One Hour Anniversary - Part 1

by Shea Beitler-Akman - (3/27/2014)

                There was a burst of white light. Brighter and different from any I had seen before. Every other light was brightest at its center and faded outwards. This light seemed to have a cold dark center. There was no telling how far it went, my face was already pressed up against the porthole, but I guessed forever. I had never seen a sun before, but this didn't seem like the true fire I imagined. I relaxed, letting my eyes lose focus, but thinking about the thermal implants in my retinas.

                The world changed color, though not like I had expected it to. Heat signatures spiked, showing up in hot reds, yellows, and whites, and then almost as quickly faded to a cool black. I had expected there to be something, debris on the other side other window, and I had expected it to be hot. I focused, and even as my eyes filtered out the ambient warm air and the heat of our drifting pod, I could tell there was nothing out there floating in the void. As I continued to watch, the small window slowly rotated, changing the angle of the stars.

                The cabin was dark again now except for the dim green glow of the medical screens. I was disappointed. The doctor had never told me where we were going. I knew that the ship we we had been on was headed to a combat zone so they should have been prepared for a fight. I knew we were headed for a combat zone, because I had figured out that I was built for combat too.

                My companion snored slightly. I wasn’t sure if waking up was going to be a problem.

                As I far as I could remember I had only woken up three times. All three times it was to the doctors standing around me with their tiny blue pen lights. I could feel bands of energy moving through my tissue, so I assumed that they were probing me, scanning for something.

                ***

    The first time I had woken up the doctors didn’t notice. I couldn’t open my eyes, or move my body, but I came into consciousness. It was disorienting. I could feel the static tingle of my body trying to wake up, and the sore tissue in my throat and arms where medical equipment had been removed.

                I tried to think about what I had been sent in for but I ran into several problems. I could remember detailed information about hundreds of medical procedures, but I couldn’t remember ever receiving one. I knew what a doctor was, but I hadn’t opened my eyes yet so I wasn’t aware that the people speaking around me were those, or how different they were from the smiling multicultural array of cataloged images.

                I tried not to concentrate on all of the injuries that were running through my mind, and as I realized I had no memories of being sick, I started to think maybe I could have had one. Maybe I was paralyzed and these people had found me. I tried to think about where I might be. I could remember thousands of locations across hundreds of planets, millions of battle sites scattered across the cosmos, but I had no idea where I was, where I was from, or anywhere I had ever been. There were images in mind of a planet, strange detailed pictures with sounds that I could feel as though I had run through it blindfolded. The memories of the planet had no smells, which was strange. I had strange memories of pungent aromas but none came to mind as a favorite or even unpleasant.

                Right now I could smell surgical antiseptic, blood, aftershave, perfume, burnt tobacco, grilled meat from the Capra genus, and the root of the Amoracia rusticana. I could remember tastes, but most of them were ingredients. I tried to think about food, because I was very hungry, but again I drew a blank.

                “Fascinating, its heart rate is close to twelve beats per minute, but its blood pressure is one sixty over ninety, for an eight year old that should be fatal.” It was a man’s voice, deep.

                I was eight years old. That surprised me. I had almost no memories of children. I thought about people, and images started coming to me. I couldn’t put any faces to name, but still more faces started racing through my mind.

                “The walls of his cells are thicker than a Cratonine Core Fish.” A woman’s voice. An image of a strange tube shaped beast, and a sphere of water larger than planet flashed through my mind. “When he starts running his muscles are going to fire like goddamn pistons.” More animals started flashing through my memory, first by the hundreds, then more images of the places they lived, the food webs in which they structured. Against this the human faces continued to strobe, and I felt a cold press at the back of my head as I could feel a wave of information start to form.

                “Aren’t you counting your chickens, Kartokoff” Another man, this one higher pitched and nasal. From the streams of information that were beginning to twist together, a species of small ground bird and strangely one of the few tastes that I seemed to know came to mind.

                “No, they were designed to be fool proof, even without this therapy the batch would be more than twice the match of a platoon of Tamerlans.” The woman made a squeaking sound as she repeatedly expelled air. “Assuming someone bothered to wake them up.” I started seeing images of people sleeping, people waking, working, walking around and even copulating. Still more animals, planets, cities, and people joined them.

                “Doctor Kartokoff has a point.” The first man with the baritone spoke again. “Once the subjects have been activated they will begin to develop the long term tactile enhancements.” His voice sounded as though he was stating the obvious. “This therapy today is for the specific treatments the clients requested. With this tech at full size one of these things will be able to kill an A’quoin bull ox barehanded or two platoons of Tamerlans.” The image that jumped out of the growing ocean was an enormous four legged mammal, with short bristling fir and four jutting horns above its long face. More images, these of men with enormous spears standing around the monsters ankles and stabbing at its belly. More images of animals being killed, trapped, hunted and butchered joined the ocean and it started becoming harder to concentrate as the cold feeling grew.

                The woman made the squeaking cough again, and the first man joined her, though his cough was slower and less grating. The second man said “You joke, but these things could be dangerous.” His voice had an edge to it now.”You’re right, when we’re finished today this Jenin will be unstoppable.” The word Jenin sounded from a thousand news clips and history texts. More images of violence, now the people began to do experiments on each other. “You all remember what happened on Mars.” I remember a  strange cold filling my entire body. Images of humans killing each other. More than I could understand. Fighting, executing, massacring.

                “Umm, you guys” I could barely understand at the time but the woman Kartokoff finally noticed my distress, “something’s happening.” She didn’t sounded worried, more intrigued. Something was happening, something had broken. The streams of information had already grown past the hundreds and began to multiply to the thousands. In my mind there weren’t ten thousand tiny screens laid out in a mat, but a single screen with ten thousand individual images each fighting for focus in my mind’s eye, being watched in a constant stream. On each one there were pictures of violence, of millions of people fighting and dying every second.

                “Lazris, you said this neural feed would hold.” The second man was a different story, his voice was worried. A hand covered in latex roughly pulled my eye open.  There was a bright blue light, it moved in and out of my vision. One eye closed and then the other was given the same treatment.

                “It is holding, it’s still setting up databases and wiring up hard function.” My mind was no longer calling forward images to fill in blanks in my understanding. His words didn’t mean anything.

                “Well his CTI is showing dangerous levels of activity in sixty percent of the brain.” The second man’s voice was frenetic now. A strange roar began to build in my ears and hearing became harder.

                “Damn it Tran, stop bitching and give him a sedative.” Lazris bellowed from just across the room, but against the noise of building waves he sounded miles distant.

