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upsidedior · 2 years ago

Text

Reunion

Paper. Paperwork EVERYWHERE.

He hadn't been back in his office for more than a day for a break when he got the call he was needed to come back urgently to sign off on new recruits. The tall male Shaelek sat in the office chair staring at the names on the list of newest cadets most foreign to him but a few sounded familiar. There were old names of families who answered the call to serve and some new, new species and yet for a moment the older Shaelek had to pause... Never in his life would he think he'd be back working in the Federation military authorizing the recruits sign ons. Things were different now; he was older had a more established career, gave lectures about Earth studies and his time on the planet, even got to personally toss Hamsterviel into a high security prison! The most satisfying day of his life... It had been a few years since his time on earth. Actually it had been over a decade if he calculated right.

Gantu, now Admiral of the Galactic Federation Armada, sat behind the floating desk with a heavy sigh, signing away each and every cadets' life to be brought aboard and serve within the military. Funny, he never imagined he'd survive this long in his military career to be the one signing paperwork. He always thought he was too reckless and would probably go out in a dogfight. Go out with a big bang, not become his old commander refered to as "ye ol war vet." Name after name, he assigned each and every one to various positions and stations, and as he went down the list, Gantu caught a name which was different than the others....

".....Cadet #626.... Lilo Pelekani...."

It took him a few minutes to make any connection. Li...lo... Lilo.... Lilo.... Why did that name ring a bell? Gantu paused saying the name out loud, "Lilo..." His blue eyes searching for the holoscreen button to activate. Blitznak it, he'd activate it the other way. "Computer, activate holoscreen. Search database of a ...Lilo Pelekani..." In a whirl of noises the information downloaded and the projection appeared in front of him. The screen appeared on top of the floating desk, levitating before him and the image of an earth female made him do a double take.

She was older. Her feminine features soft as her body had grown filling out her curves custom to earth females. Her picture shown a bright dazzling smile; The same big brown eyes, her black hair was longer same dark skin he remembered from her youth as the image of the little earth child who used to call him a "big dummy" stares back at him. SHE WAS OLDER?!?! BLITZNAK HOW OLD DID HE BECOME!?!? Gantu dropped the pen as the synapses made the connection.

COSMIC BLITZNAKING DAMNIT!!! IS SHE IN THE FEDERATION BUILDING!?!?

He was standing now the chair almost toppling behind him, "Locate cadet 626!" He should've known she would be associated with that number! The computer produced a list of scheduled times for courses, his hand already dialing the line to the Galley to reach its Chief of staff. "Location: main Galley." The computer voiced it's answer as Gantu made a sprint run darting out of his office. She was in the main cafeteria galley, he almost broke into a run redialing the comlink to his Chief of Staff Galley Officer Reuben over and over again until he heard the ormer experiment's voice on the other end.

"What's the emer---"

"Meet me outside the galley NOW!"

He was passing through hallways following the routes through the massive buildings to get to the main Galley. He finally got the outside of the food court where he met the little beige alien standing before the doors. Reuben, formally known as 625, was standing in his uniform with a bewildered expression on his face, his tiny hand pointing in a direction towards a figure sitting in the galley. She was human, her long black hair down against her back wearing the standard female federation uniform of grey top and skirt with the Turo mark on the belt. She was sitting alone at a table with a hot drink in her hands. If he could read her right, her heart rate was calm, but there was a nervousness about her. She looked around unsure of the surroundings... and Gantu couldn't help but empathize with that. Her gaze was back at her mug taking a drink. It was then Reuben peered up at him as Gantu took one more look at the woman.

"....is that...?" All Gantu could do was nod and took a deep breath. "Feel old yet, fishlegs?"

".... ancient. You?" He felt the chuckle escape himself as Reuben looked back at the woman seated some distance away in the Galley, replying,

"At least I don't look it."

The woman who called him the "Big Dummy" sat in silence as the throng of aliens bustled about, some stopping to stare at her and others rushing past not passing a blitz where she was there or not. Gantu felt his blood pressure rise with every alien passing the earthling a nasty look, Reuben was already pestering him to walk over there and reconnect. But.... maybe.... Later would be bes---

He caught her heart rhythm jumping to a fast pace.

