#automatic passenger counting system explained

[stxrrywildflower]

hypothermia

pairing - spencer reid x reader

summary - you and derek go to extreme lengths to save a victim

warnings - injury, mentions of case, cursing

word count - ?

cold.

all you felt was cold.

you could barely remember where you were or what had happened.

your senses felt frozen.

all you could manage to do was shut your eyes.

___

the team arrived in portland, oregon a few days prior.

it was march, meaning the temperatures barely passed the the mid-fifties at the high, and dropped extremely low during the night. even snow fell on the ground as you landed, resulting in everyone on the team adding an extra layer or two.

the unsub was killing women and disposing of their bodies on the streets lining the beaches. it was becoming extremely difficult to narrow the suspect pool down, due to the large population.

hotch ordered you and spencer to go to the morgue and look at the previous victims to find out what you could.

“he must have some sort of emotional tie to to the ocean. it would explain why the unsub chooses that location,” spencer spoke from the passenger seat.

you nodded, “possible grew up on the coast or maybe even lost someone to drowning.”

upon arrival at the morgue, the two of you made your way inside. you both greeted the coroner before grabbing gloves. as you moved around the victims bodies, spencer talked to the man about what he could figure out.

“they’re not drowned. there’s a puncture wound in her foot, probobly died from a heart attack,” you concluded.

with that, you and spencer returned to the police station to alert your team about what you had discovered. while walking towards the doors, the wind picked up causing you to hug your jacket a little tighter. spencer pulled you closer to him to keep you warm.

the next four days were agonizingly slow. another body had been found, but it had the exact same marks as the others with nothing different. if anything, it slowed your investigation down rather than help you.

the team worked long hours, desperate to find a lead. and finally, after those four days, they found one.

hotch sent you and morgan to investigate the suspects house that night. it was dark and very cold. upon arrival, you found it was empty. but with further investigation, you two concluded that this defiantly was your guy.

pictures and articles on these women were pinned on the walls as well as an article about a little boy drowning in a riptide a month or so ago.

“stresser,” you informed morgan.

as you two were walking out of the house, a red car sped out of the garage of the house and down the road. you managed to catch a glimpse of the driver and passenger; it was the unsub and his current victim. thankfully, she was alive.

morgan jumped into the drivers seat as you got into the passengers seat. he sped off, following the car the best he could. at one point, due to the darkness and wind, you lost the car.

however, a few moments later, after driving around, you saw the red care carelessly parked on the side of the road. the unsub was dragging the girl, who was gagged and tied at her wrists and ankles, towards the end of the pier.

“unsub located, he has a girl with him. location is the pier just off of south street,” you spoke into your communication system.

you and morgan slowly stepped out of the car and took a step towards the unsub who had a sly grin on his face. he held an automatic rifle which was pointed at the girls head.

“morgan she has weights on her,” you informed your fellow agent.

“you don’t have to do this man!” morgan shouted, “just let the girl go. we can tell the judge you cooperated. let her go.”

the next moments happened all so quickly. the unsub pushed the girl off of the pier into the water. due to the weights attached, she slowly began to sink to the bottom. the man then pointed his gun at morgan. you fired a shot, killing him instantly. you and derek shared a quick look before taking off sprinting off of the pier and diving into the water.

the team arrived just in time to see you and morgan go under. rossi and emily went over to the unsub, checking his pulse before concluding him to be dead. the rest of the team stayed on the beach, narrowing their eyes at the water, no sign of you or morgan anywhere.

after hitting the water, your entire body tensed up. the water couldn’t have been more than 35-40 degrees. you managed to pry your eyes open, just enough to see the light from derek’s flashlight.

the water was pitch black and you needed to find the girl. you were both loosing oxygen quickly and no doubt the victim was too.

after then more seconds of desperately searching, you saw the woman floating towards the bottom of the water. as quickly as you could, you grabbed your pocket knife and sliced the ropes. the process was painfully slow, and with each moment, you felt yourself in more and more pain.

finally, the ropes fell and you took one arm while derek took the other. after pushing off the ocean floor, you made it to the surface, gasping for air. you used your spare hand to push back your hair as you frantically looked around.

in the distance, you could make out your team as well as the police standing on the beach. your whole body was shaking as you couldn’t believe how far out you were. slowly but surely, you began to swim towards the mainland.

in your mind, the process seemed to take forever. your boots finally made contact with the sand, allowing for you to stand up. you and morgan hauled the victim onto the sand where the emt’s were waiting.

you and derek, however, seemed locked in place, still standing waist deep in painfully cold water. spencer was helping the emt’s after orders from hotch but looked over when he heard a large splash. his head turned just in time to witness morgan collapsing, just after you went down. thankfully, emily and hotch were there to catch you both.

“w-who are you. where a-am i,” you spoke shakily, mind incredibly fuzzy.

the pain began to increase throughout your body, but it seemed to attack your head the most. after your legs went out, your arms were next. they were holding emily’s arms but then dropped. your head rolled to the side. upon looking at hotch, derek was having the same results.

“medics!” hotch shouted.

“hey y/n, i need you to stay awake. keep those eyes open. come on y/n, please,” the woman who you couldn’t quite remember in front of you pleaded. the next few moments were a blur as you couldn’t follow her demands and instead shut your eyes.

once the second wave of emt’s arrived, you and morgan were quickly loaded onto stretcher’s and rushed to the hospital. the team stood on the beach, still processing what happened. hotch and emily were starting to feel a little sick from entering the water to help their team.

“i know we all want to get to the hospital but it’s already late. everyone go back to the hotel and get changed and we can go to the hospital afterwards,” hotch spoke to his team.

as everyone began to walk back to to the car, spencer stopped, tapping his hands against his leg as he looked at the ocean. j.j. noticed this and made her way over, placing her hand softly on his shoulder.

“talk to me,” j.j. spoke with a calm tone.

“hypothermia is one of the most dangerous medical conditions out there. your body literally shuts down after being in the water for only a few minutes. but y/n and morgan were in the water for a long time. i’m just so worried,” spencer struggled to get out.

for a genius who knew so much, he had run out of things to say.

“spence, the doctors are going to do everything in their power to help them. you have every right to be worried. derek is your best friend, besides me of course,” j.j. joked, causing spence to smile slightly, “and to state the obvious, you’re so in love with y/n. you two have known each other for practically forever and she’s your girlfriend, of course you’re going to be worried. but for now, all we can do is go back to the hotel and then the hospital.”

he nodded slightly before allowing j.j. to lead him to the car and to the hotel.

spencer changed into a comfortable button up with a sweater overtop before meeting the team back in the lobby. everyone made sure to bundle up, especially after the situation with you and morgan, before they made their way to the hospital.

after using his status as an fbi agent for a little leverage, hotch managed to get the nurse to give them some information. you and morgan were currently in the icu but that’s all they received. the nurse permitted two members of the team to stay overnight while everyone could return the following morning. at that point, full medical information could be released.

spencer was as easy first choice. j.j. was nominated to be second. she was the closest with spencer and would be the best moral support. the team echoed their goodbyes to the two before promising to be there tomorrow morning right when opening hours started.

the two were led to an area where they could sit and rest for the night. it wasn’t outside of yours our derek’s room which wasn’t ideal, but spencer and j.j. accepted it. the two collapsed into the chairs, each pulling a blanket over themselves before slowly drifting to sleep.

the following morning, the team re-grouped in the waiting room of the hospital. surprisingly, spencer and j.j. had managed to get an actual good night of sleep.

“i can take you to agent y/n and morgan’s took where a doctor while then brief you,” the nurse told the group.

they were lead to a different floor and down the hallway. the nurse motioned for chairs to sit in while she went to go get the doctor later. a moment later, another women appeared in front of them, introducing herself.

“first of all, agent y/n and morgan will be okay,” the doctor spoke causing a relived sigh to echo through the hallway, “but, both have sustained serious injuries. hypothermia is the obvious one. y/n and derek were in the freezing water for an extremely long time causing their bodies to almost shut down completely. i’ve never seen two patients cases mirror each other but y/n and derek’s do. y/n’s heart stopped for a quick few seconds but quickly started beating again. moments later, derek’s stopped also. thankfully, both are hooked up to iv’s and are recovering nicely. the only problem is, it may take awhile for the two to wake up. they really should have died, and i am unsure how they’re still okay. without their selfless efforts, the woman who is now in recovery would be dead. so i wanted to thank your team for their actions.”

the team processed the doctors words. “can we see them?” emily asked. “yes of course, we put them both in one of the larger rooms. it’s room number 503, three doors down on the left,” with one more smile, the doctor then left.

entering the hospital room, the team paused. you both had thick blankets covering your bodies, a slight buzz sounding from the electric heater inside. spencer looked at you first. your lips were still a slight shade of blue and your fingertips had a few black marks on them. derek was the exact same.

spencer teared up at the sight of the two of you. he collapsed in a chair by your bedside first. he pressed his lips together and rubbed his temple. all the team could do was wait for you two to wake up.

a week later, at around 10pm, derek woke up. the room was dark and the hallway lights were dim, as it was past visiting hours. he went to sit up but his muscles were weak. it took a large effort to move his hand to the ‘call nurse’ button. after pressing it, he moved his head to the side where you were still laying. a few moments later, a nurse entered the room. “good to see you awake agent morgan, how are you feeling?”

“not great. what happened?” derek asked.

“you and agent y/n went into the freezing ocean to save one of the victims. luckily, she has since been released. for the two of you, your hearts both stopped momentarily as a side effect of the hypothermia. but, with lots of rest and recovery, you two should be fine.”

derek nodded to the nurses words before leanining back into the hospital bed.

at close to 4am, you woke up. you felt the same way as derek did but managed to move your head to the side. derek was sitting up, looking at some magazine the nurse must have given him.

“hey kid,” derek spoke softly.

you moved your hand up to your head. “remind me to not go swimming ever again during the winter,” you first spoke resulting in derek to laugh. soon after, a nurse came in, checking over you first before changing the iv’s. “your team should be here in a few hours, they’ve visited everyday,” the nurse told you with a smile.

true to her word, once visiting hours, you heard talking from outside of your room. the doors opened seconds later. spencer immediately rushed to your bedside, hugging you softly as you did your best to return it.

“you’re amazing,” spencer spoke before cupping your cheeks and kissing you softly.

the two of you stopped when morgan called over, “hey lover boy, no hello to me?” loud laughs echoed through the hospital room as relief washed over the team that you two were okay.

[hopecountysfavhoe]

‘Cold’ Chapter Fifteen Pt.2

Rating: PG13 again

Word count: 2,935

     The Deputy found Grace at the Lamb of God Church by chance. She didn't expect to find her there but she was glad that she checked. She drove up to the front door and found Grace up in the bell tower, watching for anyone.

     "Hey Deputy, hang on I'll come down there." Grace said and climbed down a ladder to the ground where the Deputy was standing. They sat on the stone wall together, silent for a long time.

     "How have you been? Have Kim and Nick been putting you to work?" Grace asked and the Deputy laughed.

     "Nah, they've been worse. They've been telling me to rest." She said and Grace cracked a smile.

     "But seriously, how have you been?" Grace's voice was serious again.

     "I'm fine. People need to stop worrying so much about me. I'll get back up, I always do." The Deputy was clearly frazzled with all the extra attention she'd been getting recently.

     "People are just worried."

     "Yeah I know but nobody used to worry so damn much, not until I got kidnapped." The Deputy sighed, rubbing her thumb over a rough stone on the wall.

     "People always used to worry, Kim especially, you getting hurt just gave us a reason to vocalize it." Grace explained and the Deputy looked at the ground.

     "...I know. I just wish people would forget about it and let me do my job."

     "Which is? I remember you coming in here to arrest Joseph Seed, not become our holy saviour. Deputy, I'm not telling you to never help again, I'm asking you to be ok with giving yourself a much needed break." Grace looked at her despite the Deputy not making eye contact.

     "I just don't know how to do that." The Deputy said and Grace nodded.

     "I know, but I will help you figure it out, and we all know Kim will." Grace said and the Deputy let out a small laugh.

     Grace could see right through the Deputy's lies. She could look past every excuse and see what was really wrong with her. She knew that her wanting to 'do her job' was just because she wanted a distraction from her thoughts. She knew that the Deputy wasn't fine and that she wasn't ok but she was driving herself insane trying to figure out who she was when she wasn't fighting.

     Grace had gone through the same thing when she came back from the war. She turned to hunting and marksmanship as her outlets but when you're barred from fighting or shooting the way the Deputy was, then you can start to lose yourself.

     Grace got an idea on how to help the Deputy. "Hey, come follow me." She said and stood up, she turned and offered her hand to the Deputy which she accepted. Grace helped her to her feet and started walking into the woods. The Deputy didn't know where they were going but didn't ask, she felt like being surprised. They didn't walk for long, but when they arrived the Deputy was shocked.

     Displayed in front of them was a gun range, secretly tucked away in the woods. Grace had targets hanging from trees, sticking up behind rocks, through broken branches, everywhere you looked were targets. "This is where I go to have some alone time. I sight my guns here." She said and took her rifle off her shoulder. "I'm guessing Kim confiscated all of your guns?" Grace asked behind her.

     "All except my pistol." The Deputy patted the pistol on her hip. The Deputy was still looking around at the targets when Grace held out her rifle to her.

     "Here, try it out." The Deputy stared in silence for a moment, trying to process what was happening.

     "Hang on, you want me to shoot your gun?" She asked with disbelief in her voice.

     "Yeah, you need an outlet and shooting is the perfect outlet. Just...don't change settings please?" Grace asked as the Deputy accepted her rifle.

     "Of course, yeah I won't touch anything." The Deputy promised and looked through the sight on top of Grace's rifle. It was weird to hold somebody else's gun, but feeling the weight of the heavy metal under her fingers was comforting.

     Grace took a step back and watched as the Deputy got into her shooting position on her stomach. A small grin crept onto her face as she watched her relax into her shot.

     The Deputy lined up the shot with a closer target, wanting to see what kind of accuracy it had. Of course it hit dead on, it was Grace's gun. She shot just about every target Grace had set up, only missing a couple of times. If she missed she'd try again and get it right then move onto the next one.

     It was so good to get to shoot again. The Deputy hated having to shoot people, but when it was targets it was much easier. The gun had a silencer on it, of course, so it didn't have a loud bang when it fired but it was relieving stress either way.

     She didn't realize how much she missed it, shooting. It was always something done out of pure necessity, it was something that had to happen whether you wanted to or not. But after a year of shooting it had become second nature. The bolt action, loading bullets, making sure it didn't jam, they were all mundane activities that had made sitting in that clinic bearable. Now, the doctor didn't let her have her rifles or semi automatics in the bed with her but she allowed her empty pistol and she would let Grace hand her individual components of her guns if they were kept far away from her. It was something about making sure the Deputy wasn't putting herself or anyone else in danger.

     That was the best part of getting out of that damn place, people didn't treat her like a child or like she'd gone crazy. She knew the doctor was just doing her job but still, it felt so demeaning to be forced to walk around on crutches (which she hadn't used since she left the clinic) and take her pain pills at a specific time of day.

     The Deputy tried to expel that annoyance and anger towards her situation through shooting, and it was working. With every metal target she hit she felt immensely better. She turned around to look at Grace with a huge smile on her face.