                “No!”  I heard a crash of metal on metal as Kartokoff moved quickly closer to me. There was a wet click and suddenly all other sound stopped except for her voice. “His system can’t keep up, give him a sedative and he’ll short circuit, he needs adrenaline.” There was a hiss, so soft and gentle it seemed like it had come from my own head.

                In the sudden silence of my mind the men’s howls were deafening. I heard crashes of metal and breaking glass, and felt the smallest of stings on the side of my neck. With a burst of fire like electricity I opened my eyes for the first time. Kartokoff, more elderly than I had imagined, was being restrained by the two others, both clutching her wrists. It was too late, the needle in her hand was empty. The last thing I heard as fire and electricity were replaced with a roar and whine of sound. ”No!” “The neural feed!”

             
                ***

                The memory still made little sense. I haven’t met Kartokoff since, and I’m not sure if the other two ever realized that I had been conscious.

Continue to Part 2

One Hour Anniversary - Part 2

by Shea Beitler-Aman (3/28/14)

  The second time I had awoken on a soft cot, the back of the gurney slightly elevated. A mechanical ping rang urgently and the smell of antiseptic and medical gel brought me quickly to consciousness. My eyes opened to a bright blue light, wielded by a giant in green paper scrubs. The pen, and hand were snatched away, and the rest of the room began to come into focus. 

              I tried to sit up but my wrists were full of tubes and my hands numb. The tubes ran through several machines, from somewhere my mind brought up memories of blood cleaning units. I then began to feel my headache. It started dull but quickly rose to a nasty thrum. 

              My hand wanted to rise to my forehead but I remember feeling very helpless and small. There was a soft tone from my right. I hadn’t even taken the time to survey my surroundings. Something inside my head growled, vulnerable. 

              I was in a small beige colored room, the walls mostly bare, though traced with outlines that must have concealed equipment and a door, and empty save for a long metal bench appeared bolted to one wall, the table I was tethered to, and a slender man in green medical scrubs. He didn’t have any kind of identification. 

 A light above the door had turned yellow and the panel swiftly opened, disappearing sideways into the wall. On the other side was a short man, I realized only a moment later when he spoke that it was the first man from before. 

              “Good morning Recruit Ekkert.” His greeting was relaxed, his face making up a pattern I recognized as glibness, as though we did this every day and he some amusing story to tell me.

              I turned my head to look at him, "Lazris." The words creaked out, unsure, but the effect was still immediately unsettling. His eyes narrowed in sudden anger, and his next response was swallowed as he tried to reassess the situation. It gave me a moment to process as well. Recruit Ekkert. Ekkert. It was the first time I had heard a name used to reference me other than ‘the subject’ or ‘It’. It didn’t sound familiar or bring up any of the connotations my mind insisted were connected to a name. I wasn’t sure if it was a proper name or a surname or some sort of ranking. 

              “Doctor Lazris." He swallowed and stared hard. Well, I see we must already be acquainted. That means we can just get right to it.” Lazris squeezed the words through lips clenched tighter than his fists. He proceeded to walk past my table, light from the hallway reflecting off the roll of skin that collected at the base of his bald head. “Recruit Ekkert,” he spun and dropped heavily onto the metal combination bed-chair for emphasis though he already had my full attention, “though you are obviously adjusting well, it should go without saying that you must have questions.”

              His eyes relaxed as he remembered the power he still held over me, and relished it. “I am here to help you understand that your place will not be to ask questions, but to advance quickly, follow orders, and achieve objectives.” Now he smiled as he spoke, clearly remembering why he loved his work. 

              I wasn’t sure what to think. There was part of me that understood what human beings were, and that I was not quite one of them. There was another part of me that was reminded of patriotism and duty and wanted me to agree wholeheartedly to what he was saying. There was a third, small, growling part of me that wanted to leap off the bed and tear through the layers of flab covering Lazris’ belly. A diagram of human anatomy appeared clearly in my mind, filled with helpful comparisons of strength and weaknesses compared to similar bipedal organisms. 

              I decided not to act. Feeling was returning to my hands very slowly, though I could feel a foreign toxin among the medicine being pumped through my system. My body had identified it as ,, and already had began trying to figure out how to remove it, but I could still clearly feel the coldness it left as it coursed through my limbs. 

              “Recruit Ekkert, we are travelling in a mass effected vessel with the entirety of your family and my own in a manner of reckoning.” No details sprang to mind, though I could feel cold sweat rising on the back of my hands. “I am trying to impress upon you the idea that we are on a mission that must not fail, because if we do then there will be no one left to care that we died trying.” His rhetoric brought up the strange split feelings again, alienness, patriotism, and growling anger. This time, as the drug was being leached out of my brain, I felt something else. A strange electric tic.

              “There are enemies of freedom in this Universe. People who think they don’t need to allow basic human rights and commerce. People who think they can levy taxes and tell other what to do.” Aliens, tic, patriotism, and anger. Some part of me wanted to grimace at the idea of enemies of freedom, to gnash, and stomp and hurt them. But I forced my face to remain the same impassive mask it had been. Lazris, leaned forward, his eyes beginning to squint again. “Recruit Ekkert, we have been tasked with fighting the enemies of freedom, the people who want to destroy us and our family, and ignore our new way of life.” Aliens, tic, patriotism, and anger.

              An uncomfortable throb had started in my hands as I began to feel more and more of them. There were too many needles placed into too few veins, and I was beginning to wonder if I had made a mistake in expelling the sedative. It started getting harder to maintain a straight face or even focus on what the doctor was saying.

              “Don’t worry Recruit Ekkert we have been gifted with a righteous mandate and the greatest science in the universe. Our ship has been traveling for nearly ten years, and in only one month we are going to arrive at our destination, where the enemies of freedom are waiting for us.” I hardly heard a word Lazris said, I was too preoccupied trying to both focus on getting my hands to move and trying not to move the needles in my hands. But as he said the words for some reason my brain still triggered with the same splitting ache, alienness, patriotism, and anger. As the feelings of glory and country flooded my synapses, there was a strange electric jolt.

              I was being conditioned. Something was trying to stimulate my mind, to associate feelings of patriotism and duty with the words coming out of Lazris’ mouth. My brain was fighting back, responding with feelings of opposition and anger. I don’t think it was the result they wanted. As the feeling of primal anger washed through me along with the realization that I was being used, my hands clenched into fists and bellowed out in my first cry of hatred.

              The pain of the needles being forced out wasn’t nearly enough to stem my rage. Lazris had been enjoying his part in our session, leaning forward and smiling as he spoke through tiny eyes. I didn’t see his face as I forced myself to sit up for the first time, but when I turned to look at him he had fallen off the bench and his eyes were wide with panic.

