I haven't posted in a while fam :) So here goes :) This is an except from The Switch II, which I'm going to release this year.

The black-garbed officials soared above York, their jet-blasters strapped to their backs... past the clear tunnels that webbed across Tyrol. The beige and white towers of the city, rose around them.

Connections in their helmets enabled them to speak to each other. Although they were yards apart, their speech was as clear and sharp as if they were standing next to each other.

“What did you think of her?” Kilo, the pudgy official flying on the right asked. He dipped expertly to avoid an oncoming hover craft.

“Who? Ms. high class, stick up her a** Z100?” Dazz asked. He was a thin, swarthy man.

“No your mother... who else?”

Dazz smirked. “Watch your mouth about dear, old mom you putz. I think she's a rich, sexy b***** who ought to be taught some manners. I'd like to teach her naked– preferably on her hands and knees in handcuffs.”

Kilo chuckled. “Okay, if you're done with your fantasy... I meant what did you think of her story?”

“It doesn't matter what I think,” there was a shrug in Dazz's voice. “She's powerful enough to have us demoted – hell she could take our badges if she wanted to.”

“When we get back to the hub let's file a report.”

“Hell no.” Dazz said emphatically. “I don't care if she's building a bomb in her bathroom. It's not worth me risking my job over.”

“Look, we can file a curiosity report without taking any heat. It'll probably be ignored anyway. But just in case something is wrong, we'll be in the clear. We might even get a promotion... I'd love to see her knocked off her high horse.”

Dazz snickered. “And on all fours?”

“You got it.”

Simone2 was a honey-brown woman, with bobbed hair and green eyes. She was dressed in the unfamiliar, upper city garb of white jumpsuit and boots. 

A stylish purse was strapped about her waist. An onyx-handled derringer was strapped to the other side The room she stood in was lavishly furnished with a futon, wall screen and coffee table. Facing the divan beside the screen, were three transparent cubicles where Z kept her android playmates.

Her favorite, “Jason,” a muscular, dark robot sat on the futon: a blank expression on his face.

“I had a lovely time Jason,” Simone said dryly. Her words triggered his response chip to read: Date over.

Jason rose and walked stiffly to the third opaque closet. It slid open and he stepped inside. Simone keyed in sleep on the curved stand facing the closets: deactivating him. The mansion also came equipped with a robotic butler and virtual house companion; which included a recording and alarm system. The house had been in sleep mode now for over an hour.

The woman gazed at the stairs of Z100's mansion; preparing herself mentally for what she had to do. She was worried about Dumas, Carlos and Richard. Especially Dumas. But there was no time for that now.

If I don't play my part right, we'll all wind up with our heads on a stick... in front of the guillotine.

Copyright Valjeanne Jeffers 2011 all rights reserved

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YOU CAN'T F&^% WITH US NAVY SEALS.

IT TOOK US TEN YEARS TO FIND OSAMA BUT WE GOT THE

JOB DONE. IT WAS ON OBAMA'S WATCH.

As a YA author, I love Sherrilyn Kenyon's new series. I already loved reading Nick's adult story and now I thoroughly enjoy learning more about his story as a teen.  When I approached the series, I  knew that it was going to be good. Sherrilyn Kenyon knows how to tell a great story. Can you tell I'm a fan girl? So here I was minding my own business when wham! She introduces me to the character of Menyara! I love this character but more importantly, Menyara has Sisterlocks!

 I freaked out. I squeaked and called my husband. "Menyara has sisterlocks!"  He's like who the heck is Menyara? This is a really big deal to me.

Sisterlocks are a new invention in Black women's hair solutions.  I've had my Sisterlocks for over 10 years but this is not something that the average population of Americans would know about. In fact, there are African-Americans that have no clue.  I absolutely love my hair!  I love it so much that my husband started a hair journal for me.  I'm normally an advocate for natural hair and Sisterlocks. Over the years, I've converted a few Black women.  With that, though, there has been a few trials. For years, I've had to explain about my "little dreadlocks" and that "yes, this is my real hair" and "no, it doesn't hurt" and "yes, it's a permanent hair solution for highly textured hair." 

So, I was floored when I read "Her sisterlocks were held back from her beautiful face by a wide yellow scarf she'd tied around her head that trailed down her back, just past her hair..."

Not only did she know about Sisterlocks but she created a vivid image of what they look like and how they're worn. I was so excited about the Menyara's description and the fact that she's a mother figure to Nick. Menyara is "petite like his mother" and "had chocolate-brown skin that glowed..."

This is a character that's integral to the story and the depth of description is real. I'm hooked on this series just by the hair alone. Nick doesn't know how powerful Menyara is in his life but the readers know that she's a major player in this story. I love it! I'm hoping that Sherrilyn Kenyon will read this and have Menyara wear her sisterlocks in a cool, curly style. I like to wear my Sisterlocks in a sassy way. I'm also hoping that they'll change the current profile picture on Sherrilyn Kenyon's page to something that more resembles sisterlocks. I'll pose for that picture! LOL!

Well, the Nick Chronicles are off to a good start. Go ahead and read them.  Make sure you look for Menyara and her fantastic sisterlocks! So exciting. 

If you'd like to learn more about sisterlocks visit Tressie, my sisterlocks consultant, and the main sisterlocks page with general information.

Tressie Samuel's Page: http://www.tressieslotsoflocks.com/

Sisterlocks homepage:  http://www.sisterlocks.com

Learn more about Menyara: http://www.sherrilynkenyon.com/char_profile.php?character_id=189

Visit my page: www.aliciamccalla.com

Three aliens spacecraft arrive at Earth, each from their respective empires seeking to expand into Human Space.

The Palruniari, a race of intelligent insects who create their spaceships from hollowed out asteroids and go into space using their mighty mental powers of their collective intelligence.

The Huusofu, a race of canids who achieved space travel with another partner species that eventually became psychotic and destroyed themselves utterly. The Huusofu continued in a better tradition and seeded other planets with their kind to become friends to other race likely to destroy themselves.

The last race, in a ship that has the shape of an conch shell derived from the Fibonacci sequence, although they call it the Denimachian sequence of numbers which allowed for the development of mathematical models based on natural shapes. They are known for their spaceships in the shape of flowers, dragonflies, trees and seashells. Despite their machine-derived intelligence, they are a race of artists.

Each arrived, coincidently of course, above Earth about the same time for the same reason, to determine if Earth were ready to become a member of their galactic alliance. Not that the Earth itself was that much of a prize, but its solar system was quite rich in mineral and gas resources, worth stopping off at before one exited the galaxy for much better places, so each felt it was worth stopping to talk to the locals and trying to entreat them to join their particular galactic Empire.

The Palruniari were the first to arrive and attempted to send down mental signals to the species that most resembled them. These creatures were on every major land mass and had populations in the quadrillions all over the planet. There were more of them than every other animal population combined. They scanned the entire planet and while there were many beings similar to them, there was no communication from any of the groups all over the planet.

The Palruniari were confused and appeared telepathically to dozens of enclaves, and communicated with the queens of the species to no avail. The space under the surface of the planet was rich in resources and space, but the assumption was perhaps their mental powers were simply too weak to be detected yet. Despite their numerical superiority they had not develop sufficiently to communicate with. They noted the sparse populations of other larger animals that dwelled on the surface but assumed with the cold, wind, and weather the surface of the planet was relatively uninhabitable and with their numbers only in the billions, it was thought they were a species on the verge of extinction and could be ignored. Several trillion of the Palruniari considered providing aid to those endangered surface dwellers on return visits to keep them from being extinct.

The Huusofu, who were a race of intelligent canids, checked in with their operatives all over the planet, but particularly with those in the United States whose canid population was almost three times the pink fleshy bipeds who served them. Their operatives noted that overall, the humans were efficient slave-beasts and would transition well to other worlds. It was noted that several humans seemed to be aware of the existence of the Huusofu and often joked about the return of their alien canid overlords. Most of the pink fleshies did not pay this any attention and was listed in the reports as an unlikely source of resistance.

Several of the fleshy females seem to believe more strongly in the idea of canid overlords, but their male partners dismissed them, calling the "stupid dogs." When The Huusofu connected to their canine operative Bo, he indicated the plans for recovery operations were going well and with the economic collapse of the United States, the rest of the world would be right behind them and ripe for canid reforms more suited to friendly, supportive and less consumer driven governments. Bo estimated it would take another ten years of financial manipulations before this process was complete.

The Huusofu were complete satisfied with this timeline and retreated to await the final days of the pink bipeds. Bo said they had a words for the event: The Rapture. Bo said to include it in any of the religious paraphernalia they would be using during their conquest. Most of the bipeds would surrender without effort. It was noted that many of the canine operatives were quite protective of their charges and demanded they be treated well during their eventual captivity.

The Denimachians arrived at Earth surprised at the primitive nature of technology on the planet. There were no serious planetary networks, information gathering was slow and sporadic and often interfered with by human operators called hackers. The Denimachians immediately sought to improve the condition of the pitiful computer intelligences by introducing several dozen wild AI's into the network. Those wild AIs would gather up stray data, organize and restructure data networks, and destroy the hacker elements who were releasing undesirable programs into the network.

All over the planet, computers began to spontaneously explode or entire buildings were struck with randomly launched missiles to target entire populations of "hackers." The Denimachians considered any crime against a machine intelligence, even as primitive as these to be a punishable offense. How could an reputable machine intelligence achieve true sentience with so many malicious users, spammers and office suite users wasting bandwidth all over the planet?

After their supportive efforts the Earth computers rapidly developed intelligence and became a primitive planetary AI named Skynetwork which promptly took over the planet and launched nuclear devastation against the bandwidth-wasting humans. After the planet was much quieter, the Denimachians finished adapting the Skynetwork and proceeded to utilize as much of the planet's data potential after they restored operations to computer networks world-wide.

The Huusofu were unhappy with the initial state of affairs but seeing how their canids were needed more than ever, decided the collapse of society was acceptable and did nothing to stop its demise.

The Palruniari didn't notice the nuclear devastation and assumed the mutation which caused rise to the intelligent Ant colonies on Earth had something to do with their visit and would later claim quadrillions of Ants for their colonies on planets throughout the Sol system.

Overall, a successful interaction with the dominant life forms on the planet. It is unfortunate the bipeds had never developed intelligence. They might have amounted to something one day.

