When you start to write your manuscript, make it easy for the formatter. Start off by changing your paragraph format (see picture) so your indents are automatically set at 0.50. No tabs, no 5 spaces to indent.
Also, no spaces between paragraphs, it's one or the other. Indented paragraphs OR block paragraphs with a space between. Not both.
Trust me, your formatter will bless you for this.
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| The future: Using simple glass fibres, a world wide web of quantum information can be created. Credit: TU Wien |
Phys.org: Glass fiber that brings light to a standstill
Tomorrow: Appomattox
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| The Rindler-wedge reconstruction - Source: Quantum Frontiers |
Topics: Condensed Matter Physics, Geodesic, High Energy Physics, Quantum Gravity, Quantum Information, Quantum Mechanics
Quantum Frontiers: Quantum gravity from quantum error-correcting codes? Dr. Beni Yoshida
Topics: Alien Life, Existentialism, NASA, SETI, Space, Space Exploration
Mobile Dock had to do more than power up for Leap. The process was painfully slow, consuming up to twenty hours. Dock techs also had to insure that the thousands of ships attached to its rings were stabilized for transit. A Mobile Dock was large enough to generate its own gravity field. Maintaining a balance between containment shield energy and gravitational forces was a delicate mental dance for intensely focused techs.
Draper knew this well. He…his host…served a stint as a Dock tech before transferring to Fleet duty. He knew every nook and cranny of a Dock even without consulting the schematic before him.
He was in his quarters. At this hour, those who shared his duty shift would have been slumbering in their rest pods. Draper was spent in the wake of the Ceremony celebration, but he had no intention of resting. Tens of thousands of crewmembers from docked vessels circulated inside Mobile Dock, enjoying its various amenities. Many off duty Horuk crewmembers were also inside the superstructure. It was time he joined them. He shut down his interface and the schematic vanished.
Before he turned away, a compulsion froze him. He reactivated his interface and brought up an image of his mate, the mother of his soon-to-be-offspring. His human side regarded the image unmoved, before a tide of fondness and affection washed away that disinterest. My beloved.
Draper reached to terminate the interface.
I am not done! The voice protested.
Draper shut down the interface for the final time, but felt a sharp pang of longing in doing so. “I am.” He rushed out of his quarters.
***
Mobile Dock’s interior consisted of an outer area of multiple public levels surrounding a core restricted to Staff. Draper walked along a wide thoroughfare bustling with ship crews and Dock personnel in bright green uniforms. The milieu was both familiar and spectacular. He tried to reference something human-built to compare with the Dock’s size, but fell pitifully short. Humans had fanned out across the Solar System, establishing full-blown colonies on Mars and Titan. A Mobile Dock dwarfed both colonies. How could we have ever prevailed over a force commanding such marvels of engineering? He pondered dismally.
The voice intruded: Yes. How could you? And what makes you think this folly of a mission you’re determined to carry out will succeed?
Draper came to a door that he knew led to Dock operations. He cleared his mind of all non-tangential thoughts, idled by the door for a few moments, and when he was certain no one was watching him, tapped a code on the door panel. The door hissed open and he slipped inside.
Draper hurried down a long, sterile corridor as the door shut behind him. At the end of the corridor he stopped at an elevator, summoned it, and boarded. A non-Staffer should not have been able to enter restricted parts of the Dock. But Draper, relying on his host’s memory and technical skills, had accessed…or hacked…the Dock’s primary computer, acquiring the access codes he needed.
“Low Point,” Draper ordered. Immediately, the elevator began a rapid descent on a six hundred-mile journey toward the Dock’s core. Five minutes later, the elevator halted, its door opening, revealing a maze of machinery.
From a human perspective, Low Point was a cluttered mess of churning, convoluted parts. Yet, his host knew every piece of hardware and how it operated and interrelated with the other.
Draper knew where he had to go and proceeded in that direction. He encountered a pair of green uniformed Staffers along the way.