              At this point I had only memories of terror and violence, mixed with images of places and people I didn’t have feelings for, just simple facts and information. My memories told me I was a patriot, and being a patriot was good, but they also told me I was being forced to believe something, and forcing your beliefs on people was wrong. These two facts were irreconcilable and as they continued to push back and forth in my head a familiar feeling returned. It was one of the few feelings I had ever had, besides hunger, fear, and anger, but the cold building waves at the back of my head.

              “Recruit Ekkert, calm down, now.” Lazris stammered from the ground, his back to the wall behind me, and his knees as close to his chest as his significant belly would allow. “Dammit Tran, get in here.” The man in green scrubs was also pressed against the wall, his hands flat but scrabbling, looking for one of the hidden panels.

              The door pinged again, and slid away, this time revealing the second male doctor, not much taller than Lazris, but very skinny with a gaunt stubble covered face, and two more men in green scrubs and surgical masks. Their hands were full, each holding a rife I recognized as repurposed ENT-30, with IR sights and K-Force loads, non lethal force rounds designed for intercraft combat. My mind played a video clip of an invisible shotgun blast leveling a group of rioters, and something ticked in my mind at the pointlessness of the laser accuracy.

              “I don’t know what happened. I thought we accounted for the upgrade with the new dose, but it still woke up, that’s why you wanted to talk to it, remember. I told you it was a bad idea.” Tran had a mask around his neck that shook violently as his arms waived around. The first man in greens scrubs had recovered a syringe from a cupboard that had already disappeared. The two others had taken up positions behind me that I recognized as overlapping field of fire that would not endanger the two older men in white lab coats. Though I couldn’t see them, their bootsteps clearly placed them in my mental picture of the room.
              The same way I could tell from the shuffling and scraping that Lazris had risen and was leaning back over the metal bench. “You said it’d be a sleepy as a fucking kitten, look at it’s eyes.”
              “Something’s off with the interface, like static in the signal or the receiver. Let’s put it back under and let me run a diagnostic.” I didn’t turn to look at Lazris reaction to the suggestion, keeping my attention on Tran and the scrub with the syringe. I couldn’t tell what it contained by appearance alone, but I knew that I didn’t want to go back under. “You and Kartokoff have Iaco to work on, and I can get this one fixed up before we have to start unpacking the others”
              The name Iaco rang through my head like a gong hit by a rocket, so loud I almost missed this time as Tran spoke about the others. I hadn’t made the connection before, but I wasn’t alone. Whatever these people wanted from me, they wanted from others like me. People that Lazris had called my family. The word family had already cemented connotations in my memories, and though the feeling wasn’t quite right, I knew what I was supposed to do.
              I heard the shuffle of Lazris' lab coat moving again behind me. I didn’t bother to look at the chubby man, assuming I knew how fast he could move. I was wrong. Before I could realize he had moved next to my table, I felt a prick just below my jaw, and the fading coldness of the sedative was replaced by a gushing burning lava, that left behind a terrible numb deadness. As the new drug rolled down my spine and through my arms I forgot about the pain of the needles, or clenching my fists in anger. Instead my body curled inward, bringing forth images of dying insects, as I tried to cope with the pesticide coursing through me.
              The world first turned white, and then began to fade into a checkered black as I fell asleep for the second time in my life. The last image staining my vision was Lazris, smiling through thoughtfully squinted eyes, holding a strange syringe gun. “Fine,” he said, “I guess you’re right, but have this one fixed quickly or the entire schedule is going to fall behind.” And against everything went dark.

Continue to Part 3.

Popes, Princes, and Possibilities- A wiki hole report

          I want to define a word that I use frequently in my day-to-day, and which I have seen a few times. 'Wikipedia Hole', or wiki hole, or a state of being in which the mind becomes slave to the ever extending series of infomatics opened in new tabs. I am frequently victim to the dreaded Wikipedia Hole, and have found myself passed out on the side of the information highway with only my history page as the only memory of how I got there. I know we are still getting used to each other, but I guess you should know that these wiki hole's can get kind of dark, and very rarely have a purpose.
          That being said, my last wiki hole was a pretty light stomp through history. Sometime around 11:36 PM I began looking into the miracles attributed to recent Catholic saints and blessed figures. I'm not even going to try to get into the controversies and support surrounding the various Catholic celebrities, but somehow I wound up looking into Mother Teresa, and then John Paul II. This led to subsequently to an investigation of italian banker Roberto Calvi, the dark masonic lodge Propaganda Due, former primer minister Silvio Berlusconi, and eventually around 12:47 AM to Emanuele Filberto and Prince Amedeo and their battle over control of the House of Savoy. Just for the record, Prince Amedeo seems kinda rude.
          That's where things started to get even stranger. This led into one of my favorite Wikipedia traps, the crazy criss-crossing genealogy of the European royal houses.I started in Italy, worked backwards into Spain, and then wound up in my second favorite place in history, pre-revolutionary France and the last seven Louis' reigns.
          Wikipedia can fill you in on the details but basically it goes Henry IV, Louise XIII Louis XIV, Big Louis, Little Louis, Louis XV, Louis the Prince, Louis XVI, Louis XVII, and then the cousins and uncles start coming and Game of Thrones begins to sound easy. Somewhere along the way three Louis and more are outlived by their fathers and children. Louis XVI, the 16th, the one that got guillotined, was actually the younger brother. His reportedly awesome older brother, "Burgundy" fell/was pushed off a toy horse at age 9, didn't tell anyone out of fear of repercussions, and died of an infection. The world was left with Louis XVI, in my own opinion an okay if indecisive king who was at the wrong end of a deficit and a huge propaganda machine. Don't get me wrong, I'm a Danton man myself, and love playing the mob.
          The complicated relationship between Louis XV and the Philippe d'Orleans II, the crazy cousin  and grandson of Philippe, Philippe Egalete, who joined the revolution only to be later killed for his son Louis Philippe's desertion of the army. The same Louis Philippe who would later become the last King of the French.
          There was just so much intrigue, betrayal, and chance that played out between 1700 and 1850 it is a credit to the spirit of French nationalism that their country came out in pretty much one piece. It's also interesting to note the role the French support of the American revolution helped bankrupt the country, and the way a lying investment banker, Jacques Necker, helped destroy the monarchy.
          I'm not exactly sure if I had an original intention with this post, or if I just wanted to talk about miracles, monarchic intrigue, and the way that politics never seems to change. I finally snapped out of it sometime around 4:00 AM coming back to the Catholic church and the St. Bartholomew's day massacre. It was a bit of a dark place to go to sleep on, but I figure Henry IV is probably as good a place as any. I hope this finds its way into some of the future stories, maybe Eggsaberroar will meet a royal or two and get involved in some intrigue.
          Anyway, it's getting late, and I have more things to work on before I get started on the next crazy jam packed week. I thank everyone for reading, recommend they check out One Hour Anniversary, and be on the look out for the next chapter of Eggsaberroar!

