and sister were afraid because I sent them on home, but stayed behind, to gather more children, to save them from torture and death in the copper colored walls of the Mines.
There was a war, a war of the minds. The cyborgs had physical advantage, but nothing else. Even in our weakened state, we kids were stronger. We were determined, and used our minds collectively to propel the Master Commander and his army back, as they advanced on us. We used our minds to force air into his body, until his ribs burst through his rib cage. His brain grew in size with the pressure we put on him.
The last thing he saw, even before seeing his own blood and tissue covering his sight, was my face.
After we had landed back on Earth, I'd helped the remaining children leave the transporter and the secret room. Upon seeing my little brother and sister outside the building, I walked to them. They broke into a run, tears in their eyes. The counselors stared perplexed, as all the children who had disappeared for months, for what was supposed to be a special camp activity, had returned haggard, beaten, broken, and telling a story of torture and dehumanization.
Now, years later, I take my eyes off the sky. The sounds of the amusement park return to my ears as I watch the spinning ride thrill the screaming children and adults. I stand amidst the sights and sounds, the people's delight and carefree laughter.
My boyfriend challenges me. “Are you scared?”
“No.” I walk to get in line. “I've ridden worse.”
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On October 1st, at 2 PM,
The St. George Library Center Located at 5 Central Avenue
(near Borough Hall ) in Staten Island, N.Y. 10301
( 718-442-8560 ) will present a lecture entitled
“Comic Books and their Lasting Importance.” The Guest Speaker will be Winston Blakely, a Fine arts/Comic Book Artist who has worked for Valiant Comics and Rich Buckler’s Visage Studio and who was also associated with Marvel Comics.
Directions by subway:
Take the 1 train to South Ferry. Take the Staten Island ferry. Walk or take S42 bus to the library from the Staten Island terminal.
Or you can take the 4 or 5 to Bowling Green then walk to South Ferry. Take the Staten Island ferry. Walk or take S42 bus to the library from the Staten Island terminal.
Or you can take the R to Whitehall. Take the Staten Island Ferry. Walk or take S42 bus to the library from the Staten Island terminal.
Check out my interview everyone!!
http://ragebooks.blogspot.com/2011/09/interview-with-ronald-t.html?spref=tw
Ok..I have been silent far too long about travesties going on in the comic and animation industries. I am sick and tired of being handed “Black Culture” by non-black writers, non-black artist, and non-black animators! We do not need anyone’s permission to be black! Who can tell stories of Black Culture better than Blacks can? Example; many of the new DC and Marvel Black comic characters are written and drawn by non Blacks. And to add insult to injury, many of the new so called black heroes are no more than black transformations of white characters, (Black versions of previous white heroes revised). We accepted Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and other white superheroes without question, with open arms. Their race did not matter! What did matter was their moral fiber, sense of justice and super abilities.
They showed the world theirs, now it’s time to show them ours! Indy comics are the key! WE DO NOT NEED THEM! Don’t beg companies like DC and Marvel to tell your stories! YOU TELL IT! They had their turn! Now it’s our turn! Black super heroes are here to stay! United we stand, divided we fall. Let us take our true place in creation as HEADS and not TAILS! Because,…in the words of the great George Clinton of Parliament/Funkadelic “A tail is nothing but a long booty.” It’s funny but true. Please understand, I didn’t say these things to put whites down, I said them to lift blacks up! Be encouraged, be creative and be cool. Peace and Love!
Art Dawson
Doc & AJ Comics
Blender is avaliable cross platform, but utilizes OpenGL for drawing the entire interface. That means you best use a graphics card and drivers that conform to the OpenGL specifications. Unfortunately there are a lot of cheap graphics cards on the market that only support a basic sub-set of the OpenGL specs.
Blender is the free open source 3D content creation suite http://www.blender.org/.