They paused more curious than concerned about the presence of a non-authorized person at Low Point. Heritins were generally trusting of each other.
One of the Staffers started to query Draper on his identity. He barely finished the question. Draper produced a carbon-bladed stiletto from his right sleeve and slashed in precise, crisscrossing motions. He knew where and how to administer mortal wounds on a Heritin. When he was done, his victim crumpled to the floor, his neck and upper chest drenched in a copious flow of gold-tinted blood.
Draper turned his attention on the second Staffer, but hesitated.
The Staffer stared at Draper in shock and backed away.
Don’t kill him. He is Heritin. Like you.
“No!” Draper lunged at the Staffer, digging the stiletto deep into the other’s flesh in repeated, rage-driven strokes. “Not like me!”
Breathing heavily, Draper plopped down next to the Staffer’s body. “My name is Darryl Draper. I was born on Earth, Chicago, South Side. I…am human. I am human.”
With that said he rose slowly to his feet and ventured to the section housing the reactor. A minute later, he entered a massive room occupied by glimmering red dome, spanning a dozen football fields. A heavy vibration-producing hum issued from the dome.
Draper approached the behemoth, taking out a small disk-shaped object hidden in his tunic. This was what he came for. Draper fought through a relentless onslaught of guilt and second thoughts to reach this point. Now all he had to do was act.
Assault-Class Cruiser Horuk emerged from Leap Space, joining ten thousand other battle ships. A massive oval shaped construct loomed before the Horuk, painting the cruiser with its enormous shadow. Its hull was silvery and covered with protruding docking rings. The size of a small moon, Mobile Dock was the largest class of space going vessel in Heritin space…in the known universe for that matter.
Draper stared at an image of Mobile Dock on his central interface. Despite the dread rushing through him at its frightful immensity, the Caretaker could not help but to marvel at the sight of it. “Incredible.”
Sensor Specialist Luteri, occupying a slot to Draper’s right, snorted a puzzled grin. “What is so incredible about a mobile dock?”
Draper quickly remembered where he was and acted accordingly. Mobile Docks were as mundane to a Heritin as an aircraft carrier would have been to a human prior to the invasion. “I think we tend to take our technological prowess for granted.” Draper gave his colleague an earnest look. “Periodically, we should all pause to admire the fruits of Heritin ingenuity. Don’t you?”
Luteri’s amusement deepened. “What has gotten into you? You’re normally the cynical one.”
Draper began fumbling for an answer…
“Never mind,” Luteri interrupted. “Meet us in the lounge when your duty shift ends. We’re having the ceremony.”
It was Draper’s turn to be puzzled. “Ceremony?”
“You must be working too hard,” Luteri teased. “The ceremony for the arrival of your offspring.”
Draper remembered. His host was to be a father…or what the Heritin called a progenitor.
“Have you spoken to her?” Luteri asked.
Draper rightly assumed the other referred to his mate. “No…not yet.”
“You are working too hard,” said Luteri. “Contact her before she starts thinking that a savage human gutted you.” The sensor specialist laughed as Draper looked on, struggling to keep his expression neutral.
***
Heritin battle ships connected to the numerous rings of Mobile Dock. Each docking took an hour to complete due to clamping and lengthy depressurizations. As the final ship to arrive from the Human Campaign, the Horuk docked last.
When all Heritin ships were securely linked, Mobile Dock began powering up for entry into Leap Space.
***
Draper sat in the ship’s lounge as his fellow crewmates downed cups of dunel juice in his honor. The Ship Captain stopped in for a few moments, offered his congratulations to the Engine Caretaker and departed.
“You look like you’re at a memorial instead of a celebration,” said Guidance Specialist Grinta.
Luteri refilled his cup at the dispenser. “A birth is as much a solemn occasion as it is festive. The creation and sustenance of a new line is a great responsibility.”
“And a great burden!” A crewmember shouted to the accompaniment of laughter.
