#Motorized Gate Systems

[secureindiaofficial]

Telescopic Sliding Gates | Automatic & Industrial Gate Systems by Secure...

[carnalcrows]

HEATSTROKE

pairing: ftm! tom riddle x male reader

synopsis: Something is getting rearranged in this fic and it’s not the ventilation system.

content warnings: 18+, smut, top male reader, the reader is a mechanic, AFAB Tom Riddle (masc-presenting), power imbalance, class kink, countertop sex, rough sex, degradation, spit, cum play, Tom is a rich brat, breeding kink, handprints on skin, non-magic AU, brat taming, heatwave smut, light manhandling, unprotected, reader is mean, Tom is ruined, filthy smut, no saving him now lol.

word count: 2.9k

a/n: we all love @deadmeat666 in this household (request)

You’re already sweating by the time the front gate unlocks.

Big iron thing. Sensor barely responsive. The kind of place people inherit, not buy—too much stone, too much ivy, too many empty windows watching you as you pull your truck up the gravel drive. You half expect a groundskeeper to greet you. Maybe a housekeeper, maybe some assistant with a clipboard.

Instead, a man answers the door.

Pale. Sharp. Clean-cut in a starched button-up rolled just to the elbows, dark trousers pressed within an inch of their life. Hair parted and perfect despite the heat—though there’s a glint of sweat just behind his ear, right where it meets his jaw.

“Tom Riddle, sir?” you ask.

He doesn’t nod. Doesn’t speak. Just looks at you. Down, then up. Like he’s deciding whether you’re worth stepping around.

“…You’re early,” he says.

His voice is smooth, clipped. Oxford, maybe. Definitely private-school polished. The kind of tone used for commanding staff. Or ruining someone’s week.

You shrug and adjust the strap of your toolkit. “You said it was urgent.”

His mouth twitches. Not a smile. Something sharper.

“It’s intolerable.” He turns without waiting. “The central unit controls the main wing. It’s been pushing nothing but hot air since last night.”

You follow him inside, boots echoing over polished tile. The temperature hits like a wall—humid and close, heat baking through the high ceilings and museum-grade curtains. You catch a faint whiff of something earthy in the air. Almost metallic. He’s sweating. Not much. But just enough.

He gestures toward a vent in the wall like he’s offended by its existence.

“Here.”

You nod. Drop to a crouch. Toolkit hits the floor with a dull thud.

You’re half-unpacking when you feel it—his gaze, cutting through the back of your shirt. Lingering. Tracking the slope of your shoulders, the stretch of your sleeves. You ignore it. You’ve dealt with worse.

“Wouldn’t have thought a place this expensive would be running ancient ductwork,” you mutter, brushing dust off the casing.

He hums. “The bones are original.”

Of course they are.

You start working. Screws out. Panel off. The smell of overworked metal hits your nose—burned out motor, maybe a blown capacitor. Easy enough to fix, but the heat’s sticking to your spine already, sweat trickling low between your shoulder blades.

Behind you, the chair creaks. He’s sitting now. Legs crossed, arms draped over the sides like some vulture prince in exile. Watching.

“You don’t talk much,” he observes.

“I’m working.”

“Hm.”

A pause. You feel him shift. Hear the soft slide of fabric against leather as he adjusts his seat. When you glance back, his collar’s undone. Just one button. But his throat is flushed, the faintest sheen of sweat catching the light.

His eyes don’t leave your hands.

“You always work like that?” he asks.

You pause. “Like what?”

“Fixing things by beating the shit out of them?” 

You glance over your shoulder. He’s leaning forward now. Elbows on his knees. His gaze is fixed on your fingers wrapped around the wrench—knuckles flexing, wrist tense. His mouth is parted just slightly.

You smirk. “Would you rather I be gentle with it?”

The chair goes still.

Silence. Heavy. A breath caught between you.

He looks away first.

“Just fix it,” he says, too quiet.

You return to the panel. Smirk widening.

You get the fan spinning within five minutes. Cool air sputters, then hums, then flows—sweet and low through the vents. You feel it wash over your neck and exhale.

Behind you?

A sound.

Soft. Choked.

You glance back.

He’s still in the chair, but his knees have drifted open. His shirt’s clinging now, damp at the collarbone. His pupils—huge. His lashes flutter when the breeze hits him again, and his fingers tighten where they grip the arms of the chair.

Like it’s too good. Too much.

And just for a second?

His hips twitch.

You wipe your hands on your rag, slow. Deliberate.

“Better?”

He swallows. Nods once.

But he doesn’t say thank you.

He doesn’t even look at you.

He simply tilts his head back against the chair, throat exposed, breathing through his nose like it’s the only thing keeping him from coming apart.

You let the silence hang. Cool air rolling out of the vent. Tom’s shirt flutters slightly where it’s plastered to his skin, his body caught somewhere between relief and something more volatile.

He’s still trying to pretend he’s unaffected.

Still got that chin tilted, lips pressed into something unreadable—but his pulse is jumping in his throat. You can see it.

You reach down and snap your toolkit shut.

The sound makes him flinch.

“I’ll need to come back in a week,” you say, standing. “The motor’s halfway fried. This fix won’t hold forever.”

His fingers twitch on the armrest. Still not looking at you.

“Fine,” he mutters, but his voice isn’t as crisp this time. The heat softened him. Made him pliant.

You step forward—slowly. Boots heavy on marble. Cross the space between you with deliberate weight until you’re standing just in front of the chair. The cool air follows you. Tom’s jaw tightens.

He still doesn’t look up.

“You gonna say thank you?” you ask.

He meets your eyes at last. Calm and unreadable. But there’s heat behind it—like he’s daring you to make it worse.

“I paid for the service.”

You click your tongue. “Didn’t pay for the extra attention. Or the fast response. Or the fact I didn’t walk back out the second you opened your mouth.”

A beat.

He swallows. The tendon in his neck flexes.

“And yet,” he murmurs, “you’re still standing here.”

You take him in. Carefully, now. Like a puzzle that needs prying open instead of solving.

His shirt’s sticking to his chest now, heat-slick. One button undone at the top, like he got desperate enough to loosen it but not enough to be obvious. His slacks are creased, but you can see the faintest tension in his thighs. He’s holding himself together through sheer force of will—and his scent, underneath it all, is a mess of soap, sweat, and something utterly feral.

You lean forward. Plant a hand on the arm of the chair. Right beside his.

He doesn’t move.

“You’re ovulating,” you say quietly.

His pupils flare.

You feel it—that crack in the air. Like something pulled too tight finally splitting.

Still, he scoffs. A dry little thing.

“Bold of you to assume I’d want you.”

You grin.

Then you grab him by the throat.

Not hard. Just firm enough to tilt his chin back, thumb brushing his jawline, the heat of his skin pulsing under your fingers. He inhales, sharp. Entire body tensing like a plucked string.

You feel it. The way his thighs twitch. The way his hands grip the chair.

“You called me,” you murmur. “You sat there watching me work. Breathing heavy. Legs open. Shirt clinging like you wanted someone to rip it off.”

He exhales through his nose. Shudders.

“You want me.”

“I don’t,” he hisses—but his hips shift. His chest rises too fast.

Your grip doesn’t tighten, but you don’t pull away either.

His voice breaks. “I don’t—”

You lean in. Close enough that your breath ghosts over the sweat on his cheek.

“You want someone dirty,” you say. “Someone who doesn’t ask. Who doesn’t care how pretty your house is. You want to be bent over in this chair and ruined, Tom.”

He whimpers.

It’s soft. Desperate. Unintentional.

And the way he looks at you now? Eyes wide, lip caught between his teeth, pulse pounding like a war drum—you know he’s soaked.

So ready.

So close to falling apart.

Your hand slips down from his throat to his chest, where his shirt’s damp and clinging. You smear a stripe of grease over the fabric, just above his sternum. He gasps. Stares down at it.

“What are you doing—”

“Marking you,” you murmur. “Like you asked for.”

He doesn’t argue.

He just watches your fingers as they leave another print. And another. His chest rising and falling faster now, mouth slightly open.

When your other hand starts unbuttoning his shirt, he doesn’t stop you.

He just leans back into the leather, heat-flushed and shame-drunk, letting you peel him open inch by inch—until he’s breathless beneath you, trembling, and smeared with sweat and grease like a ruined little canvas.

The shirt comes apart easily once he lets you in. Slick fabric peeled down his arms, clinging in spots, already stained at the collar where your hand held him by the throat.

Tom stares at your fingers as you smear another streak of grease across his chest, just under the collarbone. He jolts when you do it, but he doesn’t stop you. He’s panting now, hands gripping the chair arms like they’re the only thing keeping him upright.

“Look at you,” you murmur. “Sweaty little mess. All that money and still dripping like a bitch in heat.”

His jaw flexes. “Don’t—”

You spit on his chest.

He gasps—chokes on it. Shoulders jerk, hands twitch—but he doesn’t pull away. He just stares—like he can’t decide whether to wipe it off, or drag your fingers through it and lick them clean.

You smear it in with your palm. Mix it with the sweat. The grease. The pink flush blooming down his sternum.

“You don’t want me,” you echo. “But you’re shaking.”

“I—” His voice breaks. “I’m—”

“Hot?” You lean in. Bite his earlobe. “Wet? Needy?”

He groans. Low and helpless. His hips twitch in the seat.

Your hand trails down his stomach. You watch his muscles jump under your palm, watch his thighs press together—but you shove them open again with a knee between his legs, and he lets you.

“Take it off,” you mutter.

He blinks.

“Your trousers, Tom. Take. Them. Off.”

He fumbles with the buttons. Not because he doesn’t want to—because he’s too far gone to unfasten them right. The fabric sticks to his thighs. You help, yanking them down hard, and he gasps as the cool air hits his skin.

No underwear.

Of course there isn’t.

You laugh under your breath. “You were waiting for this.”

“Shut up—”

You slap the inside of his thigh.

The sound echoes like a gunshot. His head snaps back against the leather with a whine.

“Try that again,” you growl.

He breathes hard. His lip trembles.

“…Please,” he whispers.

Better.

You run two fingers down the seam of his cunt. He’s soaked—slippery, slick, and pulsing. The heat has him swollen and flushed, sensitive like he’s days into ovulating and desperate for friction. You circle his clit once and he bucks into your hand like it’s instinct.

“Fucking hell,” you mutter. “You’re soaked through.”

“Just—do it—” he gasps.

You grip his jaw. Force his face up.

“Say what you want, or you get nothing.”

He looks like he might fight it. Just for a second.

Then he shudders. Chest heaving.

“Fuck me,” he croaks. “I want you to fuck me.”

You grin. “Where?”

He blinks. Flushed deeper.

You stroke two fingers through his folds, teasing his entrance, and he moans before he can stop himself.

“There?” you ask. “Want me to spread you open right here? In daddy’s chair?”

He nods, eyes wet.

You push two fingers in.

The sound he makes is ruined—high and guttural, like it’s been ripped from his lungs. He claws at the chair arms, legs twitching, grinding down on your hand like he’s been waiting for this all goddamn day.

“More,” he gasps. “I can take more—fuck, I need it—”

You curl your fingers. Hit just right. His whole body jerks.

“Good little mess,” you murmur. “All that attitude, and now you’re soaking my wrist.”

You start fucking him harder—deep and fast, thumb working his clit, and he’s coming undone fast. Squirming, whining, panting so loud you’re sure it’s echoing off the chandelier. You reach up and press your greasy hand over his mouth.

