Hey, we are in the home stretch as it relates to this kickstarter campaign.
We really need your help to push this thing to a level where Kickstarter can put it on the front page.
Right now we are 17 percent funded and need to be over 20 perceent for the kickstarter community to really start seriously looking at us.
To give your help go to http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1854358647/the-imaginos-plus-comic-book-sampler
I know they are coming. I can hear them, a sound, something in the background, like the winter wind, blowing outside the window of my mind. Their constant whispers, their incessant scheming, their plans to make me stay with them. They keep telling me how no one will believe in my gift; they never have before. But the ghosts are whispering today about Forest Hills, a sanitarium that claims to understand people like me who suffer from my condition. They assure me, Forest Hills cannot help me, but if I just talk to them, I will feel better. They tell me I need them, and they need me.
The doctor on the phone tells me I need to come down to Forest Hills Sanitarium, one of the oldest and most respected facilities of its kind in Salem, Massachusetts. Founded by Malcolm Forest, he explains, it’s across from the Hillcrest cemetery, a beautiful view the patients found restful. The presence of the cemetary quells those who might wish to mock or otherwise speak ill of the residents. He tells me there is something about Hillcrest that keeps people civil. He says he doesn’t truly understand it but the effect has been a balm to everyone who lives there. I’ve had my own experience with the place already, but his words were…comforting. Something I knew too little of in my exile.
The ghosts flicker in and out of sight as I pack my bags. My room at the hotel has been my home for over eight years, or was it ten, since my wife and child…
I need my laudinum. Where is it? Just a spoonful or two should be enough; I find a seat for a moment and the chatter of spirits fades.
Yes, he assures me they would be able to help. They have a full time staff, some of the best clinicians available. He bragged about a new technique called “electrical therapy” which had been enjoying great success with many of their more severe patients. He lets me know I probably won’t be one of those. I am relieved. Even now electricity strikes me as a bit dangerous. It hasn’t stopped them from lighting the streets or some peoples homes with it. I have at least one ghost, Harold, who claims to have died by its light-giving hand.
There he is now. He is timely and arrives around three o’clock every day, waxing on about how wonderful electricity is and how it will be everywhere one day, mark his words, people will use electricity for everything, light, heat, moving things and machines of complexities imaginable.
He probably died from all of the crazy prognosticating he was did, rather than paying attention to his job. Harold looks up from his ranting about electricity and stares right at me. He seems different today. Then I remember, it’s the anniversary of his death. He looks at me and his eyes pierce my soul. He reaches out and touches my chest. In my haze I just sit there as his icy hand reaches out and I feel the strange tingle starting at my chest and filling my limbs. Surely it’s just the laudinum numbing me.
He floats closer to me and I can see the street behind him as if I was there, then a traffic accident behind him, I see a cable fall and land on his shoulder. His hand is grabs me, reaching into my chest, over my heart and then he screams, a sound which fills me with dread. Then I feel the surge, the electricity in my body, my heart flutters; I scream in unison until I fall to the ground unconscious, smoking.
When I wake it’s quiet. Harold is gone. And so are the others, they probably grew weary of waiting for me to awaken. For a time I knew no sleep, now the periods of sleep have grown longer and deeper, some say it’s the laudinum, but I cannot, no, I will not stop its use, no matter how terrible it may make me feel, for it is only with it, do I, for a time, have peace. This moment feels different, I feel larger than myself, transcendent even, as if I can see something, am aware of something I did not know before. A deep breath, I feel calm and centered. I hurry while the feeling lasts.
I make the most of this silent period it by finishing the packing of my meager belongings. I have a moment of nostalgia about the place as I pack up my writing, paper, quills and ink. I have until a few years ago sold a few penny dreadfuls to supplement my living working at the Salem Register, a daily paper whose readership has grown both in popularity and scope during my time there.
Mr. Arthur Penrose, my employer has been very generous with his help and I am indebted to his kindness. He aided me at my lowest point. I wish I could talk to him now, but I know if I don’t hurry, when they return I shall lose my will to head to Forest Hills and instead slip into madness. Forgive me Arthur, when I am well, I shall return to help you as you have helped me.
My secret passion of writing, and Arthur’s printing at night, of my penny dreadfuls has allowed me to amass the funds I will be using to stay at the sanitarium. The residents of Salem may have a history of hunting witches, but they also seem to have a penchant for reading about them too. My latest work, Flying Potionwas a wildly successful, if hidden pleasure partaken of by many of the locals who outwardly decry my work while secretly buying it.
I close the door behind me, leaving a letter for my landlady; of all the people in my life, she will be missed the least. Surly, short-tempered, ill-mannered but fortunate enough to have her rich husband die and leave her this hotel. Rumors abound regarding his death; only I know the truth and he tells me over and over how she poisoned his absinthe, his secret sin, with the petals of flowers most dire, the flavor was masked by the absinthe and covered her evil deed.
Even he only discovered this after his death, when he refused to leave his home to journey to the great beyond. His hatred of her transcended life and death. Even in death he could not be free of her. Mayhaps there is love in that hate as well. Few emotions stir such contrary feelings.
He haunts her and I, her for his death, me for being able to hear him as he bemoans his fate. He stands just outside her door. I can see him, waiting for her to leave for the evening repast. I shall not miss either of them.
His awareness focused on her, he does not see me leave, placing the last rent I shall ever pay in a tray by the door along with a key worn smooth with my use. I am free; my last obligations made or ignored.
The streets were hard cobbles, and I could hear the sounds of perambulators and horses in equal measure. The evening was brisk, cold, unpleasant. It matched my mood perfectly. I kept a quick pace, reminding me of my days in the military, so long ago when I was young; idealistically believing I could change the world.