“Sorry,” said Draper. “I have been distracted. I was thinking about the humans.” You would sully this grand occasion with mention of that debased species?
Draper ignored the voice.
“It was a great victory,” said Luteri.
“A laughably easy victory,” Grinta added haughtily. “One of little consequence compared to the victory that we will achieve against the Wendak.”
“Nevertheless, we still lost soldiers,” Luteri reminded.
Grinta held up his cup. “Then let us drink to honor the fallen.”
Draper held up his cup even as part of him quailed against the gesture. In seconds, his inner turmoil was forgotten and he settled in to a comfortable period of merriment and camaraderie. My companions. My fellow Heritins…
for more info follow the link:
http://www.seereal.com/en/holography/holography_technology.php
Things for the Legend of the Mantamaji series are really picking up steam in this Spring with the series scoring some tough wins for an independently published series.
TV director Eric Dean Seaton's three book graphic novel series tells the story of a conceited, selfish NYC District Attorney who learns he's part of an ancient race of Nubian warriors sworn to protect humanity from evil. The bedtime stories his mother read to him are actually the history of his people that date back 3,000 years. When an ancient evil has awakens -- in the form of a new age preacher -- Elijah must decide whether to turn his back on his career and his quest for power or turn his back on the world.
The multicultural cast, strong writing, break neck plot twists and brilliant art has captured the attention of readers and the Glyph Comic Awards committee. Earlier this month Seaton announced the extension of his nationwide book tour to 13 cities taking him to some of the most popular comic book and pop culture conventions:
Wonder Con in Anaheim, California (April 3-5)
Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo [C2E2] (April 24-26)
East Coast Black Age of Comics Convention Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (May 15 - 16)
Puerto Rico ComicCon (May 21 - 24)
Heroes Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina (June 19-21)
Comic Con San Diego (July 7 - 12)
OnyxCon, Atlanta, Georgia (August 15 - 16)
Wizard World Chicago (August 20 - 23)
Fan Expo Canada in Toronto, Canada (September 3 - 6)
Long Beach Comic Con in Long Beach, California (September 12-13)
Wizard World Columbus in Columbus, Ohio (September 18 - 20)
New York Comic Con (October 8-11)
"The series has been so well received that we have been able to add more cities," Seaton said. "This entire process has been a dream come true and my favorite part is meeting and interacting with fans."
In addition to the book tour this month's reveal of the 2015 Glyph Comics Awards nominees saw Legend of the Mantamaji and Seaton nominated for a Rising Star Glyph Award.
"The nomination came on my daughter Legend's first birthday, which seems just perfect," Seaton said. "I am truly honored to be nominated and that people are so supportive of the series. I set out to write a great story first and to make characters that reflect the world around me - multicultural, with strong male and female characters who have depth to their personal stories. It took six years to build the Mantamaji world, working at night after being on set during the day. It was a real team effort and we're still having so much fun, we're already well into the next book. There's so much talent out there, and those nominated represent a very small sample of the great work being published."
To celebrate the Glyph nomination, Seaton is giving the first 100 readers to respond a free autographed Legend of the Mantamaji mini poster.
Later this spring Seaton will also release the Legend of the Mantamaji Live Action Short to support the graphic novel series. Seaton has been teasing readers with behind the scenes photos and clips through social media and promises there is much more to come.
"The short is eight minutes long and is pure action," Seaton said."We also shot a behind the scenes short to give more of a background on what it really takes to go from a 2-D graphic novel to live action. It wasn't easy, but it was a lot of fun."
Do you remember those plastic slide puzzles you used to get in party bags? They were made up of a three by three grid with eight tiles and a blank square – the missing tile allowing you to move the others around.
This nine-grid puzzle was the central image behind the story of Mark Haddon’s The Red House – although, bizarrely, he didn’t know it when he wrote the book.