A group of males had suddenly descended upon the table, Lilo seemed surprised her big brown eyes peering up at all of them surround her. The males, some bigger others smaller, hunched around her like predators scouting out their prey, one touching her hair, the others kissing the woman's hand as they introduced themselves. One male alien happened to be too closely eyeing up her leg for Gantu's taste. Oh Blitznak... He knew where this was heading... Damn kids thinking with the wrong head!

It was that moment Lilo had stared to look around the table and around at the other aliens like she was internally screaming for help. And their gazes connected. Gantu caught the wave of emotions in the little earthling's brown eyes: panic to shock to sudden relief.... It was all the signal he needed And Gantu pushed the doors open each one banged against the walls. The galley hall went silent. Thousands of aliens, from all ranks, stood straight saluting the Admiral as he entered inside the Galley. "At ease," his voice commanded as the thousands of aliens waited for orders. The Shaelek made a line for the table where Lilo sat still surrounded by the young dumb and full of.... Spunk men, each cadet staring wide eyed as he approached. The boys standing taller and giving the salute.

"Cadet 626, I have been looking for you. You are to report to my office this instant. You, gentleman, have delayed the Cadet for her meeting," Gantu lowered his gaze to the tallest alien's eye level. "Drop. And give me 50. Now."

A ringing SIR, YES SIR! rang through the Galley as all the boys harassing Lilo dropped to the ground and started their push ups. She was staring up at him with her big brown eyes, standing to follow after him as Gantu caught another younger Shaelek walking over to stand before him, "Shall we demand 100, Admiral?" This caused him to chuckle,

"Whatever you see fit, Captain."

And he turned around making his way out the Galley, Lilo trailing behind him to catch up.

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They hadn't said a word still. Well he hadn't, 625 well Reuben, had PLENTY to say as he walked side by side with the little earthling he called Tyke. As all three of them walked the long distance to his office, Reuben talked about their previous missions, how he introduced sandwiches into the federation, Gantu's promotion to Admiral of all of the Galactic Federation Armada, and of course all the gossip which made Gantus roll his eyes. They reached his office, finally, Gantu held the door open until both of them were inside taking seats from across the floating desk. Lilo's image still up on the holoscreen, the Shaelek was still silent as he sat from across the earthling and his galley officer. His blue eyes searched for the keypad, typing a code onto the desk and a lock hissed from the right side of his desk. He reached for the contents within the drawer, pulling out a large glass bottle with a very worn out label. It appeared to have never been opened.

"I had been... saving this for a very long time." Gantu placed the bottle upon the desk, his eyes scanning the earthling who clung to his every word. Her bright brown eyes seemed to take him in, all of him, Reuben, the whole office...

"... I can't believe you found me..." Her voice sounded... Young but mature alot like her older sister's.

"I can't believe you're here!" Came the voice of 625, he was bursting in his seat. "What brought you here?! When did you enlist?! Where's 626? Which floor is your room!? I can't wait to bunk with ya!"

"Reuben!" Gantu's voice rose to ring in the little genetic mutant as both of them stared at the little earth girl. "Let the earth girl breathe, and I'm sure she'll answer us." It was then Lilo Pelekani sat upright in her chair and crossed her legs.

"Thank you, Admiral, but I'm not a little girl anymore..." Was her heart racing slightly? Embarrassment came over him,

"My apologies, earth woman." How could he have made that blunder? "I guess it's been so long since we've crossed paths I still see you as that little child running around, chasing after dangerous experiments." Lilo's brown eyes blinked rapidly as she gazed up at him.

"I've missed seeing you guys, sandwich boi and big dummy. " She was giggling, Lilo's hands placed within her lap. "I'm just so relieved you're here." Gantu leaned forward on the desk hearing the old nickname, an almost playful scowl crossed his face. She was smiling back at him.

"Still a child I see, huh little tyke?"

"Are they calling you Admiral Blowhard yet?"