I think my cynicism had finally caught up to me, just like getting older did. A little at a time, in a creeping fashion, challenging me, relieving me of my youth, my hopes and in great and terrible moments, my dreams of love, of family, of self. I was a shadow of that boy, so bold, so fearless. I huddled in my long coat, my lanky body made lean by hunger, by fear, by a lack of interest in life. They found me again. Maybe because I was already so close to being dead.
* * *
I saw them mingling with the living. Lovers walking arm in arm. A macabre dance, one dead, one living, both subsisting on the memories of their lives together, whispering about what they planned to do with their futuresr. I brought my sleeve to my mouth as I passed them in the street. I stifiled a gasp as they both looked at me, almost knowing that I intruded into their private moment. I sucked in the cold evening air and rushed past them. They forgot me momentarily, returned to their conversation. The living shook their heads, the dead equally disapproved of the display.
Police chased criminals into traffic, bakers plied their craft, aromatic whispers of delicious confections wafted through the streets, turning heads living and deceased, both hungry for the moments the bread retrieved from their broken hearts and broken lives.
A shadow swept through the streets, overlooking everyone. The living shudder, not sure of what they felt. The dead stopped moving, dropped and cowered until it passed. The Consumption; the spectre of Death in our times. The spectre paused — kissed two passersby on the lips gently, each heading in a different direction. Both stopped to meet a group and the spectre became two shadows that fell upon each group.
When the spectre left, all of their shadows left with him. All save one. A hearty fellow, strong and fit, he was the only one who cast a shadow in the evening light. No one noticed except me. The spectre passed me and put his finger to his lips, shushing me before moving away through the crowd. I would have been speechless in any event.
What would I tell them? You are all doomed? The spectre of Death has stolen your lives whilst you caroused and made merry? I think not. If I weren’t already on my way to a sanitarium they would certainly be trying to carry me there, apace.
Fear of consumption still swept the city after several recent outbreaks. The slightest cough brought hooded looks as eyes turned toward the offender. Everyone lost someone during the last two years. Their agonies, families wailing as loved one died and children were lost haunted my days and their deaths railing against the unfairness of it all, my nights.
As I approached the edge of town, black crows laughed at me as I turned up the road toward Forest Hills. I had always know it to be there, and remembered as a child, sneaking to see it and the people who would be taken here. My friends and I saw these unfortunates, sometimes raving mad, screaming at the top of their lungs, other times quietly drooling in the care of a physician. We noted when we got close, it was hard to tell the caretakers from the cared for, as the glint of madness seemed just as bright in all their eyes.
As we got older, we stopped coming. It was the cemetary. Right next door to the sanitarium, its eerie graves grew to be a much more terrifying place as we learned about the restless dead; tales told to us by our friends and families of children who went missing if they tarried too long there after dark. And as some of our family members found themselves as residents of Hillcrest cemetary, we considered the place less and less a refuge from our parents and guardians. But Forest Hills maintained its mystique as a place of damaged people and the madmen who cared for them.
I would make one more trip there as a young man before vowing to never come back. I took my wife there after the death of our daughter. I watched her die at the age of six, a shadow of herself. Her mother, my dearest Diedra could not, would not leave her side for days at a time. I sat with her when I could take her mother to her bed. Our daughter, Martha was a child we had not expected to be able to have. Diedra had been barren for the first ten years of our marriage. We were deeply in love and our inability to have children sat poorly with us even as we struggled to maintain our relationship during those early years.
And then, a miracle, she was with child; I never saw her more happy, more radiant. The magic of being with child always seemed an exaggeration to me, hyperbole spoken by women to keep them cheerful during the hardships of childbirth, but Diedra truly was alive, more so than she had ever been in all the time I knew her. I cherish those days knowing what was to follow.
Martha was born on time and Diedra was inseparable from the child. She doted on her and for most of Martha’s childhood, no one could have ever said a child was better loved. But one night, that same night, Diedra and Martha returned from the market. They went together and when they came back to the house, they had a stranger with them. They did not see him. I was not even sure I saw him. As he came in with them, he shushed me, his finger to his lips and I was dumbstruck, unable to speak.
They talked about the market, her birdly chirping in syncopation with her mother’s musical voice, he stood in the corner of the house watching with glittering eyes; a stare hungry with anticipation. I closed my eyes for a moment and when I reopened them, he was gone. Only his chill remained. That night Martha developed a cough we at first thought was just a summer cold and that it would be gone as swiftly as it came. But that wasn’t true. That same cough came to many of my neighbors soon after.
After a time, no one left home, many because they couldn’t, the rest didn’t dare. We huddled in the dark waiting and hoping to not hear another wail in the distance. Sometimes a day or even two would pass. No matter their distance I could hear the dying passing into that final night. I woke from dreams, dripping sweat and going to my daughter’s room to see my wife sitting with her.
He came for her nearly six months later. She appeared to get better briefly and could talk but never maintained any strength. We could see it was only a matter of time. Every second was precious. During those final days, the two of them were bound together and for a moment I could see them in a way I had never before. They were truly one single being stretched between two lives. Martha lived because Diedra had willed her into existence.
When Martha died He was at my door. The same strange man, in a black suit this time and a long overcoat and hat. He knocked politely. I knew who it was before he knocked. His footfalls echoed along the street and he made several stops before he came to our house. I heard the cries of fathers mourning their sons and mothers their daughters. Children collectively screamed for parents who would never answer their calls. He was dutiful and spared no one. Nor listened to any impassioned pleas. I lived on the last house on the street. I counted his steps. They resounded like thunder in my head. I answered the door.
Diedra came to my daughter’s door. Martha had slipped back into a fever and was hot and sweating. Her coughing released blood and the gurgling in her chest returned this time worst than ever. Her agony was apparent. Diedra looked as if she would bar his way.