One Hour Anniversary - Part 3

by Shea Beitler-Akman (3/29/14)

Which brings me to the third morning of my life, possibly the last, just over thirty five minutes ago.

I remember an image of fish, swimming in a large school, in a green and blue ocean. They were rolling together in a massive ball, when suddenly there was a splash and all of them scattered. I woke up again, to my eye being pulled open roughly, and a blue light being waved around.

The difference that dragged me to full consciousness was the amount of external sounds. I wasn’t sure if this was meant to be some kind of experiment, but a loud off beat drumming rang back and forth across the room, accompanied by sharp metallic staccato strikes, and different levels of electric bursts. I could hear a radio somewhere spitting loud angry static mixed with angrier people screaming at each other. Even more different was the doctor’s beside manner.

Directly in front of my face, Tran was shouting at me. Loud angry cursing shouts, in a few languages that didn’t seem to take any time to understand. He was so close I could smell the chemically reproduced Coffea Arabica seeds he had eaten earlier. “Come'on, wake up, you have to wake-“ He looked startled when he realized that I had in fact opened my eyes, and took a moment before asking. “Finally, can you move?” I almost didn’t hear the question as the irregular drumbeat seemed to pass directly over us and the light flickered on and off.

We were in a hallway, similar beige as the last room, but lined with tall black oval windows spaced in between with small metallic circles. The smaller circles seemed to be information panels, though they only displayed ‘status within normal range’, and a series of numbers. I was on another gurney, but this time free of tubes, though my arms still had fresh puncture wounds. I wasn’t familiar with what model or even class of ship we were on but I felt sure that Tran had been pushing me.

“We need to move,” he started pushing again, though his face was clearly red and strained with the effort. “I had to drag you across half the goddamn ship.” The black ovals, stretching from floor to ceiling were some kind of doorway, though they were all reflective and gave no clue as to what was on the other side. If we hadn’t been ignoring them, and the signs of battle going on outside I’d have assumed they were escape pods. I was mostly right.

We passed through a door way concealed in the beige wall at the end of the long corridor. On the other side of was plain boxy room, equipped with several obvious and at least two not so obvious cameras. I could feel a strange prickling on my skin, that my mind identified as radiation from somewhere in the wall, probably another imaging device. With a swipe of his hand Tran opened a similar door, set next to the one we had just left. Surprising me, the room on the other side was actually quite small, much too tiny for my gurney to fit inside. “You have to get up. We have to hurry.”

I sat up for only the second time, unimpeded by needles or throbbing pain in the back of my head, trying to make sense of what Tran was doing or where he was taking me. The ringing staccato grew quickly louder and then softer, as something strafed across the hull of our ship. I wanted to ask what was happening, or what they wanted from me, but I could only manage a dry cough, ‘what?” An inauspicious first word.

“Lazris is dead. It had to be done. They can’t get their hands on our research” Tran already had an arm under my shoulder, and with a grunt started heaving me to my feet. I don’t know what I had expected, but my legs took my weight easily. I guess I had expected to fall from the way they had been carting me around. The unexpected confidence was lost as I took my first step ever and realized I had almost no balance. I leaned into Tran, unable to hold me as well as he had thought, who then leaned hard into the frame of the elevator. “The ship is set to self-destruct in three minutes. We have to leave now.”

With another heave Tran pushed me into the smaller compartment. I had assumed it was an elevator at first, and for a second all of the buttons by the door convinced me I was correct. But there were too many buttons, and screens, and even a lever behind glass.

Then, as I took a step backwards and reached out for something to balance on, I found purchase on the side of a strangely padded object with a metal frame. I took a moment to take in the compartment. A single medical station built into the solid looking wall, some kind of emergency release. My brain screamed to life as it finally shook off the last of whatever they had been doing to it, and added everything together.

The doctors were taking me and my ‘family’ to some kind of warzone. We were under attack. Tran was planning to destroy the ship, leaving everyone to die, and had just thrown me into my own personal escape pod.

I expected part of myself to be hissing in anger, but this time I didn’t feel any strange jolt of emotion. Instead my brain was showing me pictures. The word family was surging out of the ocean of information dormant at the back of my mind. Pictures of animals, plants, people of every race and specie. All united by ties of genetics, purpose, or friendship. Three minutes would have to be enough to save them.

Tran made a tiny squeak as I jerked the back of his collar toward me. Before he could fall onto his rear I grabbed the back of his head and pivoted him face first into the wall. The motion felt natural, and it took a second before I realized my hands had ended in a flourish, wrists together, palms up and down, but with my fingers bent.

As Tran rolled whimpering onto his back, hands clamped over his mouth, I grabbed the front of his collar and pulled him off the ground. I found I was easily able to lift him one handed, my balance fine this time. His hands fell limply to his side, and I saw that he had bitten his lip, though only slightly.

“My family,” the words sounded strange to me, but much more clear and confident than my first attempt, “can you release them?” I knew there wasn’t enough room in this single pod, but there must have been others.

Tran’s eyes rolled back in his head, it was a gesture, not injury. I let go of his shirt and he dropped to the floor, head bouncing forward into his chest. I placed my foot on his stomach and he groaned.

“They could be captured.” His eyes were suddenly angry. “Do you want them tortured, dissected?” Tran looked at me accusingly, but his eyes weren’t entirely focused. I began to let more of my apparently substantial weight press onto him.

“You can seed them,” he gasped. I let up and he sucked in a wet mouthful of air, his thin cheeks sweating, “like we were in orbit.” I started to lift my foot up, but his eyes rolled again. “It won’t do any good, they’ll just drift in space. You’d need a miracle.”

My brain scrabbled for a second, digging deep to find ‘a miracle’. Images, words, sounds of people speaking hundreds of languages, only half of which I understood. The idea was improbability. That story’s were made up using convenient coincidence or divine intercession to explain unlikely phenomena. I didn’t quite understand. I looked for more, but didn’t want to give Tran an impression that I was lost. “Tell me how.” I stepped next to his head, straddling him.