“Be quiet.”

He moans into it. Loud.

And when he comes—god, he screams into your palm.

Spasming around your fingers, legs shaking, cunt gushing slick down your knuckles. You feel it run down to your wrist. His whole body trembling like the AC kicked in just to cool him off.

You pull your hand away. His mouth stays open, tongue slick and pink, eyes dazed.

You shove your fingers in.

He chokes. Sucks on them like he’s starving.

Then he gasps—

And you’re lifting him. Just like that. Out of the chair, over your shoulder, like he weighs nothing. He yelps, grabs your shirt, claws at it.

“What—what are you doing—”

“Taking you somewhere with fewer antiques.”

You kick open the nearest door. Marble bathroom. Gold fixtures. Steam already beading on the mirror.

You drop him on the counter with a thud—the kind that echoes off stone and glass and expensive tile. His palms slide back, bracing himself behind him, legs falling open without thought.

He’s flushed everywhere. Collarbone down to the hips. Damp with sweat, gleaming under the bathroom lights. The chill of the AC brushes his skin now, making him shiver, but you’re already unfastening your belt, and his eyes are glued to your hands like he’s watching something sacred.

“You good?” you ask, casual, even as you fist your cock and stroke once, twice—coating it in the slick from your wrist, still sticky with him.

He blinks up at you, lips parted, chest heaving.

“Please,” he says.

That’s enough.

You grab him by the hips and drag him to the edge. He slides easy—slick thighs catching on marble, hair sticking to his forehead. When the head of your cock presses to his entrance, he shudders so hard his legs kick out.

“Still want it rough?” you ask.

His voice breaks.

“Don’t be gentle. Please. I don’t want gentle.”

You push in.

Not slow. Not gentle.

You slide in all the way to the base in one thick, relentless thrust—and he screams.

Fists slamming back against the mirror, spine arched off the counter, eyes wide and wet and stunned.

“Fuck—” he sobs. “I—god—god, you’re—”

“Too much?” you growl.

He shakes his head violently. “No— don’t stop—don’t—fuck, it’s perfect—”

You grip his hips and pull out almost all the way—then slam back in, hard enough to rattle the sink.

The sound he makes isn’t human.

You set a pace that’s brutal, punishing. Every thrust slaps skin to skin, echoing in the wide tiled space. The counter’s creaking beneath him. His thighs are spread so far he can’t even brace, just flails a little with every snap of your hips. He’s soaked and throbbing, clit slick and untouched, twitching every time your cock drags over that spot that makes him sob.

“Look at you,” you grit. “Clenching around me like a needy little slut. You act so high and mighty, and now you’re just—taking it.”

He cries out—shakes—his mouth open and panting. His lashes stick to his cheeks.

“You are a slut, aren’t you?” you snarl. “Needed a working man to come in and fuck you open while you dripped all over daddy’s furniture.”

His legs jerk.

“Say it.”

He whimpers. Tries to form words and fails.

You wrap your hand around his throat and squeeze just enough.

“Say it.”

“I—I’m a slut— I needed it, I needed you to fuck me—”

“That’s what I thought.”

You lean over him. His knees come up around your waist, and you grab under one to spread him wider. He gasps. The shift angles you deeper, and he wails when your next thrust slams in. You feel him clench, flutter, suck you in like he doesn’t want to let go.

You spit in his mouth without warning.

He chokes on it. Moans.

“Swallow.”

He does.

You grab a fistful of his hair, yanking his head back so you can suck bruises into his throat. Big, messy ones—marks he won’t be able to hide for days. He claws at your arms, your back, sobbing now with every thrust.

“Breed me,” he gasps. “Please—please, fill me up—make me yours—”

You slam into him harder. Hips pistoning. Your balls slap against the curve of his ass, his cunt tight and sucking and so wet you swear it sounds like he’s drowning on your cock.

“You want that?” you growl. “Want me to fuck a baby into you right here on the counter?”

“Yes—” He’s nearly screaming. “Please—please—you’re so deep, I can feel it, I can—fuck—”

His eyes roll back.

You don’t stop.

Not when he cums—legs locking, toes curling, cunt squeezing you like a vice. Not when he sobs through it, trembling under you, so overstimulated he’s twitching, drooling a little down his chin.

You keep going.

Keep pounding into him like the fucking air conditioning isn’t even on. Like your only goal is to fuck him through the wall.

He’s babbling now. Nonsense. Broken pleads.

“Can’t— can’t think—feels so good—so full—y’gonna break me—gonna—fuck—fuck—”

You growl against his throat. “You’re mine now.”

He shatters.

You feel him spasm around you again, cunt pulsing, body wracked with aftershocks.

You slam in one last time and come undone—a filthy, full-body groan tearing out of your throat as you grind in, burying it all. You stay there. Deep. Buried to the hilt as your cock throbs, thick spurts spilling into him until it leaks out around you and drips down onto the bathroom tile.

He’s not moving.

Just blinking slowly, gasping, covered in spit, sweat, and come, shaking like his brain short-circuited somewhere between the first orgasm and the third.

You pull out slowly.

He moans. Hazy. Destroyed.

Your cum spills out of him and onto the counter in thick streaks. He’s a wreck. Flushed, slick, ruined. Hair a mess, legs still open.

You stroke his thigh gently.

“Next time,” you say, breathing hard, “try saying please before I walk in.”

He laughs once.

Then slumps against the mirror.

© carnalcrows on tumblr. Please do not steal my works as I spend time, and I take genuine effort to do them.

Taglist: @belovedengie @jrxkar @yippee-yippee8 @faggotboulevard @bleedingbl0ssom @green-turtle3 @mazettns @laynnetteii1 (comment to be added)

[szrssecurityswingturnstile]

[fionayao2008]

Tripod Turnstile Overview Tripod Turnstile, Swing Turnstile, and also Flap Turnstile( RS Security Co., Ltd: www.szrssecurity.com) are modern control tools for pedestrian flows. They are made use of in places where the entry as well as leave of people need to be regulated, such as smart areas, canteens, resorts, galleries, gyms, clubs, trains, stations, docks, etc location. Using Tripod Turnstile, Swing Turnstile, as well as Flap Turnstile can make the flow of people organized. Tripod Turnstile, Swing Turnstile, Flap Turnstile are used in mix with smart cards, finger prints, barcodes and other identification system equipment to develop an intelligent access control channel control system; they are made use of in mix with computer systems, access control, participation, charging administration, ticket systems and also various other software application to create a The intelligent Turnstile Gate thorough management system can recognize features such as access control, presence, intake, ticketing, as well as current restricting. This Turnstile Gate monitoring system becomes part of the "all-in-one card" as well as is installed at passages such as neighborhoods, factories, smart structures, canteens, and so on. It can finish numerous monitoring features such as staff member card travel control, presence at leave job and also dishes, and also dining. Tripod Turnstile system functions Fast and practical: check out the card in and out with one swipe. Use the accredited IC card and wave it before the clever Tripod Turnstile reader to finish the Tripod Turnstile gate opening and also charge recording work. The card reading is non-directional and the reading and writing time is 0.1 seconds, which is fast and also convenient. Protection as well as discretion: Use background or regional confirmation, licensed issuance, and special identity, that is, the card can only be used in this system, and it is private and also risk-free. Dependability: Card radio frequency induction, dependable and also stable, with the capacity to court and also believe. Adaptability: The system can flexibly set entry and also leave control employees permissions, amount of time control, cardholder legitimacy as well as blacklist loss coverage, adding cards and various other features. Adaptability: Through consent, the individual card can be made use of for "one-card" management such as vehicle parking, participation, accessibility control, patrol, intake, and so on, making it very easy to recognize numerous uses one card. Simpleness: Easy to install, straightforward to attach, the software application has a Chinese interface and is very easy to run. Tripod Turnstile, Swing Turnstile, and also Flap Turnstile( RS Security Co., Ltd: www.szrssecurity.com) are modern-day control devices for pedestrian passages. The use of Tripod Turnstile, Swing Turnstile, and Flap Turnstile can make the flow of people organized. Make use of the authorized IC card and wave it in front of the wise Tripod Turnstile visitor to finish the Tripod Turnstile gate opening and cost recording work.

[ironmengatesdoorsdesign]

Types Of Automatic Gates And Also Which One Is Right For You

In the world of house protection and ease, automated gateways have actually ended up being a principal. These highly advanced systems not just give an included layer of defense to homes however additionally add significantly to the visual worth, making them an extremely popular enhancement in modern houses.

Automatic entrances come in a selection of styles and also devices, each offering distinct attributes and benefits. Thus, it ends up being important for possible purchasers to be proficient with these types in order to make a notified selection that best matches their needs.

This short article ventures to look into the globe of automatic entrance systems, presenting an exhaustive exploration of different kinds offered today. The objective is not simply to state the different kinds however additionally help viewers in discerning which one could be best for their specific demands. Whether taking into consideration aspects such as design charm, operational ease or safety and security level, this exposition offers comprehensive insights that aim at helping with decision-making processes in the direction of selecting one of the most ideal electronic entry system for one's residential property.

Selecting the very best Electronic Access System for Your Property

Picking the optimal digital entrance system for one's building relies upon a careful equilibrium of safety and security and also comfort much akin to striking the best chord in a harmony; equally as way too many or as well couple of notes can interfere with consistency, an extremely complicated or insufficiently safe system can cause unnecessary disturbances.

A myriad of elements need to be thought about when making this important decision, consisting of the size as well as format of the residential or commercial property, its place, existing safety procedures, spending plan constraints, as well as individual preferences pertaining to technology use. An educated selection will make sure that not just does the picked system offer robust defense against unauthorised access but it also seamlessly incorporates into daily routines without causing added headache.

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[tripodturnstile]

RS Security Co., Ltd is a modern business with intelligent gate devices and premium services as its core. The company's main business is: construction website access control, face recognition Turnstile, Full height turnstile, acrylic swing turnstile, movable gates, tripod turnstile, basketball court paid turnstile, parking area barrier gate, totally automatic hydraulic bollard, and so on, with car park management Counting on the research and development, production, sales and service of devices, pedestrian gate management equipment, intelligent door openers and other items, we offer consumers with thorough management services. For many years, the company has actually specialized in security tripod turnstiles gates, swing barrier door, city flap turnstiles barrier, speed turnstiles, turnstiles, barrier-free systems, full height turnstiles gate, access control, and parking lot systems, and has gradually improved the items of magnetic cards, IC/ID cards, barcodes, and infrared series items. Integrated application, through constant battle and efforts, it has actually now developed into the most powerful provider of smart channel gate items in the market.

[digiway1]

Digiway Australia has carved a niche in the market with its broad spectrum of offerings. Whether it’s for commercial buildings, residential apartments, or specialised facilities, there’s a solution tailored to every need. This commitment to diversity ensures that every client finds a match for their specific requirements.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

There Were Always Enshittifiers

I'm on a 20+ city book tour for my new novel PICKS AND SHOVELS. Catch me in DC TONIGHT (Mar 4), and in RICHMOND TOMORROW (Mar 5). More tour dates here. Mail-order signed copies from LA's Diesel Books.