He took off his hat and coat and helped Diedra to a chair. The look in her face spoke of her resignation. He touched her head and went into Martha’s room. I followed.
A terrible cough racked her, she sat up in bed, heaving and blood flew everywhere. He never appeared to rush and as he came to her side at the bed he eased his hand behind her back and propped her up. As soon as he touched her, her coughing stopped and her breathing eased. Her eyes opened and they were clear and bright for the first time in days. She reached out to me. I took her hand, covered in her dark blood in the candle-lit room and held her for those last seconds. He let her go and she fell back to the bed.
We walked out the door, I was covered in blood, he impeccably clean and his face composed, no emotion could be seen. Diedra released a sound, I had heard far to often in these last days. A gut wrenching sound, which brought tears unbidden to my eyes and then she slumped over from her chair. He reached out to her and I interposed myself between he and she, catching her in my arms. Her sobs were quiet things, as if all the sound she could make had already been made.
He turned to look at me and his look spoke to me. Give her to me.
Never, I replied my eyes burning with hatred of what He was and what he had done.
She will still come to me. She is broken now, his outstreched hand said.
Then I will mend her. Get out. I put my back to him
He slowly, ruefully, put his hat and coat on. As he walked out he looked back once more. A glint of emotion, for only a second shone there. He turned his collar up and strode off into the night, leaving the door open, allowing a cold, ill wind to sweep away what was left of both Martha and Diedra, that night.
Diedra neither ate, nor slept in the days after Martha’s passing. She lay in bed, barely mobile, barely conscious. She would even soil herself and I cleaned her as best I could. I made food for her, she did not eat. I talked to her. She did not speak, nor even acknowledge my presence. I would leave to work, finding her right where I left her upon my return. I would do this for nearly a year before the murmurings of the town became a hideous roar of disapproval. Living in her filth they would say, barely sane they would say, a madwoman to come murder them in their sleep they would say.
I did not dignify their rantings but I knew if she did not eat beyond the tiny morsels she took to sustain her, she would soon perish. The last night she was with me, I prepared everything she had ever loved, packed it and cleaned and dressed her. She was little more than a marionette, standing there in our house, following my voice, barely any life in her at all. I explained I would be taking her to Forest Hills. I told her it was best for her. They would be able to care for her, feed her, keep her clean all day long. This was what I had been told and I believed them. That morning we shuffled our way up the hill, surrounding by a spring morning after a long and harsh winter. I hoped this would soothe her somehow but she could not see it.
They took her in, the place was drab, but clean. The other clients were well cared for and while there was the occasional shout, no one seemed ill treated, as I had heard in gossip from many of the townsfolk. I would come to see her on occasion but she seemed not to know me any more than the staff who tended her and after two years, I vowed never to see her or this place again. As I walked from the sanitarium, I looked into the cemetary and for the first time noticed the sounds coming from it. I had always heard them but only recently realized where they were coming from.
That day and every day after it for fifteen years has been a living hell.
The dead spoke to me now all the time, telling me of their troubles, of the inlaws, of their displeasure with how they were buried, or what they would have done better if they had lived, or about the spectre and his black suit, and what they would do if they every had the chance to confront him. This constant chatter drove me slowly mad. I tried ignoring it, I tried talking with them, I bargained with them, I pleaded with them. I became an addict to drown them out, using laudinum at night between leaving my job and dawn before I returned to my work.
I made my peace with them until now. Once I got to Forest Hills and their electroshock therapy, I would be free of their incessant nattering and would again know blessed silence, the silence of the grave. Yes, graves before I knew of the restless dead.
Imagine my shock when I reached the top of the incline to find Forest Hills in ruins. From the looks of it, a fire had taken place. But why hadn’t I heard of it? The remains of the building looked as if it were nearly a decade ago. But it simply couldn’t be the case. The cemetary next door also seem to have suffered from the ravages of time, overgrown, with both weeds and ivy growing over the tombstones. The evening sun was nearly setting and I could see the town from the hilltop, the blood red light colored the otherwise drab buildings of Salem.
I suddenly realized I did not hear anything. No cries, no tales of woe, nothing. I looked back at the sanitarium and it was restored to its former glory. He stood in the doorway. She was with him.
Welcome to Forest Hills. You will have plenty of work to do here, Deadspeaker. He held out his hand and his welcome was clear to me. Diedra taking both his hand and mine ushered me into the door. I saw Martha running down the corridor to me and she leapt into my arms. He closed the door behind us and I could swear I heard the sounds of a great fire somewhere in the distance. The light from the fire filled the frame of the door as he ushered us away into the darkness.
Deadspeaker © Thaddeus Howze 2012, All Rights Reserved
Howdy, crumpets, power to the people and all that jazz......it's finally Grindhouse Sundays, folks! Welcome to our double feature shows with The Comic Shoppe batting first at 6pm and Afronerd Radiobatting second at 7pm eastern standard. Pull up a cozy seat and listen to Daryll B., Captain Kirk and Dburt the Afronerd as the unpack the following comic book, fantasy, sci fi and video gaming related topics: although Daryll discussed the new Looper film last show, the Captain and Dburt finally got around to viewing it and an extended review is needed; the Prometheus DVD will be released in a few days and the Easter eggs just provide further speculation (was the Charlize Theron character transgendered?....and is there a hint of a Blade Runner connection?); more DC52 retconning (or is it "pro-conning") implications with the latest Flash regarding his origin and whether Wally West makes an appearance; and speaking of "pro-conning," the Joker returns and lastly, if time permits, the crew's thoughts about new Fall animation (Green Lantern, Ben 10 and Young Justice). Call in live at 646-915-9620.