"Not yet, primitive earth punk. Still taking in suggestions."

"Captain Catfish?"

"That's Admiral Blowhard Catfish to you, and don't forget it, you little pain in the ass."

There was a silence between them before all three beings within his office burst out laughing. Blitznak, how long had it been since he belly ached laughed like all this? Gantu had his face against his desk laughing before pulling himself back to sit properly in his chair; Reuben was sideways his arm on Lilo and she slumped back still laughing as she wiped her eyes. Blitznak it was good to laugh.

Lilo collected herself, sitting up in her seat drying her eyes. "I was never a pain in the ass! That was Stitch!" Gantu did a quick wipe of his eye before grabbing unopened bottle on his desk, he was actually smiling as memories filled his mind of those years stuck on the mudball. He twisted the cap open letting the grain alcohol breathe.

"You were lucky you were a cute kid. Naming all those experiments like pets, always calling me names, foiling my plans to catch said experiments, and my absolute favorite..." Gantu was pouring the alcohol into three separate glasses, two small one large for himself, as he placed the drinks in front of the others. "...breaking my karaoke machine."

"I swear I never did that!" Lilo protested as she took the glass 625 handed to her, the three beings clinking each other's drinks.

"Don't care, little earth punk, you still owe me one. Drink, that's an order." And down the hatch the golden grain alcohol went. It burned the back of his throat. Whooo blitznak, that was strong!

"Now tell me, Cadet, why are you here?" Lilo began to fill in all details of her life since Gantu and Reuben went back into space.... blitz had time passed quickly.

"How is your sister? She ever marry that other human male who used to follow her around like a lost pup?" Gantu asked sitting back in the office chair, an almost knowing smile spread across his lips. "She had to have. The guy was practically part of your Ohana?" He noticed Lilo smile brightly.

"They did, I'm actually an auntie to 3 little kiddos!" Reuben almost jumped from his seat.

"Seriously! 3 little ones? You hear that, Gantu? I can pass my sandwich recipes down finally!"

"Please," Gantu himself was now leaning over the desk looking right at Lilo, "Please tell me if those kids are giving 626 a run for his money."

"Between time with me and Stitch, and uncle Jumba and aunt Pleakley, everyone is normally too tired to do anything, honestly." Lilo fixed her bangs and took another sip of the drink, "Oh yeah, all the kids chase Stitch day in and day out. He's back on Kauai helping while I'm up here for basic." Gantu leaned back lifting his drink to the ceiling,

"Paybacks a bitch, trog." He chuckled downing the last of the drink.

"What about yourself? Are you with anyone? And younglings?" The beige experiment clapped hoping for more little ones to pass things down to. Gantu noticed a slight flush of rose around the earthling's nose and cheeks, she looked almost mortified at being asked.

"No! No, no I'm not--nope! No kids from me.... Yet...." Lilo answered quickly. The Shaelek reached for the bottle quickly refilling the young woman's glass, delicately he poured a generous amount.

"Reuben asks the most invasive questions, doesn't he?" Lilo was almost downing it to which Gantu barked a laughed. "Easy there, Cadet, save some for the next wave of embarrassment."

"So my cuz isn't up here with you?" Reuben asked her his eyes scanning Lilo over. Even Gantu raised an eyebrow at that.

"Yeah," Lilo was sitting back against the seat her brown eyes cast down at the drink in her hand. He could hear her heartbeats quickening again, an almost sullen emotion emanating from her. "He stayed behind to help with the Ohana, the kids would be heartbroken with out him there... And you know, we keep the other experiments in line..." She glanced at Reuben for a moment. "Guess I'm alone up here."

"No you're not." It was instant. The moment the woman spoke, it was as if she was that little earth girl sitting in the seat before him. He could see the scared little child within her and something pulled at him. Gantu leaned forward and typed a few codes into the keyscreen. Certain images of Cadet 626 flashed upon the holoscreen, check marks turned from red to green, and with a few more key stokes Lilo's image had disappeared from under a rather stern looking lieutenant of a canine alien species to another screen popping up, one where Gantu's own image was placed on top.