My latest Locus column is "There Were Always Enshittifiers." It's a history of personal computing and networked communications that traces the earliest days of the battle for computers as tools of liberation and computers as tools for surveillance, control and extraction:

https://locusmag.com/2025/03/commentary-cory-doctorow-there-were-always-enshittifiers/

The occasion for this piece is the publication of my latest Martin Hench novel, a standalone book set in the early 1980s called "Picks and Shovels":

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels

The MacGuffin of Picks and Shovels is a "weird PC" company called Fidelity Computing, owned by a Mormon bishop, a Catholic priest, and an orthodox rabbi. It sounds like the setup for a joke, but the punchline is deadly serious: Fidelity Computing is a pyramid selling cult that preys on the trust and fellowship of faith groups to sell the dreadful Fidelity 3000 PC and its ghastly peripherals.

You see, Fidelity's products are booby-trapped. It's not merely that they ship with programs whose data-files can't be read by apps on any other system – that's just table stakes. Fidelity's got a whole bag of tricks up its sleeve – for example, it deliberately damages a specific sector on every floppy disk it ships. The drivers for its floppy drive initialize any read or write operation by checking to see if that sector can be read. If it can, the computer refuses to recognize the disk. This lets the Reverend Sirs (as Fidelity's owners style themselves) run a racket where they sell these deliberately damaged floppies at a 500% markup, because regular floppies won't work on the systems they lure their parishioners into buying.

Or take the Fidelity printer: it's just a rebadged Oki­data ML-80, the workhorse tractor feed printer that led the market for years. But before Fidelity ships this printer to its customers, they fit it with new tractor feed sprockets whose pins are slightly more widely spaced than the standard 0.5" holes on the paper you can buy in any stationery store. That way, Fidelity can force its customers to buy the custom paper that they exclusively peddle – again, at a massive markup.

Needless to say, printing with these wider sprocket holes causes frequent jams and puts a serious strain on the printer's motors, causing them to burn out at a high rate. That's great news – for Fidelity Computing. It means they get to sell you more overpriced paper so you can reprint the jobs ruined by jams, and they can also sell you their high-priced, exclusive repair services when your printer's motors quit.

Perhaps you're thinking, "OK, but I can just buy a normal Okidata printer and use regular, cheap paper, right?" Sorry, the Reverend Sirs are way ahead of you: they've reversed the pinouts on their printers' serial ports, and a normal printer won't be able to talk to your Fidelity 3000.

If all of this sounds familiar, it's because these are the paleolithic ancestors of today's high-tech lock-in scams, from HP's $10,000/gallon ink to Apple and Google's mobile app stores, which cream a 30% commission off of every dollar collected by an app maker. What's more, these ancient, weird misfeatures have their origins in the true history of computing, which was obsessed with making the elusive, copy-proof floppy disk.

This Quixotic enterprise got started in earnest with Bill Gates' notorious 1976 "open letter to hobbyists" in which the young Gates furiously scolds the community of early computer hackers for its scientific ethic of publishing, sharing and improving the code that they all wrote:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Open_Letter_to_Hobbyists

Gates had recently cloned the BASIC programming language for the popular Altair computer. For Gates, his act of copying was part of the legitimate progress of technology, while the copying of his colleagues, who duplicated Gates' Altair BASIC, was a shameless act of piracy, destined to destroy the nascent computing industry:

As the majority of hobbyists must be aware, most of you steal your software. Hardware must be paid for, but software is something to share. Who cares if the people who worked on it get paid?

Needless to say, Gates didn't offer a royalty to John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz, the programmers who'd invented BASIC at Dartmouth College in 1963. For Gates – and his intellectual progeny – the formula was simple: "When I copy you, that's progress. When you copy me, that's piracy." Every pirate wants to be an admiral.

For would-be ex-pirate admirals, Gates's ideology was seductive. There was just one fly in the ointment: computers operate by copying. The only way a computer can run a program is to copy it into memory – just as the only way your phone can stream a video is to download it to its RAM ("streaming" is a consensus hallucination – every stream is a download, and it has to be, because the internet is a data-transmission network, not a cunning system of tubes and mirrors that can make a picture appear on your screen without transmitting the file that contains that image).

Gripped by this enshittificatory impulse, the computer industry threw itself headfirst into the project of creating copy-proof data, a project about as practical as making water that's not wet. That weird gimmick where Fidelity floppy disks were deliberately damaged at the factory so the OS could distinguish between its expensive disks and the generic ones you bought at the office supply place? It's a lightly fictionalized version of the copy-protection system deployed by Visicalc, a move that was later publicly repudiated by Visicalc co-founder Dan Bricklin, who lamented that it confounded his efforts to preserve his software on modern systems and recover the millions of data-files that Visicalc users created:

http://www.bricklin.com/robfuture.htm

The copy-protection industry ran on equal parts secrecy and overblown sales claims about its products' efficacy. As a result, much of the story of this doomed effort is lost to history. But back in 2017, a redditor called Vadermeer unearthed a key trove of documents from this era, in a Goodwill Outlet store in Seattle:

https://www.reddit.com/r/VintageApple/comments/5vjsow/found_internal_apple_memos_about_copy_protection/

Vaderrmeer find was a Apple Computer binder from 1979, documenting the company's doomed "Software Security from Apple's Friends and Enemies" (SSAFE) project, an effort to make a copy-proof floppy:

https://archive.org/details/AppleSSAFEProject

The SSAFE files are an incredible read. They consist of Apple's best engineers beavering away for days, cooking up a new copy-proof floppy, which they would then hand over to Apple co-founder and legendary hardware wizard Steve Wozniak. Wozniak would then promptly destroy the copy-protection system, usually in a matter of minutes or hours. Wozniak, of course, got the seed capital for Apple by defeating AT&T's security measures, building a "blue box" that let its user make toll-free calls and peddling it around the dorms at Berkeley:

https://512pixels.net/2018/03/woz-blue-box/

Woz has stated that without blue boxes, there would never have been an Apple. Today, Apple leads the charge to restrict how you use your devices, confining you to using its official app store so it can skim a 30% vig off every dollar you spend, and corralling you into using its expensive repair depots, who love to declare your device dead and force you to buy a new one. Every pirate wants to be an admiral!

https://www.vice.com/en/article/tim-cook-to-investors-people-bought-fewer-new-iphones-because-they-repaired-their-old-ones/

Revisiting the early PC years for Picks and Shovels isn't just an excuse to bust out some PC nostalgiacore set-dressing. Picks and Shovels isn't just a face-paced crime thriller: it's a reflection on the enshittificatory impulses that were present at the birth of the modern tech industry.

But there is a nostalgic streak in Picks and Shovels, of course, represented by the other weird PC company in the tale. Computing Freedom is a scrappy PC startup founded by three women who came up as sales managers for Fidelity, before their pangs of conscience caused them to repent of their sins in luring their co-religionists into the Reverend Sirs' trap.

These women – an orthodox lesbian whose family disowned her, a nun who left her order after discovering the liberation theology movement, and a Mormon woman who has quit the church over its opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment – have set about the wozniackian project of reverse-engineering every piece of Fidelity hardware and software, to make compatible products that set Fidelity's caged victims free.

They're making floppies that work with Fidelity drives, and drives that work with Fidelity's floppies. Printers that work with Fidelity computers, and adapters so Fidelity printers will work with other PCs (as well as resprocketing kits to retrofit those printers for standard paper). They're making file converters that allow Fidelity owners to read their data in Visicalc or Lotus 1-2-3, and vice-versa.

In other words, they're engaged in "adversarial interoperability" – hacking their own fire-exits into the burning building that Fidelity has locked its customers inside of:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interoperability

This was normal, back then! There were so many cool, interoperable products and services around then, from the Bell and Howell "Black Apple" clones:

https://forum.vcfed.org/index.php?threads%2Fbell-howell-apple-ii.64651%2F

to the amazing copy-protection cracking disks that traveled from hand to hand, so the people who shelled out for expensive software delivered on fragile floppies could make backups against the inevitable day that the disks stopped working:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bit_nibbler

Those were wild times, when engineers pitted their wits against one another in the spirit of Steve Wozniack and SSAFE. That era came to a close – but not because someone finally figured out how to make data that you couldn't copy. Rather, it ended because an unholy coalition of entertainment and tech industry lobbyists convinced Congress to pass the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in 1998, which made it a felony to "bypass an access control":

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/07/section-1201-dmca-cannot-pass-constitutional-scrutiny

That's right: at the first hint of competition, the self-described libertarians who insisted that computers would make governments obsolete went running to the government, demanding a state-backed monopoly that would put their rivals in prison for daring to interfere with their business model. Plus ça change: today, their intellectual descendants are demanding that the US government bail out their "anti-state," "independent" cryptocurrency:

https://www.citationneeded.news/issue-78/

In truth, the politics of tech has always contained a faction of "anti-government" millionaires and billionaires who – more than anything – wanted to wield the power of the state, not abolish it. This was true in the mainframe days, when companies like IBM made billions on cushy defense contracts, and it's true today, when the self-described "Technoking" of Tesla has inserted himself into government in order to steer tens of billions' worth of no-bid contracts to his Beltway Bandit companies:

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/lawmakers-question-musk-influence-over-verizon-faa-contract-2025-02-28/

The American state has always had a cozy relationship with its tech sector, seeing it as a way to project American soft power into every corner of the globe. But Big Tech isn't the only – or the most important – US tech export. Far more important is the invisible web of IP laws that ban reverse-engineering, modding, independent repair, and other activities that defend American tech exports from competitors in its trading partners.

Countries that trade with the US were arm-twisted into enacting laws like the DMCA as a condition of free trade with the USA. These laws were wildly unpopular, and had to be crammed through other countries' legislatures:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/15/radical-extremists/#sex-pest

That's why Europeans who are appalled by Musk's Nazi salute have to confine their protests to being loudly angry at him, selling off their Teslas, and shining lights on Tesla factories:

https://www.malaymail.com/news/money/2025/01/24/heil-tesla-activists-protest-with-light-projection-on-germany-plant-after-musks-nazi-salute-video/164398

Musk is so attention-hungry that all this is as apt to please him as anger him. You know what would really hurt Musk? Jailbreaking every Tesla in Europe so that all its subscription features – which represent the highest-margin line-item on Tesla's balance-sheet – could be unlocked by any local mechanic for €25. That would really kick Musk in the dongle.

The only problem is that in 2001, the US Trade Rep got the EU to pass the EU Copyright Directive, whose Article 6 bans that kind of reverse-engineering. The European Parliament passed that law because doing so guaranteed tariff-free access for EU goods exported to US markets.

Enter Trump, promising a 25% tariff on European exports.

The EU could retaliate here by imposing tit-for-tat tariffs on US exports to the EU, which would make everything Europeans buy from America 25% more expensive. This is a very weird way to punish the USA.

On the other hand, not that Trump has announced that the terms of US free trade deals are optional (for the US, at least), there's no reason not to delete Article 6 of the EUCD, and all the other laws that prevent European companies from jailbreaking iPhones and making their own App Stores (minus Apple's 30% commission), as well as ad-blockers for Facebook and Instagram's apps (which would zero out EU revenue for Meta), and, of course, jailbreaking tools for Xboxes, Teslas, and every make and model of every American car, so European companies could offer service, parts, apps, and add-ons for them.

When Jeff Bezos launched Amazon, his war-cry was "your margin is my opportunity." US tech companies have built up insane margins based on the IP provisions required in the free trade treaties it signed with the rest of the world.

It's time to delete those IP provisions and throw open domestic competition that attacks the margins that created the fortunes of oligarchs who sat behind Trump on the inauguration dais. It's time to bring back the indomitable hacker spirit that the Bill Gateses of the world have been trying to extinguish since the days of the "open letter to hobbyists." The tech sector built a 10 foot high wall around its business, then the US government convinced the rest of the world to ban four-metre ladders. Lift the ban, unleash the ladders, free the world!