     "Thank you Grace, seriously. This is just what I needed." She thanked her and stood up off the ground. Her legs wobbled a bit but they did that when the Deputy stood up. She handed the rifle back to Grace who reloaded it.

     "Anytime, come on let's get you back before Kim gets upset at us." Grace shouldered her rifle and gave the Deputy a pat on the shoulder. They started back through the woods and walked till they could see the top of the church.

     They didn't talk as they walked but they were normally a quiet pair. They just listened to the sounds of the forest and enjoyed each other's company. They came down the hill right before the church and saw that nobody else was there except for the Deputy's truck.

     Grace walked a little in front of the Deputy so that she could open a small gate in the fence for them. Suddenly the Deputy felt something sting her neck. She reached her hand up and felt her neck, pulling away a small contraption of some sort. Her vision got wonky and the world started spinning around her. Unable to keep her balance she fell to her knees, she wasn't even able to get Grace's name out of her mouth.

     Grace turned around at the sound of something falling and saw the Deputy on all fours. "Deputy!" She exclaimed and rushed to her friends side.

     "What happened?" She asked and the Deputy tried to say something. Her brain was too scrambled to get out a sentence so she just showed her what stung her neck. It was one of the Peggies' Bliss bullets. Grace immediately scanned the area for any Peggies and reached for her gun.

     Out of desperation for something that didn't feel like it was spinning the Deputy gripped a patch on Grace's pants. Grace didn't know how to help so she just put her arm around the Deputy and made sure she didn't fall over.

     "Let's try and get you to the truck." Grace was already lifting her to her feet. She brought one of the Deputy's arms over her shoulders. With her other arm Grace hooked it under the Deputy's right arm to help hold her up.

     Moving wasn't great for the Deputy's rocky vision but Grace was determined to get her out of there before any Peggies showed up. She hobbled with the Deputy until she got to the passenger side door of her truck. She opened the door and helped her in, doing most of the heavy lifting until the Deputy was sitting in the seat properly. Her face had gone pale and her eyes were heavy and unfocused. Grace put her seatbelt on her and closed the door.

     As quick as she could she hoped in the drivers side door and peeled away from the church. "I'm bringing you back to Nick and Kim's house but I have to make sure nobody follows us." Grace said as they rumbled down the road in the opposite direction of Nick and Kim's house.

     The Deputy didn't open her eyes, instead she kept them scrunched up and shut so that her vision wouldn't keep swimming the way it was. She could hear Grace talking but it sounded far away, almost like she was underwater. The Bliss sped into her system, eating away at her will to stay awake. The steady rocking of the truck didn't help either, everything felt to comfortable. She couldn't help it, she basically drifted to sleep.

     Grace looked over at her unconscious friend and turned down a random road abruptly she couldn't see anyone following her but that wasn't very relieving. Still, she'd driven all around Hope County and the Deputy hadn't woken up yet. She knew she was still alive, she was breathing. But still, it bothered Grace that she'd never even seen the Peggie sniper. They must have been watching them in the woods and radioed John that the Deputy was there.

     After she convinced herself that she'd lost anyone that was following her, Grace sped up and went down the road that led to Nick and Kim's house. She practically skidded to a stop in front of their house and was already putting the truck in park as she opened her door. Grace leapt out of the truck and shouted for Nick.

     "Help! I need help!" She shouted and raced to the passenger side door. Nick scurried out of the hangar at the same time Kim opened the front door of their house. Kim shouted for Nick and rushed over to the truck.

     "What happened?" Kim demanded as Grace opened the passenger side door. The Deputy's seatbelt kept her in her seat but her unconscious body leaned dangerously towards the ground. "Is she ok?"

     "No, she got shot by a Bliss bullet." Grace said and Nick was suddenly right by her side.

     "Let's get her inside." Nick said and Grace unclamped her seatbelt. They were careful to not let her fall as Nick grabbed her right shoulder and Grace grabbed her left shoulder. Kim closed the door in the truck and raced to the front door of the house.

     Nick and Grace carried the Deputy up the front steps, her feet were dragging through the dirt but she was already as propped up as she could be. "What happened?" Kim demanded and swung the front door open.

     "We were by the Lamb of God church and she just collapsed. I got her here as fast as I could." Grace said and her and Nick brought her to the couch.

     "I don't know what to do for a Bliss bullet!" Kim panicked as the team lowered her onto the couch. They lifted her legs so that they were on the couch and took a step back. Grace knelt down next to her and felt her pulse.

     Nick tried to comfort Kim while she rushed to find a towel and water. Grace felt around her pocket and found what she was looking for. The Bliss bullet looked like something from a movie. It was a small canister no bigger than Grace's thumb and long needle stuck to the end. All of the Bliss from the canister was in the Deputy's system.

      "All we can do is wait and see when she wakes up. But I'd be careful, I don't know how big of a dose this is and sometimes coming out of the bliss can be dangerous." Grace told them as Kim rushed back into the room.

     "Did you get attacked?" Nick asked and Grace shook her head.

     "No, we were just walking and when we came back she just fell over. I didn't even see anybody." Kim dipped the towel in water and pressed it to the Deputy's forehead gently.

     The Deputy made a strange noise and shuddered away from Kim's touch. "Careful Kim." Nick warned and Grace placed a hand on her shoulder.

     "Let me, we don't know what she's seeing right now." Grace took the towel from Kim who backed away from the two. Kim and Nick watched as Grace carefully dabbed the Deputy's forehead.

     The Deputy reacted to Grace touching her like it was a live wire. Her arms and legs suddenly gained the mobility to try and fight back despite her eyes never opening. She tried to claw Grace who promptly put a knee on her chest to stop her from rolling off the couch.

     "Nick grab her arms!" Grace ordered as the Deputy fought back. Nick ran around behind her head and grabbed each of her elbows, pinning them down to the couch. Grace stepped off of her chest and grabbed her legs, pressing them down into the couch.

     "Dep, snap out of it!" Nick yelled into her ear as she thrashed. The Deputy shouted and shrieked like she as in pain, her whole body trying desperately to fight off her friends.

     "She's in the Bliss Nick, she doesn't know it's you. She probably thinks we're the Peggies." Grace said and held fast to her legs. Kim watched in horror as the Deputy struggled so horribly.

     "Don't let her hurt herself!" She exclaimed and suddenly heard Carmina start crying.

     "Don't bring Carmina down here, you go up and try to keep her calm. We'll stay here until she calms down." Nick said and readjusted his grip on her elbows as the Deputy fought to get loose. Kim nodded and hurried upstairs.

     "Dep, look it's me! It's Nick, you're ok! They don't have you, you're safe!" He said but his words bounced right off of her.

     "No! Get off of me!" The Deputy screamed but Nick and Grace didn't.

     "Hey Dep, it's ok you ain't anywhere near that fucking Seed ok? You're here with me and Grace and Kim and Carmina." The sound of Carmina's name especially made the Deputy thrash.

     "Maybe she thinks you're John. Say something John wouldn't say! You know she doesn't fight for herself, try something that convinces her we aren't going to hurt anybody." Grace said and Nick's brain was scrambled.

     "Ok uh uh, I'm not hurting anybody, I just want to talk?" His words, although unsure sounding, were helping.

     "Good, I don't want to go near your family, I only want you." Grace added. These were all thing John would never say but since the Deputy thought it was John saying them she calmed down.

     "If you stop fighting then I won't hurt anyone." Nick tried and the Deputy's fight basically stopped instantly. He didn't actually think that one would work he was just spitballing. "Good, just stay calm ok? We're not going to hurt you." Nick reassured her but that got her upset again.

     Grace cursed and held tighter to her feet. "Damn it!" She exclaimed. "I guess that's a trigger statement."

     "Maybe the most not-John thing I can do is not talk?" Nick suggested.

    They tried not saying anything and the Deputy slowly calmed down. Eventually she stopped thrashing and her breathing got more even. Nick looked over at Grace and gave her a small nod before he eased off the Deputy's arms.

     "Christ." He muttered and wiped his forehead with his arm.

     Grace carefully stepped away from her legs, her hands raised so that if she thrashed again she could quickly jump back in her. "I think she's out now." She said quietly.

     Nick looked to the stairs. "I've gotta go check on-" Grace shushed him and pointed to the Deputy, she didn't want her to hear any of theirs names incase she jumped back into a panic. "Oh right, I'll be back." He said and walked up the stairs. Grace let out a deep breath and studied the Deputy. She looked down at her friend with a frown.

     She kicked herself over the fact that she didn't see him. She didn't even know there was a Peggie sniper anywhere near the church, and yet he managed to get to the Deputy so easily. It was too easy. Grace promised herself she would be more vigilant next time she was ever out with the Deputy.

[missroserose]

all you touch and all you see

“So...why are we here?”

A moment of silence.  Fingers tighten around a trendy reusable mug.  Green eyes flick up, meet his, far more sincere than he could have imagined, even a week ago.

“I can’t explain it.  I’m just...more myself, when you’re around.”

Sam Wesson is dreaming.  Well, half-dreaming; awake enough that he can tell that he’s lying in bed on sheets with some ridiculous thread count, covers bunched around his legs, the cool constant breeze of the ceiling fan blowing over his sleep-warm chest.  At the same time, he’s sitting in the passenger seat of an old muscle car, rain tapping on the roof and hissing beneath the tires.  The thrum of the V8 permeates his whole body as he flips through papers, research for the next job.  The automatic reverse on the tape deck clicks over, and Sam wonders how many times Dean’s played this exact Led Zeppelin album on this very deck.  A hundred?  A thousand?

Dean.  Dean is there in both worlds, beside him.  He glances over to where this Dean is squinting through the rain.  Takes in his scruffy jacket and worn shirt, hair standing on end in places, the ketchup stain on his jeans from his lunchtime drive-through burger.  It’s such a contrast to the Dean beside him in the bed, the Dean of suspenders and suits and Brylcreemed hair, the environmentally conscious vegetarian Dean who wouldn’t be caught dead driving a car that got fewer than thirty miles to the gallon.  

And yet, there are tells.  Little commonalities, signs that the two of them aren’t as different as they might look.  The way their eyes narrow slightly when faced with something they don’t immediately understand.  Their absolute disdain for talking about feelings any more than strictly necessary.  Their unbridled fierceness when they take on a threat, corporate or noncorporeal.

The way they both love Sam.  Fierce.  Devoted.  Protective to a degree that makes Sam wonder, sometimes.  Or would, if he weren’t every bit as smitten.

Sam isn’t sure what to say to that.  It’s disconcerting, seeing Dean in casual clothes—still natty in a sweater and slacks, but his hair is carefully (and attractively) mussed, his posture a fraction looser.  He keeps quiet, keeps his face open.  Knows, somehow, that this is the best way to keep people talking.

“You bring out something good in me.  If I’m going to keep climbing the corporate ladder, I need someone to help me remember I'm not actually in hell, you know?”

Sam can’t blame Dean for staying at Sandover, not really.  He’s on the fast track, in a position most people their generation would kill for.  Especially with the economy the way it is, steady jobs with good salaries and benefits are nothing to sneeze at.  Working as an executive is prestigious; it’s not like he was a cubicle jockey, subject to the indignities of unflattering uniforms and unsavory coworkers.  Dean is on his way up.

Sam, meanwhile, was on his way out.

The week after his slightly dramatic walkout, he’d been making serious plans to go hunting alone.  Spent his days poring over newspapers, looking for strange deaths or weird occurrences; imagined sniffing out supernatural threats, saving people.  He applied for a loan for a car—found a great deal on a Dodge Charger—and dedicated an afternoon to looking up supplies he might need to kit it out properly.  It was terrifying and exhilarating reading, realizing how much might be out there, how many beings he had yet to encounter, how much studying there was to do.  What to look for, what to pack, where to even begin.

Perhaps most saliently, his dreams—the strange, inexplicable dreams that had haunted him during his entire three weeks at Sandover, where he hunted things, where Dean was his partner, continually present—had stopped.

Then Dean Smith had called and asked him for coffee.

Dean’s eyes meet his again, just briefly, before dropping, a charmingly bashful smile spreading over his face.  “Look, I’m not asking you to marry me or anything,” he says, rubbing the side of his neck, looking away.  “It’s just, if you wanted...I think we could have a good time together.”

They do have a good time together—it’s a little surprising, really, the uptight executive and the slacker cubicle jockey pairing off.  But they share a love of bad action movies, and a passion for video games; Sam hasn’t had his ass kicked so thoroughly and consistently in Halo 3 since college.  But even beyond that, it was like their rhythms are aligned; they fall into cohabiting in Dean’s tiny apartment almost immediately, as if they’re already entirely used to living in each others’ pockets.  Work during the day.  Chores on weekends. And at night—

Well, of course, there’s the chemistry.  The sheer blinding-white magnesium-flame heat of the two of them together, as bright-burning as it is undeniable.  The way Dean’s eyes, green as his own, darken, pupils dilating, when Sam stands just a little too close.  The pulse-pounding rush of need that hits him when Dean’s mouth curls up at one corner in just the right way, the way that indicates Sam is about to come harder than he ever has in his life.  The soft, broken noises he knows Dean makes, that they both make, when they teeter together on the edge, a bare breath from tipping over, entwined.

“I know you don’t think this is our life.  What we’re meant to be doing.”  The words give the air around them strange twin taste—resigned and relieved, both.  “But Sam—it’s a good life.  It’s the life I’ve wanted, the one I never thought I’d be able to have.  God knows my dad didn’t think I’d make it.  Nobody did.  But here I am.”  His eyes meet Sam’s again.  “Here we are.”

Those beautiful manicured hands on him feel right in a way Sam’s never experienced before.  It’s not even sexual, not really—the sensation is there as much when Dean musses Sam’s hair as it is when Sam is shaking apart with Dean knuckle-deep inside him.  There’s just something about the two of them together that’s...centering.  Liminal.  Like they form their own shelter, the eye of the hurricane when the chaos of the world is howling around them.

Sam asked Dean once if he felt the same. Dean had quirked a brow at him, given a little smile—”What, like some kind of past life thing?  You going to start telling me we’re soulmates?  Whatever you say, Samantha—” and yet there’s something in the way he touches Sam at times.  Reverent.  Almost disbelieving.

Like Sam, too, is something Dean had never thought he’d be able to have.

“I’ve got some connections at my old firm.  I can make a few calls, get you an interview for a decent job.”  He takes a drink of coffee, forcing a pause; shielding himself for a moment from Sam’s reaction.  “I know it’s not your dream.  But you could stay.  With me.”

And yet, in a way, it is Sam’s dream.  Because Sam’s been having dreams again, almost from the day of that fateful coffee date.  Dreams where he and Dean do everything together that Sam had imagined, had read about.  Where they hunt demons, vampires, demigods—creatures that make Old Man Sandover look like something out of Beetlejuice.  Where they spend what feels like half their life in the boredom of long drives or library research sessions, punctuated by the heart-pounding adrenaline rush of a hunt, a fight.  Where he and Dean save each others’ lives over and over, where they would die for each other, probably will sooner rather than later, but where they’re alive now, where they retreat victorious with whiskey or beer to their shitty motel room—

Somewhere more private.  Lips swollen from kissing.  A hand on the side of his face, long fingers threaded in his hair.  Green eyes on his once more, open, honest.  Vulnerable.

“I’d like you to stay.  God, Sam—please.  Stay.”

