Person A decides to throw a prank on Person B one morning by replacing the sugar in their coffee with an undrinkable amount of salt. Person A is smug at first when handing Person B the drink but gradually begins to watch in horror as Person B finishes the entire thing anyways. Bonus: B doesn’t react to the flavor change at all to A’s disappointment Bonus 2: B does react, but only by maintaining eye contact with A the entire time they drank from it without another word.
sarlyne replied to your post “im really happy with how this WIP is going right now. it needs work...”
Well i never expected to see any fanfic focusing on those two so I'm SUPER happy rn! :D Love the style, and can't wait to read the finished work!
HI! Sorry, i hardly ever check the notes on my side blog, haha. I’m glad you like it! it’s still in prog, im working on the second part RN. thanks for the compliment <3
Could a person escape handcuffs by breaking their wrists? Or escape a bind on their leg by breaking their ankle? Thank you!
That partly depends on the type of handcuff or leg cuff used butgenerally I’d say no.
Most handcuffs are pretty tight to the wrist and the bit that’s keepingyou there is basically the hand and thumb joint. Breaking the wrist is,generally, attacking the wrong end.
There are more types of handcuffs than these but I tend to put them intofour broad ‘types’ when I think about how my characters might escape.
Shackles:
These are really a historical type that isn’t used for anything anymoreso far as I’m aware. The locking mechanism and jointing is shoddy and prisonerscould often escape by simply liming up the joint pins and hitting them againsta hard object (which caused the shackles to fall open). They also weren’treally sized to the individual’s wrists. Which meant some people could slip outwith minimal effort and some people could get their wrists broken when thethings were put on.
Darby style:
Houdini’s favourites, because they were easy to escape from. Again thesearen’t sized to a person’s wrists which means smaller people can sometimes worktheir way free and larger people simply don’t fit. The cuff itself is sturdierthan a shackle, as is the joint. But the lock is a pretty simple corkscrew andit’s relatively easy to fashion an alternate key.
‘Irish’ 8s:
These are essentially completely solid. You can’t break them but thelocking mechanism is so simple that you could open it with a spoon. I’ve doneit with a nail file and I’m really not a locksmith. Again they’re not sized.Small people can slip out pretty easily. Larger people can get their wristsbroken when the cuffs are closed. These ones also have a pretty high risk ofbroken wrists if someone is cuffed at the front and they fall over.
Ratchetting cuffs:
These are most modern cuffs. The ratchetting mechanism means they can besized to an individual’s wrists which greatly decreases the chances of someoneslipping them off. It also opens up a lot of avenues for abuse. These can beused to outright break wrists, fracture wrists, crush wrists and to limit orcut off circulation to the hands causing pain.
A break at the wrist would cause a lot of swelling, which for all of thesecuffs would actually serve to keep the character stuck and make getting awayharder.
If you need your character to escape from handcuffs the first thing tothink about is what kind they are. Because broadly speaking that affects howthey could escape.
I’ve used three things to figure out how characters might escape in thepast
Reading up on magicians and escape artists: often interesting but pretty time consuming.
Asking people in the BDSM community: this was a lot harder before the internet and the community can also point out a lot of safety and health points you might have missed.
Buying some restraints and trying with a friend standing by to help/laugh: the most expensive option but genuinely very useful.
I’ve tried to escape from, or used ratchetting cuffs. I’m too aware ofthe potential risks to feel entirely safe with them.
What are the long-term effects of sizable blood loss? As in, assuming that my unfortunate character loses enough blood to be in danger but not actually die, but doesn't receive any transfusions or anything, what will be her recommended activity level shortly after, her recovery time, other effects, etc? (To be precise, she probably did lose a fatal amount of blood in this particular instance, but I'm assuming that the Magical Healing corrected her blood supply to the minimum for survival.)
Okay, that’s fair and interesting. I’m also assuming Macirla Healing *handwave* fixes the fact that hypoxia from blood loss can cause brain damage and organ failure.
Barring that, they really should be fine. It takes a long time to replace red blood cells, for new blood cells to mature and become real oxygen-carrying RBCs, but the body ramps up production following blood loss.
Your character will probably be weak and dizzy and need at least a week of rest to recover. Running is not a thing they will be doing in the near future. Long distance walking is not a great idea. Exercise tolerance will be limited; they’ll get short of breath very easily.
But once the marrow kicks out some more RBCs and they actually mature, there shouldn’t be any long-term effects. (Of course, whatver caused the blood loss could have some long-term effects, but I assume those are dealt with by *handwave*.)
Hope this was useful! xoxo, Aunt Scripty
disclaimer
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This graphic is fabulous. It represents a tiny crash course in rhetoric. Learn these things. Put them on your wall. Whisper them into the breeze. These are THINGS TO KNOW.
im really happy with how this WIP is going right now. it needs work especially with timeline-ing, but i’ll be offline for awhile and it will be a few weeks until i can come back to it, so im gonna put it here on tumblr for now, then probably ao3 once the whole thing is done.
[[WC 5000]]
This is how it feels to watch your best friend fall.
--
It starts simply.
One day you get a call.
It’s a professional interest.
Your IGNR talk - you were working on neural progenitors. I’ve found a way to control for the effect you mentioned. It goes like this. Can any of your people confirm?
Who is this?
David Sarif. We met at a conference last year.
You don’t remember.
You’ll always regret that.
--
It’s an academia thing. It isn’t obsession.