In the same way that futuristic sf is really about the present, Picks and Shovels, an sf novel set in the 1980s, is really about this moment.

I'm on tour with the book now – if you're reading this today (Mar 4) and you're in DC, come see me tonight with Matt Stoller at 6:30PM at the Cleveland Park Library:

https://www.loyaltybookstores.com/picksnshovels

And if you're in Richmond, VA, come down to Fountain Bookshop and catch me with Lee Vinsel tomorrow (Mar 5) at 7:30PM:

https://fountainbookstore.com/events/1795820250305

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/04/object-permanence/#picks-and-shovels

[notquitecanon]

Not Quite Canon's Masterlist:

Just another multifandom imagines blog. All works are dated- so you can date my progress and track as my ADHD brain jumps from one hyper-fixation to the next

** Indicated NSFW. 18+ MDNI

Do Not Repost! Please and Thanks <3

Requests/asks are always open, the rat in my brain likes receiving little messages and notes of inspiration :)))

Works & Playlists below the cut!

Criminal Minds x Marvel crossover 2019, unfinished (masterlist)

Marvel: 

Spangled Stars || Steve Rogers x Reader (2019)  Whiplash || Peter Maximoff x Reader (2019)  Like a Good Neighbor || Bucky Barnes x Reader (2019)  Chance Encounter || Spiderman x Reader (2020)  Look at You || Moon Knight system x reader (2023) **  Call Me… || Matt Murdock x Reader (2024) 

See Also: Miguel O' Hara Playlist on Spotify 🎧 Criminal Minds / Marvel Crossover listed above ^^

Criminal Minds:

Christmas Vacation || Spencer Reid x Reader (2019)  Fun Facts || Spencer Reid x Reader (2020) Thief! || Spencer Reid x Reader (2020)  Missing || Spencer Reid x Reader (2020) 

See Also: Criminal Minds / Marvel Crossover listed above ^^

John Wick:

First Impressions || John Wick x Reader (2020)  With & Without || John Wick x Reader (2021) 

DC Comics:  

Zero Stars || Adrian Chase x Reader (2022)  Beverage Napkin || Adrian Chase x Reader (2022)  Stop Worrying || Adrian Chase x Reader (2022)  Ghosting || John Constantine x Reader (2023)

See Also: Adrian Chase Spotify Playlist 🎧

Ghostbusters: 

Here, Let Me || Dr. Egon Spenger x Reader (2021)  Mandatory Attendance || Dr. Egon Spengler x Reader (2021)  Happy Golden Days || Dr. Ray Stantz x Reader  Snow || Dr. Egon Spengler x Reader (2022)  For Emergencies Only || Dr. Egon Spengler (2022)   >Part 2   (Metaphorical Rescue Eggroll) >Part 3  (The Love Hypothetical) Dust and Motor Oil || Dr. Ray Stantz x Reader (2022)  Stardust & Fungi || Dr. Egon Spengler x Reader (2022)  Tell ‘em bout the Twinkie || Dr. Egon Spengler x extroverted!Reader (2023)  Hypno!kink headcanon (2022) (plotbunny free to good home) ** See Also: Ray Stantz Spotify Playlist 🎧 I Wanna Be Ghostbuster Playlist 🎧

That 70s Show:

First Dates || Steven Hyde x Reader (2020)  Snowed In || Steven Hyde x Reader (2020)  Comfort || Steven Hyde x Reader (2020)  Slippery & Cold || Steven Hyde x Reader (2020) ** 4 Things Steven Hyde Agreed To & 1 He Didn’t || Steven Hyde x Reader (2020)

Star Wars: 

From the Start || Kylo Ren/Ben Solo x Reader (2019)  Strings || Obi-Wan Kenobi x Politician!Reader (2020)  Disappointment || Kylo Ren x Reader (2020) ** Sacrifice and Devotion || Din Djarin x Reader ( 2023)  See Also: Din Djarin Playlist on Spotify 🎧

Twilight: 

Cowardice || Jasper Hale x Reader (2020)  Bad Moods || Jasper Hale x Reader (2020)  Attitude Adjustment || Jasper Hale x Reader (2020)  The Moment Before Eternity || Carlisle Cullen x Reader (2020)  Firsts || Carlisle Cullen x Reader (2020)  Spiked Punch || Jasper Hale x Reader (2021)  GTA || Jasper Hale x Reader (2021)

Baldur’s Gate 3: 

Insufferably Admirable || Astarion x Reader (2023)   > Part 2 (Foolishly Admirable - 2024)   See Also: Astarion || The Pale Elf playlist on spotify 🎧

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare: 

Keep Talking || Simon "Ghost" Riley x Reader (2024) ** Warmth || Simon "Ghost" Riley x Reader (2024)  Dense || Simon "Ghost" Riley x Reader (2024)  A thought about Poly!141 x Reader (2024) ** >>Search History || Poly!141 x Reader (2024) ** >> Virtual Breadcrumbs || Poly!141 x Reader (2024) (Part 1.5) ** >> IRL Plug and Play || Poly!141 x reader (2025) (Part 3) ** ~~~~Any additional asks or headcanons are posted under the #searchhistory on my blog!

Familiar and Whiskey || Simon ���Ghost” Riley x Reader (2024)** Some clever sleep pun title || Simon "Ghost" Riley x Reader (2025)

Feeling, Sudden and New // Simon “Ghost” Riley x (John “Soap” MacTavish x Reader)

See Also: POV: ur in love with Johnny "Soap" McTavish playlist 🎧

POV: ur in love with Simon “Ghost” Riley 🎧

[carionto]

Life Imitates Art

Aliens: So, we've been studying your pop culture, and we have to ask - Where are your giant robots?

Humans: What!? No, that's silly, there's way too many moving parts, exposed motors, high center of gravity, it ju-

A: Stop it. We know you by now. Excuses like that don't deter you. Where are they?

H: ... fine.

The Humans lead the Aliens to the largest moon in the Sol system - Jupiter's Ganymede. Upon approach, a massive hatch slides open to reveal a deep tunnel going below the surface of the moon. Passing by typical Human amenities - hotels, shopping districts, various salons and service providers - a massive dome comes into view. Or, more specifically, the top fifth of what is a fourteen kilometer massive arena.

H: They're in there.

As the gates open and they step onto a viewing platform, a gruesome sight of rubble and crushed robot parts strewn about the arena comes into view. These form a complex and dangerous fighting environment for numerous robots, all remotely operated, engaged in all manners of fighting - one-v-one, small team skirmishes, literal tugs of war, and even entire armies of small robots waging war against either other similar armies or one giant robot, plus everything in between.

H: Like we said, they're not practical in any way, but like you guessed, yea. We like giant robots. I mean, everyone digs giant robots!

[cleverwolfpoetry]

Psycho-pass Movie Novel Chapter 8 Complete

Note before reading: sentences in italics represent the character’s thoughts; sentences between square brackets are phone/radio conversations or the voice of dominators or other electronic devices.

1

At the gate of Shambala Float, Tsunemori was asked to leave her weapons. She was a little irritated at being treated like an enemy, but she didn’t consider the government forces to be her allies either.  She reminded herself that she had gone so far with her actions on the battlefield that it couldn’t be helped.

Surrounded by soldiers of the National Military Police soldiers, Tsunemori was forced to walk at gunpoint. After a lift to the top floor, she was taken to the courtyard of the National Military Police dormitory. There, a grim-faced Nicholas was waiting for her.            

“…No matter how important you are as a guest, our patience has a limit…”

“Important guest? You tried to kill me.”

“It was because you were working with a guerrilla.”

“That was part of the investigation.”

“Why can’t you understand that this is ‘our country’? You are confined and will be forcibly repatriated to Japan on the next airfreight.”

Repatriated? Finally, Tsunemori’s expression changed. With a look of steel on her face, she moved closer to Nicholas, and in response, the other soldiers threatened her with their weapons. Nicholas despised Tsunemori and was wary of her. But Tsunemori hadn’t expected him to see her as such a threat. She was prepared for house arrest, but not for repatriation. It was highly unlikely that the soldiers would even allow Tsunemori to open her mouth.

At that moment, the soldiers in the courtyard suddenly stood at attention.

Footsteps approached and Nicholas looked suspiciously in their direction to see Chairman Hang.

“I’d rather you didn’t make important decisions alone.”

“Your Excellency Chairman…!”

“There is no need to repatriate her. Send her back to her room and put her under supervision.”

“But… !”

“Silence! I have my doubts about the way the National Military Police have acted recently. And I am the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces.”

“Yes, sir…”!

This time Nicholas changed colour.

“That was too harsh. As you know, she is a guest... an inspector from the Japanese Ministry of Welfare. Please, take that into account.”

“…”

Chairman Hang’s leniency created a feeling of mistrust in Tsunemori.

2

The guesthouse was located in a corner of the Sky Gardens of Krita Yuga. Tsunemori returned to her assigned private room, a  cottage-style loft structure. She had been forced to return. Two security drones and two soldiers stood guard at the door of the room. She was effectively under house arrest, but she felt she had been saved from forced repatriation.

“Well, then…”

Tsunemori checked the radio wave signal in the room using the sophisticated portable terminal provided to the inspectors, and then carefully checked the power supply, lighting and communications systems. —  She discovered that the holographic TV system embedded in the wall had been bugged. She was not particularly surprised. The display on the portable terminal showed that the bathroom, which also contained a toilet, was indeed unmonitored.

Tsunemori entered the bathroom bringing along her self-moving suitcase. First, she took out her notebook, then she opened the cosmetics pouch that Karanomori Shion had hidden, which was filled with the Public Safety Bureau’s ‘Pill bug’ micro-drones.

Tsunemori entered the empty bathtub with the notebook in her hand. As she gave a command on her portable terminal, a multitude of pill bugs began to move simultaneously. The micro-robots rolled around under the power of their macromolecular motors, spreading out through the drains and ventilation fans.

They explored the area from the quarters of the National Military Police to the nearby Chairman’s residence and the surrounding Government Headquarters. It took time, but in the meantime Akane operated the notebook. She found a relay node[1] in Shambala Float and connected to it wirelessly. Careful not to leave any traces, she fed it the hacking programme she had received from Karanomori via her portable terminal.  As soon as this was accomplished, a hologram appeared on Tsunemori’s portable terminal with the words [Private Network Established] and [Satellite Communication Online].

“Sorry about this, Shion-san. Can you hear me?”

[Oh, Akane-chan.]

The time difference between SEAUn and Japan was two hours. Karanomori was usually at work at that time. She had tried to communicate with her, thinking that as long as there were no major incidents, she would pick up right away.

[Yes, of course. The programme I gave you seems to be working. So, what’s going on?]

“I’m scattering the pill bugs all over the place. These guys can fool the security equipment in this country. Please check every single psycho-pass diagnostic device installed in buildings and on the streets.”

[What do you hope to find? The Sibyl System is already running there, isn’t it? In that case...]

“The System may not be working fairly. Selectively check the relevant equipment within the Special Ward, especially that of the Military Police. Check that the cymatic scans are really measuring accurately.”

[A detective’s intuition... sort of thing?]    

Tsunemori laughed at Karanomori’s words.

“It’s not like that. It’s the result of a series of considerations.”

[Okay. I’ll go all out.]

The pill bugs started the search. The collected data was transferred to Tsunemori’s computer, from where it was sent to Karanomori in Japan via satellite through a private network .

