BLOGS

Five: Girls fight out

At a bar in a very low class and street scum part of the city there is a neon lit sign that blinks on and off inside the bar window. "NO ACCESS CARDS NEEDED, CASH ONLY". "What can I get you three beautiful ladies, you know we don't see women as beautiful as you three around these parts you three must be from the inner city". The old clunky rusted robot bartender asked". "Just three beers please" Shana replied. "Three beers coming up" he responded. "Anything to eat ladies?" he asked. "No way! I'm not eating anything, it stinks in here" Gail said. "Smelly air wakes up your soul, sure I will have the cheese nachos please" Nicole said. "Cheese nachos coming up". "Here's your three beers and your cheese nachos ladies,” the robot bartender said with a smile on his face. The three women sit on the old bar stools the bar and look around at the different races of middle to low to very low class men and women who mingle and dance to the latest music from the digital jukebox. "We have to figure out how we can find away to put and end to this restricted lockdown law,” Shana said holding her bottled beverage in hand. "Yes, but how, we cant just go up to the hill and knock on the president's door and say hey Mr. scum ball uplift the lockdown law" Nicole replied. "This shit is ridiculous, no internet access no one can't go into certain places without access cards and that asshole Meeks is bashing peoples heads in and locking people up in jail for nothing the shit is fucked" Gail said. "Are you married sweetheart,” a big lumbering bearded dirty man said startling Nichol as she eats her nachos. "Phew!! Your breath smells like ass get the hell out my face" Nicole said pushing the man away from her. The hands of another man wrap around Gail's waist. "Oh hell no I am not with this it's on". Gail said. Gail turns around and cracks the beer bottle over the man's head. The man wipes his face off with his hands "You Bitch!!" he said. He lunges at her with a clinched fist Gail blocks it with her left fore arm, the throws another punch at her she blocks his punch with she right forearm then she returns with a two quick punches to the man's face backing him, she stands in a martial art kung fu ready stance “Come on you want some more" she said. The man charges her "I'm gonna kill you bitch" he charges her again and he kicks at her she ducks his kick she goes to the floor and punches him in the testicles, she gets up and jumps up and kicks the man in the face sending him crashing to the floor. Shana pulls out a concealed laser pistol. "Try it I dare you" Nichole said as she pulls out a portable digitally operated illuminated switchblade on the other bearded man. Then a laser shot is fired inside. "That will be it girls, I will take it from here. These scumbags were just leaving weren’t you scumbags,” the robot bartender said holding a long, heavy laser machine gun. Two other scoundrels help their beaten comrade up of the floor and walk out the door. The people go back to mingling and dancing to the music after the fight is over "punks" Gail said. "We're out of this trash heap too, come on girls lets go home,” Shana said.

 Four: No access cards, no service

Meanwhile 1500 miles north back in the Boston Café. "Access cards please,” the server robot requested. "Sure" Peter replied. The three hand their access cards over. The server robot walks over the computerized access card verification system at the café counter. With his three metal fingers, he slides one card through the system responds in red digital words "access restricted", he slides another card through the system responds in green digital words access approved, he slides the last card through and the system responds in red digital words access restricted. "Hmmm!" the server robot said to himself, he walks back over to table.  Mike and Peter your card accesses are currently restricted, however Lee your card access is approved" the server robot said. "Hey wait a minute, we have money" said Peter. "Yeah we're not broke" Mike responded. “This is a highly privileged establishment money is not accepted here please leave the premises or I will signal the patrol officers to remove you" the server robot replied. "Why you low down piece of metal shit" "Mike said a he gets up in anger and grabs the robot by his neck. Everyone in the café stops and turns their heads to the attention of at the outraged man. “Mike, Mike, let him go man, it's not worth it, we can go some place else plus look outside" Lee said. Mike turns around and looks outside through the glass window and sees the federal patrol officers holding their laser rifles and pistols looking up and down the street as he continues to hold the neck of the server robot. "Put him down Mike, if you don’t they will kill you, there will be another time". Mike puts the robot back on his two feet. “You’re right Lee, man I'm not trying to get killed out here arguing with a talking piece of scrap metal, plus I have my Shana to live for” Mike replied with a smile. "Come on guys, let get out of here" Peter said. The three guys get up from the table and walkout the café.  “This access zone law has everything all fucked up. We cant walk down Newbury St. anymore because we aren’t rich, we can't get anything in that damn café because we don’t have those access cards." Mike said. "I can see why people are rioting all over the world". The President and the other leaders of the world have to uplift this law or otherwise the killing, rioting, destruction and incarceration will not stop" Peter replied. We are not perfect either, we done some damage blowing up buildings and started a few riots of our own in the past Peter" Mike said. "Yes Mike, we did but we never shot or killed anyone and if we did we didn’t mean to. We are at a constant battle with all those marauders who are out to just blow up and kill anything they can to scare the federal government into uplifting this lockdown law. We have a purpose to try to get the federal government on Beacon Hill to uplift this ban that is why we do what we do" Lee responded. Lets go home and check on the others. The three men get in a hover car and then the car takes off vertically and then moves horizontally becoming a small part off the everyday traffic of hovering vehicles in Boston.