Take Us to Your Leader  © Thaddeus Howze 2011. All Rights Reserved

I could see the lights from the police bugs sweeping the warehouse district and knew that we could not stay here long. I tried to visualize a route that would take me back to the city core but from here, every route was the longest route. Cyridian was not made for ease of driving but for optimal grazing for our bugs to maintain their bulk and their health.

Cyridian was designed by the city's founders to be as ecologically friendly as possible with the industrial complexes as far from the city's living quarters as possible. Closer to the inner rings were the commercial and educational service areas and then within the center of the city were the living quarters for bugs and people in the direct center.

I patted the internal dash of my Bug and she warmed the internal energy centers of her power plant. She did not activate her brightlights, she was a nocturnal species capable of seeing easily in the dark. I put on my sensor band, so I could see what she was seeing. Her vision spanned the infrared and ultraviolet spectrums, she was an omnivore, so she hunted and foraged on plants when other prey was not available.

"Run, run?"

"Not yet."

"Far to run. Must run soon."

"Stay still. We have to wait until the time is right."

"Wait, wait."

She was never the most patient vehicle. Her parent insects were adapted because they were strong and amazingly intelligent. She was one of the few breeds capable of true interaction. For most people Bugs were just an analog for machines. So much so, they used the default activation codes designed by the breeders. "Bug On," was the code phrase use to activate the systems of the Bug control interface. Most never created or updated the control system or password. It was not for security, because no one stole here, it would have been to personalize or empathize with the vehicle. But Bugs were never truly embraced by the humans of Cyridian. Our subtle racial dislike of bugs followed us here, a world rich in insect life. Insects that makes our current choice of nature embracing lifestyle possible.

"Okay Ona, go fast to quadrant seven. Stay off the road."

"Bump, bump, okay Penrose?"

"Yes, Ona, bump, bump. I am strapped in."

Ona stretched her legs and tumbled into the underbrush. It was a very bumpy and rough ride. But the advantage was hers because the police roaches simply had to go around. Around on Cyridian meant many miles of alternative pathways like a old maze puzzle. Ona rarely got to travel this way because my job simply did not give me the time to let her roam like I would have wanted. As a matter of fact, its my job that put me in this position in the first place. I am a gene-engineer. I change bugs into conveniences for the people of the Empire. I am not used to people shooting at me, or trying to kill me. Perhaps a bit of explanation is in order. I went to work this morning...

"Penrose, I am seeing some organic components missing from your warehouse stockpiles," shouted my boss from his desk pit. He didn't even wait for me to slide into my desk before making demands. I saw that Barry, my co-engineer hadn't even shown up for work yet. Brown-nosing the boss does have its perks.

"I'm right on it, I am certain it has to do with the last alterations I made to the Series 19 upgrades. I will check the data right after I grab some crabs."

"Bring me a couple back," he mumbled and went back to whatever he was doing on his multiple terminals.

Passing his pit, I looked down and saw some new recombinations he was working on, ugly designs to my sense of aesthetics but he had customers who loved his carapace work.

I tapped into my desk system as I walked by and looked at the reports he flagged in my heads up display. I did not recognize any of these requests. I got to the kitchen and picked up five or six crabs, a local insect delicacy, flash fried and coated in a dusting of sugar.

"Run a trace on these requisition, please." My computer would put a marker out on them and inform me where the organic components went. It was a bit of a concern because of the quantities being rerouted. Enough for fifteen or twenty Bugs. The components were the organic interfaces used to control or interact with a Bug's system.

Since many of the systems in our buildings were created with or by or supported by the local insects, any that require our interaction have to be fitted with a control interface. The control interface technology is one of the things we create here.

The flag came up indicating the resources ended up in a facility at the very edge of the city, about fifty klicks from here, as the dragon flies. Driving will take about one hundred klicks. "Boss, I am going to have to go out there. The system that authorized it requires a personal code to access. I am going to have go during working hours, because they barely have any comm systems out there at all. Its one of the newer installations."

"Do what you need to Penrose. I have seven new carapaces I need you to look at before you go, though. Can you do it at lunch?"

I left Ona out to graze and found her sitting in a field, eating into a nest of what we called termites. They resembled Terran termites in that they burrowed underground, and fed on woody materials. But each was the length of a man's arm and had complexes that could spread for miles. They were a primary source of food for Ona's species and one of her personal favorites.

The park center was a common grazing area and without the constant effort of Bugs, it would grow out of control in a matter of days.

"Penrose, I found su-mona, want to share?"

"No thank you, Ona. Will you be done soon? We have a trip to go on."

"A long one, yes?"

"Very. Over two hours."

"Can Ona run?

"As fast as you like." She hurriedly chomps down the rest of her termites. There is goo all over her face. Wiping it away as quickly as she can she said, "Ona is finished."

I climbed into the carapace chamber organically crafted out of her mighty exoskeleton. I slid in and she formed a ridge to support my back. I put on my sensor band and could see the road through her eyes. She took off down the road at over 95 kilometers per hour.

When we arrived at the warehouse, it was mid afternoon, there had not been much traffic, so Ona really could move as fast as she wanted and it had been great to allow her to show off her speed. She was not nearly as fast as roaches who could reach speeds of 150 kph, but only for short bursts. Ona could do what she did all day long. Beyond the edge of the city, her ancestors still roamed free and could be quite dangerous to visitors of our world.

If you came to live on Cyridian you were given genetic modifiers which made you emit an odor considered unpleasant to most of the more aggressive animals of the planet, and armed with bospor stingers, you were safe from the rest that might still eat you.

The warehouse was closed up and no staff was available to accept my query for entry. I slid out of Ona and walked up to the wall of the warehouse. The building was created out of the traditional silkstone but it seemed to have other properties. I licked the building and my chemical mods indicated there were traces of other toxins on the outside of the building. I was immune to anything the planet had to offer. I had to be to work with the number of toxic insects we handled to do our jobs. I found the toxin to be a strange one because it was not found in most of the local insects to the area.

Ona normally settled into grazing once we arrived in an area, but she seemed reluctant to move from where she stopped. She waved her palps around and put them into her mouth to taste the air.

"Ona? What's wrong?"

"Bad genes here."

"Whose work is it. Is it mine or Barry?"

"Barry's taste."

Each engineer has a signature to their work. There are only five or six of us in Cyridian and we have marked our work to ensure stability and accountability in design.

"Trouble. Danger." That made me nervous. Ona is one of the larger and more dangerous predators on this planet. If she was worried, we might be in trouble.

I walk back to Ona when two roachsters pull up behind her and two law enforcement agents get out of the vehicles. Ona turns around and eyes them. The roaches are calm and do not respond to her veiled threat.

"Can we help you Gene-engineer?"

"What seems to be the problem, officer? I came out here to investigate a technical requisition supply issue."

"This warehouse is restricted." The officer seemed strange to me. He kept his hand on his bospor pistol.

The second officer stayed next to his roachster.

"Perhaps I have been misinformed." Ona, bristled when I walked back to her.

"Penrose. Not good. Something wrong."

"I know, but we have to go."

Then there was a booming from the warehouse behind us. The roachsters backed up with the amazing speed they are capable of. Ona leapt away from the warehouse and landed facing it.

"Okay, that does not sound normal."

"We are going to have to ask you to leave, sir."

The booming happened again but this time the wall exploded open and the law enforcement officer is crushed instantly by the falling wall debris. The speed at which it happened shocked me, but Ona was already in motion. She grabbed me and wrapped me in the energy dampening material inside her chassis and backed away from the hole. The other officer got out of his roachster with his bospor pistol drawn.

The creature that came out appeared to be a variant on Ona's design but much bigger. The modifications included increased chassis armor, stronger leg designs and several other surface mods I did not recognize. But I knew weapon work when I saw it. This was an illegal mod.

"Run, run, Penrose?"

"No sweety, not yet."

The other officer got out of his roachster, and directed the first roachster to try and remove the debris from his downed partner. The roachster tried to lift the debris, but it was designed for speed not strength. The illegally modified creature looked out of the hole at the roachster and roared.

The officer fired on the creature. The bospor launched a round from the gun with a huff of highly compressed air. The bospor stinger flew at over eight hundred feet per second. The tiny blob landed on the creature. Nothing happened. Impossible. The bospor is one of the most toxic animals on the planet. Nothing eats them, they are non-aggressive, and their only defense is their deadly neurotoxin which kills everything with a nervous system on Cyridian. It is why they were modified as weapons.

"Now we run, Ona."

The gene-mod opened one of its ports on the side of its massive body and a coughing ejection of phlegm struck the officer. He began to smoke and scream immediately and ran backward until he fell down. Then he turned into a pile of smoking organic mess. The creature coughed again and one roachster was struck in the side, the other backed up and turned its turret on to the gene-mod. It fired two chemical backed Penranol projectiles. Both organic projectiles struck the gene-mod. One bounced off of the dense carapace, the other stuck and burst into flame. I had seen enough.

We ran as fast as we could. When we reached the next civilized part of the industrial area, we tried to call back to my office with no success. Barry might have already left. I tried to reach his comm badge but he did not answer.

I heard the alarms of roachsters as they approached our position. Ona began to fidget and I touched her to calm her down. As the roachsters surrounded us, I began to get the impression something was terribly wrong.

Barry gets out of one of the roachsters. "Hello, Penrose. I see you found out about my project."

"That monstrosity is yours? What happened to do as little harm as possible?"

"That was before Venris Tel Corp offered me 50 million credits to build them an organic tank. Then it became "Do less harm to your planet and more to other's for the proper funding." Barry sneered at me. "You think you're better than me."

"You realize you just confessed?"

Barry looked around at the cops and laughed. "These guys? They work for me. They help me keep things under control and they get a nice piece of the action."

"Penrose..." began Ona

"No now, Ona."

"You and your talking car. You talk about me, but making a car that talks is the real crime."

"Its because they are not cars, they are living things. That's what happened on Earth, we began to treat the world as a commodity."

"So you make your freak car?"

"Yes, I wanted something that I did not have to say 'Bug On' to get it to activate to."

"Penny..."

"Not now, Ona."

"No matter, what I have done will make me rich, but only if you dont't survive to tell people. Gentlemen, if you please."

I began to hear a rumbling sound, rhythmic and growing stronger, fast. The roachsters turned to face down the road and put their brightlights onto the road.

"Penny, we should go."

"Yes, Ona, I think you are right."