“One more thing. The collars used to monitor latent criminals here in Shambala Special Ward are also made in Japan, right?”

[Shouldn’t they be?]

“Could you please find a code to unlock them under the authority of the Public Safety Bureau?”

[It’s a piece of cake, but... will you be all right? The Military Police won’t be  all too pleased, will they? ]

“I am long past the stage where I act by worrying about people’s moods .”

3

— The Old Town, where the guerrilla clean-up had come to an end. The camp of Desmond’s mercenaries had been set up in a large, abandoned theatre that occupied one corner of the city. Armoured vehicles, transporters and two powered suits had been brought into the atrium.

Kougami’s hands were tied with reinforced plastic bands, and he was suspended by chains from hooks in the ceiling. His upper body had been stripped naked, and he was covered in bruises from being beaten and kicked.

The man torturing Kougami was a large, muscular Frenchman — Weber. Rutaganda, Babangida and Bun looked on. The Russian, Yulia, had just returned from buying local alcohol and food. Yulia tossed a bottle of whisky to Rutaganda and a bottle of beer to Weber.

Having got his drink, Weber stopped hitting Kougami and took a break.

Rutaganda approached Kougami instead. After putting the whisky on the table, he reached into his survival kit and pulled out a small pair of first-aid scissors.

Medical scissors with a thin, knife-like tip.

Rutaganda opened the scissors and placed them on Kougami’s nipple. The cold blades touched the muscular chest, and the man involuntarily frowned at the repulsive sensation. Rutaganda pinched Kougami’s nipple with the tip of the sharp scissors. A little more force and it would have been cut off.

“First of all, I can’t shake off the suspicion that you were acting as a military advisor to the guerrillas under someone else’s orders.”

Rutaganda inquired.

“Actually, didn’t you have contact with the Japanese Tsunemori even after you left the country? To what extent does the Japanese government know the real situation of SEAUn? ... That’s what we want to know.”

“It would have been much easier if I had had the support of the Japanese government…”

Kougami defiantly held his ground.

“What makes you think that? You’re the one who’s supposed to have connections with the Japanese government, aren’t you? Shambala Float is a division of the Ministry of Welfare…”

“Don’t you care about nipples? How about here, then?”

Rutaganda placed the medical scissors on Kougami’s crouch. He clamped them around the base and, as expected, Kougami’s face contorted at the feel of the blades touching the sensitive area.

“…Do it!” Kougami said.

“It doesn’t sound like you were acting,” Rutaganda put the scissors back in her bag. “Even men have less fun when they lose their nipples. You should be grateful for my kindness.”

“…These aren’t regular army methods. You’re mercenaries, right?”

Kougami countered. Rutaganda laughed.

“I was surprised to find that the guerrilla military advisor I had heard so much about was Japanese. I thought that country was nothing but a phony, spineless rubbish, with all the Sibyl and other bullshit.”

“It’s true that I don’t have a place there anymore.”

“Did you leave the government service after receiving a professional training? But as a mercenary, you are third-rate. Above all, you have no eye for choosing your employers.”

“Don’t lump me in with your hyenas. I don’t just live by trailing the scent of blood.”

“Well, that’s the kind of nonsense that only a former detective would say. There are those who are eager to write slogans saying that in the ideal state of violence there is both law and justice.   In a world where states have collapsed, there is a ‘privatisation of violence’. This is because the monopoly of organised violence is the essence of the state.  When violence begins to spread, it becomes ‘infrapolitical’[2]. Organised violence as an economic activity, with social resentment as its source.”

Kougami laughed scornfully.

“ ‘The wretched of the earth’[3], eh?   A post-colonialist mercenary is hard to deal with.”

“Huh? You’re not only skilled, but also educated? More and more interesting.”

Rutaganda raised his eyebrows, somewhat impressed.

Then he released Kougami’s bonds.

“What?” the mercenaries shouted in surprise, but Kougami was the most surprised of all.

— What is he up to?

“ From what I have heard, your fellow guerrillas idolised you. Did you inspire them with some reassuring ideologies?”

As he said this, Rutaganda lightly adopted an orthodox boxing stance.

Then Kougami finally understood.

He wanted to test Kougami’s skills a bit more... that’s how it was.

“…no idea.”

“Hmmm. But I wonder. Sure is that when I talk to you, I feel strangely uplifted. It’s like listening to Wagner’s music.”

“These are words I’d rather hear coming from a glamorous, beautiful woman. Hearing them from a man just gives me goosebumps.”

Hearing this, Yulia from the gallery tilted her head and wondered ‘Is he referring to me?’ But Kougami was focused on Rutaganda, and the beautiful woman was out of sight.

“That talent of yours is precious, Mister Japanese. You’d make a good agitator. You have a special charisma that can stir up anger and focus resentment.”

Kougami tried Rutaganda’s skill test.

After the torture, his condition was close to the worst. Just lifting his arms made every joint in his body ache. And yet, when Rutaganda gave him that ‘come at me’ attitude, he couldn’t help but do so.

Kougami tried to hit him but failed. Due to the pain and his diminished strength, his punch was too long.  Rutaganda easily dodged it and counterpunched him.

Rutaganda’s left fist was human, but still effective. Two more jabs from Rutaganda. Kougami did not dodge and continued to receive sharp, fast punches.

This is good boxing — .  Even at my best, it will be hard to beat Rutaganda, Kougami thought. A left punch alone had almost knocked him out.

In a hazy state of consciousness, Kougami still managed to put together a plan.

— Rutaganda’s right arm must be  made of a special alloy.

The left, of course, is a decoy. A diversion. The real punch will come from the right.

Kougami dared to throw a jab.

He wobbled but dared to throw it anyway.

Then he waited for Rutaganda’s right hand.

The sound of the blow, the pain. The skin of his cheek torn. The taste of blood filling the cut mouth.

Finally — the long-awaited right came.

(—  I did it!)

Rutaganda threw a right straight and Kougami matched it with a left hook.

A cross counter.

A steel fist was driven into Kougami’s face, but he also landed a powerful blow.

“…!”

The mercenaries’ eyes widened at the sight. It had been a long time since they had seen Rutaganda take a beating — No, it was the first time since they had formed the mercenary group. Weber almost dropped the bottle of beer he was drinking and quickly grabbed it on the way down.

The damage was worse for Kougami.        

His knees trembled and he fell.

But Rutaganda’s feet wobbled as well.

Kougami hadn’t been able to defeat Rutaganda with a single blow, but he was doing what he could now.

“No way! That’s awesome.”

Laughing, Rutaganda pulled out a gun from his belt. It was the revolver pistol he had taken from Kougami. He pointed the muzzle of the revolver at Kougami, who had fallen to the ground.

“It’s rather modest, but we have our own community. Eventually we want to build up our forces and form our own military clique. When that happens, we’ll need not only the usual leadership skills, but also the ability to excite and captivate the masses.”

Rutaganda poured whisky onto the pistol he was holding up. The highly alcoholic drink poured down the barrel of the gun onto Kougami. It seeped into the wounds all over his body. Kougami groaned involuntarily at the burning pain in his nerves.

“How about it? Do you feel like joining us? We'll give you the opportunity to hone your skills and set the stage for you to be able to use them to their fullest.”

The mercenaries scowled at Rutaganda’s proposal.

“He… hey! Leader…”,  Babangida  said with a confused look on his face.

Rutaganda ignored the voices of his subordinates and continued.

“If I hand you over to my client like this, you’ll be dead anyway. I’m saying that I’m giving you a chance to live.”

“I don’t see how that’s  better than dying, don’t expect me to be grateful.”

Wet with whisky and enduring the pain, Kougami spat out resolutely. Rutaganda was about to say something when he received a call on his portable terminal.

[Is he still alive? The male target.]

It was from Nicholas Wong of Shambala Float.

“Yeah. Can I kill him yet?”

[He still has some use. Bring him to me.]

“…copy that.”

Rutaganda ended the call and shrugged at Kougami.

“I would have liked to give you some time to think it over. Too bad, that was poor timing.”

4

The doorbell rang in Tsunemori’s room. She was now under house arrest by the National Military Police. In this situation, only one person was using the intercom.  Tsunemori, who had her laptop open in the bathtub, invited her maid, Yeo, into the room.

“Excuse me. I see you’ve returned to your room…”

Yeo had brought the meal on a tray cart. Porridge with chicken, fried egg. A spicy salad. She was tempted to eat it all, but for the moment she held back and just gulped down a glass of mineral water.

Tsunemori moved her face closer to Yeo.

“What?”

“Stay calm.”

Tsunemori grabbed Yeo’s hand and pulled her into the bathroom. There she pressed her portable terminal against the girl’s collar and entered the code she had received from Karanomori. This unlocked the collar, which came off and fell to the floor.

“Th-this is…” a confused Yeo said.

“Calm down and listen to me. I need your cooperation.”

“… cooperation?”

“To expose the abuses committed by the National Military Police.”

“…!”  Yeo’s eyes widened in surprise.

“It’s okay. If I can’t prove that there’s corruption in the Military Police, you can just say I threatened you. Then you won’t be charged with a crime.”

“… Are the National Police really corrupt?”

“There’s no doubt about it. So much so that I could stake my entire career on it.”

“But”

Then it happened. Suddenly, Tsunemori’s vision began to sway. Her knees were shaking, and she could not stand properly.

I’ve been drugged. — When? The mineral water just now! Yeo betrayed me? In any case, the enemy beat me to it. The next moment, realising she was in a bad situation, she used her remaining strength to retrieve the notebook she had left in the bathroom, switched the pill bugs to autonomous control, and executed the command to erase all data. She left the rest to the Karanomori.

Yeo ran out of the bathroom.

“Yeo-san…”

Tsunemori ran after her on shaky legs.

The door opened and Nicholas and his soldiers burst in. The drug had made it impossible for Tsunemori to resist, and she was tied behind her back with a plastic band.

“…!”

“I did as you said!” Yeo clung to Nicholas.

“Now you are really going to take off my brother’s collar, aren’t you? His illness is progressing and a high level of medical — ”

“I’ll have a good think about it.”

Nicholas pushed Yeo away and drew his gun. He shot her carelessly in the head.

“Tsk!”

“Don't kill the woman yet. We’ll arrange for her to die together with the guerrilla’s military advisor. It’s the least suspicious way.”

“Why did you kill Yeo-san?!”

Tsunemori’s mouth barely moved as it should have.

“The gun I just used was the one I confiscated from you,” Nicholas said triumphantly.

“Inspector Tsunemori shoots and kills the maid in order to escape. She runs outside and tries to join the guerrilla leader. Then we rush to the scene and shoot the inspector and the guerrilla to death... We used to be able to deal with the troublemakers more easily, but now we have to be very careful with the Sibyl System, right? ...”

“I knew you guys weren’t getting read by the cymatic scans. The scanners in this city have been fooled.”

“Oh? Do you have proof?”

“You just killed someone!”

“If the Sibyl system doesn’t complain, no action is a crime. Isn’t that so?”

Laughing, Nicholas poked Yeo’s corpse with his toe.

“In other words, this woman was just trash who deserved to die. That’s fine with me.”

Tsunemori looked at Yeo’s corpse. She had been a beautiful girl, but now most of the back of her head was gone and pieces of her brain were spilling out of the large gaping hole in her skull.

— A person like her shouldn’t have been killed. Tsunemori bit her lip in frustration.