Finally, he seemed resigned, I think he realized that time was passing, and the ship had been set to explode. “In the antechamber.” He rolled his eyes, apparently I was wrong. “All of those doors lead to hallways like the one I brought you out of. Holding bays.” He giggled. “Bomb bays.” I saw images of titanic warships, packed to the brim with armament. “There is a console in the antechamber that will initiate seeding.”

I understood, and had about two minutes left. I turned and walked backed toward the antechamber. Behind me Tran sat up. “It won’t do anything. They’ll just float in space until they run out of oxygen or get captured.” I could hear his limbs creaks as he started to rise.

The antechamber had one large obvious panel set into the wall. I stepped over to it and used the motion I had seen the nurse use. It came to life, and suddenly so did the cold deep ocean in my head. Apparently it liked computers. For a moment I stared at the screen, and then nature took over again. My hands began to fly, and images, text, and line after line of code started popping up on the screen and running through my mind. The images flickered for a second as I fought the wave pressing against the back of my head. I was overtaken, and the images turned into a stream of light.

Then my head lit up with hundreds of thousands of alarms bells. I was aware of the state of the ship, the crew, and more importantly the 782 remaining members of my family. 731, as the stream of information told me another rocket had hit home, taking out one of the bays and part of our navigational system. The short of situation appeared to be a pirate had yanked our ship out of mass flight, using some kind of weapon to destroy our astrometrics array, because the ship had never established where it was. It had only picked up a single electronic signal from some sort of perimeter mine, that had then started to attack us.

The ship was telling me that it had the fire power to handle the small station, but that there were now only 1:21 seconds remaining before the ship exploded. I told it not to explode. It told me I didn’t have authorization. I started to weave my way into the ship core systems, but it was distracted with trying to fight the station and it was processing too slowly. I let it go, 1:02 seconds remaining. A positive ping sounded through the garbled of information flowing back and forth. The station had been struck in a shield generator, it would soon go down, not in less than a minute.

I didn’t want to admit it but I was running out of options, the seed command had been present and available since I had logged on. I asked the ship if Tran had access to stop the self destruct. He did.

For what seemed like too long, I untangled my mind from the computers. It last told me I had 58 seconds. My mind picked p the countdown like a mantra as I turned to face Tran.

In front of me was a tall black glassy oval, stretching from floor to ceiling where Tran had been. Then suddenly a puff of decompression and the oval was gone revealing a disappearing pod, and a vast empty field of stars. I didn’t let my mind start trying to take it all in. Tran had left the ship.

The computer and the seed command sat there. I turned back to the console and  began typing again, quickly, but not the same as before. I asked the ship if it had detected a planet. It told me it had seen one while in mass flight, but could not detect any signals, and could not estimate range. I tried to bring up information on how mass flight worked but the ocean was moving slower than before, or maybe I was growing tired. If I could look at the stars, and estimate the light distortions maybe I could estimate a direction toward a known system.

The computer and my brain told me in unison that I had 45 seconds until the ship exploded. I ran another calculation, how long did the pods have to clear the detonation. I couldn’t guess at the size of the explosion, but only knew I didn’t have long enough. I made up my mind.

I told the computer to face the last known reading from the planet. The computer told me it had only been a gravity signature indicating large oceans. I didn’t have time to wonder if that meant the planet was so far away electronic communication didn’t reach this far. Then I told the computer to open the nearest escape pod in the corridor I had been wheeled out of, and set launch for 10 second, only 21 seconds before the ship detonated.

I left the computer console with my new 10 second countdown feeling like the wrong number too short and too long. The corridor seemed further away when I actually had to walk down it, but as the door opened I saw that a pod had opened for me. It was very similar to the pod that Doctor Tran had tried to shove me in except that this pod was already occupied.

Strapped into the strange wall contraption, feet just barely touching the floor was a human girl. Or at least it appeared to be female human no older than ten. Images in my head started to flash in my head as my mind tried to guess at planet of origin. I shook those thought away and stepped inside, for some reason breathing deep, as though I might bring extra air with me. It felt strangely childish.

The panel on the wall was the same as the one Tran had been fooling with. I wondered if his pod had a destination. Then I wondered if I should have looked for its destination. The time hit 2 and I pressed the button indicating the door. Walls folded up in front of me as one of the black ovals slide down sealing of the ship. It was time to launch.

I barely felt anything as the pod ejected, but the ocean in my mind spoke up just enough to let me know we were moving. The doorway had been replaced with what look liked more wall with a small viewport, just wider than my hand. At first I only saw the black oval, but that soon turned into a row of black ovals then five rows of black ovals. I saw the bay was made of ten rows, two by five arranged at angles to maximize spread. There was a portion of the lower right bay that was burnt and twisted, and I could make out the camouflaged ridges that disguised unjettisoned pods. The last count had been 623 life signs on the same registry as me. More pods had launched than that, though their life supports damaged or their occupants dead.

The ship came into view, though from below its shape was difficult to make out. The computer had told me it was a Sand Tiger Assault Drop Ship. My brain gurgled up an image up a strange flat creature, with its mouth and eyes on tops of it and strange paddles for moving around. The ship was certainly wide, and another image brought up a profile of the ship, only seven decks tall but very wide, with nearly three deck devoted to laboratory space. There was also an entire level stocked with weapons, explosives, chemicals, and ammunition. I imagined hundreds of us like eggs floating out into the ocean of space, searching for a chance to survive. A miracle.

Then the ship exploded.

***

                Now the only thing left out my little window was a field of stars, spinning incredibly slowly. I tried to see more, maybe the other pods, some sign that I wasn’t alone. No matter how hard I pressed my face to the glass all I could see was pin points of light and some nebula in the distance.

                Another snuffle from behind me and I remember that I wasn’t alone. I turned to face my companion. She looked like she was asleep, just breathing peacefully. The image was offset by the dozens of tubes in her wrists, and the large white electrode patches on her arms and legs.

                I looked around the cabin, and tried to spot some obvious vents. Oxygen was coming from somewhere, but I couldn’t find any gauges, which wasn’t reassuring. I started to feel bad.

The Doctor said we only had enough air to last so long, just enough to be picked up by the enemy. And simply because I had ducked into this pod I halved this poor girl’s chance at surviving. There was only dim light in the pod, just the glow from the green screen above the medical apparatus.

If the girl was ten then I had to be older. I felt my cheeks, collar bones, and the cartilage in my throat. My brain brought up diagrams of anatomy, and somehow I decided that I had to be twelve. My brain ocean hadn’t been able to come up with a point of origin for her. It had too many hits from too many places, and couldn’t make itself up.