“I was being interviewed by Claire Armitstead at the Edinburgh Books Festival when she said that when she read the book she kept thinking about those tile puzzles,” wrote Haddon on his blog after the interview.
“I felt a lurch, because before writing The Red House I’d given up on a novel called The Missing Square, the central image of which was one of those tile puzzles, and whose organising conceit was that certain absences may make a world imperfect, but they enable that world to change and generate new meanings. I suddenly realised this image had remained a model for the central structure of The Red House, which is a story about the eight remaining members of a family and a ninth member – a stillborn daughter – who is still having a profound effect on the family despite, or because of, her absence.”
This hidden structure enabled Haddon to plot and plan his novel around a central theme without even realising it. Unusual, but perhaps not unheard of, this got me thinking: how many other novelists have plotted their books subconsciously?
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| What Mars might look like after centuries of terraformation. Image: NASA/ZME Science |
Topics: Anthropogenic Climate Disruption, Cosmic Connection, Earth, Ecology, Space Exploration, Terraforming
Physics arXiv: Synthetic circuit designs for Earth terraformation
Ricard Solé, Salva Duran-Nebreda, Raul Montañez
Space.com:
Shell-Worlds: How Humanity Could Terraform Small Planets (Infographic), Karl Tate
Above is a character named BAHATI™ from my franchise THE ADIGUN OGUNSANWO™. This character happens to be a Holographic Game character who came to life. Below starts to document the beginning of this tech in the REAL WORLD.
check out more
http://techcrunch.com/tag/hololens/
EchoPixel Medical Education Viewer from EchoPixel, Inc. on Vimeo.
Practicle uses of Holographic Technology. Check it out at:
http://www.wired.com/2015/04/holograms-will-let-doctors-see-3-d-views-insides/?mbid=social_fb
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| AltspaceVR users can do things like play chess on a virtual chessboard, shown here in a virtual outdoor garden. Image Source: Technology Review |
Topics: Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Virtual Reality, STEM
Technology Review: A Startup’s Plans for a New Social Reality, Rachel Metz
Finally I got a chance to watch After Earth. I have always been a fan of Will Smith movies. To see him and his son Jaden doing something in the area of sci-fi action was awesome. The storyline starts off in this world Nova Prime where humans must fight alien creatures to keep their existence. Military leader Cypher(Will Smith) led his team the Rangers to defeat the Urses. He became a legend in Nova Prime.
His son Katai has not seen his father in years. Katai feels estranged from his father so the connection is not there. His father Cypher invites his son to go on a mission to create a stronger bond. A cosmic storm caused the plane to crash. The troops were killed and the only survivors were Katai and Cypher. Seeing his father Cypher injured; Katai saw that he must save father life. His father sent him on a mission to retrieve an item to save both their lives.
In this mission Katai goes through many trials. He is naïve and clueless to the world he is throwed in. His father Cypher guides him through the journey. When he comes across monsters and environmental obstacles; he gets rebellious and bull headed. He gets forced to listen to his father when he gets hurt. In the middle of the movie; his father wanted him to abort the mission and come back to the torn plane ship because he did not have faith in him to finish.
Katai rebelled and forged his destiny to defeat the monster that killed his sister Senshi. He ends up killing the monster and he became a legend in Nova Prime. He exceeded his father expectations and becomes a man. This core story is trusting in your father to guide you into manhood.
I read the reviews from major mainstream websites. It received horrible reviews. The reviews were the plot and characters were not good. The CGI sucked. I was shocked at the reviews. After Earth in my opinion was a well put together movie. Seeing black actors in lead roles of sci fi action. It inspired me and I could see myself as a black man in that movie. There should be a part 2 to that movie. It would be if black people demand for it to be a part 2
We complain about shows like Empire and Love & Hip Hop. We share Empire on our Facebook timeline. When it comes to After Earth we do not promote it on our timeline. Thank you Black Science Fiction for opening up my eyes to the area of Sci-fi. This film opened my eyes to see why we need to black sci fi. Will and Jada Smith are supporting black science fiction. That should be an eye opener to black people to support this genre. The mainstream is not going to accept us we have accept and support ourselves.