NOTES TO TRANSLATION:

[1] Relay node: radio stations that cannot communicate directly due to distance, terrain or other difficulties sometimes use an intermediate radio relay station to relay the signals. A radio relay receives weak signals and retransmits them, often in a different direction, as a stronger signal.

[2] Infrapolitical:  Adjective of infrapolitics. Infrapolitics refers to the study of political actions and consequences that occur below or outside the realm of official political structures and processes. It examines the physical, social, and political infrastructure that supports urban life, including how it can be used for both oppression and resistance. Infrapolitics explores how individuals, groups, and institutions engage in non-traditional forms of political expression and action. 

[3] The Wretched of the Earth is a  book by the philosopher Frantz Fanon. In this case, Rutaganda’s speech is not a direct quote from the book but rather a personal elaboration based on it.

Please, no repost outside of Tumblr.

translation by cleverwolfpoetry @ https://cleverwolfpoetry.tumblr.com/

[drnikolatesla]

🚢 Tesla's Remote Control Patent: The Birth of Modern Automation 🚢

On November 8, 1898, Nikola Tesla was granted U.S. Patent No. 613,809 for his "Method of and Apparatus for Controlling Mechanism of Moving Vessels or Vehicles." This invention wasn’t just the first practical remote control—it marked a revolutionary step toward the development of wireless communication and automation.

🔧 How Tesla’s System Worked 🔧

Tesla's system worked much like how we control drones today—only over a century ago!

1️⃣ Transmitter: Tesla used radio waves to send wireless commands to the vessel.

2️⃣ Receiver: The vessel had a sensitive device that decoded the radio signals into specific actions, such as steering or powering motors.

3️⃣ Control Circuits: Tesla designed a series of circuits that ensured each command executed reliably, preventing errors and interference.

⚙️ Key Features ⚙️

💡 Command Logic: Tesla's circuits functioned like a primitive decision-making system, linking specific signals to specific actions—a conceptual precursor to today’s logic gates.

🔋 Multi-Channel Design: Each circuit operated on a unique frequency, akin to modern multi-device networks, ensuring precise control without interference.

🛡️ Safety First: Tesla implemented mechanisms to prevent accidental or incorrect activations, prioritizing reliability.

🌍 Applications Then and Now 🌍

Tesla saw the potential for:

✔️ Military Use: Guiding unmanned ships or torpedoes.

✔️ Disaster Response: Sending unmanned vessels into dangerous areas.

✔️ Remote Automation: Introducing wireless precision to various industries.

Today, Tesla's vision echoes in:

🚁 Drones: Controlled remotely through radio signals.

🤖 Robots: Autonomous machines performing tasks with precision.

🏠 Smart Homes: Devices responding to commands over Wi-Fi.

🏭 Automated Factories: Machines operating through programmable controls Tesla helped inspire.

🌟 Why Tesla’s Invention Matters 🌟

Tesla didn’t just create a remote control—he pioneered a framework for wireless systems that continues to shape modern technology. What are your thoughts on Tesla's advancement in wireless technology?

[talonabraxas]

"All Nature will commune with you when you are in tune with God. Realization of this truth will make you a master of your destiny." -Paramahansa Yogananda

Cosmic Consciousness Talon Abraxas Excerpt From Autobiography Of A Yogi – Sri Yogananda

“Master spoke caressingly, comfortingly. His calm gaze was unfathomable. “Your heart’s desire shall be fulfilled”. I was bewildered. He struck gently on my chest above the heart.

My body became immovably rooted. breath was drawn out of my lungs. Soul and mind instantly lost their physical bondage and streamed out like a fluid light from my every pore. The flesh was as though dead; yet in my intense awareness I knew that never before had I been fully alive. My sense of identity was no longer narrowly confined to a body but embraced the circumambient atoms. People on distant streets seemed to be moving gently over my own remote periphery. The roots of plants and trees appeared through a dim transparency of the soil; I discerned the inward flow of their sap.

The whole vicinity lay bare before me. My ordinary frontal vision was now changed to a vast spherical sight, simultaneously all-perceptive. Through the back of my head I saw men strolling far down Rai Ghat Lane, and noticed also a white cow that was leisurely approaching. When she reached the open ashram gate, I observed her as though with my two physical eyes. After she had passed through the brick wall of the courtyard, I saw her clearly still.

All objects within my panoramic gaze trembled and vibrated like quick motion pictures. My body, Master’s, the pillared courtyard, the furniture and floor, the trees and sunshine, occasionally became violently agitated, until all melted into a luminescent sea; even as sugar crystals, thrown into a glass of water, dissolve after being shaken. The unifying light alternated with materializations of forms, the metamorphoses revealing the law of cause and effect in creation. An oceanic joy broke upon calm endless shores of my soul. The Spirit of God, I realized is exhaustless bliss; His body is countless tissues of light. A swelling glory within me began to envelop towns, continents, the earth, solar and stellar systems, tenuous nebulae, and the floating universes. The entire cosmos, gently luminous, like a city seen afar at night, glimmered within the infinitude of my being.

The divine dispersion of rays poured from an Eternal Source, blazing into galaxies, transfigured with ineffable auras. Again and again I saw the creative beams condense into constellations, then resolve into sheets of transparent flame. By rhythmic reversion, sextillion worlds passed into diaphanous luster, then fire became firmament. Blissful amrita, nectar of immortality, pulsated through me with a quicksilver like fluidity. The creative voice of God I heard resounding as Aum, the vibration of the Cosmic Motor.

Suddenly the breath returned to my lungs. With a disappointment almost unbearable, I realized that my infinite immensity was lost. Once more I was limited to the humiliating cage of a body, not easily accommodative to the Spirit. Like a prodigal child I had run away from my macrocosmic home and had imprisoned myself in a narrow microcosm.

Later master explained “It is the Spirit of God that actively sustains every form and force in the universe; yet He is transcendental and aloof in the blissful uncreated void beyond the world of vibratory phenomena. Those who have attained Self-realization on earth live a similar twofold existence. Conscientiously performing their work in the world, they are yet immersed in an inward beautitude” The above description was recorded by the young Paramahansa Yogananda as he was given his first taste of Samadhi, or as he called it, Cosmic Consciousness, by his Guru, Sri Yukteswar. It should be noted that there are various types and levels of Samadhi ranging from bliss and images of revelation up to the highest mergence in the Absolute.”

[szrssecurityswingturnstile]

dc brushless speed turnstile door also called access swing turnstiles doors, which belongs to the gain access to control system, is one of the important elements of modern entrance and exit control. The door wings are driven by the control system and open and close automatically. The operating mode can be picked through programming settings: As quickly as it is verified that the person entering is authorized, the door wings open immediately. It closes after a hold-up, and the hold-up time is adjustable. Typical servo motor speedlane turnstile gate are divided into scissor doors (subway flap barrier gates) and swing doors. (1) Scissor doors are frequently used in rail transit, and typical scissor doors are mainly utilized in subways and other places. The door wings extend from the within the box, which can efficiently seal the passage and play the role of access control. In addition, an infrared picking up device is set up inside the door body, which can understand the purpose of "one person, one card" for people to go through. (2) The swing door appeared later than the scissor door and comes from the 2nd generation dc brushless slim gates gates. Such dc brushless slim The characteristic of gates doors is that the door wings run in the front and back instructions. The operation procedure is within the body's view, which is more secure. In addition, given that the door wings do not require to be pulled back into package, The styles of swing doors are more different. Due to the above characteristics, swing doors are usually utilized in banks, business structures, high-end office buildings, etc. Anti-trailing function: There is a total infrared light band detection area in the channel. The switch state can be adjusted by software according to the consumer's precision requirements. The application of the light band to adapt to different requirements avoids the imperfections of point-type infrared detectors that are quickly polluted and impacts the dependability of judgment, and can successfully judge the future. Tag reader who reads the card. When the system determines that tailgating has actually taken place, the system will react based upon the place of the legitimate cardholder returned by the infrared detector. After the door opening signal is sent out, there are still some irregular uses that will activate an alarm.

[xcziel]

hadn't seen this on here yet

South Korea Is Fighting for Democracy Again—And the World Needs to Know

by Heesoo Jang

Assistant Professor of Media Law and Ethics, Journalism Department, University of Massachusetts Amherst 

South Korea is once again at a critical juncture in its democratic history. More than a hundred thousand protesters, joined by over 4,000 professors and 1,466 Catholic priests announcing their declarations of the state of affairs, are calling for President Yoon Suk Yeol’s resignation. This echoes the massive movement that led to the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye in 2017 for corruption and abuse of power, showcasing South Koreans’ enduring commitment to holding leaders accountable.

What’s unfolding in South Korea is not just a domestic issue—it’s a reminder that democracies everywhere require constant vigilance. Yet, international media, like the BBC and AP News, have largely missed the bigger picture, focusing on soundbites and foreign policy instead of the underlying democratic struggles. This oversight leaves out important context for the global audience to understand the deeper context of widespread domestic dissatisfaction of the state of democracy in South Korea.

At the heart of the protests are allegations of corruption and abuse of power. President Yoon has exercised his veto power 25 times since 2023, blocking investigations into allegations against his wife, including claims of stock manipulation in Deutsch Motors. This is the most frequent use of veto power South Korea has seen since South Korea’s first president, Syngman Rhee, who faced impeachment in 1952 and eventually resigned in 1960 amid widespread public outrage over his authoritarian rule and attempts to consolidate power. 

These vetoes, alongside scandals like the “Myung Tae-Kyun Gate,” have eroded public trust in the administration. The gate alleges that political broker Myung Tae-Kyun, a close ally of Yoon and First Lady Kim Keon Hee, manipulated public opinion during the 2022 presidential election. Through his Future Korea Research Institute, Myung reportedly conducted biased polls favoring Yoon to influence election narratives. A leaked phone recording released by the opposition Democratic Party has further implicated Yoon in discussions about candidate nominations, fueling allegations of election interference.

Beyond these vetoes, Yoon’s administration has faced widespread criticism for systemic failures in governance, public safety, and economic management. The Itaewon tragedy, where 159 people lost their lives during a crowd crush, starkly exposed grave inadequacies in public safety protocols and emergency response systems. A special investigation on this tragedy was also a bill the President has vetoed. Similarly, the death of Private Chae during military service revealed systemic abuses and negligence within the military. Instead of enabling accountability, President Yoon has repeatedly vetoed special prosecutor bills aimed at investigating these military abuses. Public frustration has only grown as investigations into these tragedies have failed to hold senior officials accountable. Meanwhile, Yoon’s administration has also faced allegations of undermining press freedom by targeting journalists and media outlets critical of the government. 

Adding to these failures is a healthcare system on the brink of collapse, where prolonged medical staff shortages, exacerbated by budget cuts, have caused long-term disruptions in patient care. Instead of addressing these structural issues, the government has opted for a hasty increase in medical school quotas—a move experts warn will only further destabilize the system. Yoon’s economic policies have similarly drawn heavy criticism for favoring the wealthy with tax cuts while reducing public welfare budgets, deepening inequality between South Korea’s elites and its struggling middle and working classes. Rising household debt and record-breaking small business closures have fueled calls for reform, yet the administration’s inaction has only alienated the public further. Compounding these grievances, a 15% cut to South Korea’s research and development (R&D) budget has alarmed academics and scientists, who warn that this decision jeopardizes the nation’s innovation-driven economy and long-term global competitiveness—a concern echoed by prominent universities like Yonsei and Ewha Womans University, which cite these cuts as emblematic of broader governance failures.