It’s late nights, because there is so much to do. He in America, you in England. Skype is a long way away, but Picus has experimental ways to talk, he in the air around you like the ideas, alive. Nano-scale artificial epidermis. Direct epiretinal enhancement. The implication of replication of optical illusions in eye prosthetics. There are things beyond the imagined.
It’s an academic thing. It’s early mornings, because the time difference exists. Though time, you say the first time an early morning effortlessly becomes a late night, time too is purely academic. An exercise in human imagination. Overclocking, he says. Hm? says you.
Overclocking biomechatronics for heat preservation in low temp environments. Read a study about it.
You look up, though he’s thousands of miles away, and smile, because you remember writing that one.
It’s an academic thing, though.
It’s an exchange of ideas.
The mutual pact of similarly minded people walking in the same academic field.
--
He admits that he was nervous. To call. The first time.
It’s astonishing. You can’t imagine him any less than he is – absolute.
Nervous? Him?
You’re the damn head of the field, he says.
It’s personal.
The academia is slipping.
Let’s not talk about this again, you say.
Alright.
Trick yourself into believing he sounds relieved.
--
It goes like this.
It’s academic.
It’s academic.
His struggling company goes public and you, with a handwave, get him a pass to Tai Yong’s first industry showcase. You owe Ru a favor. It’s a bad position to be in. You present your joint paper on nerve interfaces. He’s alive on stage in a way that captivates even the jaded. Nerve interfaces become unquantifiably fascinating, become the future, become something…with more potential than they possibly have. He paces and points and invites conversation and we are all, for the moment, involved. Way up there, are you beside him, or is he beside you? It doesn’t matter. You owe Ru a favor but you and he are side by side. These places your are at, they equalize.
The paper, you tell yourself, is academic.
The pride when Ru, without prompting, invites him back next year is...
Personal.
It’s a tradition. The start of a tradition. Every year. You and he, at the top of the new world order.
You’ll miss it when it’s gone.
--
It’s personal.
The integrated workspaces are a given, by now. There was a time when you could work alone, and there was a time when you wanted to, and there was a time when you didn’t. They’re all past. He is a given, outside any conscious choice. Sometimes, it is hours of silence and one typed out what do you think of this, and sometimes, it is a day and a half of discussion you don’t understand when you look back over your notes except one or two sparks of engineered brilliance. Sometimes you don’t take notes. Debate for the joy of it. Scholastic. There is something you missed about the theoretical. And so, the integrated workspaces become a given. The audiolinks. The shared screens. The general document access. A bloody security nightmare, says your IT team. A fucking security nightmare, says his.
But.
It’s acknowledged that you both work better together.
It’s acknowledged that it’s simple synergy.
It’s personal.
In those quiet moments when there is no work to talk about he mentions his family. His company is small enough that it is still a family. You don’t tell him that will change. It might not. Given the way he speaks of them…
You learn their names, slowly. Athene, Josie, Vasili.
You learn to know them as well as anything else you know.
They are an extension of his life, and so you extend a degree of interest towards them.
It’s a personal thing, nothing more.
--
Lies.
--
Lies.
It’s familial.
--
It’s familial.
He’s supposed to be there.
It’s a Nobel prize, for god’s sake.
Is the concern misplaced?
Likely.
Unlikely.
Likely.
I’d like to begin, you start.
Your aide enters the back of the room, panicked eyes. She waves.
Excuse me, you say, immediately, to the titans of the industry.
There’s been an incident, she says.
You are on the next flight.
Your titles and persuasions mean nothing to the doctor standing resilient in front of you. An obstacle unpersuaded by a final desperate do you know who I am?
He’s family, Athene says, squeezing past the doctor and through the door, gesturing, grabbing your arm.
You’ve never seen her in person, but you’d recognize her anywhere.
David’s done a good job bringing things to life, as always.
An assembly line accident, Athene says as you walk.
Will he survive? you ask.
There are several more of them sitting in the waiting room, heads in hands, half-asleep.
One looks up.
Maybe, he says, with a light Russian accent, and shrugs. Maybe not.
Your aide reminds you that the Nobel committee called while you were somewhere over the Atlantic.
They aren’t family.
They don’t matter anymore.
--
It’s industrial. David’s new arm. The first model. Nothing like the best available at the time, the most realistic, the most integrated, and yet…
You look at the schematics, and the plans, and the design philosophy and it is breathtakingly industrial. Conceptual. Its potential for adaptation far exceeds everything else. It isn’t designed to perform, it’s designed to change. Constantly. It is replicate of a living thing so closely that but for the presence of alloys and angles, you’d forget what you are looking at. It will be an industrial standard, if not today, then tomorrow.
He doesn’t look happy with it.
“I…” he says, trailing off. Two months of rehabilitation therapy and he still has difficulty lifting it. It is industrial, not intuitive. He’ll adapt. He’ll make it better.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this, he says. This was supposed to be yours first.
What? you say.
The schematics were for you.
He shows you. Months of work, kept off your shared workspaces. Biomechatronic prosthetics designed for you, designed for your leg, your knee.
The arm he created will become an industry standard. This, though…
This is science fiction.
He flexes his prosthetic fingers with difficulty. This is just an adaptation, he says. Not a good one, either. But that one…that’ll work.
--
It doesn’t.
--
They call it DDS.
--
He has several folders full of the research on your shared servers. Studies based on your DNA.