—and where they never, ever touch.  

So Sam took the job.  Let the loan application lapse, eventually deleted the various websites on ghosts and mythology and monsters from his bookmarks.   He spends his days working in IT security, which is at least more interesting than tech support—it turns out he has a knack for breaking into systems, for getting into places he’s not supposed to be, for ferreting out information companies would prefer remain hidden.  And his nights—well, if spending his nights in Dean Smith’s bed (and on his couch, and over his desk, and in his office chair, and) is the consolation prize for growing up and letting go of childish dreams, it turns out adult life has its perks as well.

He takes one last look at the scruffed-up Dean—still pretty, Sam thinks, fondly; there’s just no way to make a face like that look common—and lets the dream fade.  The vibration of the engine, the hiss of tires on wet asphalt, even the dry-dusty smell of the Impala’s heater all grow distant; Sam moves his fingers, stretches, moves just enough to scoop his lover into the crook of his shoulder.  Dean nuzzles him, murmurs a few nonsense syllables, and sighs, settling back into sleep.

Sam takes a deep breath through his nose.  Hair pomade.  Cologne.  Sweat.  Dean.  It makes him happy, in the kind of way that leaves his chest a little tight, that brings tears to the corners of his eyes.

Most people don’t even get one life with Dean.  He gets two.  Gets to tread the thin line between them, the one where Dean is his perfectly ordinary lover, and the one where he’s—both more, and less.

As dreams go, he’ll take it, and be grateful.

[reportsandmarkets]

Automatic Passenger Counting System Market Report 2017

Automatic Passenger Counting System Market Report 2017

In this report, the United States Automatic Passenger Counting System market is valued at USD XX million in 2016 and is expected to reach USD XX million by the end of 2022, growing at a CAGR of XX% between 2016 and 2022. ACCESS FULL REPORT AND TOC: https://www.reportsandmarkets.com/reports/united-states-automatic-passenger-counting-system-market-report-2017-1644607 Geographically, this report…

[adrenalineguide]

Chevrolet Blazer RS: The only paths you’ll be blazing is to the mall.

Text and photos by Michael Hozjan

Chevrolet Blazer RS

My first Blazer wasn’t a Blazer at all but it’s GMC sibling, a 1971 Jimmy. Simply put, it was a high riding, shortened version of the Suburban.  It was a tall, rough riding 4x4 that did towing duty for my growing kit car business and, when time permitted, I’d take it off-roading, usually in a Laurentian sand pit. Though I never bothered, the entire roof was removable allowing for el fresco motoring. The Jimmy and Blazer twins were GM’s answer to Ford’s popular Bronco, which had already carved out a niche following. Like the Jeep Grand Wagoneer and the International Scout, the three were pioneers of the sport utility segment and were setting the foundations for the modern suv market. The seventies were a great time for off-roading – before the world population exploded, sprouting shopping malls, apartments and condos like wild mushrooms as far as the eye could see. 

Over four decades later I find myself behind the wheel of the all-new Blazer, which aside from the manufacturer and nameplate, shares little with its predecessor.  Reviving old monikers is always a nitpicking point, remember the Dart and Charger brouhaha?   

Ok enough trips down old roads, truth be told while leaving a local Timmy’s on the 401 I overheard a vintage car buff, who was on his way to a car show, remark how great the Blazer looked. True the Blazer’s curvaceous lines are sexy, especially in red hot, and should easily have throngs running down to showrooms. Sharing its platform with the GMC Acadia and Cadillac XT5 the five-passenger Blazer is set squarely between Chevy’s Traverse and Equinox.  The new platform makes this Blazer quieter, smoother, more fuel-efficient and more road friendly than my old K5 based beast ever was.

Prices start reasonably enough at $35,100 for the 193 horsepower (188 lb-ft) 2.5 L four cylinder rendition driving the front wheels through the corporate 9-speed automatic.  Standard fare includes 18” wheel/tire package, LED daytime running and taillights, HID headlights, HD back up camera, heated front buckets and mirrors, in short, a package that will more than suffice the average buyer. At the other end of the spectrum, the Premier trim will set you back $50,945. 

My RS version, is the sporty version of Chevy’s Blazer line up which explains why it get’s the Camaro’s Rallye Sport tag. For $46,300 the RS gets a little firmer dampening and quicker steering to give you a more spirited experience than the average crossover. The RS is equipped with the 308 horsepower, 3.6L V6 that pumps out a respectable 270 lb-ft of torque through the same nine speed automatic transmission as the base model, but 20” wheels delivering power to all four corners. The V6 offers cylinder deactivation turning this six cylinder seamlessly into a V4 when conditions are ideal. While not the most powerful mill in the segment, the V6 is a competent performer.

There are two lesser-priced trims, but if your looking to make an impression, the RS has all the eye candy and gear that you really want without stepping up to the Premium. There are two all-wheel-drive systems available on the V6 equipped Blazers but the RS, like the Premium, gets torque vectoring thanks to comes a twin clutch rear differential to distribute power to the outside wheels- which should help you negotiate mountain switchbacks. Either system comes with a Mode button on the center console that allows you to disconnect the rear axle for some fuel savings. There are also settings for Sport, Towing and Off-Road

Inside the Blazer wins on several counts from its well supportive front buckets to the sliding and reclining rear seat. There’s 30.5 cu.ft. of cargo space with the rear bench up which expands to 64.2 cu.ft. with the rear seats folded down. There are latches at the back to quickly fold down the bench and a neat sliding gate to lock your cargo in place. The rear doors open wide for ease of ingress and egress with enough head and legroom for the average adult. Back in the cockpit an 8” touch screen with voice recognition keeps you informed and allows you to easily scroll through the various functions including 4G LTE Wi-Fi Hotspot. 

My tester was optioned with the aptly named Sun & Wheels package ($2,795), which meant I got 21” gloss black aluminum wheels over the stock units and a panoramic power sunroof. The other option package titled the RS Plus ($4,395) included the aforementioned 8” touchscreen, nav, Bose 8-speaker sound system, rear outboard heated seats, front ventilated buckets, 360 degree HD surround camera, rear camera mirror as well as the usual stuff like adaptive cruise, lane assist, forward collision warning…

The USB-C port is easily accessible, something that as of late some manufacturers have made nearly impossible to access. You also get a 120-volt power outlet.  The color coordinated round air vents mounted on the center console are a nice touch and are smoother than most units.  

Towing capacity is 4500 lbs. a thousand pounds more than the similarly sized Ford Edge, which this mid-size Blazer targets. But with Ford coming out with an all new Bronco aimed at a more utilitarian buyer I wonder if Chevy didn’t miss the mark to resurrect the old Blazer Bronco wars.  Don’t get me wrong the new Blazer is wonderful mid-size crossover, but that is exactly what it is a crossover, lacking the 4x4 and the utility of its namesake. Maybe we’ll see a Jimmy to take on the Bronco.

While it may not be able to traverse over downed logs and boulders, it does carve out lakeside twisties with relative ease. If you’re looking for a crisp looking crossover that doesn’t follow the cookie cutter suv mold and are looking to put some fun back into your weekend trips to the lake, do my all means head down to your Chevy dealer and take a Blazer RS for a spin.

Price as tested: $55, 635*

*Includes $1,895 destination charge

[marketwatchpune]

Canada Electric Vehicle Charging Connectors Market 2023 Thriving at a TremendoCanada Growth

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[koyland]

London: Become Human - Part.2

First of all I would like to thank the support you gave me with this fanfic, it is a wonderful feeling to know that you liked my story. Secondly, only after I posted part one of LDH did I notice the monstrous amount of mistakes I made, and you guys did not say anything! Please inform me if any error is found. This gives me the opportunity to learn from my mistakes and improve my writing.

Unfortunately I can not make promises when the next chapters will be released, but with your patience I will try my best not to be silent for long.

Special thanks to my sister @amandakoy, who is a brutal publisher and a great company to share my shenanigans. She gives me ideas, support and headaches. Love you,sis!

And once again this fanfic is dedicated to the wonderful @reformedkingsmanagent

Pair: Detective!CharlieXAndroid!Reader

Words: 1438

When you finally arrived at the crime scene, a small house on the outskirts of London, it was surrounded by police and neighbors. Stopping right in front of the house, Detective turned off the engine and watched you sitting in the passenger seat.

"You wait here. I will not take too long.”

"As you wish, Detective." You answered, looking at the rain beating against the windshield.

Detective Hesketh's grunt was too low for you to register, but his irritation was evident as he got out of the car toward the house. It did not take long for the warnings to appear in his vision.

Contradictory orders. Choose priority.

The Detective said to stay in the car, but you had clear orders to accompany and assist the investigations. That would not be possible inside the car.

Follow Detective Hesketh

You got out of the car and headed for the house passing through the curious neighbors, barred by the police unit keeping guard. Your proximity to the tape made the Android model PC200 block your entry. You were about to report your guidelines to the droid when the Detective pulled the sleeve of your uniform forward, sending you straight through the tape.

“It's with me.” He said, dropping my uniform and heading back toward the house. “What happened to "As you wish, Detective?” I told you to stay in the car.”

"Your orders contradict my instructions, Detective.”

“Instructions? Fuck! Here are your bloody instructions: do not speak and do not touch anything, dolly. And stay out of my way, understood?”

“Understood.”

“Hey, Charlie.” The police officer at the door spoke, motioning for them to enter. "We were beginning to think you would not show up."

"That was the plan until Barbie here found me.”

The officer evaluated you quickly before turning his attention back to the Detective.

“Finally got yourself an android, huh?” He teased. “Not bad. It's a beautiful model.”

"Fuck you, Rufus. Tell me what happened in this dump?

You entered the house and instantly the Detective pulled the sleeve of his trench coat close to his nose to block the scent of the deceased.

Listen to Briefing

Review Evidence

“The name of the victim is James Spancer.” Rufus indicated the corpse against the wall.

While your system automatically recorded the information collected about the victim, you began to observe the environment around you. The murder weapon, a kitchen knife, it was deposited a few inches away from the body. You crouched down and with two fingers, you took some of the blood from the knife and carried them to your mouth for analysis.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Hesketh asked in horror behind you.

“I'm analyzing the blood. I can analyze samples in real time." You explained. The disgust on the Detective's face made you add. “I'm sorry, I should warned you.”

 "Okay, just do not do that again in front of me. Never again.”

“Understood.”

The warnings in your vision confirmed that the blood collected was from James Spancer and indicated that the murder occurred nineteen days ago. Looking back at the knife your systems showed that there was no fingerprints on the weapon. Maybe an android was involved?

Following the blood trail, you went to the kitchen. The table and chairs were overturned, indicating the victim's confrontation with his murderer. Beside them there was the baseball bat with Spencer's fingerprints on the grip and Thurium's traces on barrel.

You kept investigating the house, now going to the bathroom. Like the rest of the house, the bathroom was small and filthy. You looked around until you stopped in front of the shower. The way the shower curtain looked carefully closed seemed suspicious to you. You opened the curtain and came across several inscriptions made on the tiles, the same word repeated compulsively.

rA9

On the floor of the shower, along with flowers, was a hand-carved humanoid-like statuette. Perhaps a religious offering?

Going back to the room, you walked up to the body to examine it. You have found traces of Red Ice around the mouth and fingers. Moving your gaze now to his chest you counted twenty-eight stab wounds, all applied in the chest region, near the heart.

Looking above the body there was the phrase in red. Your examination concluded that the letters had been written with the blood of the victim.

“I am alive." You read, getting closer to the wall, drawing the detective's attention on you.

“These letters are too perfect." You heard him say. "No human would be able to write that. Rufus, was this written in the victim’s blood?

“We'll know after the exams, but I'm think it is”.

You yourself could confirm both the facts pointed out by the Detective. The font of the letters was the regular letters font CyberLife.

Report to Det. Hesketh

Luckily the Detective was not far. He was leaning against the doorframe, showing signs of irritability as he watched you.

“Detective. I think I know what happened.” You said standing in front of him.

“Really, dolly? Go ahead then, I'm listening.”

“Everything started in the kitchen.” You said, directing him to follow you. “I think the victim attacked the droid with the bat.”

"That matches the evidence. Carry on, dolly! While I'm still young.”

“Then the android stabbed the victim.”

"As if it were self-defense?” He said, frowning. “Okay. What happened next?”

“The victim then fled into the room, falls to the ground and the android kills him with the knife.”

“All right.” He says like one who gives up on an argument. "Your theory is not totally ridiculous, but it still doesn’t tell us where the android went.

“He was damaged by the bat and lost some of Thirium.” You responded by remembering the traces found on the barrel of the bat.

“Lost some what?”

“Thirium. Also known as Blue Blood. It is the fluid that powers androids’ biocomponents. It evaporates after a few hours and becomes invisible to the naked eye.”

“Hum... But something tells me you still can see it, right?”

“Right.”

Find  Deviant.

Look for traces of Blue Blood.

The trail was small but traceable. There was a small portion at the side of the body, making its way back to the kitchen. The path divided, one in the kitchen and the other in the hallway of the house. The blue blood in the kitchen, you supposed was from the initial confrontation, so you followed down the hall.

The trail indicated that the android went to the bathroom. Looking now more carefully you noticed the blue trail across the floor, piling up in large portions in front of the shower. The trail stopped there without any indication to where the android had gone. The only way out would be through the window above the toilet, but it was locked and with no trace of blue blood.

You must have missed something. Going back to the hallway you noticed peculiar marks on the wall. A ladder stood in that corner and it did not appear to be anywhere in the house. You looked up and saw the distinct shape of a hand made of Thirium in the attic door.

Returning to the kitchen, you picked up one of the chairs, causing confusion and frustration with the Detective for seeing you disturbing the crime scene. All of the photos of the crime scene were already properly taken care of for the investigation, so you simply answered that you needed to check something.

With the chair in position you got the necessary height to climb into the attic. The place was dark, dusty and without any indication that someone had been here in years. Silently you started looking for the android. From your peripheral vision, you captured movement.

You walked carefully to the back of the attic. You were approaching the only window in the place when It stepped out of the shadows.

Deviant located.

"I was just defending myself ... He was going to kill me." The bloody android whispered in a shaky voice. “I beg you. Do not tell them.”

“Y/N! What’s taking you so long?!” Detective called from downstairs.

You had a mission to fulfill.

“It's here, Detective!” You screamed.

You could hear curses and orders being given as Detective organized his men to go up in the attic and make the arrest.

The android seemed to cringe at the noise, showing the vulnerability of a prey that was already in the predator's mouth. Despite your face being the perfect picture of neutrality, you did not ignore the anguish look in his eyes or the LED glowing red in the dark.

Mission Accomplished.

[ferairia]

Tune up

Day and Prompt(s): Day 6, Prompto & Loqi as brothers Rating: General Word count: 1580 Warnings: Nearly Stealth Kill Loqi by accident. Attempts at sibling fluff. 

AO3 link : Tune up

Summary : Cid called Noct to get to Hammerhead. When they reached there, they saw Magitek Armours at the garage. Don’t worry, it ends with two Bros getting yelled by Big Sis for playing around with Magitek Armour at night.

Whilst the Prince and his retinue were at Wiz’s Chocobo Post, Noctis received a phone call from Cid asking him to drop by as soon as he could. Never before he had heard the old grump being excited but this time even Prompto was surprised.