"Well would you look at that? I filled that personal assistant position that's been vacant for years." The Shaelek placed both arms on the desk, his blue eyes studying Lilo as she took in all the information before her. "Personal assistants follow high ranking officers at all times, including missions. Unless deemed too dangerous. And they pay well too." He gave her a wink to which Lilo brought her hands to her mouth, a small smile began to spread. "Oh, and when you're not by my side, you are to be with Reuben. Blitznak knows he won't leave your alone..."

"You got that right, tyke! We have so much gossip to discuss!" The beige experiment placed his hand on the little earth girl... woman's arm, gently rubbing it. "You're not alone anymore, were technically Ohana anyway!" Lilo was wrapping her arms around Reuben holding onto him tightly, her watery brown eyes peering up back at Gantu... Ah blitznak, earthling ocular orbs were weapons by themselves!

"How can I ever thank you?" He heard Lilo ask him as she wiped her own eyes on her sleeve. Gantu paused for a moment feeling a smirk spread across his face.

"Replace the karaoke machine." He felt the laugh escape him as he stood carrying himself around the floating office desk, his position now in front of the earth woman hugging onto Reuben for dear life. "I'm kidding, you don't have to do that! But I only ask you follow one rule; you are to never put yourself in danger. Am I clear, Cadet?"

"Yes, Admiral,"

"I mean it, Lilo." His voice was stern as he pointed a finger at her. "When you are not at my side working, you are to be with Reuben. I don't want you alone at any time. You're the first Human to be here, and with that comes a certain amount of.... Unwanted attention." His backside was leaning against the desk both hands now planted on the top. He could see her shift uncomfortably in her seat, the memory of the jarheads in the Galley fresh in her mind. "If the boys get too rowdy, just holler and let them know old Gantu will rip their throats out... Or girls whatever you're into." It was the soft smile and wet eyes that did him in, as Lilo stood with her arms outstretched.

"No. No! I don't do-- Ah blitznak..." She was already hugging his leg tightly. Damn blitznaking kids making him go soft! Gantu leaned over his large hand patting her gently. "You'll be alright, kiddo, I promise."

"We gotta do sandwiches tonight! What will it be?! Ham? Turkey? Bologna? Classic PBJ? You name it, and old Reuben will make it!" The little earth woman's attention to his galley officer, both expressing excitement about the endless possibilities of sandwiches (...great....), The Shaelek paused to note how seemingly right it felt for Lilo to be here. He could see it... One day she would be sitting on the council or captain of her own ship... Blitznak, he could even see her wearing the same uniform as he one day, Admiral of the Galactic Armada, commanding the entire fleet... She was meant to be up here among the stars...

A ping notification went off on his wrist com, his blue eyes took note to the name across the screen. He let the visitor access clearance to walk in. With a slight hiss of the door opening, the visitor walked in his vision glued to the clipboard in his hands. He was a tall Shaelek, deep shade of purple with a lighter shade for his underbelly, well built for his age and rank, and he was wearing the traditional Captain's uniform; black flightsuit with long sleeves and red stripes along the sides. He was younger with only a few minor brawl marks on his fresh face. Upon his head were those aviator sunglasses Gantu gifted him when the young one became Captain of his own ship; his bright green eyes finally looked up and gave a salute... He was the spitting image of Gantu's late brother....

"Admiral, here are the blueprints for the new BRB 12,000 you requested." The younger Captain's voice was deep but still held a hint of youth to it, "There's 170 pages of illustration alone."

"At ease, Captain." Gantu watched the younger man relax handing over the stack of papers.

"It's going to be one hell of a construction job, sir. Hey Reuben! We making that beer battered sand--" The Shaelek Captain was making his way over to beige experiment waving at him...and paused... Stopped in mid sentence.... and Gantu took note the Captain's bright green eyes honed in on the earth woman standing. Reuben was already taking a few steps back to where Gantu stood, both men glanced at one another and back to the young ones before them. He could hear the pulse race within her, ah blitznak.... Was this....??? Gantu noticed Lilo was locked in gaze with the Shaelek staring back at her. Both seemed surprised at each others existence; there was a soft red color upon her cheeks as Lilo brought a hand fix a strand of hair behind her ear. The dark purple Shaelek with green eyes was the first to make a move. "......A-And H--Hel-Hello... To you too, miss...."