If you were more astute perhaps you would have noticed, then.
If you were less lost you might have noticed it then.
You could have saved him.
Stopped him.
One or the other.
--
It’s academic.
It has to be.
It’s all you can handle, at the moment.
The first year of recovering is hell. The migraines. The dizziness. The flashback imprinted memories of those first few days of seizures, the first sign that anything was truly wrong. You should be glad, people say without thinking, that it was only the control chip they implanted. The chip is one centimeter by one centimeter. You had it for twelve days. You can’t see straight for a month. You can’t leave the house without sunglasses for four months. Walking was never easy for you. You don’t recover enough of your balance to stand for half a year.
You miss the Tai Yong conference.
He presents a paper on rejection syndrome.
You can’t even listen to the audio recordings without the migraines getting bad enough to black your vision out.
You don’t hear from him for a year, because, you can’t.
The flashbacks lurk so quietly.
--
The things you ignore for the sake of your survival.
He’s shaking during a presentation in New York ten pm local, and another one in Berlin one am local. At home, in the dark, you leverage your connections to discover he took a Concord between both places.
He calls you. You don’t pick up.
Did you sleep? you wonder.
We’re getting there, he says in a BBC interview at seven am local. It’s all theoretical, but we’re doing genometric sequences. If we can find the right code, we can reverse DDS. Universal augmentations.
They’re taking questions from twitter.
You make a fake account.
Augmentations? you ask.
PR says it’ll be beyond prosthetics, he says, looking at the camera. There are lines under his eyes and he can’t hold steady but his voice is unwavering. I agree.
The things you ignore for your survival.
The new American Recession rippling out across all the Illuminati’s plans. One emergency council meeting after another. They call you to several. Why don’t you go?
Picus reports financial news. One day, SI is down fifty points. The next day it is not. The things you ignore. The council in intrigued. Ru is annoyed.
He calls you. You don’t pick up.
Find out what is going on, they instruct.
He calls you. You don’t pick up.
It’s DARPA contracts, the council’s military insiders eventually discover. DARPA contracts and military money. They’ll be keeping an eye on him.
The things you ignore for your survival.
The Tai Yong conference gets moved from Shanghai to Hengsha. DI sends representatives. So does SI. Sarif himself is busy, it seems, working on personal projects.
Vasily comes to England for an official Darrow-Sarif Industries collaboration. No one tells you. You learn about it when the paper is published.
--
It’s a wake up call.
It goes like this.
Dowd says, in New York, then?
Morgan says, the new kids don’t take too well to old money.
Ru says, the new kids?
Lucius voice breaks in, commanding. Hengsha is the seat of our power in this regards, and you, Ru, our primary control mechanism on that sector. It will take place at TYM’s headquarters.
Rand says under his breath, if Hugh will leave London, that is.
The things you’ve ignored for your survival. None of them admonish Rand for his remark.
“Forgive me,” you say. The voice-scrambler controls for the way you struggle with the efforts of still being awake right now. “We’re discussing…?”
There is a moment of silence on the line.
Perhaps it’s disbelief.
Perhaps you don’t care.
David Sarif’s recruitment? Dowd says, a question in his tone.
Ru is far more blunt.
Are you with us? she asks.
“No,” you say. “When?”
There is another moment of silence on the line.
There is no room for sympathy at the top of the world.
Next week, Ru finally says. No one else says anything.
Ah, you say. Next week, then.
It’s a wake-up call.
It’s four a.m. in David’s part of America.
s’David, he answers, slurred in the middle of a yawn.
“Tai Yong is going to ask you to meet with them in one week. Don’t say yes, David.” Urgency infects the speed at which you speak, making it less likely that he will understand. You can’t slow yourself.
Hugh? he says, sleepy, surprised, in shock. Is that you?
“David, listen to me-”
Now he’s awake. It’s instant. He’s furious. You can’t get a word in edgewise. Where have you been? Where have you goddamn been?! It’s fury covering up for something sadder, though, something that tinges his voice with a nervous tremor you haven’t heard since- since- since I’ve found a way to control the effect. It goes like this.
“DON’T,” you insist, your voice harder than it’s ever been with him, “tell them yes.”
It stops him in his verbal tracks.
If it injures him, you’ll forgive yourself.
And yet, the quiet you suffer far worse than the preceding tirade.
“Why?” he asks.
You don’t have an answer. Only urgency.
“Please, David,” you say instead.
He’s fast on the uptake. Maybe too fast.
“Is someone threatening you?” he asks. It’s an academic interest, you tell yourself.
You open your mouth to say something, then close it.
Is someone threatening you?
Are they?
Who are they threatening, exactly?
What’s wrong? What’s so wrong?
What is so wrong with you?
“I’m asking you this as a friend,” you say. “I won’t ask again.”
A bit of a laugh from David. This time the disbelief is present.
“Are you threatening me?” he asks.
“The only threat,” you say, “is Tai Yong Medical. You will not go.”
“Fine,” he says coolly. It’s another thing you’ve never heard from him.
Nonetheless, it is perhaps the most relaxing thing he could have said.
“David-” you start, not knowing how to explain.
Except.
He’s hung up.
On you.
Two weeks later the council convenes and invites you so they can berate you for your absence at TYM’s headquarters, and then they proceed to talk about integration steps for their latest member, and where he will fit in, and what rank Sarif will be given, and you are certain that the DDS should no longer be causing extreme dizziness, yet. You can barely keep your world still.