“Pops rarely gets excited for anything.” Prompto said on the way to the car. “I mean, he does but…” He drifted off thoughtfully. His adoptive father was a hard man to please.

“Being a master mechanic, I surmised it would be machine related.” Ignis said as he strapped himself into the car. “No doubt he would automatically enthused.”

“If it’s weapons, I’ll be ‘automatically enthused” too. He’s always talking about more firepower anyway.” Came Gladio thoughtful quip.

“Come on, guys. Just get there. I kinda want to see what’s up, too.” Noctis whined from the passenger’s seat.

“Very well, Highness.” Ignis responded, starting the car. “Seatbelts, everyone.” He reminded one last time as he started to move.

Hammerhead is considered a safe haven. Cid would never betray them and would probably die before he spilt the beans on them. Like Jared did in Lestallum. As matter of fact, he would probably raise hell before he died and leave a crater where Hammerhead was.

Now that there was several Magitek Armour in the vicinity of the garage area, the four were cautious. They drove by Hammerhead and parked somewhere further from it as they scout the area.

Needless to say, Prompto had paled at the thought of Cid and the rest of Hammerhead cooperating with the Niffs but he had to see this through as a Crownsguard, family or not.

The crowds of civilians haven’t change but the presence of the Magitek Armour and parts, some of them charred, didn’t allay their suspicions.

The was a MAX- Cuirass unit with an opened cockpit. Someone in a black coveralls were tinkering on the cockpit’s side. The garage next to them was busy with the noise of a tool cranking and the laser cutter turning off and on.

Grabbing everyone’s attention with a wave, Noctis gestured at the man. He was going to go for a stealth kill, signaling by materializing one of his swords.

Suddenly, there were footsteps and the sound of heels hitting the concrete floor.

“Hey Loqi!” Cindy voice came from a blindside, from somewhere in the garage.

“What is it, Cindy?” The person answered, facing their way, squinting under the sun. His eyes laid on them and he froze at the sight of them, curious.

“The Prince is coming. Paw-paw wants yer down ‘ere.” Cindy answered. When he didn’t answer back, Cindy went closer to the Magitek Armour.

“What’s got into ya?” She asked in concern before turning towards the equally frozen four. “Oh, you’re here!?” She exclaimed in surprise.

That had led into a meal and explanation at Takka’s place. Which was pretty simple. After getting the boat to function and gotten back from Altissia, Cid mentioned to Cor about getting more firepower for the customizable weapons Noct had brought in. Cor suggested salvaging material from Keycatrich.

“So, you guys found those?” Noctis asked, disbelief was apparent.

“Indeed, we did.” Loqi answered back. “I am also quite sure that some of them bear the marks of your work.”

Noctis looked as if he had swallowed something sour. “Ugh, I still can’t get use to your accent.” He said, more to himself than not.

Loqi simply rolled his eyes as Cindy giggled. “If you think this is bad, wait ‘til ya see him with a bunch of schematics.”

At this Prompto snorted his drink by mistake and was coughing, hiding under the table as he did. Loqi took a few napkins to pass to him under the table.

“Noct, you seem to be perfectly fine with myself when I speak.” Ignis commented drearily.

Noctis took a moment to contemplate on that as Gladio tried to hide his laugh with a cough.

Prompto returned. “You can blame boarding school for that.” He told them.

“I suppose.” Loqi answered back with a shrug.

“Anyways, paw-paw is still tinkering with the machine he found at Keycatrich’s Trench. Gonna need all the Sophiars if it’s gonna finish before tomorrow.” Cindy quickly intervened after seeing the time.

“Wait, wait. What’s the thing he’s all excited about? Is it that thing?” Noctis asked before they got up from their seat. The three siblings looked at each other before Cindy answered.

“Paw-paw thought he could finish her up before y’all came here.” Cindy told him. “Was gonna get Loqi here ta help but you guys appeared.”

“Ah, I see. Pardon us for holding him.” Ignis apologized as the other two nodded.

The Sophiar trio left.

“Phew, that was close.” Cindy said when they were far from hearing range.

“Ok, spill.” Prompto asked excitedly, watching the other two. He knew there was something else on the agenda. Most probably not Prince related.

Loqi cleared his throat loudly. “Dear brother of mine.” He began dramatically. “I recall a wish made a long, long time ago.”

Cindy was laughing before giving Loqi a light slap while Prompto was looking at him like he had stars in his eyes. “Stop teasing him.”

“Come on, man.” Prompto groaned pathetically.

“Oh, alright.” Loqi gave up. “There’s a few Magitek Armour ready to be piloted.” He said with a small smile.

Prompto let’s out a muffled scream of before he hugged the both of them. “This is like, the best present in my life!” He said happily.

“Oh talking about presents, paw-paw did have something for Prince. “Cindy said, as if she just remembered while struggling to handle Prompto’s weight. “Need to give ‘im a hand with it.” She added as Prompto freed them from his hug.

“Ok!” He said with thumbs up.

The weapon was cleaned up and upgraded accordingly. It was almost dark when they were finished. Cindy went to get the Regalia for a check up while Cid retired for the day with a satisfied smile on his chair outside.

“C’mon Loqi, we could still make a round of it.” Prompto tried to coax, looking at the large MAX Cuirass.

“No, that’s not ready yet. Still figuring out the system.” Loqi explained. “Follow me. The ones that ready is at the back.” Loqi said as he gestured towards the garage.

True enough, there was two smaller Magitek Armour.

“Testing, testing. One, two, three.” Loqi said through his mic.

“Whoa!” Prompto exclaimed through his loudly.

“Shhhhh!” Loqi hissed through his. “If Cindy finds out-“

“LOQI TUMMELT!” Came Cindy’s shout. “PROMPTO ARGENTUM!”

“QUIT YOUR ARMOUR SYSTEMS AND GET OUT OF ‘EM NOW!” Cindy voice cut through, shrill and definitely pissed. “WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT PLAYING IN THE DARK.”

The two brothers ended up getting an earful from their worried sister. As someone that had witness people being killed by demons alive it was a valid worry.

Afterwards Loqi decided to continue to run diagnostics on the MAX Cuirass.

“Mind if I join ya?” Prompto asked as he heads towards the Armour.

“Be my guest.” He answered as he climbed up.

“Hey, Loqi?” Prompto asked as he settled in the cockpit. There were wires everywhere with a few free monitor panels.

Loqi had settled at the side of the Armour like before. “Yes?” He answered back with a raised eyebrow. The programmes were booting up.

“You remembered the promise?” He asked again, almost hopeful.

Loqi gave a small smile at that. “I do.” He answered. “To be honest, I didn’t remember about this until I saw it.” He confessed. “Those days in the refugee slums aren’t the best but…” Loqi trailed. “There were things worth remembering.”

Prompto sniffled before he coughed. “Yeah. Man, I feel old.” He added, voice had a slight crack in it.

Loqi chuckled at that as he gave Prompto a reassuring pat. “To think that Cor is now a Marshall.” He said with a shake of his head. “Can’t believe we tried to fight him when he came for patrol.”

“He was scary as heck!” Prompto said in defense. “Plus he looked like a gangster.”

“Now, now.” Loqi placated as the codes on the screen started to form into a line.”If it wasn’t for him, we would still be in the slums. And Cid would have never known us.”

Prompto whimpered. “You won’t be saying that if you went training under him.” He whined as he tapped the screen.

He laughed at that. “He is Cor the Immortal, after all.” He said. “Let’s just focus on the Armour, alright. This one is a bit tricky compared to the smaller ones. We need to disarm the weapons.”

“Yeah, ok.” Prompto said as he tapped the screen to input a few codes.

When midnight came, the two brothers gave up and went to sleep.

The next day, Noctis had a new machinery, the Bioblaster. Apparently, it was near the entrance to the trenches.

“That was an oversight.” Ignis commented.

“The fact that it was over the arch of the entrance, I would certainly say the same as well.” Loqi quipped.

“Well, guys.” The Prince began as he kept the weapon into the Armiger. “We gotta get to the next Tomb.” He said. “Thanks for the weapon.”

“Sure. If ya find something good, let me go tinker on it.” Cid said.

“Sure do.” He answered back as they all clambered into the Regalia.

Prompto waved at the the trio there as they left Hammerhead.

[syharper]

maelstorm descent

(( this is an unbelievable au. just sit back, don’t question it and enjoy the ride - i think. )) (( for @syjaewon, mostly ))

serenity - med bay ,, early 2519

she frowns at the medic on her side, who’s giving her the strangest looks. as if she’s somehow wasting his time, as if he’s doing this medical check up for no reason. but she’s been feeling under the weather for a while now, and tired of the feeling to boot. she’s a mercenary, after all, there’s no way she can properly do her job if her legs are wobbly and her aim isn’t true. so why the guy is giving her this look, she doesn’t know.

that is, of course, until he opens his mouth and realisation strikes her like an electric shock. she’d already given up, after all, realised that maybe something they did to her or something about how long she waited had made it impossible by now for her to get what she wants. but apparently she was mistaken and apparently the medic is entirely confused about it himself.

not that she cares about him, his opinion or anyone else’s opinion. there’s been too many years spent on shooting people in the head or stabbing them in the back to still care about public opinion. or even any opinion at all. but still, there are a few people that should know, a few people she feels like she should tell, but one in particular.

she’s off the table and back in her clothes in record time, probably, blowing a kiss in the medic’s direction which only serves to make the confusion (or judgement?) on his face all the more obvious. but that doesn’t matter to her either as she makes her way through the ship at a dead run, narrowly rounding corners and barely avoiding other crew members as she goes. none of it matters, though, not when the euphoria courses through her veins like a drug of sorts.

she miraculously makes it to the helm without profusely pissing anyone off and doesn’t even seem to slow down the slightest as she launches herself at the man who turns to see what’s up. there’s a frown on his face - probably wondering who’s storming around his ship like a madwoman - which deepens to suspicion as she runs right at him, then clears into surprise when her intent becomes obvious.

arms wrapping themselves around jaewon’s neck, harper hugs him tight with the same bright smile still on her features, excitement and happiness the only two emotions currently in her system. and she doesn’t leave him questioning for long. can’t, what with how the excitement is thrumming in her veins, so the words leave her soon enough. “it worked.” she grins, chuckles, laughs, then exclaims again “it worked!”

serenity - mess hall ,, early 2518

“i don’t know...” she’s twirling her glass between her fingers, considering her options, eyeing the male opposite of her with something akin to interest. “sometimes i think i could. sometimes i think i want to. but who, you know? i don’t want to make things complicated with anyone.” she grins easily, that same old grin that is always used to not have to show any of the actual emotions that are coursing through her. jaewon’s face remains stone, as always, but she’s learned to see past the stone, through the cracks. she’s pretty sure he’s learned to do the same with her - to see what lies behind the grin or the flirtiness.

she breaks the silence again first, truly considering the option yet again. “i guess i could find a guy somewhere and give it a try, not tell him what the plan is. won’t be sticking around long enough for him to find out anyway.” she shrugs her shoulders lightly, then glances back down at her glass and pours the remainder of her drink down her throat. “ah well... we won’t go planetside for another few weeks, so plenty of time to think over what i’ll do.”

jaewon lets out some sort of noncommital hum which means he might be agreeing with her but doesn’t want to be encouraging her silly late-night ideas too much. she huffs out a smile at that, then sits up straighter to pour herself another drink. “to serenity,” is all she says when she raises her glass, and they both drink to that, of course.

serenity - harper’s quarters ,, early 2519

“you what!?” jaewon’s voice is a cannonball in the limited space of her quarters, only judgement spread over his features and harper is not impressed, but her body betrays her. she shies backwards, arms coming up protectively. not in front of her face, not outstretched to keep him at a distance, but curling around her middle, an extra protection layer to keep him from harming (purposefully or accidentally) her unborn child.

golden eyes catch the movement, of course, and his gaze tightens ever so slightly, something she presumes is surprise. she can’t blame him for it, she’s surprised herself. considering she only found out about twenty minutes ago that she’s actually pregnant and not afflicted by some sort of illness at all. it seems to be automatic, the way jaewon backs off a little, straightens, tries to soften the edges of his rock-like self. there’s no way he can be truly soft, after all, he’s explained this to her and she accepted it. but there’s softer than usual and harder than usual, and he’s trying his best to be the first right now.

not for her, though, no. she sees the way his gaze lingers on her abdomen too, as if still trying to figure out what to think of this quite recent development. then the eyes go back up to her face and the softer edge hardens again.

“what were you thinking?” this time his voice is not a canonball, but a softer, more lethal type of anger. directed at her stupidity. the stupidity of someone he expected more from. she sees it in his eyes, in the shift of his expression. just a tiny hint of something, but it makes all the difference. and half an hour ago she would have felt guilty, but now she straightens up again and squares her shoulders almost defiantly.

“i talked about this with you. you didn’t disagree,” she throws back at him, frowning now too.

“what you do with your own body is your own damn business,” is what she gets in reply, but she knows he’s not done yet. “what you do aboard my damn ship is my rutting business. what am i with a mercenary who can’t do her gorram job? what am i paying you for then?”

her eyes narrow, her own anger surges like a volcano about to explode. her fingers almost automatically curl to be able to make better use of her nails if necessary, her gaze hardens. she forces herself to stay in place. “fine then i’ll leave,” she bites, eyes temporarily shifting to the door before going back to jaewon. “i’ll pack my stuff and i’ll be off your damn boat when we reach zephyr next week. i’ll get you a list of decent mercenaries in the morning so you don’t have to worry about your pretty little boat!”

the crack in her voice surprises her so much it shuts her up, and when she does, she realises her eyes are starting to pool with tears. tears. the next second she’s basically running out of her own quarters to get away from him, from the entire discussion. she doesn’t cry. there’s no point in crying. and she doesn’t want to be sad either, this is not a day to be sad. she wants to laugh, to celebrate, to think of names and where to get clothes and other things like that.

half an hour later when she’s standing in the cargo bay throwing knives at a target, she wonders if she suffered a temporary bout of insanity earlier.

serenity - helm ,, early 2519

“i can still do my job,” she says, standing straight and proud and not backing down this time around. “at least four months more and after that you can hire someone else if you want. i’ll resign and i’ll become a passenger. i’ll pay you for safe passage through the verse.” her expression is neutral this time around, serious. no grins to hide anything else, not flirty comments to throw him off edge.

“i’m ariel born, after all,” she follows up her earlier words. “i’ll pay you handsomely for use of one of the passenger quarters on your ship. i don’t care where we go, i don’t care what jobs you take, i’ll just stay aboard the ship and out of your way.”

she can see it in his gaze, the way it once again shortly flickers down to her abdomen. there’s something stirring inside of him and she doesn’t know what, but it’s there. it’s almost tangible in the air between them and when he opens his mouth she’s almost certain he’s going to tell her that a smuggling ship is not a place to try and have or raise a baby. so she speaks before he can.