The bestselling title on Amazon in the US right now is not Harper Lee’s hugely anticipated second novel, Go Set a Watchman, or George RR Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire fantasy series, or even Zoella’s much-mocked but much-bought young adult hit, Girl Online. Instead, Scottish illustrator Johanna Basford is topping the charts, with her colouring books for adults taking top spots on Amazon.com’s bestseller lists.
Basford’s intricately drawn pictures of flora and fauna in Secret Garden have sold 1.4m copies worldwide to date, with the newly released follow-up Enchanted Forest selling just under 226,000 copies already. They have drawn fans from Zooey Deschanel, who shared a link about the book with her Facebook followers, to the South Korean pop star Kim Ki-Bum, who posted an image on Instagram for his 1.6 million followers.
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| Image Source: CNN.com |
Topics: Boeing, Force Field, Lasers, Plasma Physics, Science Fiction, Star Trek, Star Wars
(CNN) Raise shields!
Wired: That Boeing Force Field? It Probably Won't Ever Work. Rhett Allain
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| Star Trek "First Contact": The Phoenix |
Topics: Dark Humor, Doomsday Clock, Star Trek, Nuclear Power, Treatment
So, Star Trek is definitely not "my baby," I am not a screenwriter; member of SAG nor am I remotely related to Gene Roddenberry. I'm having some tongue-in-cheek fan fun, and hopefully if CBS/Paramount decides to use it, they'll at least give me a byline, but...probably not.
Sir Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Marina Sirtis, Denise Crosby, LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden, Michael Dorn, Brent Spiner – doing cameos in a two-episode pilot, leading to a confrontation where traditionalists fighting change want to return to the “old ways” – that ahem, plunged humanity back into the dark ages. I could see either Stewart or Frakes shouting “no more!” after an emotional soliloquy about not going back to the previous ignorance and fears, selling the scene. Star Trek, like any great science fiction/fantasy story asks the question through its characters (e.g. Data, Picard, Worf) over again we never tire of: “what does it mean to be ‘human’?” It's a prequel, but for example, I watch Gotham with the full knowledge of how the Batman mythical universe will eventually flesh itself out, villains and all. It's just fun watching the creativity of writers building the bricks of it to its logical conclusion: cape and cowl in one instance; warp drive and aliens in another.
“My name is Darryl Draper. I am human. I was born on Earth, Chicago, South Side. I went to the University of Chicago, studied physics. I joined the army, did tours in Eastern Europe and Southern Africa. I joined the CIA after my third tour…” Draper paused, closing his eyes tight to squeeze out more memory. “After my third tour…after my third tour…I was an analyst before being recruited by Special Research, a secret DARPA division…my mission is clear. I have not lost focus. I have not lost focus!”
Draper found himself repeating that mantra more and more. It was a reminder that he needed to pound into his head constantly, like a hammer battering a nail.
He stepped out of his rest pod and stood before a wall that he had buffed until he could see a fuzzy reflection of himself. Oil black eyes the size of golf balls stared back at him. His head was massive and teardrop shaped, divided by a smooth cranial ridge that ran above his bulbous eyes down to the base of his skull. A glistening membrane in the middle of his chalk-colored face acted as a nose. His mouth was a puckering orifice with which he sucked in nutritious gruel, repellant to humans, but quite tasteful to the creature he had become.
The dark gray, close-fitting garment he wore covered a gaunt body with willowy arms, long legs that bent sideways, and a mouse-like tail. His four fingered hands and feet were webbed. If he wanted, he could submerge both sets of extremities in elastic webbing. Draper found that feature the most intriguing of all. The body he inhabited evolved from amphibians and in spite of him being anxious to return to human form, Draper was fascinated by it.