It’s a wake-up call.
--
It’s the first time you’ve stepped foot inside his Detroit headquarters. It’s the first time you’ve come into contact with it. Sarif hasn’t connected it to your shared workspaces. Why would he? You’re never online. It’s cold, and gold, and alight in an inorganic way. The lights are replicas of something that used to come naturally, to him. The angles celebratory in their unfamiliarity with nature. We are something more than real, the construction says.
Much of this was paid for by DARPA contracts, you think.
There are several lightboard pillars displaying the history of biomechatronics – no, augmentations. You’re on one of them.
Hugh Darrow’s groundbreaking work with human enhancement has altered the very fabric of society.
It would not be a mistake to say that he changed the world as we know it.
Past tense.
You’ve got time.
You’ve got time to stop this.
You don’t recognize him. His new augment is solid black, with silver in the joints. The lines of it are sharp, and unapologetic. Artistic. Aesthetic.
The industrial is a memory.
Athene sees you before he does. She’s past shock, going straight to anger.
“You,” she hisses, eyes flaring, cutting David off mid-sentence. “Absolutely not.”
David leans off her desk as she snaps around it, a security officer in her wake.
“Hugh?” he says, tone empty. “What are you doing here?”
Athene holds up a hand. “You don’t have to talk to him, David.”
The security officer at her side crosses his arms. Your own security bristles in response.
“If you don’t mind,” you say.
“Oh, but I do,” she says. “I very much do.”
You look past her, towards David. He meets you with a tired stare.
His eyes are silver, too.
It’s a shock.
What happened?
When did it happen?
Why weren’t you watching?
“David,” you say.
He says nothing.
“If you want to speak to Mr. Sarif,” Athene says, “you’ll need an appointment.”
“That’s beneath you, Athene,” you inform her.
“I don’t think you have a right to say that,” she says.
The jab lashes at some vulnerable part of you, stings, because, there is no defense. Perhaps it’s beneath her. Perhaps it was beneath you, to wait so long, to stay away so long. To live as if underwater for so long.
Perhaps it wasn’t.
Perhaps it doesn’t matter.
This is more important.
“It’s about Them,” you say over her shoulder.
“Who?” she says.
You watch him. You still know him. Under the framework of these past few years, under the new things and the learned things, it’s still him. Considering, calculating, weighing, even though he’d already decided the moment he heard you. He taps his hand against the side of his desk as he thinks, but his subconscious has already decided.
The only thing you don’t know is what conclusion he’s reached.
You would have assumed…
But he went to meet them.
And you don’t know anymore.
You can’t guess anymore.
His eyes should be bright under the lights in the office, but instead they are muted and dull.
He nods his head towards his office.
“Come on,” he says. “Athene, let him through.”
Her eyebrows shoot up, and she gives a half-laugh.
“Athene,” he repeats. “It’s about Hengsha.”
She locks into neutral with alarming speed. Every tell concealed. How bad was it? What happened? What was he told, and why did he buy it, if Athene is…? The piece don’t add up. The concern is growing. Spiraling. Now is not the time to lose control.
Control it.
She steps back wordlessly.
Your security looks at you.
“Wait here,” you tell her.
Back then, there was no danger.
--
It should be a relief.
“They’re called the Illuminati,” you begin.
Everett. Lucius. Ru, Rand, Dowd. The Council of Five, Versalife, Picus. Everything David knows, everywhere he comes from, everywhere anyone who is anyone comes from these days is under their influence. All under their purview. All under their control. Their goal? The new world order. You tell him everything.
He laughs at first, then he grows quiet, then he grows somber. He stops pacing around the office and sits across the desk from you, and watches you, and fidgets with a pen in his hands.
When you finish, he stops twirling the pen through his fingers.
“You’re telling me this why?” he asks.
It’s the only thing he says.
You don’t have an answer.
“You aren’t curious as to how I’ve come to know about their plans?” you ask, deflecting.
“Easy,” he says, with a shrug. “You’re one of ‘em.”
“I could be a rebel, fighting against a corrupt system,” you say, in jest.
In jest.
“Corrupt?” he asks, and he’s dead serious. “From what they said, sounds like they’ve got the right idea.”
You can’t speak for a moment. You never expected he’d agree with them.
“I know you don’t believe that,” you say, when you can.
“Why not?” he says, shrugging again. “Tai Yong’s on the forefront of innovation. So are you. They’ve got the money and the power to make it work. To do what we have to so we can get it done.”
“They-” you say, slowly, struggling to work past the flat astonishment at hearing him say anything in line with Illuminati beliefs. “They believe in... they believe in control, and stagnation, and they will never let humanity achieve our potential, never let you achieve your potential, David, surely you must understand-”
“What makes you think they won’t?” he challenges, leaning back into chair. “What makes you so sure about that?”
“You can’t be so naïve,” you say. “Look at the larger picture, David. Your work with human enhancement has the potential to alter the very fabric of-”
“-society,” he finishes, rueful smile. “You’re gonna have to do better than that, Hugh, I wrote that damn paragraph.”
“It applies,” you say. “Doesn’t it?”
He pushes himself up.
“You’re wasting your time.” he says, with an air of finality. “I told them yes. I meant it.”
He walks around you, towards the door.
“David, you can’t trust them-”
“Then I can’t trust you,” he points out. “You’re one of them, aren’t you?”
A sudden, sore pain encircles your throat.