And for the listener that prefers his "nerdic" radio to have a bit more "edge," check out Afronerd Radioairing at 7pm. Join Dburt and Captain Kirk as they shed light on the following issues: author/journalist and now Afronerd contributor, Norman Kelley stops by to assist with our impression of last week's presidential debates; is the Black community abandoning President Obama? and Dburt has some anecdotal musings on the origins of the Pan-African flag. Check us out and Don't be scared!
It's a shame we're discussing the "controversy" about evolution, question whether the earth is over four billion years old or six thousand years old. Meanwhile, "back at the ranch" of global competition, countries we helped build up with the Marshall Plan post WWII have no such delusional machinations. They march forward in STEM careers, creating more scientists and engineers than our own universities as we put our heads in ostrich sands; our minds in reverse back to God-knows-where, but I bet where we land won't have a middle class or America as fabled "shining city on a hill." I'm a year younger than you, and I can recall getting more on evolution and sex education during the late seventies than my twenty and thirty year old sons. Science is no threat to religious faith, and any reality created, virtual or imagined, cannot govern.
Related link: William Rivers Pitt - A Nationally-Televised Presidential Fail
The Viscera battle seemed endless in San Francisco. I hear it’s just as bad or worse in other parts of the country, the world for that matter. The Pack even had to blow the Golden Gate Bridge to help control the Viscera infestation, keep them across the bay. But they have boats and air vehicles. Between the military and guerrilla groups like ours “The Pack of Wolves”, commonly referred to as “The Pack”, we keep them under control, so far.
We are down to Ham Radio communication. There are no broadcasts anymore, no television or radio. But people still tried to maintain and hold on to as much of whatever normal is as possible. Even though one dead Viscera brought two more it seems. The dead walkers would bite someone or scratch someone and they’d become Viscera. The good thing is we are clearing out the dead walkers in the city or as Sarang calls them, Spliftan Nanites. We just call them all V Heads. We just have the Viscera for the most part now. There is a big difference between the Dead Walkers and what we now classify as V Heads. We figured out that the Dead Walkers were basically designed to breed by bitting humans or the scratch. The nanites get in the blood stream and you become one, if you aren’t eaten. And from my experience are as dumb as dirt. But they are the catalyst for something worse. The second generation V heads were born to kill. They’re smart. They’re like fighting vampires or zombies with intellect. They feed on the warm flesh of humans. Their thing is the appetite for human intestines. I don’t know why that is, that particular part of the body. But they seem to wash that down with spinal fluid and treat our blood like it’s gravy.
They have their clans. The biggest clan in the city was lead by a man named Mokatari, Doctor Jiles Mokatari Ph.d. He was a college professor from Africa, Ghana I think. He taught at the University of San Francisco. Mokatari is a very smart and industrious V head. He has them organized. That’s why he has the biggest clan. Mokatari is King. (From the diary of Dr. Roi Sungari,MD)
Here's a video based on the 'Mortal Kombat' videogame featuring today's national politicians vying for the Presidency. Too funny to describe, see for yourself...'COUNT IT!'
http://bcove.me/o4h3y3y9
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| Credit: Physics World - Gold Nanoantennas |
Nanoantennas convert light to electrical power and vice-versa, and are essential in the design of tiny electro-optical devices. They have diverse potential applications in just about anything based on light–matter interaction, including optical sensing and signalling, microscopy, solar-power conversion and quantum cryptography.
Inspired by natural selection, evolutionary optimization algorithms work towards an ideal design rather than evaluating the performance of all possible designs. For the problem tackled by Feichtner's team, the latter would be impossible because more than 10132 antenna designs would need to be evaluated using a process that takes 20 minutes per structure. The team's goal was to find a geometry that would enhance the near-field intensity of an illuminating beam of light as much as possible, so they chose this as the "fitness parameter" that they would judge each design against. Just as in nature, the fittest patterns got the chance to pass on their characteristics to the next generation, while the weaker specimens were discarded. The highest-performing five from each batch were used to build a new generation of 20 structures via crossing techniques and mutations. The new structures were in turn pitted against one another, so the overall fitness of the designs improved generation by generation – over 100 generations – until the near-field intensity enhancement registered almost twice that of the reference antenna.
Physics World: Survival of the fittest nanoantenna
Abdul Walid found himself somewhere in Afghanistan not knowing how he got there, when he arrived or how long he’d been in the country. From the backpack he wore and the AK 47 strapped over his right shoulder, he had obviously been on a journey. Aches and pains from the rigors of that journey wrapped his body in a throbbing shawl of fatigue. He needed to rest. By the will of Allah, he desperately needed rest.
The landscape was a bleak sprawl of rugged hills as far as his eye could travel. Hills coated in every conceivable shade of gray, like everything else in this jagged, devilish corner of existence…including the people.
This backward nation was not exactly Walid’s choice of venue for doing Allah’s work. Nonetheless, his superiors assigned him here for that very purpose.
Walid plopped down on a patch of hard ground close to the summit of a hill he was negotiating. He had already walked himself ragged and for the life of him he could not remember anything recent beyond the past two minutes. It was if he had been asleep on his feet and just woke up. Of course he knew who he was and why he was in Afghanistan to begin with. He remembered every other aspect of his life. He knew his family, his friends…
Abdul awoke to darkness. A bitterly chill wind accosted him like a slap to the face. He realized he was walking and stopped. How could this be? He turned in place, squinting his eyes to adjust them to pitch-blackness. Bright stars speckled a clear night sky. On any other occasion he would have been dazzled by their radiance. Instead, he stood motionless, dumbfounded by the surrounding night, when his last cogent memory was of him resting on a hilltop during midday. I don’t understand. Abdul lowered to his knees, more tired than he was hours earlier…however many hours had passed. His lungs felt seared from his exertion, his legs heavy as blocks of concrete. He would rest just long enough to rejuvenate…drink water from the plastic bottle in his pack…snack on rations…prayer…he didn’t remember doing his evening prayer. Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t.