Three: The Jacksonville Prison System        

Meanwhile at the Logan star ports hundreds of handcuffed people are being escorted on to huge transport hover ships by the INCBOTS. "Single file, keep it moving people", the metallic being says. They walk up the planks and into the ships. They are loaded on to the vessels.  The hatches of the ships close up. “All aboard sir and ready for take off sir", the Incbot says as he reports in to the human patrol officer who watches from the holographic digital monitor from inside the control tower above. "Good, good you have no incoming ships in your vicinity all ships are clear for take off. Then the thrust engines begin to rumble and then of the ships rise up vertically and then within minutes they’re gone. The ships cruise down the east coast picking up other prisoners from other city star ports. The ships finally reach their destination they land on the docks of a fifty-foot steel wall prison compound that surrounds the entire city of Jacksonville, Florida. The prison officer gives Incbots orders to report to their stations. The heavy armed Incbots stand on the flight decks outside the prison city walls. The ship hatches open up; the mechanical planks are lowered down on to the deck. Then Incbots and patrol officers walk down the planks and then the reluctant prisoners follow behind. They are all lined up on the flight decks in rows of threes just below the prisoner transport ships. Using digital image illumination display projection systems, the patrol officers’ project twenty foot tall computerized documented texted images in mid-air. The Chief security prison officer sits up in the prison security tower. He speaks into an advance audio speaker system that echoes across the swampy marshlands. He speaks in a southern accent. "Prisoners I instruct you to read the projected image in front of you. The projected image reads. I am a prisoner who has committed a crime against the federal government lockdown law. As a permanent prisoner of the Jacksonville Prison Security System I am on my own and if I shall attempt to try to escape this prison I will be incinerated without question. Some of the prisoners read the images out loud others just look at the images and say nothing. Other prisoners cry in their capture, other prisoners swear and curse the patrol officers who project the images that light up the humid night. Then three prisoners break away from ranks, they run down the ramp, the Incbot looks at the patrol officer. "Do it", the officer responds. The Incbot raises his arm, it targets the three escapees then with his laser cannons mounted on his forearms his shoots the prisoner automatically incinerating them. "Let that be an example to you all, from here on out you are on your own", he said. The prison transport officers deactivate there projected images from their iPods and then they walk back up on to the prison ships followed by the Incbots. And then the prison ships vertically take off from inside the flight decks of the main prison yard. The prisoners look up at the ships as they fly up and over the city prison walls.

Greetings and salutations,

I’m excited to announce the release of Reign of the Good King! This is a revised edition of my 2008 novel, the second book in the Good King Saga, an epic fantasy series. This is the first time it has been released as an eBook. Here’s more about the book:

Edgar Winefellow ascended to the throne and is now King of the Six Lands. However, his life does not get any easier. Enemies lurk in the dark and in plain view, and Edgar soon realizes that not all citizens of the Six Lands are willing to embrace his idealistic views. Old foes and new tormentors enter the stage, leaving Edgar confused as to who is truly his friend and who is really his enemy.

It’s available from Smashwords and is coming soon to the Kindle, Nook, and Kobo stores.

To help celebrate the release of book 2 in the Good King Saga, I am offering Crowning of the Good King (The Good King Saga, Book 1) for free on the Kindle on 11/30/12. Download it here. (If you don’t own a Kindle, you can still take advantage of this offer. Click here to download free Kindle apps for your PC, Mac, tablet, and phone.)

Thanks for reading!

Words = Life,

A. Jarrell Hayes

EPISODE TWO: A Tale of W.O.E.S. concludes in Part V! While the DROMEDARY continues its journey to the HESTIA System unaware of what they carry, a PROMETHEUS GROUP Security Team prepares to intercept the Transport. Only the Security Team knows what lay inside the mysterious Gray Transport BOX and they're prepared to do what is necessary to get it under their control! The answers and more questions will be found in The PAnd0RA Ultimatum part 5!