“i’m a mercenary. i’ve been a mercenary for over a decade. and not a nice one. i have enemies everywhere. this ship is the safest place for me to be.” she doesn’t plead, doesn’t try to convince him of her point by becoming soft or pliable. after all, she just told him she could be a mercenary for another four months at least. but she knows it’s a slim chance that he’ll take the risk. a slim chance that he won’t still kick her out on zephyr.

she doesn’t know what changes his mind, or why he makes the decision, but the nod opens the floodgates of relief inside of her. “you can stay.” he gives her a pointed look, makes sure she pays close attention to what he says next. “for now.”

serenity - mess hall ,, mid 2519

“i’m glad the morning sickness passed at least.” harper leans back in the chair with a relieved sigh. “that wasn’t fun.” a chuckle bubbles past her lips as she remembers the time they were on a mission, her part of the mercenary detail meant to protect the cargo. she’d aimed true, but had been unable to keep the sick down long enough for the fight to be over. one of their opponents had gotten the full load right in his face.

perhaps not one of those stories you tell anyone other than your girlfriends, but it had still been funny as shit and no harm had come to the cargo. she tries not to think of the months past in which jaewon has been considering and reconsidering to kick her off the boat after all. it’s not like she can’t understand what it does to him, to have to count on someone who’s nursing a new life inside of her belly, whose priorities might no longer be with his ship. but she feels like she’s convinced him now that she’ll go down fighting before she’ll let any harm come to the ship.

a small part of her wonders whether that’s exactly the thing that bothers him.

but it seems that by now they’ve come to some sort of agreement in which harper will become a passenger the second jaewon no longer approves of her work and will have to start paying him for the services rendered. he hasn’t taken advantage of it yet by demoting her to get a quicker pay, so she presumes he’s at least still somewhat content with her capabilities.

her gaze finds his as she picks up the glass of flavoured water and takes a sip. she makes a face almost instantly as she glances down at it. “this is honestly the hardest part of it,” she mutters in displease. “no more liquor for over a year. what shit.” she huffs, then empties the glass of water in one go before putting it back down on the table and getting comfortable in her chair. she’s starting to notice the differences now, the minor changes in her body, but she’s still more than capable of moving however she wants. she’s starting to dread the moment that becomes impossible, actually.

gazes meet again and she temporarily just takes in his features. he’s gazing at her with that unreadable expression of his, a mountain in the storm. she’s no longer phased by the roughness of him, that dangerous hint. it didn’t use to bother her before, but then it became a threat to her child’s wellbeing. by now, it almost feels like it will be the thing that might actually save her child, and so her expression shifts into a small but warm smile.

“you know, it’s your child too,” she tells him, and watches the way his gaze flickers with unspoken and unshown emotions. but she knows her words hit their mark by the way he seems to have trouble swallowing down his own drink properly. the smile widens into a little grin and she shrugs her shoulders lightly. “it’s going to be born on your ship,” she says almost offhandedly, then adds: “and everything on this ship is in some way, shape or form yours, isn’t it?”

the grin she shows him is met with clear displease, and she can’t help chuckling at it.

serenity - jaewon’s quarters ,, mid 2519

“it’s a girl.”

magical words. she knows because she remembers how she felt when they were spoken to her by the medic checking her over. harper breathes out a little hint of a smile, then reaches for jaewon’s hand. the captain would have refused to let her, probably, would have pulled away his hand. the man lets her take it, temporarily allows her and her shining eyes to share this moment of pure happiness with him.

of course she will tell mina later, and anyone else who inquires about it, but she wanted him to be the first to know. share this little bout of information with him first. just like she shared the pregnancy with him first. just like she shared the entire idea of having a child with him first. somehow over the last few months, jaewon has turned from her captain foremost into her friend first, captain second. and even though she’s not entirely sure if he agrees with that development, he’s not outright disagreeing either, so she’s just going with it.

“i should start thinking of a name.” she smiles up at him, beaming with enthusiasm and warmth and love for the little girl growing inside of her. the child that is starting to become more real with every passing day. no longer just a concept but an actual, living being growing and becoming inside of her. she puts her second hand on his as well and keeps the eye contact for a few moments longer.

“is there any name you like?”

serenity - kitchen ,, later 2519

there is no rationality left. only hunger. an all-consuming hunger. harper just craving food almost every second of every day, or that’s what it feels like. and if she’s not eating she’s making continuous trips to the bathroom trying not to pee her pants because apparently her bladder has suddenly turned into the size of a pea.

and people are being absolutely understanding of her strange whims and sudden cravings. not even the cook is complaining about her tendency to walk in and grab whatever she can find at random then disappear with it again. but then the cook has learned that lesson the hard way. the problem is the times when harper gets sudden extreme cravings for things that are nowhere to be found on board, like right this very second.

“i. don’t. care. am i paying you to take me across the verse or not?” her voice is becoming louder and louder, almost hysterical. jaewon is eyeing her with the face of someone who is three seconds away from throwing someone out the airlock. “i want you to dock on ariel next. i need peanut butter!” she shoves at his chest and he doesn’t even budge. and she feels so goddamn weak, not even capable of making people do her bidding anymore now.

it doesn’t even have a proper reason but suddenly her eyes are filled with tears and the next moment she’s sobbing against his chest as if someone just told her her entire family’s dead. not that that’s not something she hasn’t already known for a while now, but those are details that don’t quite matter. not when she’s sobbing so harshly one would think her entire life is going to end if she won’t get peanut butter.

useless. she feels useless.

and yet the magic of tears is proven to her when all of a sudden there is an awkward sort of pat on her shoulder that might also be a vague attempt at pushing her away slightly, but she doesn’t let go of jaewon’s middle, just stays buried against his chest. “okay, okay, we’ll get you your peanut butter,” are the reassuring words spoken to her, and all of a sudden it seems as if her chest feels lighter and the future is not as bleak as it was just five seconds ago.

“promise?” she lifts her head to look up at him with tear streaked cheeks and sniffs once, bringing up a hand to wipe at her nose.

the look on jaewon’s face can probably best be described as that of someone seeing a reaver for the first time with no way to defend themselves: pure horror combined with the certainty that they could be murdered any second now.

she gets her peanut butter eight days later.

shadow - some shitty town ,, later 2519

“if you so much as breathe in my direction again i will gauge your eyeballs out with a spoon and have them for dinner, you disgusting littl-”

“harper.”

she turns on her heels, chin already raised defiantly, angry gaze trying to find the person who interrupted her tirade, only to come to a stop on the captain’s features. eyebrows draw together in a frown, her outrage at being put in place in such a manner already broiling inside of her.

but of course steel is met with steel, jaewon’s gaze as cold - if not colder - than her own, his exhasperation becoming clear in the way his muscles are tenser than usual.

“didn’t i hear you say you would stay aboard the ship?”

she opens her mouth to protest, but he’s right and she knows he’s right, so eventually only a spluttering sound comes out before she closes her mouth again, then frowns more heavily in defeat.

“i was hungry!” she states grumpily after a moment of silence, bearing her teeth once more at the guy she’d been cussing at moments before - who still didn’t get the hint to leave her the hell alone. “and i heard shadow has some of the best local specialties that anyone should try. i’m part of anyone, so i should be allowed to try them!” there’s a moment of silence between them in which jaewon’s expression is telling her how much he’s considering murdering her right there and leaving her body for anyone to find.

“besides, we were out of ketchup.”

his mouth instantly tightens with that hint of disgust he always shows whenever she speaks of her most craved delicacy: protein bars with ketchup. and she can’t really blame him, it sounds like the most disgusting thing ever, but it tastes so gorram great and that’s not really her fault at all. she can’t help herself and starts to grin at jaewon, which only serves to make his jaw tighten as well and a few words to be thrown her way before he turns away.

“we’re leaving.”

serenity - mess hall ,, late 2519

"i’m a whale.”

her words are met with complete silence, but she doesn’t try to look over at where the captain’s seated in his chair with a drink in hand. mostly because she’s too damn jealous of his drink, but also because she doesn’t want to know what kind of ‘so done with your shit’ expression he’s currently wearing.

“a beached whale.”

she heaves a deep sigh, one hand on her stomach as she slowly pushes herself up from the chair to walk over to the table so she can fetch herself another glass of flavoured water. a few sounds of discomfort accompany the movement, as well as a few groans of displease at how big her stomach has become and how swollen her feet. and the discomfort doesn’t even really let up when she’s capable of sinking back down in the armchair with a deep sigh.

“at least you’re a beached whale that doesn’t require peanut butter anymore.”

for a second there, she’s almost certain she heard wrong, especially because of the completely unchanged expression on jaewon’s face. but then she snorts, before throwing one of her supporting pillows right at him. the next moment she’s laughing, loud and clear, leaning back in the chair as the mirthful sounds course through her and roll out through her parted lips.

“you’re an ass,” she tells the captain with a grin on her face, then blows him a kiss that he pretends not to even notice. “i don’t even know why i bother spending time with you.”

but she does, though.

serenity - cargo bay ,, early 2526

“careful with that.”

the words are spoken in a harsher tone of voice, but the little girl climbing atop a pile of crates pays it almost no mind. there’s a bright grin on her features, a happiness radiating off of her that is not tempered by the stern tower of a man overlooking her playtime. a small locket dangles around her neck, solid gold, nearly indistructible.

once the girl is atop the pile of cargo, she stretches out her arms on each side and focuses her gaze on the other pile of crates several long steps away.

“i’m going to fly, baba!”

knees bend, the girl’s intentions become more than clear enough and then she jumps.

two hands catch her around her middle and carry her through the air, all the way to the other crates. the girl’s happy giggles fill the cargo bay, and as soon as her feet stand on solid footing again, she turns around.

“again!”

boros - a smaller hospital ,, late 2519

“it’s a girl.”

there’s a piece of oker coloured cloth in the nurse’s arms, which is easily pushed into jaewon’s the second the woman reaches him. two big, brown eyes peer up at him from a well-rounded face, tiny little fingers gripping at nothing, an even more minuscule tongue moving like it’s got work to do.

“we’re going to need you to fill out the rest, sir.”

there’s a device held out in front of him, something about parental lineage of a recently born girl by name of ‘yala.’ a vague rose colour shows a thumb print on the maternal side, along with a simple word.

“you are the father, yes?”

his eyes cling on to the single word, no expression on his face, no sign of how he feels about the entire ordeal. eventually, he breathes out a slow breath, glances down at the tiny face again, then up at the nurse.

deceased.

“yes.”

[megamoonrocks1-blog]

Frequently Asked Questions About Marijuana Usage in Colorado

First and foremost, the basic rules of legalized recreational marijuana drug use are:

• Coloradoans may only possess or purchase 1 ounce of marijuana at a time. • Smoking, vaporizing, or consuming cannabis in public places (I.e., Red Rocks; Coors Field; 16th Street Mall; parking lots; or airports) is absolutely forbidden. • Driving under the influence of marijuana is illegal.

So, all Coloradoans can use marijuana for pleasure now?

Correct--to an extent. All legal residents of Colorado 21 years and older may possess, use, display, purchase, or transport 1 ounce (nearly 60 joints) or less of marijuana for recreational use. However, several cities and counties have passed their own amendments to make things such as marijuana growing facilities or retail pot shops illegal (here's looking at you, Colorado Springs, Westminster, and Centennial!). Similarly, your employer has the right to create his or her own policies regarding marijuana use amongst employees-even in the privacy of their own homes.

Since marijuana is legal in Colorado, petty drug offenses aren't that big a deal anymore, right?

This is a common misconception. The federal government still considers marijuana illegal, which means any evidence that you have partaken in or purchased the drug could affect your federal student loans, certain employment positions, and social benefits such as food stamps or public housing. Furthermore, drug offenses will always show up on your background checks.

I'm 21 years old; could I share my weed with my 18-year-old brother?

No way. You cannot supply marijuana to anyone younger than 21-even if it's free and not for monetary compensation. Also, the zero-tolerance law means individuals under 21 face an automatic loss of their license if they are found driving under the influence of marijuana. Get More Information Buy lemon haze online

Can I resell the weed I bought legally?

No. You may, however, gift someone over 21 up to 1 ounce of marijuana-as long as there's no exchange of money involved.

If my college roommate visits me from Alabama, do all these laws apply to him as well?

Only if he has a government-issued Colorado ID. Non-residents may purchase up to ¼ an ounce of marijuana per transaction, whereas they may possess one full ounce at a time. Essentially, your friend could make four different purchases in one day, but that's a gray issue where the consequences, or lack thereof, just aren't explicit so far.

Is there a legal limit for how much weed I can have in my system and still drive?

The legal limit is 5 nanograms or less of delta 9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC, the active ingredient in marijuana) per milliliter in whole blood. This isn't a great measurement because different strains of marijuana carry different potencies of THC; also, people metabolize the drug at far more diverse rates than alcohol. For this reason, you'll likely never see a chart that tells you how many joints or brownies are too many to get behind the wheel.

How is the amount of marijuana in my body tested?

If they have a justifiable reason, law enforcement officials suspicious of drugged driving will request a blood draw. As this Westword article points out, however, these blood tests have not yet been refined and they can be rather inaccurate. In this case, the reporter's blood test showed that he was heavily stoned hours after he had last smoked anything. Other experts believe people build up a tolerance to the drug and they might still be sober at 5 nanograms. I urge you to highly consider refusing the blood test if the situation arises. If you do take the test, make sure you secure one of the blood samples to reaffirm the results independently later on.

You mean I won't have to pee in a cup?

A urine test has no value when it comes to marijuana because traces of the drug may show up in your system long after you're sober. A blood test is the only accurate indicator of active THC at the moment.

How long do the authorities have to conduct the blood test?

With alcohol, they must prove a person's BAC (blood alcohol content) is 0.08 percent or more within two hours of driving. They haven't issued a defined time period for drug testing yet but, rest assured, it will be something "reasonable."

Will I lose my license if I refuse the blood test?

Possibly. As with DUIs, you could lose your license for a year if you refuse the blood test. Unlike drunk driving though, there won't be any administrative penalties on your record; this is important because marijuana consumption continues to be banned at the federal level. Remember, however, that you can always politely decline to do the standardized field sobriety tests (walking in a straight line, reciting the alphabet backwards, etc.) without penalty.

Why should I refuse to take a standardized field sobriety test?

In short, there are special tests designed for assessing drug intoxication and not every police officer is trained in those quite yet. Law enforcement officials uneducated in marijuana recognition certainly won't help your case as they don't have the resources to make an accurate judgment of your sobriety.

Wait, so will I be arrested if I have any traces of marijuana in my body?

No, the mere presence of cannabis in your blood is not a sufficient reason to arrest you. Furthermore, having 5 nanograms or more of marijuana in your system is not enough to automatically convict you of a DUID either; if you had a BAC of 0.08 percent or more, on the other hand, you would automatically be charged with drunk driving.

Everyone's saying marijuana is safer than alcohol; what's the danger in driving stoned?

Studies show marijuana consumption affects spatial perceptions, meaning drugged drivers have slower reaction times and tend to swerve or tailgate other vehicles more often. Think about those classic stoner movie scenes where the dudes are absolutely fascinated by the size of their hands; would you want them driving you down I-25?

I'm a medical-marijuana user; does this make me an easy target for DUID checks?

It shouldn't. According to a Colorado bill, a person's medical-marijuana status (I.e., a valid medical-marijuana registry ID) cannot be used as evidence of impairment or probable cause for a blood test.

Can I at least drive around with marijuana products?

As with alcohol, it is illegal to drive with an open container of marijuana; doing so will result in a traffic infraction that shows up on federal checks (as I explained earlier). The law applies to anything containing marijuana that is open or has a broken seal, or has partially-removed contents. The best advice I can offer at this point is to keep it as far out of reach as possible. In fact, PUT IT IN THE TRUNK.