When in doubt.
Walid set his food aside, looking every which way to get his bearings. He needed to face East. Had he been any good at reading the stars.
Daytime. Wahid averted his eyes from a sun that suddenly appeared out of nowhere…or seemed to. He staggered sideways before balancing himself, his head swimming in disorientation. He must have blacked out again. From his labored breathing and aching feet, he concluded he had been sleepwalking, just like the previous occasions. How else could he explain the distance he covered?
He was walking on flatter terrain. A mountain range loomed before him. Abdul spotted a familiar sight, and his apprehension regarding these mysterious memory lapses gave way to calm. A small village nestled at the foot of one of those rocky peaks. He quickened his pace.
A group of children ran to greet Wahid. He recognized their eager faces and laughed and played with them as he neared the village. He walked past mud brick structures. Men in keffiyeh head wraps loitered about. Some greeted him with silent nods; others simply stared, not bothering to hide their disdain of the foreigner in their midst, even if that foreigner was Muslim.
He noticed a pair of Burkha-clad women drawing water from a well. His entourage of youngsters melted away now that the excitement of his presence had dwindled. Wahid grinned endearingly. Who could blame the little ones?
“Abdul!”
Wahid turned to the sound of that familiar voice to see an equally familiar face emerging from the nearest brick hut. A heavily bearded man in dark sunglasses, dressed in olive green military fatigues. Malik.
Happy and relieved to see a comrade, Wahid beamed a broad smile.
Malik did not reciprocate. He approached Wahid hesitantly, looking for all the world as if he was seeing a ghost. “Wahid…what are you doing here? You’re supposed to be in America. You’re supposed to be in Chicago!”
Wahid formed his mouth to speak, but could think of nothing to say. He was supposed to be in America? Well, that was certainly another major detail left out of his memory.
Malik glanced up at the sky before gripping Wahid’s elbow. “Come, let’s get to a secure location. I don’t want an American drone to spot us.”
The cave entrance was less than a forth of a mile from the village.
Wahid had been to this tucked away redoubt so many times, he almost considered it a second home. Two Afghan sentries were posted at the mouth of the cave. Two more stood guard twenty yards further in.
Wahid and Malik passed the guards in silence, following a curving halogen-illumined pathway. The cave’s natural features starkly gave way to man-made renovation.
The pair entered a large, brightly lit room replete with computers, printers, fax machines, internet routers, and a large flat screen TV suspended from the ceiling. Smaller TVs rested on desks lined along the wall. Two of the TVs showed an Al-Jazeera news station, the remaining three, BBC, Fox News, and CNN.
A map of Chicago’s downtown area covered one wall. Next to it, a photograph of the city’s tallest skyscraper, the Willis Tower. Next to the picture, were posted interior and exterior schematics of the building.
Eleven men occupied this busy space. All eleven paused with comically gape-mouthed expressions at the sight of Wahid.
Like Malik, none of these men were Afghan. Most were from the Gulf States. There were a couple of Egyptians a Pakistani, even an Indonesian. Different nationalities, all united in their commitment to Allah. All united under the banner of Jihad.
Walid’s heart stirred with pride.
Sheikh Mahmud, the leader, a PhD engineer in his mid fifties, stepped forward. “What is this?” His puzzled gray eyes darted between Malik and Walid, before settling with finality upon the latter. “Why are you here?”
“The operation was compromised,” Walid said. “Khalid and Fodio were picked up by the authorities. I barely managed to get away. I made my way to the Mexican border and slipped out of the country.” Walid’s lips seemed to move of their own accord as he recounted events he had absolutely no memory of.
“Khalid and Fodio…arrested?” Hamza, the youngest Jihadi in the group, shook his head, his face creasing with skepticism. “We heard nothing about this! It would have been on the news!”
“Unless, the Americans are keeping a lid on this, as they say,” Malik speculated.
Khalid was a white European from Germany, Fodio a northern Nigerian.
The two were specially trained to talk, walk and dress like Americans. And because they resembled typical Americans, they were less likely to fall under the type of scrutiny Middle Eastern looking men tended to encounter. The planners in this room had counted on the would-be martyrs’ ability to blend in for this operation. The group’s disappointment was palpable.
“Why would they keep this secret?” Abdullah, a master bomb maker, ridiculed. “They never hesitate to trumpet the arrests of so-called terror suspects across their media outlets!”
As the planners debated, discussed and lamented, a curious sense of detachment fell over Walid. He panned the room with a blank face, taking in every detail. Then he studied his fellow Jihadis…
On the other side of the world in a DARPA (Defense Advance Research Projects Agency) facility somewhere in Northwest Nevada, another group of men gathered in a different room, observing live feed of terrorists through the eyes of a terrorist.
Four of the men were military officers, the remaining three, civilians.
One of the civilians, Dr. Jerome Williams, sat, focused on a 32 inch monitor in front of him. Williams was a Howard University robotics professor, currently consulting for DARPA.
Facial recognition indicators buzzed each time a terrorist was featured on the screen. Every one of the men in that distant cave ranked high on more than one government most-wanted list. .
General Allen Murphy blew out an amazed whistle. “I never thought he would’ve made it that far.”
Deputy Secretary of Defense, Jeremy Skelton, turned to the general. He was new to this affair and his bewilderment showed. “Alright, how did you manage to get this man inside so easily? Infiltrating terror cells is no walk in the park. You can’t just make someone like an Abdul Walid cooperate.” He leaned closer to the monitor. “What kind of hidden camera is he wearing?”
“In this case, inducing cooperation from our subject was no problem at all,” Dr. Williams answered cheerfully. “And he’s not wearing a cam.”