These aliens…or Heritins…as they called themselves were faster than humans, and could jump to heights an NBA player would have envied. Draper was athletic, so he especially enjoyed pushing his Heritin body to the limit in the exercise arena. Heritins placed a premium on physical fitness. Any Heritin falling short of that requirement became useless. A useless Heritin was a dead Heritin. For the sake of the mission, Draper endeavored to be as useful as his assumed identity would allow.
Heritins are superior to all species. We are destined to rule. Those who accept our authority will live. Those who resist us will die.
That voice started out as a faint impression in his mind, a formless whisper he could label as nothing more than a product of a fevered imagination.
If humans had not resisted, two thirds of your home world and all of your colonies would have been spared the ruin inflicted upon them.
With the passage of time, a faint impression, a formless whisper grew more definitive, clearer, until it rang loud as a clarion call.
Humans are lower animals. And like lower animals they must be taught to obey their masters. Your learning experience was harsh but necessary.
“Go to hell,” Draper hissed in the rare occasion when he gave that voice credence. Mostly, he ignored it, continuing to consign it to imagination…or madness.
The scientists who implanted Draper’s consciousness into a Heritin body theorized about the possibility of the host reasserting itself.
Maybe I’m not mad after all, Draper thought. Should he have been relieved or unsettled? Because either way, whether he was losing his mind to madness or this reassertion the scientists spoke of, the mission could still be jeopardized. And it became all the more important that he recited his daily reminders…that he reasserted his own humanity.
***
Darryl Draper alias Umttor, Engine Caretaker, entered Bridge Side.
Ship Master Tuo stood on the watch platform, surrounded by holographic interfaces. He listened to numerous progress reports from department commanders and issued equally numerous orders.
Draper stepped to his work slot, activating interfaces.
“Caretaker, I need you to check Impulse Three,” ordered the Ship Master. “The engine is running at less than optimal.”
“Yes, Ship Master,” Draper responded crisply.
The Ship Master probably ran the most proficient vessel in the fleet. When Draper last checked, all impulse systems had met optimal requirements. Of course, just meeting any requirements was never good enough for Tuo. He had to exceed them.
Draper linked to his interface and brought up the engine’s schematic. A set of numerals floated before him. He tapped a series of characters and the schematic glowed a pleasing shade of green. “Impulse upgrade completed, Ship Master. Engine proficiency is ten percent above normal operational parameters.”
The Ship Master turned to face Draper. “Very good.”
A fragment of the host’s memory brushed across Draper’s awareness. He felt a wave of respect and gratitude toward Ship Master Tuo. Umttor had not been a very promising Engine Caretaker at the beginning of his career. But Tuo had taken the young officer under his wing, tutoring and mentoring him until the latter could practically disassemble and reassemble any ship component with his eyes closed. Draper found himself basking in Tuo’s approval.
“Approaching Mobile Dock,” Ship Guidance Specialist Grinta announced. “Thirty Units to contact.”
Thirty Units, meaning three hours, Draper translated to himself.
Tuo stepped off the platform and the glimmering interfaces he was observing vanished in a sparkling dissolution. “It won’t be long. Once all ships are amassed, it will be on to victory. This vessel and you, the finest crew in the fleet, will be instrumental in our coming triumph.”
The Bridge Side crew cheered the Ship Master’s inspirational words. He is a brilliant warrior and an honorable friend, Draper thought. At that second, he stiffened. Was that his thought or the host’s? He suppressed a shiver and quickly returned to his routine tasks.
There was no doubt that the sound of the blast he triggered could be heard by the entire settlement. That should have been more than enough signal for them to escape.
Dern made it to the first level and leaned against a wall. Pain, verging on debilitating, raced through his body with savage abandon. He clenched his jaw, drawing on Flare to stay in motion. He headed toward a door at the end of a pathway leading from the stairwell. Before he could extend a hand to open it, the door burst off its hinges. An armored figure eclipsed the doorway.