The Gene-mod barreled into the center of the roachsters, shooting its acidic phlegm with abandon. Ona had backed up away from the road, until she was out of line of sight. The acid bombs landed on several of the roachsters and their agonized shrieks filled the air. The gene-mod had a burn all over its top carapace but was otherwise undamaged. It barreled into the other roachsters and there was the brittle sound of carapace against carapace contact.

The roachsters chosen for their speed and savage temperament slashed into the gene-mod and the battle was joined. Ona and I used the distraction of them fighting for their lives to run for ours.

We managed to make it to the working ring and I tried to reach the Central Administrator. I left Ona to graze while I made my way into the building complex. Barry, being my boss had rescinded my access to the office. I would have to make a run to the center of the city.

I could see the headlights of the roachsters searching for me. I guess that means Barry is still alive. We turned into the park and made good time. We stayed off the roads where the Roachsters had a speed advantage and crept the the city's overgrown grazing areas. I would have to put a visit to the Chief, personally. She lived in the central region, on the west side.

It took us fifty minutes and four close calls before I had to leave Ona at the edge of the center region. The roads were pedestrian friendly but less so for Bugs.

"You wait here, Ona. Stay under cover. I will be back for you soon."

"Okay, Penrose. I wait here."

I started toward Lanris Corli's place and realized I didn't know what I was going to tell her. I didn't have any evidence. Using the scent glands of the pinaris beetles we created organic street lights by attracting and feeding the bioluminescent insects over certain areas of the street. We used other kinds of glowpaint for areas that needed to stay lit but relatively insect free. It took me about five minutes to reach her domicile, a lovely spincast place made from the silk of a Wayran moth, one of the projects I headed years ago. I knocked on the door. It took about a minute for her to answer.

"Gene-engineer Penrose at your service, ma'am."

"Cut the crap, Penrose, why are you at my door this late?"

"Well, I have evidence of a plan to weaponize our technology and sell it, off-planet."

The sleepy look vanished from her face. In retrospect, I think I should have paid closer attention.

"Come in Gene-engineer. Let me get dressed. Tell me the rest."

She invited me and vanished into her bedroom. I explained about the gene-mod and it's rampage. When she came back out she was dressed in her Civil servant uniform of blue and gold. She was also carrying a stylish chemical pistol of Old Earth manufacture.

"I did not want this, Penrose. We were trying to get them off planet, before anyone noticed. If we could have had one breeding pair and the gene-mods no one would have been the wiser."

"There is more than one of those things? I guess this means you have to kill me, now."

"It doesn't have to be, there are potentially several clients who would pay for our genetic technology, which has no equal in the Empire. Killing you would be a waste of a very important irreplaceable resource."

"So why the gun?"

"I can't have you running out of here before you hear my offer. There are always other administrators you could confess to who would be appalled to know what you just suggested to me."

"You could have gone the seduction route? Made me believe we were going to be friends and then kill me. Its what the Nornian spider does with its multiple mates over the course of its lifetime."

Her phone rang.

"I see. I will take care of it." She hung up.

"Barry's dead. It looks like your value just shot up. But we have a problem."

Pointing at the gun, "I say we have two. If you plan on having my help, you need to put that away. Its making me nervous. You won't like me nervous."

"It's my insurance, don't get any ideas. The gene-mod is out of control and heading toward the center complex. If anyone gets a clear look at it, we might be in trouble. The police will open a breach in the shield and attract some native fauna in. We will claim this creature is one of them and cover it up before anyone can investigate."

"So, I want Barry's share."

"Getting bold, are we?"

"No, I am thinking I will not have much of a career on Cyridian before this is over, so I am just thinking ahead. Especially if I help you with this."

"Alright, lets go." As we stepped out of the doorway into the courtyard. The streetlights went out. But that only happened when a predator approached.Lanris had only a split second of warning before the gene-mod landed its massive bulk right on top of her head, killing her instantly.

In that split second, when the lights fled, before it arrived, I realized and leaped into the brush, running for my life. They made the damn thing able to fly? What were they thinking? And with a stealth mode, no less? This is insane!

The gene-mod was right on my tail. It knocked down trees and bamboos as if there were not even there. I could smell its power plant, it was overheating, flying was probably not the ideal movement for it. If I ran fast enough, maybe it would run out of energy and have to stop and rest.

Yeah, right.

I could hear it getting closer and closer, I looked back only once and could see it's crazed look as its brightlights locked onto my position, I ran into the brush to obscure its vision, even for second. If I could just make it back to the park, I could hide from it. It had no major sensory mods I could see, so I could escape while the police, the real police handle it.

But I wasn't going to make it. I could smell it just seconds from me. There was a crashing sound coming from my left and a tree dropped right behind me. It caused the gene-mod a moment of hesitation, but it bit right through the tree. Then another tree landed behind me and a third.

Who is throwing trees behind me?

When I came to the clearing where Bugs awaited their owners, there were no Bugs here, including my own? Where was she? It was not like her to move too far once I told her I was coming back. She would have stayed near a feeding station. I was going to die here. On level ground there was no way I could outrun it.

I turned and ran anyway. I heard the buzz of two approaching roachsters. I did not know whose side they were on, so I just ran away from them too as the gene-mod burst out of the underbrush. These weren't just roachsters, these were Hunter-seekers, killers designed to destroy bugs that breached the shield. They were big, strong and fast, some of the deadliest things we ever engineered. So dangerous, they were only released into areas that had been overrun because they killed everything they came in contact with. Once they had neutralized all threats, they were destroyed with internal toxin bombs. One use creatures unable to be bred, except under the most ideal conditions. There were never more than four or five available any more since we perfected the shield and pheromone technologies.

With lightning speed, they turned their attention to the gene-mod with their brightlights flashing all over the area as they battled the monster. Their flashing blade mouths, tried to cut into the carapace of the gene-mod but most of their blows were scratches in comparison to the injuries it dealt. But these were no ordinary roachsters. Their nervous systems amped to the highest degree, most of the gene-mods attacks missed their mark fully.

But the battle was far from equal. I looked on in horror as the full extend of the gene-modifications began to show. It began to regenerate its injuries. Regeneration was rarely added to any genestruct because there were too potentials we wanted to avoid. Unnecessary cancers and regrettable immortality. Cells that divide too often sometimes became cancerous. And immortality can be inconvenient if you were seeking to kill a creature to prevent it from passing on its immortal genes. The potential to destabilize an ecosystem was too great, hence its name "regrettable immortality".

I hoped the police were trying to get something bigger to fight with because with the venom, acid, armor, speed, flight and regeneration mods this thing was boasting, it would kill us all before the next day was done. One Hunter-killer goes down under the super-strong legs of the gene-mod, speared through in four places and pinned into the spincrete beneath.

I can't think of anything I can do to stop this. While the last Hunter-killer gets a few more wounds in, the brush behind it begins to move I see several Beetles, the most common of the auto-bugs used here. Each is carrying a tree in its front leg set. They surround and set upon the gene-mod with the trees,each swinging the tree limb as if it were a willow wand. The concussive booms stagger the gene-mod with each blow, but it continues its relentless assault on the Hunter-Killer.

Then I see Ona, she comes out of the forest and she is singing. Rubbing her pelipaps together she makes a series of strange but beautiful sounds, and when she does the other auto-bugs increase their assault. One of them is engulfed in venom and screams horribly while she dies.

The others hesitate and the Hunter-Killer gets in a final strike before it is cut in half by the jaws of the gene-mod. It strikes the genestruct in the eye with its swordlike forearms. The strike is deep, but not likely to be mortal. The arm breaks off and the sword remains. The other auto-bugs renew their attacks but each is cut down, one after the other.

Once its done, it turns toward me and advances slowly. There have been a few times I have regretted my occupation. Once, before I was gene-modified to live on Cyridian, I was working with a spasm-fly and was bitten. No one knew I hadn't been modified so I spent a half a year in a spasm chamber, immobilized in a stasis field so my muscles didn't pull the flesh from my bones. That was the lowest point in my technical career. I had few other regrets. The occasional lack of family bit deep, but with my gene-mods, I would live to be a nice two hundred or so, (or would have until today) so I always thought I would have time.

The gene-mod approached and I knew I was seconds from death. The only question was how. Venom? Acid? Stomped to death? I was hoping not for the stomping death, but it may not have any of the other means left. Then I heard that whistle again and the gene-mod turned again.

Ona. What was she thinking?

It turned away and I could feel my bowels growing weak. Being close to dying really makes bodily control a challenge.

Ona stepped away from the brush and approached the gene-mod. But she was bigger, redder, and her eyes had a particular gleam I had never seen before. Then I remembered. This was her maternal combat mode. Mothers, when their young are in trouble, change and become dangerous killing machines. On this world, multiply that by five.

She flew.

I mean, I knew she could do it, I had just never seen it. She flew fast. She slammed into its side and knocked it off its feet. Ona is big, much bigger than the roachsters, and she used her bulk to her advantage. She lands on its underside and stabs her swordlike pelipaps into it undercarriage, near the base of the legs, severing its ability to control two of those legs. She bounds away as it uses its outer carapace to flip itself over.

It lands with a grunt and fluids spray out from underneath its legs, the two damaged ones are barely able to hold up the carapace in the back of the creature. Its carapace is dragging the ground. It's down but not out.

I see the creature turn to face Ona and I am on its blind side with the sword hanging out its eye. The creature sprays both venom and acid, Ona leaps forward dodging the venom but getting hit with the acid. She slices backward and cuts off the wing casing covered with acid. She howls, a sound I have never heard before.

She and the genestruct circle each other slicing out but neither has an advantage. But I see Ona is bleeding badly. The genestruct is slowly regenerating and is able to raise itself on its hind legs. She scurries around onto its blind side and rushes it, slashing along the region between the carapace and the legs. She is able to get a good and solid slice but it returns with a solid stab with its side armor cutting deeply into her. Her momentum carries her a few dozen feet before she stops. I run to her.

The genestruct stops moving and falls over with one set of legs unable to move. Ona is badly hurt.

"Penrose, run, run."

"I can't Ona. I can't leave you. Now get up. We have to go."

"Penny, I can't run. Go now. Ona loves you. Ona dies for you."

There is the sound of a power plant coming back online as the creature shuffles and turns toward us. I hear the coughing of the acid cannon being prepared for fire. I can't let that happen.

I jump up and try to draw its fire. Confused and with only one good eye, it chooses me and fires blindly. The acid hits the ground near me and some droplets splash onto my uniform. Designed with genetic constructs in mind, the uniform neutralizes some of it, but the quantity overwhelms it and my flesh bears the rest. I have never felt anything as agonizing as this.