Despite the scale of unrest, international media have failed to convey the full significance of this crisis. Instead of contextualizing public discontent and the erosion of democratic norms, they have focused on peripheral issues, ignoring the protests’ broader implications for democracy. This has also allowed misinformation to muddy the narrative internationally, preventing the international public from gaining important contextual information about what’s happening in South Korea. For example, posts on Chinese social media have falsely portrayed the protests as anti-war rallies rather than demands for accountability and reform. 

South Korea’s struggle is a powerful reminder that democracy is not self-sustaining—it requires active vigilance. The protests and demands for reform exemplify how civil society can confront governance failures. The world deserves more context and a nuanced understanding from international journalism about what South Korean democracy is facing, as its fight for justice, transparency, and the rule of law holds lessons for all democracies.

[lisacameron99]

Revelation S.R.

Summary: based on the Criminal Minds episode Revelation (2x15)

Y/N Hotcher (Little Hotch) x eventual Spencer Reid

Warnings: angst, Spencer being tortured, Tobias Henkel, usual Criminal Minds stuff?, swearing, reader/I being really angry at the world because she loves Spencer but won't admit it, friends to lovers, emotions, idk if I am missing anything

LONG AF AND NOT PROOFED

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Where’s Spencer?” I asked, looking around the farm. “And JJ?”

“I don’t know, come check out the barn with me and Prentiss.” Morgan told me. We made our way to the barn and when we opened it, JJ pointed her gun at us, eyes wild.

There was a lot of commotion with trying to get JJ to lower her gun. I noticed the dead dogs. Jezebel. Oh God.

“Tobias Henkel is the unsub.” JJ told us once she realized it was us.

“We know,” I said gently.

“We just thought he was a witness. I had to kill them.” She said referring to the dogs. I glanced at the dead animals again and rubbed my temples. “There’s nothing left.”

“JJ, where’s Spencer?” I asked her but she didn’t answer me.

“JJ, look at me,” Prentiss prompted. JJ focused on her. “Where’s Reid?”

“Oh, uh, we split up. He went around back.”

I ran back outside to tell Dad and Gideon that we found JJ but not Spencer.

"Dad,” I called, running up to him. “Dad, JJ was in the barn, but Spencer’s not.”

“We searched the rest of the property and the house and he’s not there either. Neither is Henkel.”

“So,” I gulped, looking at my dad. “So where’s Spencer?”

“I don’t know. But we will find him.” Dad promised me.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I was standing with JJ and Emily by the ambulance while they checked JJ out.

“Hey, any sign of him?” Prentiss asked Morgan and he shook his head.

"You can't find Reid?" JJ asked, confused.

"Not yet," Prentiss told her.

"Prentis, Little Hotch." Derek pulled us away from JJ. "I think Reid followed him into the cornfield, it looks likes somebody got dragged." I rubbed my temple, trying to push away the stress migraine that was impounding.

"Hey, what's going on?" Prentiss asked the officer who just got off the phone.

"The sheriff two towns over. He just gave directions to a man who fit Henkel's description. It's to a motor lodge in Fort Bend."

"Let's get Hotch and Gideon." Morgan said and I went back to JJ.

After hours of not finding Spencer, morning came which brought Penelope too.

"You know they do have hotels in Georgia." She told me and Aaron.

"There's no sense splitting time between here and a field office." He told her, ushering her into the house.

"Right." She agreed warily, looking around the property.

"Think of the house as a witness," He explained to her. "If it could talk, what would it tell us?"

"My guess is it would tell us to get the hell out." She responded.

We made our wait into the main living room and JJ greeted Penelope with, "Welcome to our nightmare."

"His computer is an extension of his brain," Gideon told her. "I need you to dissect it."

"I'll get you set up, come on." Derek told her, taking her to where the computers were at.

"I'll come with," I mumbled, walking past my dad and everybody else, to go with Penelope and Morgan.

The rest of our team filled Dad in on everything, but there was no evidence pointing where Spencer and the unsub could be.

"Okay, right out the gate, the guy is self taught." Penelope told us. "His mainframe is totally idiosyncratic, but it's pretty brilliant."

"Talk to me about what this son of a bitch watches online. What the hell is all of this?" Morgan told her, trying his best to figure out the computers and how we could use it to help us know Henkel better.

"It's tame stuff, video games, software sports. Seriously, if I had to guess whose system this belongs to, I would say a crazy smart high school kid."

"Well clearly it's not Penelope. Can you please find us something that will help us find Spencer?" I snapped before walking out the room and back outside.

I hated this. How could Spencer have gotten so far away so fast? Where the hell was he being held? Please God, I begged, please bring him back to me. Please. I hadn't prayed in years, especially with my mom and dad fighting, but I knew we had a slim chance at getting Spencer back, and God was probably the only person to bring him to me.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Hey guys!" Morgan called to us, I looked up at him from where I was sitting with Gideon on the steps. "I think I got something."

I ran over to where he was and he found a cellar.

I pulled out my gun as Morgan opened the door. "Tobias Henkel, FBI!" Dad and I followed him inside. We got our flashlights out and searched the ice cellar. "Tobias Henkel! Tobias!"

Dad moved closer to the unmoving body. "I think we just found Henkel's father." Well, shit.

We made our way out of the cellar and let CSI do their thing while we went back into the house.

"You need to get some sleep." Gideon told me and I rolled my eyes. "Sometimes it felt like I had two dads between Hotch and Gideon.

"I'm fine."

"When was the last time you slept?" JJ asked me.

"When was the last time for you?" I snapped back, my anger seeping through. I wanted to find Spencer. I wanted him back.

"Y/N, you need to get some sleep." Dad told me and I stomped my foot.

"Is that an order?" I demanded, looking my dad square in the face.

"Yeah, it is." He shot back and I threw my gun on the table, making JJ jump at the noise. I went into the living room and grabbed my blanket and my dad's pillow from the corner and laid on the floor to take a nap. There was no way in hell I was sleeping on any of the furniture here. After a few minutes, I felt JJ come sit by me, resting her back against the couch.

"I'm sorry." She muttered.

"I'm sorry too." I muttered back.

"I'm so stressed out that I can't sleep." She admitted after a few minutes.

"I can't either. I just want to find him." I relented.

"I saw you guys, at the club. You danced."

"Liquid courage fixes a lot of the world's problems. Sometimes."

"You guys would be cute together."

"You must be sleep deprived."

"I know what I saw at the club. You both like each other, you're practically dating anyways, why not just make it official?" And with that thought running through my brain, I fell asleep.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Morgan just told me that he thinks the stressor is the father's death, which happened about six months ago." Dad told me and Gideon as we sifted through the papers.

"So basically he has split personality disorder?" I banged my head on the table.

"This journal is filled with religious ramblings." Morgan told us, coming into the room with the journal. "He notates hour by hour. November 15th, 3:17 - if ye offer a sacrifice of peace offering unto the Lord, ye shall offer it at your own will. And it goes on and on. 5:04, 7:41, 10:22, 1:42. But then it goes blank for days."

Morgan handed me the journal and I looked at it, getting a sense of who Henkel was. Dad put a hand on his head, thinking. "Maybe he got sick of writin'," The sheriff suggested.

"I think I got it," Dad said, and I looked at him hopefully.

"What is it?" Gideon asked him.

"Yeah, Dad, what did you figure out?"

"Journal entry - December 6th - father sick, wants me to put him down. I say, "Thou shalt not kill," He says, "Honor thy father." Must pray for guidance." Oh. So he killed his dad...

Before I could finish my thought, Gideon interrupted. "So he kills his father as an act of mercy?"

"Some sick sort of mercy." I muttered, flipping through the journal in my hand before giving it back to Morgan.

"This is two months ago. Tobias Henkel's father had been dead for four months already." Dad told us.

"That's exactly it. Look at the floor," Morgan told us, pulling a chair out for us to see. "These scuff marks are fresh." He was right, they were. "I mean it's like two people were moving the chairs constantly, trying to fight for control."

"So?" The sheriff asked.

"This journal matches Charles Henkel's handwriting, but it was written after he died. Upstairs, Tobias' bedroom - it's got junk puled from the floor to the ceiling, but the other bedroom could pass a military inspection." Morgan explained.

"So are you telling me, one of Tobias' personalities was his father?" The sheriff asked, trying to make sense of this situation.

"Well," Gideon put in, "Tobias was raised with a strict religious code - black and white - right and wrong. When his father asked Tobias to kill him, something had to give."

"And his brain couldn't handle the moral contradiction, so it split into two personalities." Dad said.

"To keep his father alive." I finished.

"So... who is Raphael?" The sheriff asked, confused.

"My guess - he's a mediator between the two. Angels have no human emotions. Live or die, they don't care, as long as it's God's will."

"We need to start profiling Tobias' father. He may be the one who chose where to take Reid."

"I'll get Penelope on it." I said, standing up and walking to the computer room.

"Pen, I need you to log into the system as Tobias' father."

"The system was set up three months ago. The dad was already dead."

"She knows that, smarty pants, but do it for your favorites anyway, alright?" Morgan said, coming in behind me.

"Okay," Penelope said, starting to type.

"Charles Henkel." Derek told her.

Tons of horrifying imagines and videos showed up on the screen. I closed my eyes and cracked my neck. This was going to be bad.

"Woah," Penelope said trying to take it all in.

"He's crazy." I mumbled. "Like crazy crazy. I can't imagine having split personalities, let alone, one of them be insane."

After a few minutes of Penelope trying to do her thing, the computers went blank.

"What happened?" Morgan asked her, confused.

She wasn't much help because she was equally confused. "I don't know?"

"What do you mean, you don't know?" I demanded, scared.

All of a sudden on most of the screens, Spencer showed up. He was bound to a chair beaten and bloodied.

"Oh my god." Penelope said, taking the words straight from my mouth.

"Guys! Guys!" Morgan shouted to the team. "Get in here!"

"He's been beaten." Prentiss said, assessing him.

"Can't you track him?" JJ asked, confused. I put a hand over my mouth, trying to remain composed.

"Henkel's only streaming this to his home computer." Penelope told them.

"This is for us, for Y/N, he knows we're here."

"I'm gonna put this guy's head on a stick." Morgan spat, angry.

"Why can't you locate him?" Dad asked Penelope.

"He's rerouting to a different I.P Address every thirty seconds. I can't track him."

"Can you really see inside men's minds?" Tobias asked Spencer. "See these vermin. Choose one to die. I'll let you choose one to live."

"No," I gasped at Spencer'svoice.

"I thought you wanted to be some kind of savior." Tobias said.

"You're a sadist ina psychotic break. You won't stop killing. Your word's not true." Spencer told him, trying to snap him out of the personality he was in. Tobias was either Raphael or his father at the moment.

"The other heathens are watching. That whore of yours, she's watching. Choose a sinner to die, and I'll say the name and address of the person to be saved."

"I won't choose who gets slaughtered and have you leave their remains behind like poacher." Playing into the fantasy. Good job, Spence, I thought.

"Can you really see into my mind, boy?" Tobias demanded lifting Spencer out of the chair. I gasped audibly, grabbing onto Gideon's arm. "Can you see I'm not a liar?" He yelled. "Choose one to die, and save a life. Otherwise, they're all dead."

"Alright," Spencer gave in, not wanting more people than necessary to die. "I'll choose who lives."

"They're all the same." Tobias spat at him.

"Far right screen." Spencer finally said.

"Marilyn David, 4913 Walnut Creed Road." Tobias said.

"You got that?" Dad asked Penelope.

"Yeah." She said, typing her fastest on the computer.