Free download at smashwords

Michelle, a slender, brown girl of 18 leaned against the magnolia tree watching them. The couple got out of their car: a white man around 35 with windswept short blond hair and his elegant wife also in her thirties with shoulder length black hair. They looked casually rich in their designer jeans that were wrinkled in all the right places.

They’d parked their jaguar in the driveway and now stood on the lawn envisioning, Michelle was sure, lofty possibilities for the house she’d grown up in as a child.

It was a two story sprawling wooden house with a wide porch and what used to be a swing; before Katrina had splintered it into shards of wood that now lay tossed over the lawn and steps like broken teeth.

The demon storm had destroyed the inside of the house too – photographs, old hats and clothing she and Simone used to play dress up in, antique furniture, were gone now. All that couldn’t be salvaged had been gutted and piled in the front of the house. But the frame, as if immune to the elements had fought the hurricane and won. Unlike Grandmere Angelique who’d died of a stroke.

She pushed her braids out of her face and fought back tears. Hurricane Katrina in her fury had torn through New Orleans. Like a woman scorned, she’d ripped and destroyed the city, leaving its children homeless, hungry, in shock, crying for their brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, tossed to the four corners of America – like their ancestors before them.

Her parents André and Louisa had fled to Baton Rogue. André had begged his mother to come with them — had tried to force her out of the house. But Angelique refused. “I’ve seen storms before, Cherie. They come and go. I’m not leaving my house, non – it needs me to keep it safe…”

Michelle had found Angelique’s body in the attic. She’d hid there when Katrina hit.

And now these people, these strangers, wanted to buy it. What do they know of the scent of magnolias in the air each morning, or the taste of the Mississippi?

She’d pleaded with her father to keep the house. But André had said no. “The water damage is too bad and now the insurance company won’t pay!” He spat these last words bitterly. “Thirty years, thirty years Mama pay them bloodsuckers, eh? And now they won’t fix her house!”

“We can fix it Papa!”

André only shook his head. “No Cherie, it’s just a shell, not worth saving.”

She remembered playing in the backyard with her sister, Simone, both running from her grandmother giggling on stubby little legs, past the vegetable garden and wild roses… until Angelique would collapse on her white lawn chair laughing with them.

“Time for a snack, eh?” And grandmere would shoo the little girls through the backdoor into the kitchen for sweet cakes and milk.

Michelle remembered the mantelpiece and the sepia photographs that lined it too. Photos of Angelique when she was young, and Grandpere Henri who’d died when Simone was just a baby. There were pictures of her father as a solemn eyed toddler too, wedding pictures of him and her mother Louisa, of her Great Grandmere Cosette; and one photo of her lover André.

Angelique told them of their family history: how their roots could be Angelique told them of their family history: how their roots could be traced to Dahomey, Africa, where men and women were great warriors, before the French had enslaved them. Grandmere told them that their ancestors had fought in the revolution too under General Toussaint to free Haiti, and some later made their way to New Orleans.

When they were older, the sisters learned the history of the house. Cossette had worked as a laundry woman. She was also a great Vodoun mambo, who’d first met their Great Grandpere André Dumont, a rich white man, in New Orleans. And Cosette had petitioned the loa to give André sight into his own heart. Soon after, he became smitten with her dark beauty and strength. But to publically proclaim his love would have meant death for them both. So he hired Cosette as his maid, and on his deathbed willed her the house. Michelle remembered her father shouting, when he first caught grandmere telling his daughters about Cosette. She’d never seen him so angry! “You never tell them these things again!” He’d raged, his café au lait face twisted with emotion. “Such stories to tell little girls!”

But when they were 14 and 12 the sisters had snuck away to a Vodoun ceremony. Michelle remembered holding tight to Simone’s hand in the moonlight, watching…With the sound of the drums punctuating his movements, a young man stepped into the dance court wearing a cane in the crotch of his pants.

The drums accentuating his movements as he skillfully spun with leaps and pirouettes…suddenly he shuddered, and fell to the ground as if in the throes of a seizure…then he became an old man, walking laboriously with a cane.

It was Papa Legba, the ancient loa who stands at the crossroads of life and death – the honored one who is called before all others.