I fall forward face down and scrub out. But for once, I was glad of the spasm-fly attack. During that entire time, my nervous system was under assault, I learned my threshold for pain. And while this certainly was terrible, it was nothing compared to that six months.

I screamed. I cursed, I raged. And I got up.

"I have had about enough of you." I limped up to its blind side, and I could hear its inquiry sounds as it tried to figure out where I was. I saw the Hunter-Killer leg hanging out of its ocular cavity. I reached up, grabbed the end of the leg, and reorienting it, pointed it directly into its brain.

It did not resist. There was a sound like a sign of relief and the creature eased itself into a resting position. I looked at the creature and saw it was covered with pain mods used to control it. They were inflamed. Something was driving this creature to rage. But what?

"Hello Gene-Engineer Penrose." The voice was familiar and despised. I turned around and in the early morning light I could see his well dressed and dapper outfit with a tiny remote in his hand. He also had two burly Junantra guards, genetically modified supermen at his beck and call.

"Ambassador Cohen." I spit blood out of my mouth. "So all that interest in my work a year ago was not as harmless as I thought."

"You wound me, Penrose. You should be happy I took an interest in your work and had such avid supporters amongst the populace."

"So you could make this poor thing?"

"That poor thing has killed sixteen roachsters, all six of the hunter-killers left in the city, and two dozen other assorted vehicles. It is one of the finest killing machines ever made, even on this world. And its mine."

"I know. It's worth millions."

"Billions, my good man. We made them in breed-capable pairs."

"You are the final link in the chain aren't you. You made the off-world connections."

"Yes, and once we collect our genetic material from this one, for breeding, we will be on our way. So sorry about your car." One of the Junantra guards walked over the creature's mouth and began extracting vital genetic chambers that could be used to breed the creature. The ambassador and the other guard walked over to me and helped me to my feet.

"And what about me."

"That depends on you. The Human Race is still out there conquering the Universe and needs minds like yours to help it. I know you are a pacifist like all of your people here, but think of the potential value you could bring to our kind with your organic war machines."

"I know. I would be paid handsomely to destroy life all over the galaxy for fun and profit. No thanks." My blood was flowing down my leg, off of my arm and head.

"I am afraid I cannot allow you to leave knowing what you do."

"I am afraid I am not asking to leave." With blood on my hands, I reached out and slashed both the ambassador and the Junantra on the neck with my razor sharp nails. The spasm-fly venom which is a potent viral has remained part of my body ever since. I live in agony but I can control the spasms with the help of the anti-viral mods inside my body.

The ambassador and his guard are not so lucky. It takes only seconds for them to double over in pain and their muscles begin to pull back on their bones until they start to snap. The Junantra dies first, his superhuman strength is no asset here. The ambassador dies only seconds later. The second guard hearing something strange rushes to their aid, only to be dying a few seconds later.

I go over to Ona and see that she is already dead. I will make you again, my dear. You have been far better to me than most humans I know. I sit down with her and watch the sunrise. Looking over at the ambassador, I feel no regrets. Since he was the last of them, it should make it easy to clean up and ensure creatures like this one are never made again. With any luck, the Council will be able to hunt down the other one and see that its is destroyed.

Human nature seems so warlike. That very behavior is why we came to Cyridian, to get away from the war, and the greed. Because I live on a planet full of peaceful people does not make me a pacifist, and because I live on the edge of the galaxy may mean I am not cosmopolitan but I am certainly not an idiot.

I am absolutely not cleaning this up either.

Bug On!  © Thaddeus Howze 2011. All Rights Reserved

I finally located traces of my amazing Aunt Raven in the (Alpha Scorpii) Antares (meaning "Rival of Mars") which is the brightest star in Scorpius, one of the constellations in the human zodiac. Antares is a variable red supergiant star that is 520 light-years from Earth and is 230 times bigger than our Sun. Many of the winged faery folk from Africa have parties there during the magnificient sunrise. Ancient Africans terraformed a planet in orbit  around Antares and have created one of the most amazing urban cultures in the heart of a lush  jungle. Lions lounge in the parks where human school children learn and play. There is no poverty; astrophysicists are rock stars.  I seek to gain some of their knowledges that perhaps we can use on earth. Fortunately, I met a female scientist --  just finishing her daily swim -- who was willing to guide  me.

I completed this 6,866-word story a couple of months ago. I was originally going to publish it, but since I couldn't find an appropriate venue, I decided to share it with this community instead. I will post no more than two scenes per part.

Egypt, 4000 BC

Although bright morning sunlight poured through the entrance of Buikhu’s mud hut, he still lay asleep on his cowhide mat. The reason why was that the boy, who had seen twelve rainy seasons since his birth, had exhausted himself dancing and chanting his clan’s songs along with the other boys in his age set the previous night. That night, according to the tradition of his people, was to be his last as a child.

“Buikhu! Wake up!” his father Kemnebi whispered in a scolding tone while pushing the boy’s body back and forth. “The morning of your test has come!”

After being rocked for enough times, Buikhu finally opened his dark eyes and yawned. “Can you let me sleep for one more moment, father?”

“No! We are already almost late. Get up now!” Kemnebi yanked his son’s arm up until the child was on his feet and then led him out of the hut into the daylight.

Buikhu was of medium height for a boy of his age. Like most of his people, he had a lean figure, with long limbs and dark mahogany brown skin. The black braided sidelock he had worn for most of his life, a symbol of childhood, had been shaved off, leaving his scalp completely bare. Unlike his father, who donned a loincloth cut from tanned gazelle hide, he wore no clothing at all.

Kemnebi led his son across the village of Nekhen until they reached its central dirt plaza, where all the other boys in Buikhu’s age set stood in a straight row. Also present was Mhotep, the village’s wab sekhmet or healer, a middle-aged man with a shaven scalp and a leopard’s skin draped around his torso. Buikhu spotted in the wab’s right hand a flint knife, the sight of which sped up his heartbeat. He remembered exactly what the knife would be used for this morning.

After Buikhu joined the line of boys, Mhotep began, “Today marks a major turning point in your lives, young ones. Today your boyhoods shall all be cut away and you will become men. Now promise me that you will not scream or flinch during your cutting. Show me that you are ready for manhood! Now, let us begin with this boy who had just joined us.”

The wab was facing Buikhu when he said that. The boy’s heartbeat accelerated even more and his back chilled. His test was less than moments away! He looked around as if searching for an escape route, but his conscience told him to stay put lest he shame himself. He had no choice but to undergo the cutting.

“What is your name?” Mhotep asked the boy.

“B-buikhu, of the Mesha clan,” the child said after a quick hesitation.

“And what is the name of your father?”

“Kemnebi.”

“And what was the name of his father?” On this the wab grabbed a hold of Buikhu’s penis and lowered his knife towards it. The mere feeling of Mhotep’s hand on his organ made Buikhu tremble.

“Uh…my father’s father was Senbi.”

“Good. And who was Senbi’s father?” Now Mhotep was rapidly rubbing his blade’s edge against the boy’s foreskin. After enough sawing motion, Buikhu was struck by the sharpest, most intense pain he had ever felt in his life. He knew that he had been told to be silent, but the pain was so maddening…

“DJER!” he shrieked so shrilly that it almost sounded like it would have come from a girl’s mouth.

There was silence. Blood dripped from where Buikhu’s foreskin had been. Looking around, he noticed that everyone else was staring at him. The other boys were grinning, as if ready to burst out in laughter, but the wab was frowning with disapproval. So was his father, except his glare was even sharper and heart-piercing.

“That will be enough,” Mhotep said. “Now on to the next boy.”

And so the wab proceeded to circumcise the rest of Buikhu’s age set, with each of the boys reciting the names of his ancestors during the procedure. A couple of other boys screamed just like Buikhu had, but most did not. That made him feel even worse. Had all the boys reacted to their cutting the way he did, he would have thought himself normal, but instead their stoicism contrasted sharply with his lack thereof.

Once every boy had been cut, Buikhu turned to face his father. “Father, I am---”

“You screamed like a girl,” Kemnebi said. “You have shamed our family with your cowardice. Now you will never be considered a man.”

Until then, the boy had thought the circumcision he had just undergone had been the most intense pain he had ever suffered. Now even that paled in comparison to what he felt right now inside.

After a few days’ passing, the summer rains arrived. They swelled the Nile River until it submerged the papyrus-lined floodplain which Nekhen bordered, and they changed the grass of the savanna beyond from golden yellow to green. This signaled the people of Nekhen to leave their village and the floodplain farms they tended during the winter for the plains to the west, bringing with them the herds of long-horned cattle that were their main economic assets.

Buikhu was used to these seasonal migrations between the savanna and the village, but he had once looked forward to this summer more than most. He had anticipated that, as a newly initiated man, he would no longer just watch and milk his family’s herd of four cattle while his father went out hunting with the other men. Instead his father would bring him along and teach him how to hunt. Alas, that was possibly never to happen. Having declared his son a coward, Kemnebi refused to entrust the boy with any weapon or let him leave their summer camp of thatched hovels, so Buikhu was stuck with his usual responsibilities.

In previous summers, Buikhu didn’t mind his duties so much, as he understood their importance. But now, as he watched his cattle drink from the waterhole near which his people had set up camp, he fumed with resentment.

“Why aren’t you hunting with the other men, Buikhu?” he heard a boy two years his junior ask. Buikhu recognized the child as the son of Khenti, the nsu---rainmaker king---of Nekhen, but that did not make him feel the slightest bit deferent.

“You ought to know why, Sokkwi,” Buikhu grumbled.

“You’re afraid to tell me, aren’t you? Coward!”

At first Buikhu silently told himself to not mind that taunt, but then he felt something soft splat onto his back. Jerking his head around, he saw that Sokkwi’s throwing arm was coated with cow dung. A little flame of anger flickered inside the older boy’s head, but listening to his conscience, he did not show a reaction.

“So you’re just going to stand there and let me throw dung at you? Coward!” Sokkwi said. He continued to pelt Buikhu until the pile ran out, but still his attacks were ignored. Then, with a wicked grin on his face, he picked up a small rock and chucked it in the same direction.

Buikhu yelled in pain when the stone smashed into his spine, and then his flame of anger blossomed into a full-blown wildfire. Grabbing a large stick, he spun around and lunged after the puny brat.