She looked peaceful, something felt right about that. I thought the blue glow turned her face the most beautiful silver. I looked at her for almost another minute before I realized what I was missing.

It was only the fact that the glow seemed to be growing brighter that clued me in at all. The medical screen’s dim green glow was being dwarfed by blue light coming through the window. I moved so fast I felt the pod rock as I collided with the wall.

A planet, a huge blue and green curve of earth was beginning to creep across the window. It was so close we were being pulled toward it. I just stared, and as I continued to spin the world grew larger. Streaks of atmosphere heated up outside my window, starting as small streaks and growing larger. Vibrations ran through the ship, shaking us more gently than I would have thought, but reassuring me that it wasn’t a dream, or at least it was a very convincing hallucination.

And then in the corner of the window I saw a flare of white heat, that grew larger, but not nearly as huge as the planet. It was another pod. One of my six hundred brothers and sisters.

I finally stopped staring and turned to look at my companion, still sleeping. I thought about how long I had been I had been awake. My brain insisted it had already been an entire hour, so it wasn’t that hard. And now I’d have a chance to show her how try.

A brief explanation of future releases.

Hello World,

This is just a brief overview/explanation of my plans for the next few weeks. I am only few hours of editing away from being finished with the second story that I would like to post, "One Hour Anniversary." Initially OHA had been looking like a six or seven page story, at least in my mind. Things happened, more words came out, and right now it looks like OHA is coming in at about eleven pages.

Basically I wanted to discuss the best way to release slightly larger stories, and to let everyone in on my plans. So far I have only posted the first chapter of "Eggsaberroar," which I hope to be an ongoing serial released weekly. "One Hour Anniversary" currently is a contained and finished story, though of course I have left myself a way back in, which has been broken down into three parts. I just wanted to clarify, and maybe grab some feedback on how you all might prefer to read things.

Here's what things look like currently. I will be releasing OHA over the span of three days, starting later this evening and continuing through the weekend. After I have posted the third piece of the story I am going to create a link to the file as a whole, in a few formats, so people can enjoy it however they like. Thanks for reading, and I hope you all enjoy the new story.

tl;dr- The science-fiction story "One Hour Anniversary" will be released in three parts over the next few days, then released as an entire file. "Eggsaberroar" will continue to be released as a weekly serial varying in length.

Mad Priests, Brain Waves, and the Problem with Prisons

"Until the day when God will deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is contained in these two words,- 'Wait and hope.'"- The Count of Monte Cristo- Alexandre Dumas.

I just finished reading an intriguing piece from the Guardian on Sarah Shourd and her advocacy against solitary confinement. Just so we are all on the same page, Sarah Shourd, was one of three hikers caught on the wrong side of the Iranian border in 2009. According the article, Shourd was held in solitary confinement for 13 months, almost 2 months of which she spent totally isolated.

This is one of my first posts so I'll admit that outside of massive overcrowding and disproportionate sentencing I haven't been following along with the state of the United State's prisons. The article shows data from Solitary Watch, a group concerned with these things, that reports in some states prisoners have spent over two decades in prison. Shourd herself has begun corresponding with an inmate who has spent 27 years in solitary confinement. The article doesn't say why the inmate is isolated and I don't want to make light of a situation I don't have all the facts on, but I haven't been stuck on Earth for 27 years and I'm getting antsy.

To eventually get to my point, since you could read the article and figure all of that out, as a science fiction writer I have often placed characters on their own for extended periods of time and tried to imagine what it might be like. Personally I'm a recluse, and while I have never had to undergo something as extreme as forced solitary confinement, I have spent a good amount of time alone with my thoughts. Reading the article, and thinking about my own experiences, I quickly come to the conclusion that I probably have no idea what I am talking about.

I think an element my stories may have missed was the sheer nothingness of time spent alone in a cell, even with a book or a piece of paper. What I mean is that a cramped space ship or mountain hut still require mental tasks to maintain. While it may not stave of all quirks, I think the presumption I was running on was that having something to do, check a fuel gauge, hunt for food, repair something, gave the character enough direction to stay focused. 

The article quotes science that states two days in solitary confinement can cause a shift in brainwaves toward delirium or stupor. I really enjoy the idea of the unreliable narrator, and I could easily see stories in which the character has been confined somehow, trapped or locked away, and we are left to take their word for the conditions. For some reason I can't help but think about the Count of Monte Cristo, and Dantes and his friend the Mad Priest. Dumas writes a fantastical and perfect tale of revenge, but is it too perfect? 

I think I'll wrap this tangent up and get back to work, but I have two final things to say. First, I'd like to thank Sarah Shourd for taking a very traumatic experience and trying to make the world a better place for it. The Dalai Lama would probably approve. Second, I am going to look into the science/UN/prison side of this solitary confinement thing. I've got a lot on my plate right now, but to me prison needs to be about rehabilitation not punishment. Considering what google and the Bureau of Justice tells me, there are 2.228 million people in the prison system, something needs to be fixed. I wanted to write this post as a reminder to myself to do some investigating. Thanks for reading everyone and good night. 

P.S. Just so I don't get any angry moms. Kids, don't google Incarceration rates in the US unless you have your parents permission to read things like the Prison Rape Elimination Act. It is worth reading, apparently solitary confinement is the punishment 76% of the time for inmate offenders. As far as I can tell there is little "substantiated" data on the actual rate of sexual violence, but that it is a problem means solitary isn't working.

  

Eggsaberroar: A Long Epic About Short People - Chapter 1

Eggsaberroar: A Long Epic About Short People

Chapter 1: In Which Tideberries embarks on The Mayfly; and encounters a wizard.

   Tideberries Rominglust Eggsaberroar stood knee deep in the warm waters of the endless ocean. Through the clear medium he could see the sudden change of blues, from a light cream to a deep shadow, where the shelf began and open water started.

                Ty may have been a novice ranger but he knew better than to wade into to open water. There were creatures surely lurking just inside the curve of the shadow, waiting for something tasty to swim into reach.

                No, nothing dangerous today. Today he had a boat to catch.

                This was an unusual concept. The most common saying under any Halfling hutch was “May the tides carry you far from home and the winds return you safely.” For any Halfling this was a mouthful, and it was commonly shortened to “May the tides and winds.” Either one sounded better than "I'll see you when I see you, and try not to get into trouble." 

                The other, larger races, of Canton, tended to look down on Halflings for their short statures and even shorter attention span. A long time ago, much longer than any Halfling remembers unless it’s been put to song, the great small fleets were created, and set out to find a new home for the Halflings. Unfortunately that had not worked terribly well.