“David,” you protest. “I’m not here as an Illuminatus. I’ve never been here as an Illuminatus.”
“Haven’t you, though?” he says, tilting his head slightly.
“No,” you say firmly. “I haven’t. And I’m hurt you would think that of me.”
“Think what?” he says. “I’m not the one accusing them of being all that bad. Athene?” he adds, pushing the door open. “We’re done here.”
It’s not fear. Why would it be? The Illuminati are…are not that bad? Correct? They are a part of you and they have never been the threat to humanity. Chaos has. And yet…it’s something.
Imagine him, with cold eyes, and control. Looking down at the world from someplace disconnected. Imagine him, unchanging. Unevolving.
Static.
Cessation.
You’ll lose him.
It’s not fear making breathing a conscious act, it’s not fear making you feel the impact of your heart rate. It isn’t fear making your voice rise. It isn’t, you tell yourself. It’s not. It’s not fear, because it’s not possible he’ll go through with this. They are antithetical to him. The two cannot coexist. They’ll destroy him. Everything that is him. The telos inherent.
“David, it’s critical that you listen to me,” you insist.
“I did,” he says. “Next time you want to stop by too late you feel free to.”
He gestures towards the waiting area, a please leave sweep of his augmented arm.
“Me, I’ve got work to do,” he says.
It doesn’t make sense.
It doesn’t.
This hurt encircling you doesn’t. His decisions don’t.
“This can’t be what you want,” you say.
“Would you know, Hugh?” he asks. “It’s been three years. Would you really know?”
You haven’t heard it counted out loud.
“Three years?” you repeat.
It’s a sarcastic snort. “Almost. You weren’t counting the days? I was.”
“Don’t make this about you,” you say. “I was injured.”
“Yeah, I know,” he says, Athene appearing briskly beside him with a scowl on her face. “You really thought the best way for me to figure that out was from your press secretary? It was my design, Hugh. You were my friend.”
Past tense.
“Don’t pretend as if you don’t still care,” you say, feeling like you’ve lost a battle that was suddenly more important than you realized. “This issue doesn’t go away because you feel slighted.”
“Slighted?” he says, looking away, nodding. “That what you think? Is that what you think?” He bites on his lip. “Huh,” he says. “Slighted. Who’d have thought.”
“You need to leave,” Athene says, her voice a hard line, the security behind her an ultimatum.
Walking in a straight line is difficult. Walking in a straight line and making it look as if it takes no effort is not possible.
He moves aside, and does not look at you.
“David,” you say, not knowing what to follow it up with, not knowing what to say. You have to say something. You have to stop this.
He gives you a tight, professional Picus-polished smile, and clips back into his office. Athene shuts the door behind him, keeping her eyes fixed on you the whole time.
“Why is he doing this?” you say, half to yourself, half in the hopes that Athene will answer.
“You should already know that,” she says, walking back over to her desk. “I’m not inclined to help you figure it out, Mr. Darrow.”
It’s not encouraging. But she is answering. And David is not.
“Please,” you say. “They’ll be the end of him. I know they will.”
Her steps falter, for a beat.
And it is opportunity.
A chance.
It might be a chance.
“What has he told you?” you ask.
“I’m not at liberty to discuss that,” she says, but she turns around to face you. “What do you know?”
Oh god, it is a chance.
“Much,” you say, talking fast, because if you miss this chance, and if this is the last one, you will never forgive yourself. “I know that they and he are not alike. Their natures are dissimilar. I know that the he and they can’t coexist, that they have ulterior motives far beyond anything he can understand. No. Beyond anything he will allow himself to understand. I know this can’t be what he wants.”
Her eyes soften, a bit.
“I was worried it might be so,” she says. “Tell me everything.”
“No,” you say, an instant reaction. David is a different matter from all the other people you know. He’s different.
“It isn’t safe for you,” you add, in response to her newly crossed arms.
“Then I suppose,” she says, “you’ve done all you can. Thank you for your concern, Mr. Darrow.”
It’s slipping away. It’s getting away from you.
“I…” you say.
“Yes?” she says.
“I…no.”
“Hm,” she says, and crosses the rest of the way to her desk.
The sound of her typing accompanies you to the lift.
You reach it. You press the call button. You imagine David in ten years, twenty. With every passing minute the outcome seems worse. The two cannot coexist. And the Illuminati is too powerful to be brought down by one man.
They’ll kill him.
Will they kill him?
It’s not like them to waste an asset.
It’s not like him to be controlled.
What can’t be controlled can’t be called an asset.
The chaotic can only be a threat.
Who is being threatened, here?
It doesn’t matter.
All that matters is the man sitting twenty feet away alone in his office, and all that matters is that if you leave, you’ll never be this close to him again. The personal stake is academic. The academic stake is irrelevant. The thing invoking fear and causing your chest to tighten and calling forth the seizure-fringed flashbacks is something far deeper. Something essential. Something deep-rooted and complex and related, perhaps, to love. No. It’s something simple.
You can’t lose him.
Not to them.
The lift arrives with a ping, and it becomes a conscious thought.
I can’t lose him. Not to them.
You don’t realize it then, but it is perhaps the first time you’re aware that you can lose to them. That you and they are distinct. That your losses are not their losses.
That your gains will not be their gains.
The doors have opened. And now, they are closing.
Your security says, Mr. Darrow?
You turn around. Athene is looking up.
“Well?” she says.