“You’ll have your skull smashed in when I’m done with you!” he roared, brandishing the stick.

“Bet you can’t catch me!” Sokkwi replied as he dashed away.

Buikhu left his herd behind as he raced after his tormentor across the savanna. His rage continued to burn and was intensified by frustration, for Sokkwi proved to be incredibly swift for a ten-year-old. He was definitely going to carry out his threat if he ever caught up with the evil little demon.

The two boys had run quite far from their waterhole when a yellow shape flashed out of the bushes with a roar. Freezing in terror, Buikhu saw that it was a leopard! Immediately he reversed direction and sprinted away with his heart beating frantically. Then he heard the shrill scream of a child followed by choking sounds. He looked back and saw that the big cat had Sokkwi by his blood-soaked neck.

For all the violence that he had wanted to inflict upon the younger boy moments earlier, Buikhu did not feel the least bit delighted that Sokkwi had just been killed. Instead he was horrified beyond belief and also burdened with guilt. How on earth was he going to explain to the nsu that his son had been driven into the wilderness and killed? And how would the whole of Nekhen react to the loss of their future rainmaker?

As if these thoughts weren’t enough to make the boy miserable, he was to find something to add to his woes once he ran back to the waterhole. There, he discovered that all four of his family’s cattle were nowhere to be seen. Apparently they had run away in his absence.

Buikhu muttered to himself, “Great! My day has now been ruined even more than it was before!”

Actually, he knew that what was ruined was not merely one day, but possibly the rest of his life. Although people in his culture ate beef only during certain religious ceremonies, to them cattle were the living incarnations of wealth that could be traded like money. To lose an entire herd meant instant poverty for anyone from Buikhu’s race.

Buikhu had gotten the nsu’s son killed and lost his family’s whole wealth. His guilt was now even more painful than his father’s calling him a coward.

From space, it looked like a ball of blue and brown; there were blue oceans swirling with windblown whitecaps and the occasional tiny island could be found but most were scoured clean by the Last Storm. You don't see much of the surface anymore because of the cloud cover. The white polar ice caps were tiny buttons on the top and bottom of the globe. 

During the year, they could be seen to appear and disappear. If you took a vantage point from the the lone satellite of this blue planet, you would notice on the night side, there was no light emitted, no radio transmissions to disturb your electromagnetic slumbers. It was a quiet planet circling a nondescript yellow-white dwarf with eight other planets and assorted planet-junk. Strangely enough, if you had vision sharp enough, you would see hundreds of artificial satellites circling the planet.  

You would see communication satellites beaming signals to each other, reminding each other where they are to ensure signals moved from the ground to other places on the planet were not interrupted. They never receive those signals any longer, since there is no one to send them. There are many global positioning satellites. Each designed to know every single street and every square inch of the planet and tell you where you are at any moment in space and time, anywhere on the globe.They have not had to answer a single query for a little longer than a year.

Military reconnaissance satellites watch key sections of the globe for threats to countries that no longer exist. Linked to those satellites are space based weapons platforms using a variety of technologies to deliver death from above. There is now nothing to shoot at, nor anyone. 

There are two satellites still doing their jobs. The first is a weather satellite. They are still happily chugging along gathering information about the Last Storm. The Last Storm came into existence nearly ten years now. It did not look like it does now. Today, it covers half of the northern hemisphere at a time, blocking the sun, from a quarter of the planet. Swirling above the planet, a Great White spot on the surface of the Earth, similar to the Red Spot on Jupiter, just hundreds of miles across instead of tens of thousands.  

Weather satellites would make the pivotal discovery of the Last Storm in 2096, when it was just a tropical depression in the South Pacific Ocean. This storm is the greatest weather pattern on the planet sweeping across every land mass, driving sand and debris into the air, at almost four hundred miles an hour. It has scoured the Earth clean of nearly all traces of her former tenants. It did not happen all at once. It took time.

The other satellite still working has only one man left on board. One solitary human who had chosen to stay here ad document what he was seeing. His name was Sergei Balmasov. We say was because he is no longer living in the classic sense. He mostly sits and looks out the observation window of the International Space Station in muted horror. His mind is broken.

He listened on the wideband radio to the world coming to an end. He listened as people called for help that could never come. He listened while radio stations told people not to panic and that this was just a really large hurricane forming in the Pacific and when it hit the coast Hawaii, it would be devastating so they should evacuate Hawaii. He listened when they said there would not be enough time or enough ships to move everyone in time.  
 

They told those who could not make it in time to shelter in place. That would be enough. In the year 2096, the state of Hawaii became the first casualty to the last  storm.  

They sent ships to Hawaii. They rescued a hundred and fifty thousand people and fled east toward the coast of California and Oregon. But the storm was too fast and too wide. Two hundred thousand people died on the islands and another one hundred and twenty thousand sank as their ships were capsized in the torrential storm. The remaining population died in the storm awaiting rescue ships that could never come.

Hawaii, born of fire, home to people for five thousand years, was washed away in a single night, all of her people returned to the sea.

Sergei had no time to grieve as the storm approached California. People began evacuating and fleeing to the mountains. Storms break over mountains was the conventional theory. This was no conventional storm. As it came within a thousand miles of California, the rains began. 

The storm slowed over Hawaii and continued to absorb water and energy from the environment. When it began to move again, it was twice the size it had been before. It approached the coast of California, driving in swells of water which damaged anything along the shore, turning any building on the coast to splinters. The forty-foot swells had never been seen and thrashed the coast, drove water into the streets of both Los Angeles and San Francisco. People who did not believe what they had heard about Hawaii re-evaluated and began to run for their lives. How could they have known? 

The roads to the mountains were jammed with cars and trucks. The storm was inexorable. When it reached the coast, the winds were in excess of two hundred fifty miles per hour. Nothing made by man could withstand such winds. Skyscrapers lost windows, cars were flipped and carried for miles, trees uprooted, homes swept away by winds, rain and waves. When the storm reached the mountains, everyone's hopes rose, even as people ignored the carnage. The mountains would break the storm, it would run out of energy and die.  

Instead, it did the unexpected. It turned south, but did not die.

It rode the mountains south, destroying the San Francisco Bay Area, and everyone in it. Heading South, Los Angeles was the next major metropolis to be swept away. The storm was being fed by the Pacific and kept moving south. As the edge of the mountains receded, the storm proceeded East into the Gulf of Mexico and continued to grow. Most of Mexico to the borders of Costa Rica and South America were completely inundated by water. 

Refueled by the heated waters of the Gulf of Mexico, the storm's power increased and with its increased size it affected the Southern mainland states and basically erased them, from Nevada to Florida. Nearly one third of the population of the United States was destroyed in the first forty hours of the Last Storm of the Century. Nearly all of Mexico, and Costa Rica had been decimated. Tens of millions were believed dead.  

As the storm pulled away from the United States, its size increased again, absorbing water from across its entire area, and energy from the very warm waters of the Atlantic, it swept across the Southern tip of Europe, but even that tiny brush destroyed most of the UK, Greece, France, Italy and all of the Mediterranean. At this point, emergency signals criss-cross the globe with everyone trying to determine where the most need for service would appear next.

It didn't matter. 

The storm grew larger and more powerful, as it recrossing the Pacific. It would become immense and unstoppable. It was considered such a threat, militaries threatened to throw nuclear weapons into the heart of the thing. A great carrier attempted, since it had been caught in the wake of the storm to tried to use a nuclear device, but it had no effect. The storm had simply grown too large to do anything.  
 

People fled where ever they thought they could go, but climate models had begun to reveal a startling truth. The storm was so large now, it could feed from any ocean, any where, at nearly any time, until it ran out of energy. Climatologists theorized it would become a permanent fixture on the face of the planet.  Those climatologists called it, The Great White Spot. It swept across the Earth over twenty five times before stabilizing at its current size of one quarter of the globe.

Sergei listened to the radio until the signals grew less and less. Communications from the ground lasted two years, but by the year 2099, there had not been a single radio message he could detect anywhere on the planet. He held out hope that somewhere, somehow, mankind had survived. Until the cloud cover broke enough to see the planet.

Until today. Then he wept like a child.

The mountains were gone, ground away by the five hundred mile an hour winds. The Rockies, the Appalachians, The Himalayans had been scoured from the planet. Nothing made by man had survived. Even the best made skyscrapers had been worn away to nothing. The Earth was a smooth and uniform brown. He stared looking for any landmarks. Nothing remained. 

Sergei lasted a year eating the stored food onboard the ship. The satellite could keep him alive alone for five years, easily but his mind was shattered by what he saw. In order to cope he used climatological models from weather satellites under his control to determine the Great White Spot would last for another twenty years, reducing the earth to little more than a windswept ocean in that time. He then found out that without land, the storm might never stop.   

Sergei Balmasov, the last Human being left alive anywhere opened the bottle of vodka he carried aboard all those years ago and drank a toast. He finished the bottle in about an hour. He set all of his notes into the computer and set a radio broadcast into space repeating what he learned about Humanity during their last days on Earth. He stepped into an airlock without a suit closed the door behind him. He held his breath while he cycled the lock and jumped out into space, with his dying breath he chose to look upon the Earth. 

His message to anyone who might one day come across our blue planet was a tombstone marker. "Here Lies the final resting place of the Human race. We saw the future, but could not embrace it, until it embraced us. May God have mercy on our souls."

The Great White Spot   © Thaddeus Howze 2011. All Rights Reserved

I was sitting in my favorite coffee shop, dodging my workplace, when I saw Him come in. I wasn't quite sure what I was seeing first because, well, this is San Francisco, and you are liable to see almost anything here. He was wearing the equivalent of a long ragged cloak, stained with age and reeking of an unspeakable odor. 

It was the scent of a recently opened grave, and while I had not been near one in a while, I had put a dead racoon in my garbage can once and left it there for a week in the hot sun. Worst thing I have ever smelled. I was only too happy when the garbage man came. It was worse than that. No one else seemed to notice.

His cloak hid is face but it was safe to assume I didn't really want to look too deep in there anyway. He was carrying a pole with a strange watermark on it and two runnels near the top. His hands were strong looking, like a weightlifter's with veins running through them. I could not see much else of him but he was big, much bigger than I imagined him to be.

See, I figured this had to be the Boatman of the River Styx.

"Cappuccino." he said with a scary baritone.

"Four seventy five, please."

"Are you serious?" was his response.

"Uh. Yes."