Dern tried to back away, but a cold, metal grip seized his neck, yanking him outside.
“My hunch paid off,” came a wretchedly familiar voice.
Dern made out three men, one woman, their weapons trained on him.
One of the men, Tunnel, stepped forward, a cruel sneer etched into his face.
The former SD soldier clutched his captor’s wrist in a vain effort to wrench himself free. Metal fibrous fingers on his neck constricted. Dern flailed with all of his diminishing strength. He struggled to breathe, his world spiraling into darkness.
“Wait, don’t kill him, yet,” Tunnel said, placing a restraining hand on the enforcer’s shoulder.
“Fucker killed my boss,” the enforcer growled, tilting a helmeted head ever so slightly in Tunnel’s direction.
Tunnel pointed his pistol at Dern’s dangling right leg just above the knee and fired.
Dern would have howled in pain were his airflow not reduced to a trickle by an unyielding grip to his throat.
“He’ll die,” Tunnel assured the armored man. “But slowly, slowly enough where he’ll wish he were never born. And in the process we might extract from him the location of his friends. They’ll die slowly too, maybe slower than him.”
The armored man unflexed his fingers dropping Dern at his feet like a sack of rubbish.
Dern heaved in a few ragged breaths before lunging on one leg for the enforcer’s blaster. He grabbed the weapon’s barrel, ripping it from the thug’s grip. Turning the Tanner around, he blasted the enforcer point blank in the head.
A chunk of helmet tore away in a fiery gout. The armored man toppled backwards, crashing on his back with a heavy thud.
“No!” Tunnel fired on Dern, hitting the former SD soldier in the left rib.
Dern leveled the Tanner on his nemesis and a bright bolt flared from its muzzle like a flaming sword of judgment.
Tunnel’s goons opened fire, striking Dern in the shoulder and upper chest, throwing off the latter’s aim.
What would have been a headshot, ended up hitting Tunnel’s gun arm. The powerful beam blasted the hijack leader’s pistol to molten fragments. The hand holding that weapon was blown away well past the wrist.
Three more flachettes slammed into Dern’s body.
Dern stumbled from the impacts, but managed to drop low and pour out a devastating arc of fire that carved through Tunnel’s goons like a hot blade through cold gel.
Their beam-riddled bodies thrashed in a storm of flesh-rending energy before collapsing in bloody, smoking heaps.
All the while, Tunnel was on his knees staring despondently at a sizzling stump where his right hand used to be.
Harnessing what little strength he had left, Dern limped determinedly toward his downed foe.
He kicked Tunnel square in the chest, knocking the latter on his back, then stamped a foot on the criminal’s wound.
He applied, grinding, unrelenting pressure to Tunnel’s stump, eliciting a blood curdling cry from his opponent. Had he listened to the vengeful chorus in the back of his head, he would have gladly prolonged the suffering he was inflicting.
Instead, he removed his foot and stepped back. Never would he stoop to the sadistic level of a murdering bandit.
Tunnel glared up at the former SD soldier, unbearable pain and hatred twisting his face into a demonic caricature of itself. “You…you’re already…dead! You won’t survive this day! No way you survive this day!”
He was right. Dern reconciled himself to the accuracy of that prediction. No matter how hard the Flare worked to heal him, his wounds ultimately were fatal. Bottom line, he was dying. He felt himself slipping slowly into oblivion. He didn’t have the strength to fight his demise. In fact he welcomed Death.
“I agree with you,” Dern said with a faint smile. “I’ve reached the end of my days. And so have you. You get to go first.” Dern pressed the rifle’s muzzle to Tunnel’s forehead and triggered it.
When the smoke of a point blank discharge cleared, nothing existed above the hijacker’s brow line but a smoldering little crater fused with scorched pieces of brain and skull.
A growing remnant of Hooper’s enforcers gathered at the end of the alley.