--
It’s money.
That’s all it is.
That’s all it comes down to.
You’ve underestimated the depth of his research into DDS.
The media has grossly underestimated the depth of his research into DDS.
He’s been killing himself over this, she says, hardly pulling her punches. She takes some pity on you, though. When she says this, you know she means you.
Half the company is devoted to it. He’s determined to beat it. He blames himself, she says. For what happened to you.
He couldn’t have known.
Don’t play that game with me.
He couldn’t have.
It comes down to money, though. He’s burned through his resources, his connections, reached the end of every route he knows and he still hasn’t solved it.
It’s a last resort. They must have known. The Council has offered him the power to reach a higher level of enlightenment.
He’s taken it.
All you have to do, she says, is offer him an alternative. Any alternative. Coming from you, he’ll take it.
Athene accompanies you back to SI, back to the lift.
She holds to door to his office open for you.
The frown flashes fast across David’s face. “Don’t-”
“Neuropozyne,” you say. You’ve invented the word right then and there. Even the merest idea of the drug is still only a concept. You say it with confidence, as if it is a certainty.
“What about it?” he asks, with a suspicious that is only tempered by Athene’s presence.
“You don’t know it,” you tell him. “We haven’t released any information about it. But it’s designed to treat DDS – minor cases, at least. We could work with it, though.”
“Yeah?” he says, still leaned over his keyboard, still unwilling to engage.
“We could have it commercially viable as soon as the end of the year,” you say, the promises coming wild off the top of your head now. Why not?
“I would have heard about it,” he says.
“You wouldn’t have.”
“Yeah?” he says again, this time pushing his chair back, and resting his arms on the sides. A false air of open congeniality.
“Yes,” you affirm. “Because I only invented it a moment ago.”
It is the highlight of your arrogance. The breadth of your assumptions. A desperate hope that you can take this leap and some god-forsaken-how, your intelligence will catch you.
He regards you for a second, then two, then more. You catch yourself breathing too quickly.
The wearied lines in the corner of his eyes disappear as he breaks out into a smile.
“God, I’ve missed you,” he says. “Where the hell have you been, Hugh? You got a lot to catch up on.”
He’s out of his chair and across the room in an instant, grabbing your free forearm and pulling you into a hug, always the one for the importance of tactility, and he says come on, I’ll take you on a tour of the place, and Athene’s dangerous edge dissipates, a bit.
It should be a relief. It should all be a relief.
Instead, it is the first time you’ve felt fear. True fear.
Your goals and their goals are no longer the same.
And you are well aware what happens to their enemies.
You are well aware of what happens to their traitors.
--
The council is lousy with misunderstanding.
Dis-understanding?
Un-understanding?
They’ve only heard yes for far too long.
You watch it defy their framework of understanding so uniquely.
Lucius and Rand are ready to write David off. Morgan and Ru are taking a long game stance on the issue. Dowd seems caught somewhere between American patriotic pride in Sarif and aristocratic perturbation.
“I can convince him,” you tell them. You are lightheaded with the defiance. It is a risk beyond any other. Beyond anything you’ve taken since…
Since your skiing incident, you think.
Oh, how have you missed that adrenaline.
You tell them that you can convince David, and they trust you.
The risk is heady, but you don’t think about what happens if-
*If you don’t have a stamp, reverse your destination and return addresses. The post office will deliver it to the return address for free
*One bag of garbage from a McDonald’s dumpster has hundreds of receipts in it, each of which has a survey. Submit each one for lots of free food
*Holding a cell phone to your ear justifies loitering. This aids in public urination, dumpster diving, stalking, trespassing, etc
*If you’re going to plagiarize, plagiarize something in a foreign language. Use a translator and spend a few minutes touching up the results.
*If they have free refills, save your cup. Next time you eat there, your drink is free.
*A plastic coffee stir stick can fool any push in coin acceptor that loads the coins on edge. Just insert stir stick, push the mechanism forward until you feel the stick hit a bump, push the bump down with the stick and push the mech all the way in
*If you look like you know what you’re doing, no one will bother you.
*When lying, always include something slightly embarrassing, or something that makes you look bad, as part of your story. It’s not only going to disarm their skepticism (admitting to something embarrassing gives an impression of humility), but even if they remain skeptical, they’ll be left wondering why you would make something up that you’d rather keep secret if it were true
*Using Clorox or any bleach will turn the red/pink liquid detection dot on electronic devices back to white so they replace them under warranty
* “A drug dealer in DC taught me to pick my nose if the police are staring at me. No one picks their nose if they think someone is watching them, so it’s the ultimate way of being nonchalant.”
* "I learned that you can get into almost any special event by wearing a chef coat. Even just carrying one and walking like you know where you’re going will work every time. Most people don’t want to look stupid by asking you who you are.“
* "My go to missing work call was never “I’m sick”, it was “Family problems”. They never questioned it, it’s vague enough and embarrassing enough that nobody ever asks.“
*As part of the employee training at Target, they teach you that if a customer argues over a price, and the full price is under $20, to just give it to them for whatever price they claim. It’s cheaper for the company to move on to the next customer than to call in a price check.
*Put a rolled up sock in the change slot on a vending machine, come back back 4 days later….and pull sock….you will be 6-ish dollars richer.