                Instead, after years of searching they finally stumbled onto the Eyrie, a collection of small rocky isles, barren and incapable of growing life. Also, home to the famed Sea Eagle, giant birds, adapted to pull a fully grown marlin from the ocean.  The eagles were also intelligent, for they could understand that the Halflings meant them no ill will, and had allowed them to anchor their fleet in the straits of the Eyrie, and assemble small homes along the rocky shores.

                Of course that had been so long ago most Halflings didn't remember why the great small fleet had to leave the ancestral home. In school Ty had learned a bit of the first great civil war. The men and elves had decided that they had to claim their hold over everything. When the ancient Halflings decided that land couldn't be owned in such a way the bigger races simply took their homes. Now it was every young Halfling man’s duty to return to the ancient forests and spend a night living the old ways. This was to prove to the forest spirits that just because the Halflings had been forced to leave they had not forgotten their ancestors.

                Ty had taken his journey nearly five years ago. Five years to a Halfling felt like an awful long time, even to a Halfling such as Ty who was unusually patient. Ty could sit for hours on the bough of a tree watching field mice forage. Today he knew he had no time for such things.

                Today, Ty’s brother, Octaverust Eggsaborroar, Rusty to everyone, was going to begin his journey to the ancient homelands. Even more exciting, Tyberries had been chosen by his father to escort Rusty on the journey. Ty had been taken by his uncle Skipyew Averagecanons  on his trip, but Uncle Skipy had left three years ago on a merchant vessel and hadn't been heard from since. This wasn't entirely unusual for a Halfling, but it meant that another guide had to be chosen.

                Halfling tradition usually dictated that the father of the young man accompany his son to introduce him to the ancestral spirits. Ty imagined what such a journey might have been like. Uncle Skipy was funny and interesting, but his father was quiet and intelligent, and had a way of noticing the most beautiful things in nature. He had also lost his leg in a sailing accident many years ago.

                Jewlerydust Seasurf Eggsaberroar was an accomplished sailor, and on the open ocean he was still as fast as any man. But his prosthetic would not be able to handle the trek across the mountains of the 'big' continent, Terra Regalia so his brother was next in line to be the guide. With uncle Skipy gone, traditionally another elder from the family would have accompanied Rusty. Ty’s father had made the decision to send him instead.

                Ty had mixed emotions. It was an extreme honor to be asked to make the journey again so soon, and the fact that no one objected proved his family had extreme confidence in him. It also meant that he was responsible for the safety of his brother, not exactly a simple task, and the completion of the ritual and return trip. Ty wished his father could have at least sailed them to the shores of the big island, but by the rules of the quest only two Halflings could travel together.

                This returned Ty's thoughts back to the matter at hand. He had a boat to catch. He and Rusty had obtained passage on a human vessel that had stopped for resupply after visiting the other nearby “small” islands. The ship would sail for five days and set them out in Porton the largest city in the southern half of Terra Regalia. Then he and Rusty would travel overland, cross the Moon Mountains, and make their way to the ancient forest. The journey was expected to take two weeks.

                The timing of the ceremony was important. The journey began on the full moon, which meant good visibility on the ocean. They would have just over a week after landing to make it to the other side of the mountains by the crescent moon, and then another  week to complete the ceremony under the new moon. A clear sky for a fresh start.

                All this didn't mean too much, except that they absolutely could not miss this boat. Rusty had been granted this month to attempt the rite. Others were scheduled after, and he would have to wait maybe years to try again. It was unthinkable. Ty knew that Rusty hadn't really understood just how serious this was. Which was why Ty had shown up at the beach to pray on both of their behalf. Today Ty made supplications to both Dalla and Elona, goddesses of the Halflings and the Earth. He lit two pouches of sweet smelling herbs and incense and set them on the beach, allowing them to burn just above the rising tide line. The Goddesses would claim their prizes in moments but it was enough time for Ty to pray.

                A white glint caught his eye on the horizon, Then a small flutter of white just at the point where the earth and sky pinch together. Ty remembered his own coming of age and smiled. How he had feared what it must feel like to be pressed together between that space. Now it seemed childish. Ty wondered if Rusty had any strange fears of the outside world. Ty thought about it harder for a moment and wondered, where was Rusty?

                Like most Halfling children Octaverust had the ability to be simultaneously always underfoot and never where you expected him to be. Of course on this important morning he decided to lean toward the latter. Ty shrugged to his Goddesses and the spirits of the oceans, they would at least hear his prayers.Rusty knew to meet him at the docks before the sun rose a full circle above the horizon, so that’s where Ty would be waiting.

***

                The docks of the Red Island were the largest in all of Terra Legusta, the human name for the island's of the Eyrie, but that wasn’t saying too much. The traveling ship had three masts and was almost two hundred feet bow to stern, and was probably the largest ship that could fit between the rocks. Most of the Halflings considered it a good defense rather than an inconvenience. Ty had been carried on large merchant vessel, almost four hundred feet long with a crew of a few dozen men. He'd had been ferried out through the breakers that formed around the rocky port mouth, to the ship waiting at anchor.
                Ty had never heard of this particular ship, The Mayfly, or its Captain Kobashard. Then again Ty had only just graduated from the rangers academy, and still wasn't sure if this even counted as his first ranging.

                The ship did not look very impressive, looming even more rundown the closer Ty got. But there weren't that many human traders that made the run out to Terra Legusta, usually just gnome barges, and a few of the more civilized dwarfs. Rusty's ceremony had to be completed this month, so they were forced to accept what the gods had seen fit to provide. It wasn't a very illustrious start.

                In front of the ship a few young men sat on a tidy group of barrels. One was dressed in almost all white, except for the blue stripes on his baggy pants. The other two were darker skinned and wore colorful loose fitting shirts over strange canvas pants. Already on board the ship, leaning against the railing, watching the dock, were two men dressed in chain mail shirts and tabard bearing the sigil of one of the lords of Terra Regalia. They seemed to be talking about something secretive and pressed their heads together as they spoke. For a reason he could not identify, Ty was certain they were talking about him.

                 Ty pushed those thoughts out of his head and decided that if nothing else he was going to comport himself like the ranger he knew he was. This meant acting every moment as if it were a dangerous trial or potential trap, observing his surroundings and being prepared for anything.

               Ty’s attention was focused so closely on the whispering warriors that he almost walked right into a small creature wearing long blue robes. It was a gnome, young too by the look of his short brown beard. The gnome was also staring into space but in the opposite direction as Ty.