Skelton grinned dubiously and looked to CIA Station Chief Thomas Perkins for elaboration. “Ok, I’m all ears.”
“Abdul Walid was arrested several weeks ago, along with two other terrorists,” Perkins explained. “Walid’s companions, a German and a Nigerian were going to blow themselves up in the Willis Tower observation deck, while Walid detonated a truck bomb at a downtown park festival. Two devastating, simultaneous attacks, typical of an al Qaeda operation.”
“Walid wasn’t going to suicide himself,” said General Murphy. His weathered features twisted in a sarcastic sneer. “Apparently he’s too valuable a planner to enter Paradise so soon.”
“Anyway,” Perkins continued. “Walid’s task was to coordinate the attack, make sure everything went according to plan. That’s why we chose him for our special project.”
Skelton’s brow crinkled. “Special project?”
“I’ll let Dr. Williams take over from here.”
Dr. Williams swiveled toward the deputy secretary. “Shortly after his arrest and subsequent interrogation, Walid was turned over to my lab. There, doctors, under my supervision, replaced a portion of his brain with a memory restrictive cybernetic implant. The implant makes Walid deeply susceptible to suggestion.”
“In other words,” Perkins cut in, “Walid is a living breathing puppet, and the good professor here pulls the strings.”
“The implant is connected to his visual cortex, allowing us to see what he sees,” Williams pointed out. “Thus eliminating the need to hide a camera on his person.”
“Skelton paled. “You mean to tell me that…you…turned a human being into some sort of zombie cyborg?”
Williams chuckled lightly. “No Mr. Deputy Secretary. I wouldn’t go that far. He does have awareness, but it’s limited to what I allot him. He knows he suffers from memory loss but can’t attribute its cause. He knows his actions are not his own but can’t pinpoint the reason. Other than those lapses, he behaves no differently from the average human.”
“And with this thing in his head…”
“Mental Interdictive Neural Determinant,” Williams interrupted with a hint of pride. “M.I.N.D. for short.”
The deputy secretary raised a brow. “Clever. With this…M.I.N.D. in his head, you’ve gotten our subject back to his cave. Now what? What’s the end game?”
Williams held up a finger and spun back to his console. He began typing on his keyboard.
“This is a disaster.” Sheikh Mahmud paced across the room, wringing his hands. A vision he cherished of the Willis Tower crowned in a blazing wreath, infidels flailing to their deaths, would yet remain unconsummated by reality.
“There are other targets,” Malik assured the cell leader. “There are always other targets. We will simply lick our wounds and God willing, move on to plan our next action.”
Walid paid no attention to the discussion around him. A compulsion he could not override moved his hand into his pocket. He pulled out an object resembling a bicycle handle grip with a red button on top.
Inwardly, Walid panicked at his action, knowing he could not arrest it no matter how hard he tried.
Hamza noticed first the detonator in Walid’s hand, then the backpack, which the latter never removed.
The bomb maker’s jaw unhinged. “Brother…what are you doing?”
A tear gleamed in the corner of Walid’s right eye, the only sign of distress on an otherwise emotionless face.
One by one the cell members spotted the detonator and their eyes widened in alarm.
Walid raise the device to chest level.
Forgive me, Brothers…his thumb unwillingly pressed the button.
Static instantly filled Dr. Williams’ screen.
Another monitor displayed real-time satellite footage of smoke boiling out of a cave in Eastern Afghanistan.
An over watch drone recorded the same event at a much lower altitude.
A blanket of grim silence settled over the room.
Dr. Williams stretched his neck and turned to the deputy secretary. “Thirteen terrorists down.”
Skelton could barely keep his eyes off the snowy screen. Unsettled, he cleared his throat. “I’m at a loss for words. A part of me is not particularly comfortable with mind control.”
“This might make you feel a little better, Mr. Deputy Secretary,” Perkins stated. “Drones have done an admirable job of killing terrorists. The downside is, too many civilians have perished in drone strikes. A M.I.N.D.-implanted subject can pinpoint targets with much greater precision and eliminate those targets with minimal to zero risk of civilian casualties. As you’ve just seen.”
Perkins’ argument seemed to have sunk in. Skelton nodded in realization. “Do you have more of these M.I.N.D. devices, Dr. Williams?”
“I have an improved version on the drawing board,” Williams gestured toward the static-filled screen “Walid just ‘tested’ the prototype. Once I iron out the kinks, I expect M.I.N.D.s to be in full production within a month. That should give you some time to line up more candidates for future operations.” The professor flicked a switch shutting down the screen.
Skelton regarded the CIA operative. “I think the president will be interested in this new technology.” A smile slowly parted his lips. “Very interested.”
I met brother N. Steven Harris in Bed Stuy several years a ago and was instantly impressed by his skills with the pencil. i bought the first two or three issues of his comic "The fringe" right away and showed them to my son. Since then the brother has been working hard, being featured in independent books such as "Black Comix" and as a penciller for Marvel. He has also shown his work at many comic cons across the East Coast. Definitely check out his work and pass it on to the next lilttle bor or girl looking for something cool to read!
-Robert Trujillo
Brother is working on a new issue of Ajala: LINK
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| This set of images compares the Link outcrop of rocks on Mars (left) with similar rocks seen on Earth (right). Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS and PSI |
“Nothing in the world is more flexible and yielding than water. Yet when it attacks the firm and the strong, none can withstand it, because they have no way to change it. So the flexible overcome the adamant, the yielding overcome the forceful. Everyone knows this, but no one can do it.”
Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching
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| Missouri S&T researchers' modeling of stacked nanoscale slot waveguides made of metamaterials shows an optical force 100 to 1,000 times greater than conventional slot waveguides made from silicon. |
R & D: Researchers demonstrate "giant" forces in super-strong nanomaterials
Way back when I was a kid, I wrote two sci-fi space operas for an ongoing homemade comic series. They were popular with the kids in my school. Too popular, because someone decided they wanted it more than I did! I hadn't written in the sci-fi genre since then because I feel it necessary to be serious about the balance between the story and tech. I didn't want to get overwhelmed by either. Well, after so long a silence on sci-fi I've worked out the bugs and present this Preview for my upcoming short-story series, 'The Pandora Ultimatum'.
THE PANDORA ULTIMATUM
By H. Wolfgang Porter
Warning klaxtons reverberated from every quarter of the Interstellar Transport. The warning is beamed directly into my Personal Heads Up Display. I smack my face hard and the display puts the warning graphic and audio feed on mute. It still flashes in the lower part of my vision but not as large or bright. The transport lurches and then I’m thrown off my feet. I compensate for the sudden twist my body makes and I avoid smashing head first into the display console. I manage to salvage the rest of the fall but come to a brutal stop against a bulkhead stanchion. My PHUD winks out for an instant as I endure the wave of feedback otherwise known as ‘pain’.
I can hear explosions rattling the transport’s decks. The Holo Display I nearly opened my cranium on comes alive with visual boxes filled with the frantic faces of crew and passengers screaming from other areas for assistance. I get to my feet and try to make contact, but the Holo image erupts in a blizzard of data corruption. I try to call up the hard light control panel, but my body’s electrical field won’t activate the matrix. In another burst of data corruption, the panel comes back online and there are dozens of viz boxes blank or filled with static.
The screams get worse and one by one the viz boxes go down. I work the control display with fingers flying in an effort to contact the Transport’s Control Section. My efforts pay off and I bring up the image of a young woman with blonde hair and yellow-green eyes. She is disheveled and bleeding from a scalp injury. I note how the trail of blood seems to split her face in half. Screaming into her display I hear, “By the Galactic Core! Help us!” Behind her, random energy discharges wreak havoc and there are screams other than hers resounding in my ears. I move in closer to the display as if it will help and yell, “Control, what is your status?”
The young woman now crying screamed, “Control Systems are off-line! We’ve lost orbital integrity!” The information causes me to blink hard as the many implications of what she relayed hit me all at once. “Can you compensate for orbital drift?” The transport lurched again, but I hang on. The woman wasn’t so lucky. She flies from view and the visual feed shows only energetic mayhem as the various displays in the Transport’s Control Center burst with catastrophic data corruption. Amidst the din mixed within the audio feed, I suddenly detect the unmistakable sound of laughter. It does not come from anyone I can see scrambling to get out of the Control Room.
To get a better look before Control’s main display goes down I voice command, “Display, pan right 90 degrees!” The display does as commanded and I see the young woman in the grip of... something. It tears at her and her Protective Body Membrane as she screams and thrashes about. I then notice her status display which pops up during what the Transport’s AI deems a medical emergency. Her name is Lori Nyo. She is 75 standard Earth years old and is a Grade 1 Modified Human with standard enhancements. Despite her modified physicality, the ‘thing’ has her pinned and shreds her PBM like ancient Kevlar. I then realize what it is doing to her and then the visual feed goes down with data corruption.
All the viz boxes are down. Hundreds of humans, androids and alien beings Med Stats all flash red with the words, ‘Off-line’. Dazed, I look about my compartment and recognize I am alone. I quickly call up the vis feed showing the Transport’s exterior. High above the ‘Super Earth’ Aipotu circling its yellow star ‘HESTIA’, I can see the warning graphic ‘Off-line’ flash ominously from the Control Center feed. Data corruption has taken down secondary and tertiary back-up systems yet, the display showing the counter rapidly rattling down kilometers until the transport breaches the atmosphere works perfectly.
As per protocol, I work to cut through the data corruption and get audio only contact with the Aipotu Planetary Net. “EPIMETHEUS Supply Co-operative Transport DROMEDARY, it is evident you have catastrophic loss of orbital controls and will descend into the atmosphere within 30 Earth Standard Minutes. Please have all personnel proceed to all functioning Particle Wave Transport Stations immediately for emergency evacuation to Aipotu.” “Aipotu Planetary Net, this is Transport DROMEDARY, we are suffering catastrophic data corruption and do not advise Emergency Particle Wave Transmission!”
The Aipotu Net is a planetary network controlled by AI. It paused for a moment running various scenarios and then the display graphic ‘EXTERIOR SCAN’ popped up. No sooner started I snapped, “Aipotu Net, we are suffering catastrophic data corruption! Do not scan this Transpor....” The audio feed shutdown and that laughter continued. I looked once more at the exterior viz display and Aipotu was looming larger. Knowing how planetary AI’s think, I dashed towards the compartment hatch. Aipotu’s Net would treat the DROMEDARY like any other harmful space debris or asteroid and use its planetary defenses to deflect or shoot the offending matter out of the sky!
Though unlikely to affect its many firewall’s and built-in defenses, Aipotu’s Net would not allow any chance of data corruption to infect its systems. Without access to Particle Wave Transmission and data corruption fouling every system aboard, the AI will choose to protect itself and the planetary population at the expense of any survivors aboard the dying Transport. Lurching harder than before, I could tell the DROMEDARY was firmly caught in Aipotu’s 1.7G gravity field and wasn’t getting out. I took a hard shot in the ribs from the edge of the compartment hatch and once more my PHUD nearly went down. I took in a sharp breath and stepped out into the passageway. My PHUD came back up and through the smoke, something big moved.