*If it’s a small lie, like who farted or who put the empty milk carton in the fridge, I’ll tell a terrible lie. I’ll not be able to hold a straight face, contradict myself, basically suck at lying.Now everyone I know thinks I can’t tell a lie to save my life. So when I really need a big lie, I nail it every time. No one ever suspects me when I lie straight faced.
*Bring crutches to an airport. Bypass every line (including boarding) and you are chauffeured to your gate the second you pass through security.
*Make up a secret to share with someone- they may open up and share far more valuable real secrets.
*Here’s a classic. Drive over to your 7/11 of choice. Fill up a Slurpee and drop some candy bars in that bitch. Make sure the candy bars aren’t showing. Cover the Slurpee and pay for it. Free Snickers bitch.
*I tell everyone i’ve never done any drugs. Suddenly everyone offers me cocaine, ecstasy, pot, lsd. I think i’ve had $200 worth of drugs each weekend for free.Same with liquor. “Im not drinking tonight” BOOM! Everyone gives me booze. Its like everyone wants to break your integrity as soon as you tell them you are not doing whatever they are doing.
*If you need to cash from an ATM and its not a large amount, buy a 5 cent piece of gum from a gas station that has the cash back option. Its cheaper than a $3 charge
*Act less intelligent than you really are. Acting stupid can get you out of some tricky situations. Feigning ignorance is way better than admitting you knew better but did it anyway. My old man used to say ‘It is easier to beg forgiveness than ask for permission’…sometimes it’s true.
*Every time I fly, when I land I’ll pen a little complaint to the airline that flew me. You know, I’ll come up with something like “oh, they denied me a drink! Oh, the food wasn’t vegetarian!” Whatever miscellaneous hogwash potpourri comes to my crazy brain. And like clockwork, within a business day, they’re reimbursing me with a $50 voucher, a $100 voucher, I can sell that on the secondary market.
*I’ve always had a lot of success in shutting nosy people up by blaming any personal issue on allergies. Crying from a panic attack? Allergies giving me puffy eyes. What’s that mysterious pill I’m taking? Allergy meds. Why am I acting spaced out/hungover/tired? Allergies meds making me drowsy.
*If you really wanna get away with some shit, buy a reflective vest, a white hard hat, and a clipboard. You can go ANYWHERE.
“Let’s start a band,” Paul says suddenly, looking up from a file heavy with mission intel.
She’d prefer not to pay attention, and yet, it’s so bizarre, so out of the blue, she can’t help but to look up and check. Yes. It is Paul sitting there. He’s looking at her expectantly, although it’s clear he’s expecting agreement rather than dismissal.
She glances over at his notes. They should be full not of tactics and inferences and analysis. Instead, he’s written what looks like potential practice schedules.
“Can you play anything?” he asks. She could ignore him, but they’ve been a team for a while now.
“Absolutely not,” she says out loud, nods, and considers the matter over.
Apparently, Paul is not quite finished with the idea.
“What about you?” he asks across the table, shifting in his seat and brushing the folder away.
Anna envies Gunther. He has no qualms about ignoring Paul.
“Come on, guys,” Paul says. “Pretend like it’s a team-building exercise. You can be base, Anna, and, you can do drums.”
Gunther’s eyebrows raise slightly. His writing slows. Paul has many, many flaws, in Anna’s estimation, but a lack of attention to detail isn’t one of them.
He zeroes in on Gunther’s wavering resolve, and Anna sighs inside.
“It’ll be fun,” Paul promises, with misplaced sincerity.
Gunther puts down his pen, says hm like he is actually considering the proposition, and Anna feels deep in the base of her instincts that this is one of those times, the moment before the mission goes wrong, the second before you get ambushed at a drop zone, the footstep before you turn a corner and see a LAM rigged to a wall.
“I-” Gunther starts.
“That,” Anna says, cutting him off and snapping shut her binder, “is a promise you can’t possibly be certain of.”
Whatever contrary energy had built up in the room seems to dissipate. Gunther gives Paul a faint shrug, pen back in hand.
“She is correct,” he says, and leans back over his own papers.
And with that, the matter is closed. Paul goes back to his work without another word, which is all she wanted in the first place.
So, because people writing inaccurate kid!fic bothers me, a quick reference to kids (Disclaimer: I have no professional background in child development, and no offspring of my own - this is all based on other people’s kids.):
Newborn: Person-larva. Cannot do much but eat, sleep, cuddle, cry, poop. Cannot hold their own head up. May pick up on the mood of the person holding them, but response to it is going to consists of either contentment or complaining. Those are pretty much the two states of a newborn: happily cuddly or expressing displeasure.
2 - 6 months: Somewhat more aware of surroundings, own appendages, etc. Will recognize people, like some better than others. Smiles, laughs, babbles. Somewhere in here rolling over commences, and possibly crawling. Starts teething.
6 -12 months: Lots of babbling, but no actual talking. Crawls, pulls self up to standing while holding onto things, may start wobbly independent walking. Some kids are climbers (may heaven help their parents). Eating some solid food (as in, mashed up stuff), but still nursing / drinking formula too. This is the beginning of the exploratory, everything-goes-in-the-mouth stage. Still teething.
1 year old: Has teeth, eats solid food. Many parents wean at this age, but it’s not unusual to continue breastfeeding. Talks, but probably not very clearly - pronunciation will be interesting, and vocabulary very limited. May repeat a new word incessantly. Points at things they want. Physical coordination and verbal skills increase as child gets older. Maybe develop utterly random phobias, usually of things that are new or unpredictable. Interested in other children, may mimic older children. Still sticks everything in their mouth.