Gideon typed the phone number on a phone and it dialed.

"Hello?" The voice on the other end said.

"Marilyn David. My name is Jason Gideon. I'm with the FBI."

"What?" She said alarmed, Gideon told her to turn her computer off immediately and she did so.

"You're Raphael." Spencer said. Before anything else could happen, the screen went dark. Morgan walked out of the room, angry, and punched the door. I gripped JJ's hand hard, needing the contact to stay grounded.

"So now what? We wait for a 911 call, and hope we get there in time?" The sheriff asked.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When the next victims were killed, Dad, Gideon and I went to the crime scene.

"Slaughtered, same as the others. We've got roadblocks for a fifteen mile radius. Every unit's on the road, but so far nothing." I pushed the stray hairs out of my face and looked at the crime scene.

"I don't know how much longer Reid can hold out," Dad said quietly, giving in to his fear that Spencer might not make it.

"Who were the victims?" Gideon asked, ignoring Dad.

"Pam and Mike Hayes. He was a local defense attorney."

"And what Bible passage was left?" Gideon asked another question. I went and stood next to him.

"Isaiah 59. No one calls for justice, "no one pleads their case with integrity. They rely on empty arguments, they utter lies they conceive trouble and give birth to evil."

Gideon got close to the camera, "Reid, if you're watching, you're not responsible for this. You understand me? He's perverting God to justify murder. You are strong than him. He cannot break you."

"We're not getting any closer." Dad told us.

"Reid's brilliant. He'll figure out how to survive." Gideon said, trying to reassure us, himself included.

"You know, I always take advantage of Reid for his brain, but I never actually teach him how to deal with things emotionally."

"Lead by example." Gideon responded.

"What kind of example is that?" Dad asked.

"He'll make it."

"He has to." I whispered. "He has to make it." God, I prayed. Bring him back to me. Please just bring him back to me.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"We can trace their whole family history." Morgan said, looking at the evidence board we made up. "Here we got happy, smiling pictures of Tobias. Report cards all As and Bs, but as an eight year old, we get nothing."

"That's his mother leaving." Prentiss said from her spot next to me. "Six months later, on the other side of the board, we have a form from child services saying they paid a visit."

"Then Charles starts keeping journals about punishing sinners and needing to remove the devil from his son." I added. "Which corresponds to Tobias' drug use. He's trying to escape."

"So wherever Reid is, it was Tobias' choice, not this fathers." Morgan told us.

"How do you figure?" Prentiss asked him.

"Look at these two lives." Morgan pointed out. "They're like inverse graphs. One's getting weaker while the other one's getting angrier. Tobias would run away, his father would have stood and fought."

"Okay, so Tobias uses drugs as an escape. I'll go back through the journals with Y/N and see if we can find anything connecting his drug use to a hiding place."

"Uh, where's Gideon?" JJ asked walking into the room.

"He's upstairs. Why? What's going on?" Morgan asked her. JJ glanced at me before responding.

"Henkel's jut posted the latest murder."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We all gathered in the computer room to watch. It was horrific. Absolutely horrific. In everyway imaginable.

"I don't understand, why can't we just shut it down?" Gideon asked, pacing, confused by technology.

"Because I can't pinpoint his IPF." Penelope tried to explain.

"Just remove it once he sends it." Jason told her.

"It doesn't work like that." I said. "It's the internet."

"It's the internet, sir. Like Y/N said. Once something's out there, you can never take it back."

"It must remain. You can't undo anything."

"Right, you can't once it's up. Once it's up, it's up forever."

"I hate technology. Can you please do something? Anything? I do not want him thinking he has a pulpit."

"I have a list of everyone from the file-sharing chain. I could send out a mass warning that the video is actually a virus. I'm gonna do that. Okay." Penelope sent it out.

After a few moments, Tobias, as Charles, started streaming live again. "Do you think you can defy me?" Tobias said.

"I don't know what he's talking about." Spencer pleaded with him.

"You're a liar! You're pitiful! Just like my son. This ends now." I gasped when he pulled the gun on Spencer. "Confess your sins. Confess!" He hit Spencer in the face, making me cry out.

"I haven't don anything! Tobias, help me!" Spencer begged. I covered my mouth, tears streaming down my face.

"He can't help you. He's weak." Tobias, as Charles, said to him.

"Tobias!" Spencer cried.

"Confess your sins!" Tobias, as Charles, demanded again.

"Help!"

"Oh my god. He's killing him." Penelope said. I put the other hand over my mouth, trying to stifle my cries as Spencer started choking and the chair toppled over with him in it. He was dying. Actually dying.

Gideon stormed out and Dad, Prentiss, JJ and Morgan raced in. I hugged Dad tightly as Penelope explained what happened. Dad pulled away and went to get Gideon. I continued to silently cry. God, please, please save him. Let him come back to me. Please. I kept praying it over and over in my head, hoping He was listening.

Tobias came back into the room and started performing CPR on Spencer. Eventually after a few rounds, Spencer started coughing and breathing. I let out a strangled cry before clamping my mouth shut.

"Wait, wait a second." Prentiss said. "When was the last video posted?"

"9:23." Penelope responded.

"And - and what was the time of death?" She asked.

"The 911 call came in at 9:04 and the murder must have been moments later." Dad told her.

"That's only a 19 minute difference!" I said, looking over at JJ who nodded.

"How long would it take to post the mpeg?" Morgan asked Penelope.

"Two or three minutes." Penelope mumbled, guessing.

"Let's call it two." Morgan said.

"You figure a maximum of 60 miles an hour in a residential area." I piped up again. "That means Henkel has to be within a seventeen mile radius of the crime scene."

"Garcia, can we see it on a map?" Dad asked her and she did what he asked and pulled it up on the computer.

"Call Farrady." Gideon said. "I want that area locked down like it's martial law." JJ got up to go call him.

"Guys."

"You came back to life." Tobias said as Raphael.

"Raphael." Spencer said.

"There can only be one of two reasons." He declared.

"I was given CPR." Always with the science.

"There are no accidents. How many members are on your team?" Tobias, as Raphael, asked.

"Excluding me, seven."

"The seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound. The first sounding followed hail and they were thrown down to earth."

"He thinks it's Revelation. The seven archangels versus the seven angels of death." Dad said, understanding the unsub.

"Tell me who you serve." Tobias, as Raphael, demanded. Pulling Spencer up to sitting.

"I serve you." Spencer croaked.

"Then choose one to die." My eyes widened in fear.

"What?" Spencer asked, confused, trying to stall and come up for time.

"Your team members - choose one to die." He repeated himself.

"Kill me." Spencer pleaded. What?

"You said you weren't one of them." He reminded Spencer.

"I lied."

"Your team has seven other members. Tell me who dies!"

"No!" I grabbed Dad's arm in a panic when he pulled a gun on Spencer. Dear God, please save him. Please save him. Please. Please Please.

He rolled the chamber of the gun. "Choose, and prove you'll do God's will."

"No." He clicked the gun. Dad used his free hand to cover his mouth.

"Choose." Tobias, as Raphael, demanded.

"I won't do it." Spencer told him, looking him square in the face. He shot again, but no bullet came out.

"Life is a choice."

"No." The gun clicked again. No bullet.

"Choose."

"I... I choose Aaron Hotchner." There was a moment of relief before Spencer started talking. "He's a classic narcissist. He think's he's better than everyone else on the team. Genesis 23:4. "Let him not deceive himself and trust in emptiness, vanity, falseness, and futility, for these shall be his recompense. In emptiness, vanity, falseness, and futility, for these shall be his recompense."

Tobias, as Raphael, took the bullet out of the camber. "For God's will." and put it back in and spun it.

We all walked out into the main room. "I'm not a narcissist." Dad said.

I looked at Gideon and then my dad. "Come on. Look. You can't take anything from that. He's not in his right mind, Hotch."

"Dad, he's trying to live." I pointed out.

"No. Stop. Stop." Dad said. "Alright, everybody right now - what's my worst quality?" Nobody said anything. "Okay, I'll start. I have no sense of humor."

"You're a bully." JJ said, referring to how he treats unsubs.

"I'm a bully," He agreed.

"You can be a drill sergeant sometimes." Morgan said.

"Right." Dad agreed.

"You don't trust women as much as men." Prentiss said.

Dad looked at me to say something but I shook my had. I wasn't going to say anything back about my dad.

"Okay, good." He relented. "I'm all of these things, but none of you said that I ever put myself above the team, because I don't ever."

"You don't, Dad." I agreed with him. Not sure where he was going with this, I indulged him nevertheless.

"I don't. Reid and I argued about the definition of classic narcissism, and he knew that I would remember that. And he also quoted Genesis chapter 23 verse 4." He picked up one of the many Bibles around the house and handed it to me. "Read it."

"I am a stranger and a sojourner with you. Give me property, forbear a place among you that I may burry my dead out of my sight." I read from the Bible.

"He wouldn't get it wrong unless it was on purpose." Dad scoffed, knowing that Spencer tricked Tobias/Charles/Raphael.

"He's in a cemetery." Morgan concluded.

"I don't see a cemetery." Prentiss said, looking a the map on Penelope's screen.

"Call up the first time we saw Reid." Gideon thought aloud. Penelope did what he asked. "I won't choose who gets slaughtered and have you leave their remains behind like a poacher."

"Check to see if there's any poaching in the last couple days." I demanded, pacing back and forth in the back of the room.

"Okay, uh." Penelope typed as fast as she could. "A farmer reported two sheep being slaughtered on his property."

"Where are we talking?" Morgan asked. She pulled it up on the map.

"What's that patch of green there?" JJ asked her.

I moved closer to the computer, wedging myself between Dad and Gideon.

"Marshall Parish. I think that it's an old plantation." Dad said.

"Wait." Prentiss said.

"Tobias wrote in his journals about staying clean and keeping away from the Marshall." My brain rapid fired.

"Guy's there's a cemetery on the grounds." Penelope told us.

We all rushed to the vehicles.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Spread out! They have to be on foot! Let's go!"

"Spencer!" I screamed. "Spencer! Spencer!" I screamed when I heard the gun shot. I ran towards the noise, everybody else right with me.

"You alright?" Dad asked Spencer after getting him on his feet. I stared at him blankly. He was here. He was alive. He was here.

"I knew you'd understand." He told Dad, hugging him before moving on to JJ.

"I am so sorry." She told him. I put my hands on my face and tried to remain calm. He was alive. He was alive. Thank you God. Thank you for bringing him back to me. Thank you.

"It's alright. It wasn't your fault."

"Let's get you out of here." Gideon said, reaching for Spencer. Spencer pushed away from him and into my arms. I burst into tears.

"I'm okay, you saved me." He mumbled into my hair. "I'm okay."

I clutched to him, holding onto him tightly. “Please don’t leave me again.” I begged. “Please.” I bagged my hands in his shirt.

“I won’t. I’m okay.” He repeated pulling away after a few minutes.

“Okay, let’s get you to an ambulance.” Gideon said again.

“Please - can I have a minutes alone?” Spencer asked.

“I’m not leaving you again.” I clutched his hand.

“I’ll just be a minute.” He squeezed. “Okay? Just a minute.”

Gideon pulled me away from Spencer, giving him a minute.

When Spencer caught back up to us, I held his hand again.

“Please don’t leave me.” I begged as we got to the ambulance.

“I won’t, I won’t leave you.” He promised me sitting in the back of the bus. I leaned my head on his shoulder, sighing at the nightmare this case was.

Part 2 coming soon!