“Hey, watchit.” Ty muttered as he put his hands out to prevent a collision.

The gnome turned and started as if noticing Ty for the first time, though they were only inches apart. “No, but I have a cousin Watchit, maybe we look alike,” the gnome smiled at his joke. “I’m Spellshooter, Blinkweaver Spellshooter. But you can call me Blink.” He batted his large eyelashes and smiled again at his cleverness.

Blink held out a hand for Ty to shake, which still required backing up a pace to execute properly. As he lifted his arm Ty got a look at several small bulging pouches tucked around the gnomes waist. From the robes Ty assumed he was some kind of wizard or maybe a cleric. Ty shook hands and just hoped that Rusty wouldn't touch any of the gnomes things. The academy still had not taught him any magic and he probably wouldn't be able to dispel a curse cast by an actual magician.

The gnome’s face had already lifted back away from Ty, staring raptly into the distance. Ty turned around and followed the small being's gaze up into the air and smiled.

“Breathtaking aren't they?” From the wondrous open mouthed gape he was displaying, Ty could tell that this must have been the first time the gnome had ever seen one of the giant eagles of the Eyrie. The eagles were sea hunters, and hatched close to the size of normal eagle. They could grow close to fourteen feet in wingspan, but they rarely flew far from their rocky homes. Once in a while a young eagle would be taken with a sort of wanderlust allow itself to be tamed by the rangers. Ty could only imagine what it must be like to fly the way the eagles did, but they would let only their companions ride them.

“Indeed,” the gnome murmured dreamily, his head bobbing as he followed their lazy circles. One of the soldiers leaning on the deck rail laughed crudely, drawing Ty's attention. He was staring at something back on the beach, his wicked smile convincing Ty to turn quickly. He was laughing at a small form, running quickly across the sand, stumbling once and nearly tumbling under the weight of the large rucksack strapped to its back. They were laughing at Rusty.

Ty didn't want to admit it but his brother’s entrance was comical, not the dignified start such a journey needed. At least he could say his brother was enthusiastic, it had to be the fastest he had ever seen a Halfling run.

“Don’t just gawk, if you could move half as fast as that lad I would need half as many of you.” A rolling laugh followed the words and Ty spun around again, making sure to keep his own heavy pack balanced. A potbellied man, shirtless except for a blousey silk vest and covered in scars and tattoos, stepped up to the rail next to the soldiers. He looked down at the mates sprawled on the waiting supplies and scowled. “Lazy dogs, mush, before I have Miss Tyra take a lash to you.” He stomped to effect and cracked into a grin as the men on the dock jumped to their feet.

Rusty was still several hundred yards from the docks, but Ty could already hear him shouting “don’t leave, wait for me.” And began to laugh himself.

More figures stepped into the sunlight next to the man Ty could only assume was the Captain. A tall human woman with a hard squint, as if she wanted to see what trouble maker was causing the ruckus. The other was a human man of average size, built more slightly than the men now hurriedly carrying bins and barrels on board. His armor was scale male, of obviously better quality than the others, and around his neck hung a golden sun icon that seemed to reflect light coming from all directions. The well dressed man smiled sheepishly behind the stern woman and ran a hand through his close cropped blonde hair.

Ty turned around again to watch his brother close the distance, red faced and still running flat out. Above him eagles swooped and soared, playing games in the warm sunlit thermals. These people were not what he had imagined, but deep down he knew they were better than he had expected. These were good people, this would be a good journey.

Welcome to the Space Rock Opera

   Hello World. Welcome to the newer and louder Space Rock Opera. An ensemble of fiction, opinions, how-tos, and other forms of media that might blurt out, these journals will collect various writings and rantings I have made and will continue to produce.

   A long time ago, only a few miles away on the other side of town, I started working on an epic story. It was the kind of epic only a six year old could conceive of, with kung fu, cowboys and indians, and maybe even a dinosaur or two. That isn't the story I want to tell on this blog. 

   I want to use this as a platform to post a lot of the other strange ideas that come spit balling out of my head. A lot of these ideas come out half-baked, some only make it a few pages gasping for air, and I figured an anonymous wall on the internet was as good a place as any to show them off. Don't worry though, my imagination still rampages, and the kung-fu epic is still back flipping around somewhere. 

   

   Over the next few days I will post a few random short stories and at least one poem to get started, and maybe I will find an old rant and put it up. I don't know what to tell you to expect. My sensibilities run toward dark humor, mean satire, and exaggerated outrage, while my stories' settings are usually science fiction/fantasy inspired. I like to write in different perspectives, use narrators of varying reliability, and often behave antagonistically towards my protagonists. 

   As I said before, not everything that comes through here will be quite complete or even decently edited. I will try to update this page frequently, but I'd like to ask for your patience with my creative processes. I encourage commenting, though remind people to maintain decorum. All in all I am excited about this experiment and I hope that we all have a good time.

   Please enjoy reading the first stories, including a short story about space, and the first chapter in a serial inspired by a game I played with my friends. Below is some more information about myself, and the things I enjoy.

****

   To introduce myself. I am Rockit Ship, aka Dar alHarb, an aspiring writer, lawyer, and designer. I have been writing since I was five, active around the internet since 1996 on my free MSN computer as WarpCraft3, and trolled the AOL chat rooms as Devilsseat. I have moved many times, and really enjoy road-trips. I have driven to forty-seven states, traveled to four countries, lived in desert, mountain, and harbor towns. I've delivered pizzas and moon bounces, worked as a stock boy, grant writer, janitor, special needs camp counselor, and political organizer. I love reading, and talking, about books and comics, I play dnd regularly, and over the past three years I have been teaching myself to program in javascript. I am interested in politics, law, and government, and current events.  

   My favorite books are Lamb, the Talisman, the Wind-up Bird Chronicle, Lord of the Flies, Night Watch, the Gone-Away World, and Dracula. My favorite authors are Stephen King, Jim Butcher, Kevin J. Anderson, Christopher Moore, A. Lee Martinez, J.K. Rowling, J.R.R. Tolkien, and G.R.R.M. My other favorites include Mike Carey, Carl Hiaasen, Kevin Smith, Nick Harkaway, Mark Buckingham, Neil Gaiman, Jae Lee, Alan Moore,  Hamilcar Barca, Henry David Thoreau, Mary Shelly, Ernest House Sr., Learned Hand, Aldo Leopold, Chinua Achebe, Haruki Murakami, Lew Wallace, Tony Jaa, David Crockett, Rumi, Bruce Lee, Hal Jordan, and Thomas Jefferson.