I didn’t waste time trying to figure out what it was. I raced down the passage and could hear the heavy sounds of something large and powerful coming up behind me! I had to reach the nearby cargo bay. There were a set of ancient ‘Escape Pods’ my companion the Captain kept as souvenirs. Without PW Transmission, they were my only possibility for getting off the transport before the inevitable. I slid to a stop in the cargo bay and someone slammed the manual override actuator causing the hatch to crash heavily upon the deck as it shut. Despite the growing flames in the cargo bay, I could see it was a bald human male no doubt of high grade modification who’d closed the hatch. “The Shielding System’s down!”
The man’s words yelled over the din struck almost hard as the edge of that compartment hatch. With the Shielding System down and the PWT offline as well, there was no way to evac the Transport! Even with the fully functional Escape Pods at hand, it was over. Then, a jarring thud struck the manually sealed cargo bay hatch. Again and again, something pounded at the Micro-Crotanium alloy hatch which regularly withstood the stresses of Particle Wave Transport across interstellar distances hard enough to make expanding dents!
“Shit! We gotta’ get the fuck out of here!” The man’s language was ancient and course, but absolutely correct. Yet, I had no solutions. The pounding continued and I wondered what could have possibly caused this disaster? Out of my periphery I saw something familiar lying on the debris covered deck that made me shudder. It was a Transport BOLSTERED OLLA Fortification Level X or ‘BOX’. It was open and it should not be. Not at all! I looked in the BOX and its containment field was offline and whatever had been held within was gone. I looked about the cargo bay and through the spreading wall of flames I saw copious amounts of blood and androidal functional fluids. There were also torn bodies strewn about.
I recognized at that moment, a Transport BOX that should not have been opened had been and now a lone crewman and me were all that were left as something horrible fought to make its way into the cargo bay. The Transport DROMEDARY was hurtling towards a fiery crash planetside and in moments Aipotu’s AI would turn its planetary defenses upon us. Two perfectly good Escape Pods sat prepped and ready, but there was no way to get off the Transport. Worst of all, everything that was happening had been my fault. My designation is PAnd0RA 001 and this is my story....
© 2012 H. Wolfgang Porter. All Rights Reserved.
Welcome to Ljubljana, Slovenia!
Being a cultural astronomer and member of SEAC has taken me to places in Europe I have never imagined. Slovenia was part of Yugoslavia until 1992. Ljubljana is the capital of Slovenia. It has a river running through it and a castle above it. This time of year there is outdoor dining along the river and last night there was a live performance in the square.
Today was the first day of meetings for the conference. Nick Campion situated the current 2012 phenomena within the apocalyptic tradition that is centuries old. He revealed that certain doomsayers are predicting this to be a spiritual shift rather than a physical one, thus ensuring that when nothing happens...something happens...if you feel it. If you don't feel it, too bad for you! Michael Rappenglück, the current SEAC president, and Barbara Rappenglück, gave lectures on research methods when studying ancient cave art, myths, and folklore. Many novice researcher are guilty of finding astronomy in every alignment, over-interpreting sparse data, and improper sampling. Vito Palcaro reminded us of "Hamlet's Mill" which hypothesized that all of the worlds religions were created to explain the precession of the equinox and other celestial events - a problem with sampling and over-interpretation. The afternoon was about alignments: how to determine an axis to measure, how to determine the significance of measurements, and finally how to interpret the data. Fernando Pimenta and Cesar Gonzalez-Garcia presented nuanced details of how to do alignments without bias and managing error. We were treated to folk music to round out a pleasant day.
Tomorrow the topic shifts from best practices to case studies in Europe mainly focused on alignments: archaeoastronomy.
Picture: The Square as seen over the triple bridge.
Picture: Dessert!
NASA: Mars Science Laboratory Science Channel: Mars Landing 2012: The New Search for Life; i.am.mars
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| About.com - humor |
Suc-u-Babe (top) and Dark Spider (Bottom)
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| The GRAIL mission so far has found little evidence for some hypothetical ancient impact basins. NASA/JPL-Caltech/MIT |
This is one serious straight out of Sci-fi display setup. Unfortunately, it's one of a kind and you'll have to go to Seoul Korea to see it....
Poughkeepsie Journal: “Any way you dissect it, from a moral or religious standpoint, those protesters broke our commandments,” said Umar Ahmad, a longtime member of the Mid-Hudson Islamic Association located in the Town of Wappinger. “What happened in Libya is unforgivable.”
I am not a Muslim. I do have Muslim members of my family, as well as agnostic, Jehovah's Witness, nondenominational, etc. We respect one another. Proselytizing one another has never occurred in any conversations I've had with them. What counts most is the relationship; the familial bond.
I reject the notion any culture's sacred text - Buddhist, Christian, Hebrew, Hindu, Mormon, Muslim et al - is somehow in some bigoted comparison, worthy of desecration. I reject the notion of demonizing Agnostics or Atheists. I reject - as does the US Constitution - the idea of religious tests as a qualifier for elected office (though news pundits seem to count how many times the president uses the word "God" - and he does quite often - as if this is relevant). I reject the notion that an amateurish video of moribund, racist stereotypes falls under "free speech" and "our American values," unless those values now typify the classroom bully; the boot of empire stamped on the neck of the world. Freedom of speech does not give one the right to yell firein a building not ablaze!
I am as diminished by the loss of diplomats abroad as I am military service members deployed, as I am the senseless loss of life in inner cities across the United States.
Simple, elegant, sober, reflective and quite presidential.
It is in times of triumph and tragedy our leaders are called upon to quell our fears; raise our hopes. Personal vendettas and assaults are the mark of petty minds, I am particularly diminished by candidates that would take death so lightly as to score political points.
Isaiah 11:6 ends: ...and a little child shall lead them.I end with this photo from Facebook, the future meek that will "inherit the earth." I wish mom could see it. I think it would make her smile, and speaks more volumes than the cleverest self-serving sound bite:
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Happy birthday, mom.