"L-Lilo. Im Lilo..."

"Ox. My name's O-Oximus..." Gantu watched the interaction unfold the young Captain bending down to observe the earthling before him. "You're Human... My apologies, I never met a.... Li-Lilo before..." It was then Oximus gazed up at him and Reuben, his bright green eyes wide, "Wait ..... Is she...??" A chuckle escaped Gantu as he nodded.

"Yes, she is. Lilo," he addressed her, "this is my nephew, Oximus." It dawned on him that Lilo didn't know he had other members of his family here on Turo... "Ox, this is the legendary little earth girl, who captured and tamed experiment 626 along with the other 625 experiments and assisted me in the arrest and detainment of Dr Hamsterviel, and..."

"She's the one you tripped over and fell off a cliff landing on your ass!!" Ox suddenly became animated as Reuben burst out laughing. "You're a blitznaking legend here! Did you actually get stuck with my uncle on some island with an experiment that shot flames at you guys?! And one that sank boats?! And one that stole everyone's socks?!"

"Oh that was Splodeyhead!" Lilo laughed, "there are tons of stories I can share, and a few of when Gantu caught some." He caught her brown eyes peering up at him and he had to shrug.

"If you insist."

"That's amazing," Oximus was standing now his hands behind his back. "The legendary Lilo here on Turo in the Galactic Federation. All the cousins back home will be jealous I got to meet you first." He said with a laugh to which Lilo widened her eyes. "We've been told stories from uncle Gantu all about his time on your planet... Is it true you humans strip bare and bake in the sun on the beach?"

"Guilty..." Lilo giggled as a soft rose color flushed against her cheeks, her eyes darted to the floor for a moment.

"I need to hear your side of the time you threw bird legs at my uncle's ship at the primitive earth festival." Ox was smiling brightly as Gantu felt the groan escape him.

"It took months to get the smell of earth fowl out, and so much grease stuck to the windshield..." both youngsters were staring at him now as the older Shaelek let out a sigh. "The festival had good ale though." Lilo happened to fall into a giggle spasm as she fixed her skirt.

"That was with Tank, and I'd be happy to tell you that story."

"Fantastic," Ox was now giving his uncle a look, and cleared his throat, "I'd like to make a request, Admiral, to borrow the human to join me as I retrieve the rest of the BRB 12,000 reports for you." Gantu studied the two for a moment, he could hear Lilo's heart beat faster at the mention of joining his nephew. There was an almost excited air around her and it caused the older Shaelek to ponder something...

"Request granted, Captain. The Cadet is my personal assistant and will have to learn the records hall after all. Be back at 1900 hours." Before he or Reuben could get another word it, both Ox and Lilo had given the salute to him and made their way to the door both exiting. Gantu stood in silence watching the figures walk down the hallway both talking animatedly.... He felt his mind swimming.

His hand reached for the bottle and his empty glass, and Gantu poured himself and Reuben a generous amount. When the little experiment gave him a look, he knew what the other was thinking ...

"So much for keeping herself out of trouble.." the old admiral spoke.

"More like she's found a permanent bodyguard...." Reuben said before he took a sip. "You think they'll want sandwiches at their wedding?" Gantu took a big gulp of the drink before glancing down at his friend.

"............... Probably."

"You're drinking that pretty fast there, bud..." Reuben was scrunching his nose up at him and Gantu shrugged.

"The realization just hit of Jumba and Pleakley might become in laws... One big blended ohana as Lilo would say." The Shaelek had to sign, he should be used to it by now.

"Yeah I mean, this kinda funs in the family... So when are you telling the tyke you married a human a couple years ago?" Reuben raised a brow with an almost playful sneer. To this Gantu barked a laugh placing his drink down and gave his friend a knowing smile.