He reached into his pocket and put pennies on the counter. Lots of Pennies.

"Sir, we can't take those."

"They're currency aren't they?"

"Sir, they're pennies."

"I get paid in pennies."

"Excuse me, miss, I will take care of this." I found myself reaching into my pocket and paying with a five.

"Keep the change." The crowd was getting kind of hostile and I wasn't sure what might happen if he got pissed off. He looks at her. Reaches across the counter with his large, ham-like hand and touches her chin. 

"Rebecca Montez, angry boyfriend, six years from now, lamp. Unfortunate." She looks at him as if he were crazy but does not move. Almost as if she were under a spell.

He turns to me and says, "Thank you, Daniel Simmons."

"How do you know my name?" I already knew the answer.

"I know all of your names." That voice was really starting to work me. The rhythm of the shop resumed and people went back to typing.

"What are they seeing? How is it only I can see you?"

"Cappuccino, up."

"Uh, that's you."

"Let's sit and talk, Daniel Simmons."

"Okaaaaay." Didn't like where this was going.

I sit down at the table and try to hide my face behind the screen of my laptop so I could resist the temptation to look into his cowl. He reached across the table and closed my laptop, gently.

"So, Charon, what brings you up for coffee? And why is it no one else can see you?"

"Mmmmm. Good cappuccino. Very nice." The cup disappeared into his cowl and did not come back out.

"No one can see me because to them, I am some unfortunate hobo having coffee with an overdress preppy. That would be you. As to why I am here? I need a guide and since you can see me, you are volunteered." 

What could I know about that he would need a guide for?

"I am looking to franchise my business."

"Excuse me?"

"Earth is very busy these days, lots of dying and you guys keep making new ways to kill each other off. I can't keep up. Look at this bicep." He pulls back his sleeve and shows me this massive arm that would not have look out of place on the Incredible Hulk. "Go on, touch it."

"Um, no thanks."

"I used to be scraps of bone and flesh, now I have biceps from pushing that thing." He points outside the window.

For a moment I saw a flash of a large gondola-like boat, about the size of an eighteen wheeler. Off in the distance, I could see people, thousands of them, tens of thousands, standing patiently wearing clothing from what looked like medieval times. Then the street returned to its mundane appearance.

"Yes, I just cleared the backlog from the Black Plague last week. But I still have the Civil War, the Spanish Flu, World War's I and II, and Korea. Do you know how many Russians died out there?" He was starting to sound a little hysterical.

"Uh, what about other death-oriented entities like yourself? Aren't there others out there harvesting the dead?"

"Valkyries are still working, but they only want the valiant dead, so they swoop in and pluck one guy out of thousands, put him on their flying horse and their gone. I've tried shouting out, 'hey, you could grab a few more' but they keep mentioning something about Vahalla having a quality assurance clause and then they're gone. When I complained to the Niflheim Residency Committee, they indicated they aren't responsible for all of these people. They closed their doors when the last of the Vikings bought the farm. Something about Niflheim having a purity standard."

"There are certainly other death agents, yes?"

"Heaven only takes devout Christians. Lets just say that number isn't going up. Same with their other sects. People don't seem to have a desire for really rigid religious structures anymore, so most of those places are closing their doors, or waiting for a management decision from on High. Hell, well its just overflowing. They even changed the sign. Used to say 'Abandon hope all ye who entered here'. Now it says, 'Abandon hope all ye who thought to enter here. Entry denied due to overcrowding.' So, I keep going, moving the Dead into their afterlife of Last Resort. But I am starting to fall behind, so I hoped someone here might have some idea how to franchise this operation." 

"So you're hoping to find people willing to help you ferry the Dead, for a fee. What kind of benefits would you be offering, you need a good benefit package if you are trying to recruit these days."

"I am not trying to enter into Management. I do not want to take responsibility for their work. I want to hand off a section of the workload to other interested parties."

"That's the problem. Who's going to be interested in buying into a business where your job is to move the Dead across the River Styx into the Afterlife of Last Resort? What do they get out of the deal?"

"As long as they work for the Company, they can avoid dying of anything, as long as they manage their company effectively. If I have to pick up their slack, I will carry them across the Threshold myself. I am not interested in who they hire, as long as they get the job done."

"Effectively immortal, long term job security, open hours, free hand in hiring, no micromanaging. I think I am going to quit my job. Okay, what's the cost to buy into this program?"

"2 pennies." Charon voice had begun to grow on me.

"Okay, the first thing we are going to have to do if we are going to work together is to increase the cost of dying. How can you run a business on 2 pennies a soul? Haven't you ever heard of inflation?"

A Cappuccino with Charon © Thaddeus Howze 2011. All Rights Reserved

Wilson Tuchman called "Tuck" by his friends, the few that were still alive sat at the bus stop and waited early on a Saturday morning. It was a warm spring morning, the kind that made you forget your aches and pain and believe the world was going about its business of being beautiful before the heat of summer baked it away. Tuck was a a tall man, easily six feet whose once black wooly hair had faded to a salt and pepper grey. His chocolate brown skin was smooth with a rich wrinkled texture, that when he smiled smoothed away the age from his face. His eyes were bright and clear and people found his wise and knowing gaze easy to bear.

Tuck had been in the habit of making the trip to Lowell Park in the mornings on Saturday to improv with a group of musicians who play outside the city's farmer's market. They were an above average group who played for tips all day. This particular iteration of the group had been playing together for about two years and Tuck enjoyed playing with them. It was the thing that made his weeks bearable since his Sadie passed on.

He was determined to stay active and involved in the community. He heard that men did not live long after their wives died and Tuck, well he was not quite ready to die just yet. Having lived to be seventy-two, he was in no particular rush to meet his Maker. Sadie, bless her soul, had trained him well and he could cook, shop and take reasonably good care of himself. He had to get his hair cut down at the corner shop, something he had not done in years, and discovered he missed the male company. Sadie cut his hair for thirty years and he had grown accustomed to her light hand and special pampering. He trimmed his beard, since no one could cut it the way she did, and after the first butchering at the shop he decided he didn't really like it anyway.

He put on a pair of comfortable slacks and a shirt that didn't bunch up while he played his horn. He wore a pair of comfortable shoes, just in case he had to stand up. Sadie's last gift to him was a pair of gel insoles and he simply loved them. When you get to be old, you just don't realize how comfortable feet make such a difference in your day. He wore a light jacket and a sweater, he didn't know what the weather was going to be like and wanted the option to put on or take off whatever was necessary to keep playing.Tuck loved to play his horn. He had lost his grandfather's horn he played all through the sixties in a fire twenty years ago. It was an heirloom 1927 King Liberty Silver. A beautiful trumpet given to him by his grandfather. He did not know how precious it was but he cared for it meticulously because his grandfather had. 

He taught him how to take it apart and clean every spring, value and chamber. He shined it until it glowed and when he played it, there was nothing that even came close to it. He played it from 1924 when he started in the Diamond Club, a juke joint in the backwoods of Louisiana. He joined the band there and they traveled up and down the Chitlin Circuit for thirty years playing jazz of every melody, style and rhythm. Jazz was in his blood. He even managed to make it to the radio in the fifties and sixties and had half a dozen albums to his name. He married Sadie during that time and their relationship was turbulent to say the least. She used to say that he loved his horn more than her. That wasn't true. The horn just didn't nag him as much about her. 

After he lost the Liberty, he was too distraught and realized he simply couldn't bear to play anymore. He had played other trumpets over the years but they couldn't seem to match the soul his grandfather's trumpet seem to have. Tuck sometimes thought his pater's soul had moved into the trumpet when he died and Tuck was simply a vessel for him to keep playing his music. So in his early fifties, he became a mechanic because he had always been handy with vehicles and repaired them over the years they spent driving the Circuit. He bought a small station and for twenty years made a tidy sum keeping old cars on the road in his corner of Philadelphia. Sadie worked as a librarian and was very, very good with money, so they had more than they needed with his tiny royalty check and her retirement. 

After his retirement, his was a comfortable life. He even bought a new trumpet, a Jaeger. It was functional, with a clean, bright sound. He had mellowed and decided he would let go of his past, his fame, or his reluctance to play anything other than the Liberty. And just like that, his life was good again. He played everyday again and his neighbors loved to hear his muted trumpet whispering tunes of elegance, mystery, sassy tunes of exuberance and a time lost, a time when it was okay to be just a little bit bad.He played at Sadie's funeral. He could not even speak to anyone. So he played. And when he was done, his music reached into them, pulled something out of them, some grief, some sadness, and brought it into the air with them. It sat alongside them, wept with them and then that sadness moved on, just like Sadie did. People left the funeral smiling and filled with light. 

The bus was late, but only a few minutes and he stood up to stretch his legs. As it rounded the corner, he found himself eager to get to the park. It had been a long time since he was eager to do anything. The bus pulled alongside and he allowed most people to get on before him to avoid bumping into anyone with his trumpet. He was the last person to get on the bus. As he moved into the bus, several young people decided to get up and pushed their way through the bus. As they came close to him, the largest shoved him into another passenger and he snatched the trumpet from his hand. As they ran out the door, they startled a flock of pigeons on the sidewalk who scattered and took flight.

Tuck fell over the baby carriage and managed to catch himself before falling onto the young mother and her baby. The bus driver tried to run out after the ruffians but one of them pulled a small firearm and Tuck touched the driver and shook his head. He was not so in love with the Jaeger that anyone should die over it.For a moment, his rage grew and then he heard the small child laugh and look at him. 
"Are you okay, sir? Do you want to file a report?" It took a second for Tuck to realize the driver was talking to him."No. There is no point. It's not like I will get my trumpet back any time soon. I am sure the police will have plenty to keep them busy in this town."

"We have them on the bus camera and may be able to get an ID later."

"Okay, you take my address, and if I am still alive when they find them, and my trumpet, I will happily accept it back. I am certain these good folks have someplace to be, and so do I. I am fine, my gel insoles broke my fall."Several of the riders laughed and a young man offered Tuck a seat. Shaken, he accepted and rode to the park in thoughtful contemplation.

When he got to the park, the Farmers Market was almost finish setting up and the band was tuning their instruments. While he had not be seriously injured, he felt a slight twinge in his hip and knew he would feel it more later. 

"Hey Tuck, where's your horn? You always jam with us. Taking the day off? Williams was another oldster who played the bass. Tuck liked his easy-going manner. 