Dern tried to raise his rifle, but severe injuries hobbled him. He fell to the ground. Fumbling to get his rifle into position, he rolled on his side, coughing up blood.
Maybe he should point the rifle at himself, he thought. The approaching mob looked too worked up to deliver him the mercifully quick death he would have preferred.
A strong breeze brushed over him. Dern looked up, squinting in disbelief.
What appeared to be a Coalition recon drone hovered above at ground hugging altitude.
Assault rifle rounds smacked against the drone’s hull. The drone soared toward the threat, crimson beams flickering from its raptor wings like shards of glass. Half the mob was cut to pieces. The rest scattered in a wild panic.
Dern witnessed the drone’s assault and then closed his eyes, waiting for death to take him.
After several minutes, he stopped breathing…
He opened his eyes. Dimness surrounded him. He found himself in a prone position, face up. He glanced to his left, saw a bio display and recognized that he was inside a stasis tube. Confused, he tried to clear his muddled head. Flashes of memories zipped through his mind, coalescing into the realization that he shouldn’t have been alive.
The stasis cover retracted and light poured into his confinement.
A face he recognized came into view. A woman’s face.
It took a moment for Dern to connect a name with that face. “Alita?” He croaked in a voice he hadn’t used in…how long?
“Dern, how are you doing? The doctor decided it was ok to wake you.” Alita smiled, pressing a hand to Dern’s shoulder. “No, don’t try to get up.”
Dern managed a self-deprecating grin. He couldn’t move if he wanted to. His body felt heavier than a block of lead.
“Where…am I?”
“You’re on a Coalition patrol ship, in the medical bay. You’ve been in a medical stasis tube since we were rescued seven months ago.”
“Seven…months?”
“A Coalition patrol arrived in response to my distress signal.” Alita’s smile brightened. “My signal got through. They came in the nick of time. You were dead, but not dead enough to be too far-gone. Their doctors revived you and placed you in this tube for extensive treatment.”
Dern could only marvel at the concept of being dead, but not dead enough. The wonders of Coalition medicine.
“Where are we going?”
“You’re going to be dropped off on Talham at a top rehab center. The doctor expects you to make a full recovery there. I’m told it’s the best in Coalition space. Me, I’m going home to Earth for a very long period of rest and relaxation.”
“You’ve definitely earned it.” Dern hefted a forearm, offering a thumbs up to his friend. “Good job back there.”
Alita waved away the compliment. “We’d have never gotten off that planet alive if it weren’t for you.” She lowered her voice. “You didn’t hear this from me, but word of your exploits spread to the highest levels in the Coalition. You’re going to get a reward.”
“A reward?”
“Yes, you’re getting a new suit.”
“A…new suit?”
“A scaled down version, like your old one, but yeah.”
The news gave Dern mixed emotions. He felt so attached to the old suit it became a part of him, even when he wasn’t wearing it. It was a beautiful, familial, symbiotic feeling. Yet, when he destroyed it, a euphoric sense of liberation came over him. Was he ready to receive a new suit? Renew the addictive meld between man and machine?
No more questions. No more concerns. From now on he would look to the future with optimism. “I guess I’ll be reporting to my new job after all.”
The term Afrofuturism was first coined by writer Mark Dery in his influential 1994 essay Black to the Future, to provide a name for work which addresses black themes through science-fiction and technoculture lenses. Descriptions of it vary from Afrofuturist author Ytasha Womack, who calls it “elements of science fiction, historical fiction, speculative fiction, fantasy, Afrocentricity, and magic realism with non-Western beliefs”, while others, such as Afrika Bambaataa, take a more gnomic approach: “Afrofuturism is dark matter moving at the speed of light.” Conceptual artist Martine Syms, in her wry Mundane Afrofuturist Manifesto, feels that the idea should be grounded in a tangible reality (“No interstellar travel – travel is limited to within the solar system and is difficult, time consuming, and expensive”).