"When Ox and Lilo both are granted leave for a weekend, and come for a BBQ... Then they'll meet Rachel." Reuben gave a quick pat on his friends leg,

"Your wife needs to give me that recipe for pulled swine meat sandwich, it's been years she has to give it up!"

"Blitznaking hell no, that's why I married her!" Gantu laughed pushing himself away from the desk looking at his wrist communicator; another ping notification. He noticed the time as a smirk spread on his lips. "I'm leaving early, are you alright with making sure those kids don't get into any trouble tonight?" Reuben quirked a brow bringing his face to a dead pan expression.

"I babysat you for 3 years, I think I can handle those two. Now go," the beige experiment started to shoo at him, "I'll watch the kids and make sure they behave! Tell your wife she owes me." Gantu was already grabbing his bag from his desk, the black sling over his shoulder as he looked back at his old friend.

"Have Ox put the reports on my desk, tell Lilo I'll see her tomorrow morning at 800 hours. Don't keep them out too late, 625." The scowl from Reuben was worth it. "Aloha~"

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His personal cruiser finally arrived out to a plot of land outside the bustling megacity of Turo. This place was far away from the chaos, a slice of tranquility if you will where every weekend time stood still. The house was not like the modern architecture of Turo, it was more Earthlike and homely he had come to like. For over a few acres tall grass grew fenced in around their property where a few bizarre looking illegal genetic experimentations who clung to his wife came to live out their mischievous Lives...His wife called it a ranch, he called it home.

As he made his way up the path to the earthling style home, Gantu could see the human sitting on the large porch; she was laying on the large wicker couch, three large critters laid around her in a protective cocoon. His blue eyes caught the floating lanterns' light luminating her long auburn hair in messy tressels around her, her back leaning against one reptilian experiment dozing off, her pale legs stretched resting on one of the marine experiments snoring away, her beautiful green eyes gazing deeply into the novel she held on her hand... The other hand gently stroking the green canine sock stealer's fur as it munched on one of her socks....

He reached the bottom step to the porch when 4 pairs of eyes peered up at him, the bright emerald orbs of the human he made a vow to a few years ago gazing up at him with excitement. They were his favorite. He watched his wife sit up, her dazzling smile always made his pulse skip a beat...

Gantu had to smirk... Boy would she get a kick out of this!

"Guess who finally enlisted." He could see the wheels in Rachel's mind turning as he climbed the porch steps tossing his bag to the floor and sitting next to her. He had to lift the marine critter like experiment so he could actually sit... the experiment stretched and curled back onto a ball on his lap. "Let's just say, I'm officially Old as Blitz now." Rachel's green eyes went wide at the realization and a huge smile spread on her lips.

"When is she coming for dinner?! You need to find out her favorite food so I can have it ready for her! And don't say sandwiches," Gantu rolled his eyes as his human partner stood pushing the marine experiment off his lap. "She's getting a proper Earth dinner, one that reminds--"

"Her of home." Gantu finished the sentence smirking at his wife. "I think she'll appreciate that very much." Rachel raised a brow an almost knowing smile spread on the soft petals of her lips.

"Maybe your nephew should stop by, you know, someone closer to her age to talk to?" He couldn't contain the laugh that escaped him, his hand rubbing his snout before he peered down at Rachel's inquisitive look.

"OH they met, right in my office!" His wife's stunned expression made Gantu laugh harder as he used his finger to check the air. "Beat you to it babe, completely by accident. Reuben's babysitting them so they don't get into trouble."

"You left the laziest experiment to watch your daredevil nephew and the experiment chasing earth girl?" His wife put her hands on her hips, "The Federation doesn't stand a chance!"

"No, I suppose it doesn't." Gantu let out a chuckle, his arm already around his human wife, "But, it got me out of work early to see you." Rachel's emerald eyes connected with his and they softened. Her smile spreading wider as she leaned her entire body against him.

"Want to sit out here for a while and watch the stars, hun?" The twilight was making her eyes sparkle and it made his heart skip a beat.