2 years old: Speaks well enough to be understood by those who know them, but not necessarily strangers. Uses simple phrases. May mash words together to express a concept for which they don’t yet know the word, or make a word up. Is learning labels for things, though they may not be accurate (i.e. all old men are grandpa, all round objects are a ball, etc.) Knows colors, parts of the body, types of animals, etc. Walks, runs, dances, etc - basically the full range of physical stuff, just all of it is kinda awkward. Can roll a ball or throw it in a clumsy way. May have a favorite toy, security blanket, etc. May play pretend games or make up stories, but they’re likely to be fair inscrutable to adults. Wants to do things independently, but is likely to be easily frustrated. Has tantrums. Plays with other children, but not terribly good at sharing or being nice. Asks questions; the ‘why?’ stage has begun. Toilet training begins around this age; girls tend to get the hang of it quicker than boys.
3 years old - pretty much the same as 2, only a bit better at all of it. Asks a LOT of questions. Has friends. Plays pretend. Understands rules (though is unlikely to obey them very well). Can count, though not very far. Speaks well enough to be understood by strangers; you know that so-cute-you-could-die kid-speak people love to write? This is the appropriate age for it (up through about age 5).
4 to 5 - cutesy kid-speak is age appropriate. May still have tantrums, still not the best at sharing, but should be starting to get socially functional. Can throw or kick a ball, jump, stand on one foot, all that. Can count, recite alphabet. Some kids start learning to read and write arond this age, though it wouldn’t yet be abnormal for them not to be able to. Lots of pretend play. Emotionally intense; everything is dire. Learning to be self-maintaining, i.e. may bathe independently but needs an adult to wash their hair.
6 - 10 - speaks like an emotionally immature adult; the things they have to say are still kid-like, but they should be easing out of kid-speak. Reads, writes, can do math - these skills increase with age. Understands and (usually) obeys rules, has a concept of fairness, kindness vs. cruelty, etc. Forms tight friendships, keeps secrets, wants to fit in and be liked; having a best friend or a group of friends is the most important thing in their world. Wants to be good at things; has definite interests and academic strengths and weaknesses. May bully or be bullied; kids this age can be mean. As in horrifyingly so. Has crushes (though probably still finds it acutely embarrassing). Understands death. Kids this age will curse, though hilariously badly. Still wants parental affection, but probably not in public.
11 - 12 - mini-teen, which is to say emotionally vulnerable, short-sighted mini-adult. Naive still, but not terribly so - has a basic understanding of human nature, events around them, etc. Begins to form political / ideological / religious opinions. May begin reciprocal romantic attachments. Strongly focused on collective identity, what ‘niche’ or ‘crowd’ they identify with. Some girls start puberty. This is also the age of things going badly wrong; kids know which other kids are the sociopaths at this stage. While everybody else is learning how to not be a mean little shit to everybody unlike themselves (or a bitter perpetual victim), those few who aren’t developing in a good direction become downright terrifying.
13 - 15 - somewhere in here, kids will start either facing major adult-scale decisions and problems themselves, or seeing peers doing so. Shit gets real. This is why teenagers think they know everything; the rose-colored glasses of childhood fall off, and they are suddenly So Very Jaded and cannot imagine there being more to the world than what they can suddenly perceive now, because it is overwhelming. Likely to be angry at the world, likely to gravitate toward ideological extremes. Takes risks. Forms romantic attachments; may experiment sexually, may not, maturity levels here very A LOT.
16 - 21 - moody adult with far more curiosity than common sense. Does thing in grand and dramatic fashion. Experiments with different identities. Wants total independence. Many develop greater social maturity around this time; stop seeing others in terms of cliques, develop greater empathy and ability to see things from multiple perspectives. Forms romantic attachments that may be serious or even life-long.
any white at a protest who tries to go against police and deliberately provoke a response from them is not to be trusted and does not have the safety of black and brown people in mind.
there is a good chance that they are police too. if anyone, especially a white dude, ever randomly gets your attention and conspiratorially tries to convince you to jump a police officer, then dude is a cop. They have been using this technique and script for at least 30 years.
Check their fucking shoes. They’re always too afraid that their little toesies will be hurt so they’ll usually still be rocking the exact same boots as the guys on the other side. This was what gave the cops away when they provoked riots in Toronto a while back.
Similar note: IME, unmarked cruisers have five distinguishing traits:
1. They’re one of the department-issue models.
2. They’re always white, black, or dark blue.
3. They always look like they just rolled out of a car wash.
4. Usually rocking restricted plates.
5. Most reliable if present but hardest to spot: Their mirrors are bulkier, to fit the light rigs in.
You can usually see the stealth lights if you look into the grill.
Besides the old obvious as fuck Crown Victoria, be suspicious of 2013+ Ford Taurus and Explorer, 2006+ Dodge Charger and Dakota, 06-13 Chevy Impala, 11+ Chevy Caprice and both the Tahoe and Suburban.
Look for oversize mirrors, plugs on the roof and/or A pillar, lights inside the grill, extraneous lights inside the headlight assembly, lights tucked up behind the rear view mirror, steel wheels with or without wheel covers, and plugs or short antennas on the trunk lid.
Reblogging this for two reasons: 1. So people who have reason to be afraid of the police (which is pretty much anyone with significant melanin) see it. 2. Uh, good writer reference for describing undercover cop cars…