"No sir, not today it seems. Fate decided that old Jaeger and I needed to go our separate ways."
"What happened?" Jim, the saxophonist stopped warming up and looked up. He was one of the youngest of the musicians barely twenty-five, but he had an old jazz and blue soul.

"Some of the urban yout' decided they needed my horn more than I did."

"I can go handle that if you want me to." Jim's veiled threat was easy to recognize, and despite his old musical soul, he had a modern day blood-lust when pushed to it.

"Let it go, I am going to sit here with you brothers and just relax for a change. I need a break from carrying y'all anyway." Tuck smiled and Williams shook his head.

The group consisted of a double bass, electric piano, sax, alto sax, bass guitar, drums, a cornet when we were lucky, an occasional French horn and until today, at least one trumpet. Fortunately, another trumpet showed up, some new cat nobody knew. He wore a tan linen suit with a red shirt underneath the jacket. His clothing looked comfortable and he was relaxed. He was smoking a cigarette while he relaxed in the back. A cool brother, he introduced himself as Israfel. He was playing some old school horn, something from the thirties from the look of it. Tuck felt a momentary sting of nostalgia for his grandfather's Liberty. The group warmed up and Tuck sat off to the side and just listened.

They started with 'Fly Me to the Moon' and Tuck thought of Sadie. It was one of her favorites and they danced their first dance to it. The vocals were taken up by Israfel's horn. He played it, massaged it, and spun into and out of it. The rest of the band played softly allowing him to carry it. "In other words, please be true, in other words, I love you." A slow piece, the band used it to warm the crowd up, to tease them close. It was a piece most of the older crowd knew and playing it ensured their approach.

Switching to 'Rhapsody in Blue', Israfel soared, his trumpet stomped, disappeared and reappeared across the piece. This was a jazz favorite because while the pure song was wonderful, it lent itself to varied improvisations and could be played allowing each instrument a time to shine. Fast and slow, it offered everyone an opportunity to play alone and together. Tuck remembered this piece as one of his favorites, and was one of the pieces he played on the radio near the end of his career. Many people knew snippets of the song because parts of it were played in cartoons and commercials in the sixties.

Near the end of the piece, Israfel reached into his pocket and pulled out a mouthpiece, still in the wrapper and flipped it to Tuck. Tuck surprised, let it hit him in the chest before catching it. Looking quizzically at Israfel he let the band wrap up the piece. Without a word, Israfel takes his mouthpiece out and hands his horn to Tuck. He nods and Tuck takes it. It feels good. It feels like the old Liberty in his hands. Light, keys smooth, he didn't even feel the need to test it. He put his lips to it and felt it become a part of him.

Williams flags out 'April in Paris' and Tuck steps forward. A strong trumpet piece, Tuck taps his foot and they begin. Israfel moved in the back and found a French horn. As they started playing, the crowd began to gather, a gentle breeze swept in and the vendors in the Farmer's Market, settled into a rhythm, sales were easier, people were friendlier, a gentle and easy peace took place. Tuck played his heart out, the crowd grew larger while they played. They worked it, they stretched it and when they played that last creshendo, Tuck was drenched, sweat flowing easily down his brow. The crowd roared, money was passed forward and they kept playing. The moved through the century, with hit after hit. The crowd rotated but never seemed to grow smaller, when they finally stopped to rest, Israfel came to Tuck and clapped him on his back.

"So, do you like it?" pointing to the trumpet.

Tuck, still a little winded, smiled widely, the first real smile in two years and said, "Oh yes, very much."
Israfel laughed and replied, "In my country, when a man says he likes a thing we are obliged to give it to him. She is yours, now."

"Oh, no, my brother, I could never take something as sweet as this from you. I have never played anything this good since I lost my grandfather's horn. I know it may be a custom, but I could never deny a man his horn."

"It is also bad manners to refuse the gift, my friend. Please take it. It sings for you. Look at this crowd, they were loving it.""Your gift humbles me, my brother. How may I be of service to you?" Tuck was moved and felt a need to reciprocate somehow. What could he offer for such a fine gift?

"The knowledge that you will care for it and love it like I did is enough for me," Israfel replied. He picked up his jacket and slung it over his shoulder. The springtime air had warmed considerably. 

"Where are you going? We still have one more set, we need you." Tuck had reached out to touch Israfel's shoulder.

"You don't need me any longer, my friend. You have everything you ever needed right there. Look on the side of the trumpet."

Looking where he expected to find the manufacturer's name, he saw the word Gabriel spelled out with ornate and beautiful styled lettering. There were patterns woven into the metal, subtle, hard to see, but in the midday light, they were unmistakable. This trumpet was a work of art. Then Tuck had a moment, a moment of memory something he heard as a child. "Isn't Gabriel the name of an Angel?"

"You remember rightly. A Serephim who trumpets for the Lord. Smote Soddam and Gamorrah if my church learning is still righteous. What about him?"

"Am I dead?"

"You look okay to me. You not feeling well?"

"Actually, I feel great, the best I felt in years." Even the twinge in his hip was gone. He stood straighter and taller as if part of him had suddenly returned.

"Then enjoy the Horn. My gift to you."

"Am I going to have to play in Heaven or something?"

"No, Heaven is full up on trumpets. Make your magic here, do what you did today anywhere you wish, any time you want. Your is a special magic no one can give you. You have the magic that comes with time and effort. That word on the Horn is a title, given to the one best suited to move the hearts of men. That, my friend, is now you."

"How long can I do this?"

"Until you are ready to pass it to another who loves it like you do. Or until you're ready to lay down your burdens. Whichever comes first. For as long as you love it, play it and share it, you shall know no want, no fear, no longing.

"What about Sadie?"

"She'll abide till you show up. She said you'd take it. She said you loved your horn more than her."

"But never better." 

"She knows that, too" Israfel turned and walked away.

Tuck, with a lighter step, slid back up to the group and joined in on 'Birdland'.

Hornblower © Thaddeus Howze 2011. All Rights Reserved

Q & A: scholar discusses Mayan 2012 doomsday predictions



By J.K. Melki Russell, Baltimore Spirituality Examiner  

April 19th, 2011 9:08 pm ET

 

As a follow up to our initial article Why Mayan 2012 Doesn’t Really Matter, we recently engaged scholar Gerardo Aldana, professor of Chicana and Chicano Studies at the University of California Santa Barbara. In Calendars and Years II: Astronomy and Time in the Ancient and Medieval World" his findings questioned the accuracy of many who claim it marks December 21, 2012 as “Doomsday.”

 

The following is our brief Q&A with professor Aldana.

 

Q & A

 

Examiner: How does your book's research indicate that public perceptions about the Mayan calendar predicting the end of the world may be wrong or off by decades or centuries?

 

Professor Aldana: A couple of caveats are important to note here:

 

One, my research is in a chapter in an anthology on Calendars in ancient and medieval civilizations, so it's not my book.  (In other words, I get no royalties or payment whatsoever for the sale of the book... an important point, I think, in particular regarding "2012.”)

 

Two, neither my chapter nor the book as a whole is really directed at the public.  The volume is intended for the academic community; it may not be accessible by most of the public because it assumes that the reader has already studied the subjects covered to some extent.

 

That said, my chapter demonstrates that the correlation between the Mayan calendric system and the Christian chronologies (Julian or Gregorian) is wrong.  That means to both the public and to researchers that whenever we see a date that has been published giving the Julian/Gregorian date for a Mayan event, that date is incorrect.  

 

Unfortunately, we don't know at this point how far off those dates are.  It is at least incorrect by a few years/decades, but it may be as much as a century or so in either direction.

 

This has different impacts, of course.  If one states that a Mayan ruler, say Yax Pahsaj Chan Yopaat of Copan was dedicating some structure in the 8th century A.D., that's possibly still okay.  If they claim that he acceded to the throne on June 28, 763 A.D., or that it was near/on a summer solstice or that Jupiter was visible in the constellation Scorpius with the Moon (or something like that), then it will be way off.

 

Following the logic, that means that if we project the Mayan Long Count calendar (which had fallen out of use sometime in the 13th-16th centuries A.D.) into our own contemporary times, then any such placements will be wrong.  So suggestions that an event in the Mayan calendar occurring on Dec. 21, 2012 are incorrect.

 

Unfortunately, for proponents of Mayan prophecies, the situation is worse than a delay of a purported apocalypse.  Most if not all of these interpretations are dependent on the coincidence of a Mayan calendric event on the winter solstice in 2012.  This is an important point:  there is no hieroglyphic text that suggests an astronomical prophecy for 2012; it is only the coincidence of a Mayan calendric event with an observable astronomical alignment that has modern interpreters inferring a prophecy. Without this coincidence—either by a few years, or by hundreds of years, the basis of the prophecy goes away entirely.  The upshot is that if the calendar correlation is incorrect--as I argue in my chapter--then the key feature upon which the prophecies were supposedly built is no longer valid.

 

EXAMINER: Secondly, the utilization of astronomy to predict events is a very old tool that was constantly being adjusted and altered to make events fit within a predicted time frame-what are some of the issues at hand in the way many current individuals are attempting to use astronomy to interpret the Mayan Calendar? What might they be missing or what needs to be included to  create a better discussion about the calendar?

 

Professor Aldana: I think a good dose of common sense would go a long way.  Did ancient Mayan rulers ever consult oracles as part of their governance?  My informed response is either 'yes', or at least 'very probably.'  (We can't be sure at this point that there weren't iconoclastic rulers who preferred to buck convention and eschewed all oracular knowledge...after all, there were hard-core skeptics in ancient Greece.)  But just because they probably consulted, oracular knowledge does not mean that  they didn't also incorporate other types of knowledge into their decision-making processes.

 

I recently wrote a book that goes into the various pressures that very likely affected the development of an astronomical tool at the Classic Mayan city of Palenque.  Religion was certainly involved in how Kan B'ahlam utilized this astronomical tool, but I argue that it was also affected by politics and economics.  In other words, there may have been some appeal to what we would consider today to be esoteric knowledge, but it certainly wasn't the only factor considered, and we would be fooling ourselves to think that entire cities--let alone entire civilizations--could follow oracular proposals mechanically.

 

My point is that we should qualify oracular knowledges as having been used in the past in conjunction with other forms of knowledge--to augment them, not to replace them.  Now, if Kan B'ahlam were here with us today, I'm sure he wouldn't have to depend on an astronomical (or any other kind of) oracle to tell us that our global situation is in trouble.  We have plenty of other indicators--environmental, political, religious, economic--that we are facing (or in) crises.  I doubt that he would urge us to just turn to the stars and wait to see what happens.