"For you," the Shaelek leaned down his snout touching the top of the earthling's head gently taking in her scent, "Always."

And they did, both sitting on their porch a bunch of illegal genetic experiments who needed a home huddled around them.... both watching the night skies and talking about their day. There was one thing for sure, Gantu was most certain.... this weekend was going to be one fun reunion.

#im trash #captain gantu #lilo and stitch au #gantu #lilo pelekai #alien shark dad #experiment 625 #625 you hilarious #totally see the father-daughter-ship of these two

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thegodthief · 1 year ago

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Ever since I put my foot down at work about no longer doing work outside of my spec, there has been one person that I set aside time to do just that for. It's not because they are above me in the food chain, it's not because they are well-regarded, and it's not because I need a mental break from my usual grind.

It's because they are actively trying to learn how to do this for themselves.

There is a particular report that my office often needs, but is not readily available from corporate. Corporate prefers that we make a formal purchase of the report from a separate department, but wow, that eats up our budget like water through a sieve because the report is calendar sensitive, so we're pulling it often. And even then, the purchased report has to be refined further to be useful to our needs. (Not to mention, that department always gives us grief because it's so tedious for them to do it that it takes a week to run it, hence the report charge.)

It was one of these refinement requests that put the report in front of me. I recognized where the data in the report came from. It is a refinement of a raw database dump that we are able to get without a purchase order. I obtained permission from my boss to get into trouble and obtained a raw dump for myself to play with.

Wow. That's a lot of data being collected for no reason other than to collect data.

Well, I don't need these twenty columns, or that duplicate column. How obvious can it be that these hidden cells are merged for no other reason than to frustrate someone trying to sift this data for themselves. So when I move these remaining columns to the order we need then that reveals where a refinement needs to happen. And then, and then, and then...

Done.

Took me two hours to figure out the steps, but then once I had the process complete and verified, it only takes me fifteen minutes to do this by hand.

But that's me.

I didn't realize how complicated the process was until I made a technical manual for it. I took nothing for granted and wrote it with the assumption that the most advanced thing the reader had ever done with the necessary program is to open an already existing file. I would complete a step, write down what I did in that step, look at what I wrote, and realize that what was one step to me would be six to fifteen individual actions to my intended audience.

What was a twelve step process to me became a list of forty-five individual instructions. And some of those steps had an explanation about why it needed to be done that way, and what to do if something looked wrong.

I sent the instructions to my boss and everyone that would need the report. It was not well received. Because that meant that no one now had an excuse to bother me to do the report for them when we often had several days notice that a report would need to be pulled on such-and-such day. The only time bothering me to pull the report would be justified is if it was needed in two hours or less. (But they have to explain to our boss why they waited that long.)

And then the exec who needed the report the most actually looked at the instructions. They printed them out and literally sat down at their desk and read them, line by line.

"Hey, Keri, I just read your report instructions. Forty-five steps? Really?"

"Yea, once I broke each step apart, it really does come to that."

"So, each step is an individual action, nothing is combined?"

"Copy and Paste pairs are combined, but nothing else."

"I notice that you don't require the user to use keyboard or mouse except for... two steps."

"That's because with exception of those two steps, it's really up to the user how to do those commands. I prefer keyboard, but I know most people here prefer clicking on icons."

"... I could do this. Thank you."

Earlier this week, I was asked to come to their office "only if there's free time". Yea, whatever, here I come. Turns out my instructions were introducing them to commands and features they have never used before and they wanted me to walk them through it because they are in Very Unfamiliar Territory.

"Oh. Cool. You're one of today's Ten Thousand! Sure, let's go."

"Ten Thousand?"

"One day, once we get your geek cred advanced, I'll explain it. But take my word that this is a Good Thing, Tee Emm."

As we went, they asked what each new skill could be used for. Suddenly, this wasn't about getting this one specific report put together, but this was now about how these skills could be used to make other tasks easier for the exec to do themselves.

"I can do this!"

Readers, let me tell you, I rediscovered joy at that moment.