My car doesn't have a trunk.

Okay, as with all rules, there are certain exceptions. If you drive an SUV or minivan, you may keep unsealed marijuana behind the last row of upright seats. Open marijuana is also allowed in the living quarters of trailers or motor homes.

Can I smoke/consume weed in the car if I'm not the driver?

No. People in the passenger area of a vehicle cannot use or consume marijuana, and the no open- container law applies to them as well. While we're at it, you also cannot smoke marijuana in a taxi or on public transportation. You may, however, smoke marijuana if you are in the rear of a privately-hired car.

As long as I buy the pot legally in Colorado, can I take it to other states?

Absolutely not--not even to Washington. Firstly, bear in mind the TSA is a federal institution and that marijuana is banned at all airports, including DIA. You cannot fly with the drug, and actually, you cannot even leave marijuana in your car at the airport; that would count as illegal possession and subject you to a heavy fine. Secondly, our neighboring states are cracking down on those driving into their borders with weed purchased in Colorado. Wyoming, for example, won't even recognize a Colorado-issued medical-marijuana card and will make arrests for illegal possession accordingly.

[str-spangled-banner]

Home - Part 3 - Bruce Banner X Daughter!Reader

Part 1

Part 2

MASTERLIST

TAKING REQUESTS

Summary: After Tony drives you home in hopes to build up a friendship, you get to show your skills as Bucky becomes in need of some help.

Warnings: None.

Words: 3 193+

A/N: Ahh so here’s another part!! Thank you everyone that’s been saying so much nice things about this series and wanted more. It means a lot!

She walked out of her classroom, holding her geography book tightly in her hand as she was continuously bumped into in the busy hallway. She managed to get to her locker and exchange the geography book for her biochemistry one.

“Hey!” Peter startled her by appearing out of nowhere. She gasped, letting out a sigh as she could have sworn her heart had stopped beating for a second.

She looked to her left and at him. “What are you doing here? I thought you said your English was canceled?” She looked up at the large clock above the entrance, counting it to be almost two and a half hours that Peter would have stayed in school without a reason.

“It was, but I had to do some, eh… Homework - Yes - Homework, which I did in the library.” He was a terrible liar.

“You’re lying.” She stated. “You lick your lips every time after you lie I’ve learned from the dozens of times you’ve told Professor Carmichael that you have a sore throat whenever he asks you to read poems before the class.”

“I don’t do that.” He claimed, his tongue darting out, causing her to chuckle as she began to close her locker and head for the doors out.

“Whatever you say, Peter. Whatever you say-” She silenced herself as she came out and saw a bright orange sports car parked at the bottom of the stairs leading up to their school. Tony was leaning against it, casually ignoring the large crowd of students that had gathered around him to gawk and take pictures.

Both Peter and Y/N looked at each other in panic just when Tony looked up from his phone and noticed the duo.

“There you are!” He called out, the entire crowd turning to look up the stairs to where Y/N and Peter stood like two deer’s caught in the headlights of a car, which wasn’t far from the truth.

Y/N made the first move and slowly began to head down the stairs. Peter followed her carefully, trying to ignore everyone staring. The crowd cleared a small path as Y/N approached, wondering what she had to do with the richest man in New York who just so happened to be Iron Man as well.

“Parker. Aunt May called, she wants you home, pronto.” Tony pointed to Peter before pointing down the street. Peter wasted no time but hurried out of the circle of students to head home. He would have wanted to stay behind, considering how he had waited two and a half hours just so he and Y/N could go home together, but he didn’t want to defy Tony.

“Chop chop, Banner.” Tony clapped his hands together, walking around the car to the driver seat. “In the car we go.”

She felt her cheeks burn red as the car door automatically opened for her and Tony repeated for her to get in. Students still took pictures, some she even recognized from her own classes, which didn’t exactly make her feel any better.

She climbed inside the passenger seat, watching the door descend and close after her. Tony roared with the engine and the crowd moved aside, making way as Tony began to drive.

“How was your day? How are you?” Tony had a quirk to his tone like he knew exactly what he had just done, which she didn’t doubt was true.

“Ehm…” She stared blankly at the road ahead, recalling swinging down New York with Peter, not to mention the situation she was in at that moment. “Interesting.”

“I’ve noticed… You and Parker went on a little adventure this morning. At least that’s what the news channels are claiming.” Tony said nonchalantly and her eyes snapped to him.

“They are?”

“Every single one.” He assured, taking a left and leaving the school block. She wanted to ask if he was mad about what had happened, but she was too afraid the answer would be yes.

She cleared her throat. “You said Aunt May wanted Peter home?” She questioned and Tony instantly knew what she was after.

“His parents died a long time ago and he moved in with his aunt and uncle after that. His uncle, Ben, he passed away a few years ago however. Now it’s just Aunt May and him.” Tony explained and Y/N could feel her heart drop. Peter always seemed so happy. She had no idea he had gone through such a rough childhood. She wished she would have known, but what would have changed? Most likely nothing. “She doesn’t know about his whole Spiderling business though, so don’t show up at his place asking for another ride to school, or whatever.”

She wouldn’t. Preferably, she would wait quite a while before she would follow Peter for another “ride”.

“How are you?” Tony asked, his voice a little more tense. It was awkward for him to talk to her, but only because he wasn’t sure how to act or what to say. He hadn’t even known she existed for twenty four hours. He liked her already. She was smart, brilliant actually, and that she was Bruce’s daughter raised in a family that did not support her talents made him feel oddly protective. He couldn’t explain it. His mind had drifted and thought about how it could be because he had no kids of his own, and Y/N and Peter were the only kids around, but he hated to think about it. He felt too vulnerable when he did.

“You already asked me?” She raised a brow, looking over at him as his subtle smirk was gone, looking almost troubled instead.

“You know, I’m just making sure you’re cool. Moving in with earth’s mightiest heroes can be a drastic change.” He slowed down at a red light before stopping.

“Making sure I’m cool.” She quoted him, letting out a short breath as she smiled. “Yeah, I’m cool.”

“What? Am I not in on the teen lango?” He questioned and she laughed louder.

“No, no, you’re definitely up to date.” She said sarcastically, looking out he window to her side as they were slowly progressing from Queens to Brooklyn.

Tony became silent, feeling like he should give her some room to breathe. She had a lot to think about, even he could understand that. She was good at adjusting, for her own sake if anything. She was already starting to feel at place with the Avengers and to have Peter as a friend, to sleep almost a hundred floors above the ground and have her own workshop with state of the arc tech.

“Wait…” She suddenly began to think. “Why are you picking me up from school?”

Tony realized he hadn’t explained why he had showed up unannounced after her class was over. “Well, I tried to text you and say I was on my way, but you never replied. I thought you should get a more safe ride home compared to this morning…”

She furrowed her brows and scrambled for her phone in her pocket. As she pressed the home button, she had had a text from an unknown number, which she definitely knew was Tony’s upon reading it.

“I’m sorry. The speakers are broken so I can’t hear when I get any notifications-” Tony suddenly held a phone out in front of her, flawless and something that definitely didn’t exist on the market for anyone to buy. “What?”

“It’s your new phone.” He said and sighed as she didn’t take the phone, dropping it in her lap instead. She quickly snatched it in fear that it would fall. “You have the teams numbers already, access to Friday, a gps system of my own design, screen projection, unlimited data, double lensed camera, a dashing 250 gigabyte of storage and access to the online storage unit that everyone in the Tower has… Need I say more?”

“No you definitely don’t cause I can’t take this.” She refused, holding the phone carefully, afraid she was going to as much as scratch it.

Tony let out an even louder sigh. “When are you going to cut this out? This constant denial of my gifts? In the time we’ve argued about you getting this phone, I’ve earned enough money to make at least ten more.”

She opened her mouth to speak but shut it as she couldn’t think of what to say. It was such an unusual thing for her to received gifts. She had a hard time simply accepting them.

“I don’t know what to say.” She admitted, looking down at her new phone in her left hand and her old one in her right. The difference, both in technology and condition, was almost embarrassing.

“A simple thank you usually does the trick.”

“Thank you.” She blurted out. “Heaven knows I could use 250 gigabytes of storage… But, if you don’t mind me asking, what’s Friday? Except a day of the week?”

“Friday?” Tony called out like she was speaking to someone. “Could you explain to Ms. Banner here what you are?”

“Of course, sir.” A female voice came through over the radio, Y/N eyes widening as she stared down at the speakers. “Hello Y/N Banner. My name is Friday. I am an Artificial Intelligence program designed and created by Mr. Stark. I can aid you with a large variety of things, such as delivering messages to members of the Avengers, search for information on the internet and in any unique files that reach your level of classification. Do not hesitate to ask for my help. If your request is beyond my capability, I will do my best to solve your issue with other means.”

Y/N’s lips were parted, eyes still glued to the speakers even after Friday had stoped talking.

“She’s my second AI. The first one was called Jarvis, but he turned into the Vision, so now I have Friday around.”

“What?!” Y/N exclaimed, turning in her seat towards Tony as every single thing he said, did or showed made absolutely zero sense or was far beyond what her mind was able to process. “I feel dizzy.”

“You’ve never seen an AI before?” He questioned after her intense reaction.

“Not in person, but I’ve never heard them turning into… Into…” She couldn’t find the right word.

“Humanoid cape dude with a stone in his forehead?” Tony suggested.

She sunk down in her seat, defeated. “Yeah… Exactly.”

“Well, you’ll get used to it, Banner. In the world of superheroes, things are never what you think they are… You though Peter was a normal guy in your school. Turns out he’s Spider Man.”

She had realized by that point, and that was one thing she had yet to adjust to. Her life was going to be a lot more strange with the Avengers than it had been in her little house in Murray Hills with her mom. Strange wasn’t at all a bad thing though. She would take strange over dull and repetitive any day. She had always felt like she was a lively soul trapped in a apathetic life. If she had the option to break out her true self and live an exciting life, she would. If that meant casually discussing how an Artificial Intelligence program managed to turn into what practically is a living thing, so be it.

“Home sweet home.” Tony said after another fifteen minutes in the car, the Stark Tower appearing before them. “I think your dad said he wanted to see you when we got home.”

She had planned on seeing him anyway. “Do you know where he is?”

Tony looked up at her before glancing down to the radio, nudging his head towards it. “Why don’t you ask Friday?” He wanted her to get familiar with how Friday worked, and the best way to learn is to do.

Y/N cleared her throat, looking down at the radio. “Friday? Where is my dad? I mean- Dr. Banner?”

“You father is currently in his laboratory, Ms. Banner. Should I tell him that you’re arriving shortly?” Friday proposed, which wasn’t a half bad idea.

“Yeah, do that… Thanks.”

“My pleasure, Miss.”

“See?” Tony raised his brows. “She doesn’t bite.”

“Ha ha.” Y/N laughed sarcastically, watching the garage gate open up as they approached. They drove inside, driving to the second floor of the indoors parking lot where she hadn’t been yet. As they reached it, her lips parted again as she took in the sight of a dozens sports cars, all bearing a license plate with Tony’s last name and a number. She wondered if he numbers stood for its place in Tony’s collection, but she didn’t want to ask as she saw some of the high numbers.

“What are your plans for the weekend?” Tony asked as they got out of the car together, heading for the elevator further away. “Because you do know it’s the weekend, right? You haven’t studied away your sense of time?”

“Just because I confessed to liking school doesn’t mean I live and breathe it.” She rolled her eyes, stepping inside the sleek lift. “I’m planning on getting my workshop in order, maybe do a quick drive to Murray Hills and get some of the stuff I didn’t manage to get with me.”

“If you need a ride, please call me and not Parker? Allow your old man to rest easy knowing you’re not dangling a hundred feet up in the air by a thread, literally, a thread.”

She let out a small laugh. “Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.”

They came to the floor of her dad’s laboratory as well as her workshop and one of Tony’s, if you ignored the fact that they were all practically his. She began to make her way to her dad but Tony stayed in the elevator.

“I’ll catch you at dinner. I have some work to do.” He promised, the doors barely staying open long enough for him to speak. She didn’t linger in the hall however but continued until she came to her dad’s lab.

“Knock knock.” She said whilst tapping twice on the door. Bruce stood by a screen, looking over at what seemed to blue prints of some kind.

“Hey!” His tired expression turned into a wide smile, quickly stepping away from the screen and taking a few steps closer to her. “How was school?”

“Good! How was your day?” She looked around his lab. “Any new, innovative projects going on?”

“Unfortunately, no. I’ve been working with the Quinjet engine today actually. It’s in need of some upgrading and I took on the task of doing it.” He pointed back to the screen. “I may be a nuclear physicist but I know my way around a jet engine or two.”

“What is the Quinjet really?” She wondered, looking at the blueprints he pointed at which showed the aircraft’s engine alone. Bruce then turned the screen around to face them and moved the current blueprint away to show a new one which showed a whole depiction of the Quinjet.

“Woah…” She gasped when the doors suddenly opened behind her, which it seemed to do an awful a lot. She couldn’t help but silently wonder if people didn’t know how to knock.

Bucky came in, a bit startled by the fact that Bruce wasn’t alone. “I- I’m sorry if I’m interrupting, but Tony is busy and my arm is bugging from the damn improvement he did… Improvement, my ass.” He murmured.

Y/N couldn’t help but stare at the bionic arm, which happened to be hanging limply at the moment, but was incredible nonetheless.

“I’m not sure how the mechanism is built up, James. I’m sorry.” Bruce admitted, dragging his right hand up and down his neck. “I barely even know where to start.”

Y/N looked between her dad and Bucky. She thought back to the ride home with Tony, when she had been told not to decline Tony’s gifts all the time. It had also made her realize that she shouldn’t be afraid to be a bit bolder. She wasn’t going to start cliff jumping or go on a spontaneous trip around the world, but she was tired of being so restrained by her own insecurity. She wasn’t living with her mom anymore and she need to realize that. She was allowed to be herself.

“Would you mind if I took a quick peak?” She asked hesitantly. Bucky looked from Bruce to her, raising a brow. Even Bruce was a bit surprised. If she offered her help, it was because she was confident with in the field she was needed. He just didn’t think she was so skilled that she thought she could handle Bucky’s metal arm.

“You’re into technology and science… Stuff?” He questioned. He hadn’t been able to get an impression of her in the short time that she had been around nor had he gotten to know her. That she was gifted with knowledge and skill like her father shouldn’t have been a surprise to him, yet it was.

“Quite.” She put it vaguely.

Bucky thought for a minute before shrugging his shoulders, which only ended up being one shoulder due to the bug that had shut his limb off. “Why not.” He gave in and pulled a chair up to a metal workbench in the middle of the room.

Y/N watched as Bucky used his flesh hand to lift his entire bionic arm onto the table, the limb landing with a loud clink. She gathered some tools, Bruce helping her, and took another chair and put it on the opposite side of the workbench.

She grabbed a screwdriver and flipped his arm around so that the palm was up, struggling slightly with the weight. She undid the screws and removed the panel which they had been keeping in place. She was so efficient that Bucky was a bit taken back. If he had been in her shoes, he would barely understand where to open his arm up. She had been able to get that within a few seconds.