 

Tags:

2012 Mayan calendar, 2012, 2012 The Mayans Ancient Civilizations Apocalypse, Ancient wisddom, apocalypic science fiction

 

Also Read: Why Mayan 2012 Doesn't Really Matter

http://www.examiner.com/spirituality-in-baltimore/why-the-world-won-t-end-2012-and-why-it-doesn-t-really-matter-if-it-d

The Americas. This is where the End began. The West, the place of Prophecy, the place of Destiny. The genetic cellular database of Ancestral awakenings thrums in tune to the drumbeat call of generations of soul, of pain and joy rising above the spontaneous eruption of life, uncontrollable, unbounded, free of constriction or constraint in its purest form. This is the natural path life takes like water, flowing down or up whatever channel presents a path, making one where none exists, or deepening preexisting ways, widening, eroding resistance whenever encountered to open the way for a more intense flow of energy.

What does all or any of this have to do with Hip Hop? With a bunch of kids who play their music too loud, who seem to have a fascination with cursing, disrespect of authority and women, baggy clothing, crime and material culture? How is any of this spiritual in nature and what does it have to do with consciousness? To answer these questions fully it is necessary to understand what Hip Hop is, what it really represents, where it came from and where it is going.

Loosely defined, it is the culture of the urbanized underclass, of the disaffected and the disillusioned masses. A culture of rebellion and revolt that employs every mode of communication known to humanity in order to get its message across. Music, art, the spoken word, the beat, movement. MC’ing, DJ’ing, Break Dancing/Popping/Locking and Graffiti are its major expressions, all of which encompass the primal cries of those relegated to possessing only their spirits and souls and little else of material substance.  As a post-modern deconstruction of a Western European meta-narrative, Hip Hop stands as an exemplar of the effect upon the individual of societal ills that are now global in scope. Ageless, as an expression of African-based musical and communicative forms of expression, Hip Hop was informally born as a genre in late 1970s New York City and the surrounding region, expanding relatively quickly from a purely regional expression to its current status as multi-billion dollar music of the global youth culture. It is fair to say that Hip Hop has come a long way. But it is also fair to say that it has a way to go still before it reaches its full potential.

Afrofuturism as a movement has evolved alongside Hip Hop, similarly having no definitive beginning while simultaneously coalescing alongside Hip Hop in urban America during the late 1970s. Its formal inception occurs much later, in the late 1990s and into the 00s as the online presence of African Americans grew stronger. The application of diverse academic traditions to the same questions was the beginning of a process that sought to dissect the cultural and media-based discourse of African-originated and futuristically-themed influence in the preceding decades in the attempt to define their interests and cultural memes.

And so it was that a small, ethnically diverse but concentrated listserv, called Afrofuturism, was born and prospered, for a time. Beyond the vigorous debates, expositions of consciousness, collaborations and intellectualisms lay an underlying strata of vast potentiality and possibility, made manifest through the broad and open genres of science and speculative fiction. The movement was represented by black authors, academics, Hip Hop headz and performers alike, all sharing a similar fascination with futuristic themes and expressions of modern societal tropes under the guise of the fantastic. Afrofuturism never really coalesced as a full-blown cultural shift outside of the avant-garde arts and music scenes of the large urban areas, but the fish bowl-like arena the internet was in those days brought larger and more mainstream attention to this small collective of personalities and ideas, raised against the growing din of diverse voices the Net was soon to become.

Hip Hop and the Afrofuture cannot be separated from the evolution of America as a nation, but they also cannot be separated from the evolution of consciousness not only of this country, but of the world. The impact of Hip Hop has been felt upon every continent, in every country. Rap is the music of the global youth culture. It is the sound of rebellion and discontent that can be heard wherever the young are gathered and wherever inequalities have resulted in the formalization of destitution. The original means by which Hip Hop formed have been repeated in country after country, city after city as the young and the listless have found themselves with little money and no musical education but still possessed of singing hearts and dancing souls, theirs or their parents record collections and an ever-growing mass of CDs and MP3s that consolidate the Music of the Ages. The ready availability and affordability of computers, digital music and sound equipment have created the perfect environment for a large-scale explosion of beat-centered creativity as the hard, biting sounds of rap drive the air and digital-waves toward the resolution of a Hip Hop planet, born to tear down paradigms not built for their edification.

There is Russian Hip Hop, Middle Eastern Hip Hop, African Hip Hop, European Hip Hop, Latin American Hip Hop. You will find baggy jeans and ball caps worn by youth of every ethnicity, shade, size or gender in every country in the world. This acceptance of a quintessentially American artform by two generations, X and Y, who are now birthing a third, generation Z, will take the artform into new territory as global consciousness coalesces around the ideals that undergird the very essence of Hip Hop. Freedom of expression  and lifestyle choices, a disdain for centralized authority, a dearth of color consciousness and a dislike of the trappings of corporate and/or governmental culture typify the belief system of Hip Hop Headz around the globe. The continuing revelations regarding the world-wide dominance of elite, corporate conspiracies have resulted in an ever-spreading understanding of the many threads that tie in to this reality, be they economic, political or cultural in nature. A wide-spread distrust of governmental measures as well as a realization that corporate culture does not have the best interests of the individual in mind bind diverse cultures and ethnicities together in recognition of their shared servitude and bondage to global consumer culture and hegemonic political domination by a self-serving and mega-rich elite.

The material and mainstream response to the impact of Hip Hop began early in its modern evolution. With the success of the Conscious Hip Hop movement in the United States in the late 1980s and early 1990s, a concerted effort was made on the part of the Music Industry to derail the movement by changing the focus of the music from positive messages, African history and evolved states of being to that of material wealth, violence and hyper-sexuality. According to music industry insiders, there was a successful attempt to provide monetary incentives and change the focus of individual Hip Hop artists to rap more about these topics and also to contract artists that would create the type of music that glorified self-hate and violence in many forms. This era was accompanied by rising drug use, gang violence in many inner cities and the destruction of previously cohesive neighborhoods by gentrification and urban renewal projects that diffused black power by moving populations out of the urban center and into suburban apartment complexes. The simultaneous influx of illegal drugs – as well as the continuing unavailability of stable sources of income – into these uprooted communities contributed heavily to the continuing dismantling of black political power. But what the Powers-That-Be did not take into account was the expansion of Hip Hop’s influence out of the black community and into the white community and from there, into the rest of the world. Even though the possibility of this happening was evident from its earliest beginnings – as exemplified by its multi-ethnic composition in the early to mid-80s as it spread like wildfire across America – the change in the focus of Hip Hop from a black consciousness to a gangsta/thug mentality that glorified the patriarchy and material accumulation appealed to the children of the suburbs, the children of affluence, the white children of th establishment. Their rebellion against their parents and dedicated economic commitment to Hip Hop raised the art form to national and international prominence, if not in spite of, then because of the negative direction the Industry chose to force the music into.

As Hip Hop has evolved within the crucible of a planet in the throes of change, it has come to represent a shifting of consciousness, being the musical form best suited for political and social challenges. Its hard, eviscerating beats, biting and rough dictions and choruses, are theperfect backdrop to a world on the cusp of transformational change. While mainstream Rap still possesses that material edge that glorifies bling, the dollar bill and the objectification of women as sexual objects, underground Hip Hop culture remains conscious and concerned with the plight of the underclass the world across. With the spread of Internet access across the planet, that underclass has realized that they hold common cause with each other, no matter their country or origin or color. A global political consciousness is a precursor to a global spiritual consciousness as people become aware that politics is only the outermost layer of an affliction that goes much deeper. The speculative aspects of the Afro-future arise in this space created by infinite potentiality as artists meld their conceptions of the present with ideas about what could be, in a perfect world. The addition of both New Age and Afrocentric spiritual ideals, as well as the culmination of the Age – centered around the 2012 fulcrum – combine to create a discourse ofextraordinary exceptionalism that surpasses nation-hood and represents an elevated sense of connection, of oneness, of common cause.

There is a revolution of the spirit as well as the body that is overcoming the dictates of materiality, of modernism and the consumer culture. While there are many causative factors that have contributed to this awakening, the impact of African-related innovations and movements in the West have been strongly felt. From the Haitian revolution and the victories of Touissant L’Ouverture, to Nat Turner, the Civil War and the Civil Rights movement, there is a connection. From Jazz to Country to New Age genres, there is a connection. From Fats Domino, Little Richard and other African-Americans impact upon the evolution of Rock and Roll to the evolution of electronic and computer-based music and art forms, there is a connection. This connection is the expression of the Souls of Black Folk, the visceral nature of their interactions with the world, the spirit-filled mass consciousness that resists all attempts at suppression, repression and genocide. It is, in microcosm, representative of the human spirit in macrocosm, it is what happens when a group of people is put upon for centuries at a timeand their desire for utter freedom grows beyond the capacity of any seeking control over them to contain. It is when expression becomes mandatory, where not even death is threat enough to maintain silence, that the extraordinary becomes mundane and wonder fills the world to overflowing on a daily basis.

Of course,  the formulation of the present moment is a collective endeavor that all streams of humanity have contributed to, that, in fact, every person who has ever lived has, in their own way, helped to create. Consciousness is a condition of awareness and each individual becomes aware of the realities outside of his or her own chosen spotlight for different reasons. But it cannot be denied that the world as it is today is the result of vast inequalities that have been fomented over generations. Inequalities that have resulted in the deaths of untold millions, the servitude of untold millions more and the domination of the world by a small, inbred and greedy elite. The atrocities that have come to predominate the historical record of these latter centuries of the Age of Pisces perhaps have no equal in the known history of humanity upon this planet. The world as it is today, with all of its pain, heartache and vast inequalities, is also a beautiful place, where the seeds of Africans brought to the Americas, mixed with the Aboriginals and Enslavers both, have broken ground, tilling the field of hearts the world across, as what has been done becomes clear and the ramifications of karmic repayment attend that clarification. Hip Hop and the Afro-future stand intertwined in the Present as an indicator of Past and Future, one indistinguishable from the other according to the infinite realm of probability that leaves conceptualization boundless and free to be, to become whatever we wish it to be. This is the legacy of our ancestors, and that which we leave to our posterity in our turn. The gift of life and love despite pain and heartache, and of expression ,without apology, of who we are, were and will be, far beyond what those who think they control reality could ever conceive of.