One by one, the loa appeared and rode their human horses. The sisters watched wide eyed as a woman fell to the ground and became a serpent… as another transformed into a growling panther…

Previously published in Genesis Science Fiction Magazine 2010

Cover art and design by Quinton Veal

Copyright 2010, 2012 Valjeanne Jeffers all rights reserved

12-years-old: from the BRONX!

Say People: Single unknown fundamental laws are controlling everything

AAAS: "Sequestration" Budget Cuts Would Cripple U.S. Scientific Progress, Experts Warn

PAnd0RA 001 is adjusting to life aboard the Transport DROMEDARY. As it's newest crewmember, PAnd0RA finds herself assisting her companion Captain Gital in his strange tinkering with ancient spacecraft and being adopted as the Dromedary's official mascot. The Android will soon find herself put to the test as her eccentric companion prepares an ancient ritual called a 'Pool Party Barbecue'! How will so 'fresh out of the container' being like PAnd0RA survive so barbaric a scene carried out by scantily clad humans and aliens? Answers and more questions will be revealed in 'The PAnd0RA Ultimatum EPISODE TWO: A Tale of W.O.E.S. Part 2!

TPU Episode 2 pt 2

NASA - Apollo

This is an open advocacy for returning to the moon.

Going back to the moon: as Dr. Tyson pointed out on WAMC (not up on the site yet, or maybe just a replay), this would be at most a three-day trip, which could ignite a renewed interest in science. For the current generation, moon launches are as boring as shuttle launches and Civil Rights movements and bear equal time and attention (as none). It would finallly put to rest the conspiracy theorists that weren't alive, yet are absolutely sure that the launch was faked (because the video software on their laptops say so). The young have become the ultimate consumers of electronics and technology, only annoyed when it doesn't work, but not interested in mastering it as future career options.

 

If we don't, other countries will make a first and successful run at our closest neighbor, and we will be scrambling like a nostalgic recast of Sputnik in 1957:

Indian Space Research Organisation - Wikipedia

It could serve as a launching pad for further deep space exploration, such as asteroids; such as Mars. Richard Branson could get his space hotels, and another generation of astronauts would see an Earthrise, and be forever affected, no longer feeling part of a particular "tribe," but human: an earthling.

With new cover art, the Android PAnd0RA 001 returns! PAnd0RA slowly learns how to interact with both her fellow crewmembers and her growing 'Fan Club' among the Transport DROMEDARY as they continue their journey to the HESTIA System. Dealing with overzealous fans is easy. Trying to complete her task of engaging her Human companion Captain Gital into forming a pair bond is hard! While PAnd0RA works towards her goal, she must contend with the negative side of social interaction as well. Not everyone aboard the Corporate Transport is enamored of the state-of-the-art android! Will PAnd0RA be able to navigate the treacherous currents and eddy's of social life and still complete her mission? Answers and more questions will be revealed in EPISODE TWO: A Tale of W.O.E.S.!

Greetings to all BSF Society Members!!
Please check out n join our WE-Village Crocoblog..short afro-fiction stories-enigmas!! We are finishing the last Episode and then beginning our look for a Publisher!!
Help us reach our 200 member goal!!
Leave a comment if you wish!!
Thanks So Much,

J.Peterson

D.Jahman Deidotree

Some excerpts:

Of course, there's an iPad app.

You can see the "Full Monty" of the brain below at the link. I'd prefer to remember him from photos like this:

Albert Einstein, seen playing the violin in the music room of the S.S. Belgenland, had knoblike structures on the part of the brain that controls motion of the right hand. Brain scans of modern musicians show similar structures.

NPR: Scientists Get A New Look At Einstein's Brain

“People have remarkably short memories when it’s in their interest–or a matter of convenience–to do so. Look at some of today’s political alliances: how many are between nations that were mortal enemies less than a century ago? Ironically, that could be construed as one of our better attributes, you know…that America and Japan, or France and Germany, or whomever else can overcome past grievances to work together economically or politically. But the shame of it…is that as often as not these collaborations only seem to fuel conflict or oppression in some other area. They’re almost always politically motivated or profit-oriented, hardly ever altruistic…”

James Stock, 5/24/2008

firstcauseproject.wordpress.com

Godspeed Larry Hagman...

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity dug up five scoops of sand from a patch nicknamed "Rocknest." A suite of instruments called SAM analyzed Martian soil samples, but the findings have not yet been released.

NPR: Big News From Mars? Rover Scientists Mum For Now