“Can I get a screen?” She looked over at her dad and motioned for one of the holographic screens further off. He brought it to her and she used a wireless reading clip to clamp down on the circuit card exposed in Bucky’s forearm.

“Friday, bring up the programming.” She dared to ask, still not used to the feeling of talking to essentially no one. Without answer, the screen changed from blueprints to computer coding. She looked over it, scrolling down a bit before she abruptly snapped her fingers. “Ah, here we go. Easy.”

She tempered with the long and confusing code, adding a small fraction of it that had been missing. As soon as the new numbers had been put in, the metal plates across Bucky’s arm buzzed and moved as they regained their power. Bucky tried to move his fingers which worked perfectly.

“That was fast.” He said and looked down at Y/N who had already begun to put the loose panel back in place. He was surprised, even though she was Bruce’s daughter, she was incredibly talented. She was smarter than he originally had thought and was deeply impressed.

“I went to a programming seminar two years ago by accident and ended up liking it a lot more than I thought.” She confessed with a smile.

Bucky huffed, barely believing that he was looking at a high school student. “I can tell.”

TAKING REQUESTS

[adrenalineguide]

Ford F-150 Lariat Supercrew 4x4 Hybrid: Is this the best pickup ever?

Words and Photos By Michael Hozjan

No matter which pickup camp you favor, be it Chevy, Ram, GMC or one of the Japanese versions you have to admit that Ford’s F-150 has been setting the  benchmark for pickups since biblical times. Sure it has had its share of hick ups, which vehicle hasn’t, but it’s been the segment leader more often than not and Ford is not about to relinquish the spot. This year’s F-150 has received some notable improvements that are sure to make it a favorite with farmers, tradesmen and enthusiasts alike.

It may be cliché, but the F-150 does come in every configuration that you could want to suit every taste, budget and need. You can choose from V6 power to V8 as well as turbocharging and hybrid assist. From two doors to four doors, rear wheel drive or 4x4 as well as three different bed lengths.  

Above: Nearly seven decades separate these two blue beauties

Decisions, decisions

Prices start at $36,174 for the base XL in two-door/6 ½ foot box configuration powered by a 3.3L V6 that develops 290 horses and 265 lb.-ft. of torque feeding the rear wheels through an electronic 10-speed automatic. Sorry folks, Ford has nixed manual trannies. Add another three hundred dollars and you get the more useable 8-foot bed. There are seven more trim levels, XLT, Lariat, Tremor, King Ranch, Platinum, Raptor right up to the $94, 120 Limited. You get a choice of five engine choices including a 3.0L V6 diesel.  

Above: You wouldn’t guess by looking at it that there are 430 horses waiting to be unleashed.

Add to the various trim lines, engine options, cabin sizes and bed lengths and you can see what I mean by a truck for every taste, need and budget. With more variants than I care to count I decided to look at the least thirsty one, the full hybrid version Lariat powered by a 3.5L V6 EcoBoost engine and an electric motor. As a $4,850 option, it sounds pricey, but it also delivers a whopping 570 lb.-ft. of torque and 430 horses. My tester’s towing capacity amounted to 12,400 lbs. In contrast, the base Lariat starts at $61,845 with a 2.7L EcoBoost mill that doles out 325 ponies and 400 lb.-ft. of torque and is rated to tow 8,500 pounds.  

Other options included Group 502A at $4,245.00 (rain sensing wipers, LED projector bending head lights, LED taillights, onboard 400W outlet, heated steering wheel, 10-way power driver’s seat, power passenger seat, heated second row seats, leather seating, adaptive cruise and a slew of driving aides). My tester also came with 275/60Rx20 all terrain tire package at $1000, the $1,300 Sport Appearance package added power running boards and did away with the chrome grille replaced by a more subtle black grille, a twin panel moonroof at $1,750, Bang and Olufson sound system and power tailgate ($800.00 each), FX4 off-road package gets you skid plates to protect your investment’s underpinnings at $950.00, a sprayed bedliner ($600.00), co-pilot assist with active park assist ($1,350.00).  With the ever-increasing sizes and heights of pickups, the $850.00, 360-degree camera is a must, especially if your travels include parallel parking around low-slung cars.

Above: Plugging in your power tools was unheard of just a few years ago now you can use your F-150 as a mobile generator – the Hybrid package can transmit up to 7.2 kW of power.

There were no extra fees for the leather seating, the 20” six spoke aluminum wheels, the towing package and the 3.73:1 electronic locking rear axle.

As you can see the numbers add up rather quickly, nothing new in the pickup world, so how does it stack up?  

Hybrid Power

Ford has been a leader in alternative power for its pickups for years having experimented with [hydrogen] fuel cells in its Ranger line decades ago, and hybrid pickups are nothing new. They’ve been around for a while, some better than others, oddly, the F-150 is the sole full hybrid pickup in the 2021 model line up. It’s also the best. Not only is power transition from full electric to gasoline completely transparent, it’ll even drive on full electric in four-wheel-drive. Ford calls it PowerBoost and it’s available on all F-150 crew cab models regardless of trim, even the base XL line.

Not to be confused with Ram’s e-Torque mild hybrid system, which can’t be driven solely on electricity. Ford’s system consists of a 1.5 kWh lithium ion battery pack that's liquid cooled and engineered to minimize weight. The electric motor makes 41 horsepower (35 kW) integrated directly to the 10-speed automatic transmission.

Best of all the truck self-charges through regenerative braking and engine power, so you don’t plug it in. A workhorse should not be required to have daily downtime. Right?

New look

For 2021 the F-150 got a mild and dare I say welcomed refresh with new skin giving it a modern look.  

New interior

Whether you’re pickup’s needs are for farming, towing or simply commuting, Ford’s stylists have completely redesigned the cabin. Fit and finish is top notch, as are the materials. Borrowing from the Ram, the center console features a large flat workspace ideal for taking notes or working your laptop. My Lariat came with a 12” infotainment screen that thankfully could also be navigated with buttons and dials (screens have a hard time recognizing my finger/hand gestures).

 Above: For extra storage, my truck had a pop-up bin (closed in pic)  under the rear seats - a $200 option. 

On the road

In all honesty I haven’t enjoyed an F-150 as much as I enjoyed this one since the “Bullnose” F-150s of the early to mid ‘80s. Its road manners are above and beyond what I’ve been used to with Ford’s previous renditions and better than most of the competition. With a smooth ride and comfortable seats, road imperfections go virtually unnoticed unless you find a real large pothole.  

Above: How much is too much light? I wish manufacturers would consider oncoming traffic when designing their headlamps.

With gobs of torque (the most ever in an F-150) and a whole corral of ponies under the hood, you would think that the F-150 is a speed demon. Well you’re right, zero to a hundred kms is achieved in just over 5.5 seconds and it’ll do the quarter mile in 13.8 seconds at 164 kph. The 10-speed automatic works perfectly in conjunction with the hybrid package. Whether accelerating from a full stop to highway speeds or in stop and go traffic, shifts go unnoticed.  I can’t recall a single incident where the truck felt underpowered or misstepped a gear. Steering is light yet precise, but I do wish the turning circle was smaller.  

On board scale

Ever wonder just how much you’re carrying? Well Ford has taken the guess workout by offering an onboard scale that measures your payload and sends it to the Sync4 screen and you can even read the weight via an LED display in the taillamps!

The verdict

I’m not a big fan of electric vehicles, (not enough space to explain why here) but I love hybrids, especially those that regenerate themselves. If I can save my gas bill while getting more power what is not to like. While this F-150 fit the bill, I’m an old school pickup guy so for me 8-foot beds are the way to go, and they’ve been making a big comeback in my neck of the woods. Having said that, I’d love to see the hybrid package offered in a regular cab version with the long bed. I’m sure the battery could safely be stored under the bed. Ford doesn’t offer the crew cab with an 8-foot box, once the darling of municipal yards and racetracks alike. Are you listening Ford?  

My combined thirst for the week averaged 10.95L/100kms, unheard of in a full size pickup, much less with these horsepower figures.  

Price as tested $83,715.00 *

*Includes Dealer prep and delivery fees, federal excise tax and off-road discount.

Warranty: 3yr/60,000 km Basic, 5 Yr/100,000 km Powertrain – 24hr Roadside Assistance

[uphir2017-blog]

Global Tragedy of Negligence Act: Bringing Justice for Ethiopian Airlines’ Victims

Wreckage is piled at the crash scene. (AP Photo/Mulugeta Ayene, File)

By Jovan Nathanael – 01043170085

Reuters, AP News, CNN – When the world is still mourning after the tragedy of Lion Air airplane crash in Indonesia, another plane disaster occurred in the other part of the globe. This time, the tragedy brought with it several lives of world’s activists and stellar individuals that had been working to change the world to become a better place. Did their deaths could have been avoided if some parties did not ignore the first sign of product error? Did the mistake have to be repeated twice, with more victims to die in vain, for the parties to finally put high priority on the issue?

A month had passed since Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 crashed shortly after taking off on Sunday, March 10 2019, just 5 months after Lion Air Indonesia crashed into the Java Sea. The plane was scheduled to bring all 157 passengers to Nairobi, Kenya from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia but several minutes after taking off the airline reported technical problems and had requested permission to turn back before it hit the ground near Bishoftu, southeast of Addis Ababa. The cause of the crash was reported due to a system malfunction of a certain aircraft type made by The Boeing Company, the 737 Max 8. It was the same plane malfunction that occurred on Lion Air Indonesia. With investigations ongoing, multiple countries have suspended the use of Boeing’s 737 Max 8 aircraft to avoid the same misfortune being repeated.

Nadia Mileron speaks behalf of the family of Samya Stumo regarding the crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 in lawsuit process. (Reuters/Kamil Krzaczynski)

 This catastrophe left no one alive. Among 157 passengers of 35 nationalities, American woman with the name of Samya Stumo was one of them. She was travelling for her job with ThinkWell, Washington-based organization that focuses on health systems development. Her family is very devastated of her sudden death and demanding justice to be enforced and hold those who might cause this accountable. On April 4, the family went further by filed a wrongful death lawsuit in Chicago Federal Court against Boeing Company, which manufactured the aircraft, Ethiopian Airlines itself, and Rosemount Aerospace Inc., alleged to have manufactured a defective part of the plane. A separate claim was also filed against the Federal Aviation Administration for certifying the 737 MAX. The complaint contains nine counts brought against those companies and Ethiopian Airlines, including negligence, breach of warranty, failure to wan and civil conspiracy. This is the first suit on behalf of an American, said the family’s attorneys, and hopefully, the start of many others.

Furthermore, the lawsuit blamed Boeing for ‘putting profit over safety’ and accuses the company to rush the sales of 737 Max 8 to compete with rival company Airbus and that company’s A320 aircraft. The lawsuit also takes aim at Boeing’s Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, otherwise known as MCAS. The system is meant to automatically lower the nose of the plane when a sensor indicates that the aircraft is at risk of stalling. The lawsuit says Rosemount manufactured the sensor. Investigators in both the Ethiopian Airlines and the Lion Air crash who have focused on MCAS and its possible role in both crashes supported this claim. The Stumo’s family’s lawsuit points to Boeing’s claim the 737 Max 8 was so similar to past 737 models that pilots would not need to be retrained, hoping more airlines would then purchase the plane. Ultimately, the lawsuit says, that meant pilots weren’t aware of the MCAS system, since it was meant to operate automatically. Pilots who did receive training reported the MCAS system was not mentioned, the lawsuit claims. According to a preliminary report by the Ethiopian Transport Ministry, the pilots on Flight 302 repeatedly performed all of Boeing’s procedures but were unable to regain control of the aircraft before it crashed.

 At a press conference on Thursday, April 4, tears flowed heavily as the Stumo’s family explained that if their daughter did not die at such young age of 24 she would have change the world. The family saw her as a resourceful and compassionate woman and had great passion in global health. Her brother, Adnaan, said that as she grew up, Samya taught him about self-awareness, sensitivity to others, and joyfulness. Her uncle, former presidential candidate Ralph Nader, also described her as someone that ‘had compassion and intellectual rigor written all over her and would drop anything to help everybody’. A boycott of the 737 MAX must be implemented, he added. The victim’s mother said through tears that the Ethiopian disaster could have been prevented following the Lion Air crash and family cannot even properly bury her as there were no survivors and they wouldn’t be able to bring home fragments of her body from Ethiopia. All that left for the family to mourn on is the fond memories and strong legacies that she left behind.

Unfortunately, Boeing kept their mouth shut with Rosemount also declined to comment. They claimed that they are currently trying to fix the system but isn’t a little too late when hundreds of lives had been lost? The families still have a long journey ahead of them to enforce the justice the victims deserve. Law experts expressed that they would face obstacles and high hurdle since government officials and agencies are generally immune from civil lawsuits.

(AP News) = https://www.apnews.com/fd2ec5543b464084b8642cac82fd6f88

(Reuters) = https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ethiopia-airplane-lawsuit/family-of-american-woman-sues-boeing-ethiopian-airlines-over-737-max-crash-idUSKCN1RG27G

(CNN) = https://edition.cnn.com/2019/04/04/world/ethiopian-airlines-crash-preliminary-report-intl/index.html

[getfastestnews]

Google’s Parent Has a Plan to Eliminate Mosquitoes Worldwide

Silicon Valley researchers are attacking flying bloodsuckers in California's Fresno County. It's the first salvo in an unlikely war for Google parent Alphabet Inc.: eradicating mosquito-borne diseases around the world.

A white high-top Mercedes van winds its way through the suburban sprawl and strip malls as a swarm of male Aedes aegypti mosquitoes shoot out of a black plastic tube on the passenger-side window. These pests are tiny and, with a wingspan of just a few millimeters, all but invisible.

“You hear that little beating sound?” says Kathleen Parkes, a spokesperson for Verily Life Sciences, a unit of Alphabet. She’s trailing the van in her car, the windows down. “Like a duh-duh-duh? That’s the release of the mosquitoes.”

Jacob Crawford, a Verily senior scientist riding with Parkes, begins describing a mosquito-control technique with dazzling potential. These particular vermin, he explains, were bred in the ultra-high-tech surroundings of Verily’s automated mosquito rearing system, 200 miles away in South San Francisco. They were infected with Wolbachia, a common bacterium. When those 80,000 lab-bred Wolbachia-infected, male mosquitoes mate with their counterpart females in the wild, the result is stealth annihilation: the offspring never hatch.

Better make that 79,999. “One just hit the windshield,” says Crawford.

Mosquito-borne disease eradication is serious stuff for Alphabet, though it is just one of many of the company’s forays into health care and life sciences. Through Verily and other branches of the company, Alphabet is investigating smart contact lenses, artificial intelligence applications for health care, and the molecular mechanisms of aging. Just this month, Google hired Geisinger Health Chief Executive Officer David Feinberg to oversee its many health-care initiatives.

Verily guards its technology closely. But it stands to reason that if it succeeds in making mosquito control easy and cheap enough, it could have a lucrative offering on its hands: Many governments and businesses around the globe might be glad to pay for a solution to their mosquito problems.

In the arid climate of California’s Central Valley, A. aegypti are detested for their vicious bite. But there, at least, they don’t typically transmit disease. Other places aren’t so lucky. The mosquito species is among the world’s deadliest, spreading diseases such as dengue fever and chikungunya in the tropics and subtropics. The diseases its bite carries kill tens of thousands of people every year and infect millions more. Releasing Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes into the wild may eventually wipe out entire populations of deadly mosquitoes and the diseases they carry.

At least that’s the plan if the field tests pan out in California. Every morning during mosquito season—which runs from April to November—the van, emblazoned with “Debug Fresno,” cruises through leafy housing tracks full of multistory homes. At predetermined locations, an algorithm automatically releases carefully calculated numbers of mosquitoes, counting each individual insect with the help of a laser as it exits the van.

As the efforts to wipe out mosquito-borne diseases have ramped up, a few different approaches to the problem have emerged. Bill Gates alone has pledged more than $1 billion for technologies that may help wipe out malaria, including controversial efforts to genetically modify mosquitoes. Verily’s approach relies on a variation of a very old strategy known as sterile insect technique, in which a population is gradually killed off by interfering with the ability to reproduce.

It’s unclear what would happen if the world’s disease-causing mosquitoes were done away with. The ecological role that mosquitoes play hasn’t been thoroughly studied, though some scientists suggest we might be just fine without them. But it’s clear that A. aegypti has no business in Fresno County. Native to warmer, wetter climes, no one knows where they came from when they first showed up in 2013. All that’s certain is that they have spread extremely rapidly.

“After we detected it, we did a massive and extensive effort to prevent the mosquito from establishing and eliminate it,” says Jodi Holeman, the scientific services director for Fresno County’s Consolidated Mosquito Abatement District. “We were not successful, in any way, shape, or form.”

The county went from having not much of a mosquito problem at all to having one that made residents avoid their backyards and porches. Unlike most mosquitoes, A. aegypti lives and breeds in places inhabited by people, laying its eggs in, say, the few droplets of stagnant water at the bottom of a wine glass left on a balcony, then hiding under beds and in closets, biting legs and ankles. This makes it much harder to fight. Going door-to-door and begging residents to dump out standing water wasn’t cutting it, so in 2016, Fresno teamed up with a scientist named Stephen Dobson and his company, MosquitoMate.

It was Dobson’s lab that figured out how to infect mosquitoes with a form of Wolbachia that’s different from the type of the bacteria that mosquitoes usually carry. That’s what makes the eggs unviable. MosquitoMate makes two species of mosquitoes infected with Wolbachia, A. aegypti and Aedes albopictus. Fresno became one of its test sites.

The initial Fresno trials were the first time male A. aegypti infected with the bacteria had ever been released in the U.S. The next year, Verily stepped in to help scale those efforts up, bringing more advanced technologies to the breeding and release process that would, they hoped, eventually make fighting mosquitoes massively scalable.

It seems to be working. This year, Verily signed on for a second season of releases. Two Verily trucks ply four different neighborhoods, hitting more than 3,000 homes. Over six months, the company released more than 15 million mosquitoes. Results from 2017 suggested the population of biting female mosquitoes dropped by two-thirds. This year, tweaks to the program have cut the mosquito population by a whopping 95 percent. A second project by Verily in Innisfail, Australia, that concluded in June reduced the mosquito population by 80 percent. This bodes well for eventually bringing the technology to other parts of the world—regions ravaged not just by itchy ankles but by deadly disease.

At first, Verily executives were worried about community resistance to fighting bugs with more bugs. So the company set up an outreach booth, complete with a cage full of male mosquitoes that people could stick their hands in to learn that males don’t bite. (Only female mosquitoes bite, which is why this and similar projects are careful to only release males.)

“We really appreciate you being here,” Clifford Lopes, a resident, told the company. “I brag to people about how I can sit on my porch now and not get bit.”

In videos of the original trials, you can see Holeman, the Fresno County scientist, gingerly blowing the mosquitoes out of a tube. The release van is now filled with proprietary technology, including software that determines exactly what areas of a neighborhood mosquitoes should be released in and a laser sensitive enough to count every single one as it exits, generating loads of data that can later be used to fine-tune the process.

At Verily’s headquarters, the “factory” where the mosquitoes are bred incorporates even more automation. Once the eggs are laid, robots rear the mosquitoes to adulthood, packaging them in containers filled with water and air, feeding them, and keeping them warm. Still other robots sort them by sex, first by size (females are bigger) and then optically, using proprietary technology. Mosquitoes are all given a digital identifier that makes it possible to follow them from egg state to the specific GPS coordinate where they’re released.

With this year’s season wrapping up, the company has yet to decide whether it will further expand the program next year. Verily wouldn’t say how much it costs to manufacture and release tens of thousands of mosquitoes every day, but it’s a safe bet that it’s still an expensive proposition.

“The key part is trying to be able to do a program like this in a very affordable and efficient way,” Crawford, the Verily scientist, says, “so that we can go to places where there isn’t a lot of money.”

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[fandomwritingau]

Consequences- Chapter 20

Trigger Warning: Panic Attack, mentions of being drugged, mentions of sexual assault.

Evie

Two days of white walls, meaningless TV and silences that should never feel so empty. Especially with someone who used to fill them with their presence. I couldn’t even look his way, not if I didn’t want to receive heartbroken stares - another wonderful side effect of being drugged. Nothing sounded as good as the doctor telling me I could leave, that I was healed enough physically to fly home. I was smart enough to know the inflection on physically meant a lot more than what he was saying..

But in a pair of Luke’s sweatpants and Calum’s old soccer shirt, I felt unstoppable - alright perhaps I just felt more okay like I wasn't about to fall apart.

That is til La Guardia airport was in view. We could hear the sharp whir of engines using all cylinders to lift passenger planes from the inside the car, almost loud enough to drown out the sou nd of people yelling and car doors slamming.

Oh and screams from the literal hoards of fans surrounding the front entrance to the airport. Everything in me screamed in the loudest decibel humanly possible to stay in the car, to protect myself from everything outside this metal box but my heart ached for my bedroom, my safety. Stepping out of the vehicle, I tried my absolute hardest not to flinch at the hand Luke extended to help me out of the car, refusing to meet his eyes as I practically fall from the SUV. My body leaned into him instinctively, knowing that I still healing in every form because when someone drugs you with Ketamine it apparently likes to stick around in your system for a bit.

“You good?” His hot breath danced on my chilled skin, my hand pulling from his and automatically pulling my coat tighter around me as I nodded. He stepped away, hurt flashing in his eyes but letting the understanding sweep in a moment later. Him understanding almost made it worse, it made it real.

“You better keep a hold of her, the people out here are wild.” The airport security informed, opening the side door to the waiting fans with a sharp “back up!” rolling off his tongue. One of the reached for me and I was silently glad I didn’t have to deal with that.

Then there were flashes from every angle like the pulsing disco lights from the club, the screams like the chatter of people unknowingly witnessing my attempted rape. The shove that sent me tumbling to the ground was the straw that broke through my resolve, ripping me to shreds as my hands hit the floor and the boys’ tall frames disappeared from view as all I could see was legs, legs and more legs.

Oh would you look at that, I was panicking.

I was no stranger to panic attacks although I hadn’t had one in a while. It made me miss Australia even more, being in my own house had calmed the recurring attacks. I knew my parents were the root of my anxiety issues, that had always expected so much of me and  was never able to please them. Okay, thinking about my parents right now wasn’t really helping. Clenching my hands into the tarmac of the terminal, I mentally begged myself to calm down. I had never had  panic attack in public and I certainly didn’t want to start now. I didn’t know what to do, I couldn’t even think let alone pull myself together.

“Evie? Ev’s?” A strong hand grasped my shoulder, another going around my waist to lift me from the floor. My body tensed, trying to decide if I should fight or drop.

“Can't, I can’t, please.” Was all I could whimper as my back hit a chest and my face was shielded by a clammy hand.

“I know, it's okay. I have you, I'm gonna take you to the bathroom.”

“Who?” Another twist in my gut, who? Why? Not again, please not again.

“Michael, it's Michael.”

It was like a breath of relief actually being able to, well, breathe. I was okay. I was with Michael. He was safe, he wouldn't hurt me.

“Okay.” At my agreement, he started to move quickly, grip tight around me as he led me away from the crowd and ignored the calls of fans as he manhandled me around. I felt the chill of the bathroom before I realized where we were. It was one of those single room family bathrooms, secluded and thankfully clean as he tried to turn me in his arms but wound up leaving me completely unsupported as I dropped to the ground.

“Okay, I am literally the worst person to have found you because honestly, I have no idea what to do and telling you to breathe sounds like a dumb thing to say but it's all I can think of to say and I should have told Luke but I realized you weren't there and I didn't think because I was really, really scared and oh, you are breathing normally now, are you okay?”

I hadn't even realized that his rambling had distracted me enough that I wasn't thinking about everything, nothing, too much and focusing on the word vomit Michael was experiencing. He was inches from me, crouched on his knees and I didn't think as I reached out, pulling him into a hug as I burst into tears. No, not tears. Sobs, like full body, ugly, heart-wrenching sobs.

“This I can handle.” He mumbled, sitting on folded legs as he pulled me into his lap and just let me cry like a baby. I should feel embarrassed, scared or something but I was too tired, exhausted, emotional to care. His fingers ran through my hair, soothing me with his presence and steady heartbeat.

“I'm sorry.” He spoke as my tears dried up and my body stiffened. Ashton had told me in a brief moment that only one of the boys was with me that Michael was blaming himself and I had been waiting for him to bring it up so I could slap some sense into him. “I am so sorry.”

“Listen to me cause I am only saying this once,” My voice was weak, rough from crying but I couldn't let him think he was to blame. “You didn't do anything. I was the one who made the decision to go with Jo- him. And as much as I blame myself for this, I know he's the one who did it and I have to stop blaming myself and you have to too because you did nothing so shut up and help me off this floor before people start looking for us.”

His smile wasn't convincing but mine was enough to reassure him into listening to me although I doubted this conversation was over and he certainly wasn't going to let me having a panic attack go, try as I was to escape the conversation, but this wasn't the place.

As he held open the door to the bathroom, I leaned up to press my lips to his cheek.

“Thank you.”

“I am always here if you need me.” There was a small silence as I walked out with him close by. Luckily the crowd had thinned thanks to good security and we slid through unnoticed. I turned to him as we started to walk into the waiting room for the gate.

“Does this make us best friends now?”

With a grin, he shook his head and patted mine as he responded, “There she is.”

After 8 hours on a plane and no sleep, my tired body was planted firmly on the ground 2801.7 miles from the city that never sleeps, hopefully now I would be able to. I have never felt so exhausted in all my life but being moments away from my bedroom made it better. Sighing, I relaxed into the ‘hump’ seat I had been shoved into between Luke and Michael. A security guard in the passenger seat kept glancing around the car, checking the boys over and texting someone - presumably his wife  - as he chatted with the driver quietly. Calum and Ashton sat behind us, each of them had a knee in my back. Everyone was zoned out, halfway asleep but I was wired. Every sense in my body heightened with each bump, every thing in my body aching seeing as I hadn’t been allowed to take my medication on the plane.

Honestly, I mostly dreaded that James might be there. I didn’t want to have to explain this to him, especially why he didn’t a call seeing as he is her emergency contact - Luke kind of lied to them and said he was. If luck was on my side for once he would have already left for his season opening football game. If not, he would know something was up right away if only from the exhaustion written on my face. I didn’t want to have to lie to him.

A tap on my arm pulled me from my thoughts, my head lolling to the side to face Michael. Smiling sadly, he pulled up the notepad on his phone, passing it to me.

How’s it going?

Staring blankly at the screen for a moment, I finally shook my head and tossed the phone back into his lap. I didn’t want to talk anymore. I didn’t want to do anything but climb into bed with more blankets than I could count. He tapped quickly, practically shoving the phone in my face.

I get that you don’t want to talk but can you at least tell me if you’re okay?

Sighing, I felt like I owed him that. I’m sorry, I’m just tired but I’m fine. He gave me an I-don’t-buy-that look but patted my knee - I barely stifled a jolt - and closed his eyes. A few moments later the car pulled to a stop in front of my apartment complex, rolling to a stop as the security guard stepped out of the passenger side and went to retrieve my bags.

“Here, I will walk you up.” Luke had to slide out of the car first anyway so I could get out but first I had to say my goodbyes to the boys. Kneeling on the seat, I pat Cal and Ash on the knees and their eyes barely open as they wrap me in a hug, promising to call me in a little while. But it was Michael that made me practically sprint from the car, tears pricking in my eyes.

“You’re going to be okay, I will make sure of it.” I don’t know why the words meant so much, perhaps it’s because I thought of him as an older brother or because I knew he meant it. Either way, I had to get out of the car before I cried.

Luke’s eyes followed me as I stepped out of the car, not offering to help now. I don't know if it  was regret or concern. I was going to ignore it til I absolutely had to deal with it. Stepping onto the sidewalk, I waved to the boys and accepted the bag from the security guard.

“Ready?” He questioned, hand reaching for me but faltering halfway through. It was a little of both.

“Ye- No. I don’t really know.” I sighed, heaving the bag on my shoulder only to have it ripped away. He was throwing it onto his shoulder before I could even react.

I’ll carry it, you lead the way.” His smile was like a breath of relief. He wasn’t mad at me, he was hurt but he truly didn’t blame me. His smile always had that effect.

Reaching the door, I stretched up on my toes to feel around the door frame for the spare key. I was forgetful enough, I didn’t think carrying my house key to New York City was a good idea. Grazing my fingertips along the wooden frame, I finally found the smooth metal.

“Aha.” I mumbled, dropping onto my heels as I whirled around to face Luke. Inhaling sharply, I stepped away quickly as we almost bumped into each other. His eyes locked on mine, flickering to my lips as we fell silent. Laughing uncomfortably, I ran a hand through my hair as I started to speak.

“Thank you Luke, for everything. I know it’s been, um, difficult considering-,” He cut me off with a wave of his hand, awkwardly scratching at his beard. He hummed for a moment, speaking quietly.

“You never need to thank me Evie, I’d do anything for you. I don’t care what we are, or what we were. I just,“ Sighing, he locked eyes with me. “I am always here for you, whatever you need.”

Now I felt worse. How could I do this to him? Not even that, how could he not be mad at me? I know I didn’t do anything wrong, I need to care for myself right now but the heartbreak in his eyes that he thinks I can’t see means more to me than he knows. I didn’t know he liked me that much, I didn’t know I had that ability to break his heart and yet I had already abused it.

“I know you need to be alone right now but,” Hooking his fingers under my chin, he pulled my eyes to his. “If you need me, at all, then you call. I don’t care when or why. If you need me, call.”

I didn’t know what to do besides nod, eyes falling away as he let go of my chin and I turned to unlock the door. My hands were shaking, the key missing ‘til his hand leveled mine and he smiled at me with a soft nod as he dropped my bag to the ground. Then he brushed a piece of hair from my face, breathing shakily before turning on his heel and walking down the stairs to the car. All I could do was wonder how someone like him existed and how I was lucky enough to know him.

All I knew was a simple fact; I didn’t deserve him.

A/N: Hi lovelies, so i know that this is a day late, but i had family and friends up and we ended up going out for dinner and i got side tracked. But its here! And i also wanted to tell you that the next chapter will not be posted until the Sunday night/ Monday morning after the next date. This is because i am going to Thailand with my family for a week and i wont have my laptop with me.

Kisses

~Emma xxx <3

[wotringmevivianbf70insuranc-blog]

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