They explained that each time they have asked IT for help and instruction, IT just did it and told them not to worry about the how because that's what they are there for. They had taken my instructions home and asked family members to help them understand the individual steps, only for said family to complete the report process (incorrectly) and tell them not to worry about it because the report was done. They have been wanting to learn how to do more than just open files and prettify reports and my instructions were giving them the opportunity to do just that.

"You probably think I'm an old idiot for not knowing these things."

"No, I think other people have been wrong to you and I am grateful that I got to be here right now."

It took the exec two days to complete what I could do in fifteen minutes. They got some steps wrong, but rather than fixing it for them, I coached them through realizing their error, how the error impacted further steps, and how to recover from the error. Their notes were extensive, mostly about alternative ways to enter each command.

And along the way, I was reminded how good it is to learn something new, the joy of the student and the joy of the teacher. How warm it can be for someone who did something for themselves for the first time.

I didn't realize I had forgotten until then.

#Keri goes to work.#There's no moral to this story.#I just had to tell someone about it.#So that happened.

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bushs-world · 1 year ago

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TIME AND AGAIN

Summary: In the far future, Sameera volunteers to test a memory simulator that allows the user their memories. Her choice? A memory from three years ago but soon she realises she craves to go back again and again

Rating: G

Tags: Original female character x original female character, futuristic setting, post cyberpunk, timeloops, science fiction, short story

Word count: 3.2k

This is my first time publishing one of my short stories. I originally wrote this short story as a part of the Sylki Zine. A huge thanks to @queen-of-meows for helping me with the plot of this short story. If you like it, please do like and reblog!!

‘Every man who remembers must remember something, and that which he remembers is called the object of his remembrance.’

These words, handpicked by their president from Thomas Reid’s ‘Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man’, were inscribed on the plutonium plaque that hung on the wall of their research center. Sameera had walked past this plaque many times before but never had she ever read those words, until today.

The object of remembrance.

A lone tear rolled down her cheek. Her heart ached but she was skilled in pushing away her sorrows. Slowly instead, she laid down on the full body, flatbed scanner. The wires attached to her arms tingled with tiny jolts of electricity as a technician secured the electromagnetic band around her head.

“Sameera, are you comfortable?” asked Mr. Glen, her testing officer. She gave him a thumbs up.

He smiled. “Scared?”

She shook her head in refusal. “There's nothing to be scared of. I know the procedure, I have worked on this project for years.”

Mr. Glen attached a clip to the tip of her index finger. “We will be monitoring your vitals and bring you back if there's any problem. There shouldn't be any issue but I have to ask you again- Are you sure you want to volunteer?”

Sameera nodded. Her colleague patted her shoulder, then entered the initiate command on the main computer.

The welcome song, a piece of classical music, rang in her ears. Sameera saw her teammates walk around the mainframe. Her eyes felt heavy. She blinked once, then twice before her eyelids fell shut.

—

Sameera woke up with a start and looked around. She was at her workstation along the mainframe at the research center. Her work screen was filled with lines of codes she needed to run and test.

Her eyes went to the top left corner of her screen. The date was displayed in a deep blue colour. A small smile made its way across her face.

26 November, 2350

She was here.

Her planner lay open by her side. She still had piles of work to finish– she had to run the codes, record their output, then file her observations into the database. There was also the report she needed to prepare.

Sameera closed her planner shut with a thud. Then she got up from her workstation and walked out. Her coworkers shot her flabbergasted looks. Her manager barred her from leaving. But it didn't matter. Nothing else mattered except for the one thing she came here for.

As the elevator pod took her down to the ground floor, Sameera checked her appearance in the shiny chromium of its walls. She fixed her dark raven hair, smoothing away any flyaways and removed her lab coat, scrutinizing her appearance.

There were dark circles under her eyes. She was in her work clothes, a white button up shirt with slacks. Sameera adjusted her attire and nodded satisfied. The white of her shirt contrasted well with her dusky, brown complexion. She remembered bringing a trench coat along with her, a perfect dress up for the evening.

Once she reached the ground floor, Sameera quickly made her way to the reception. The robotic assistant, an earlier model she had totally forgotten about, greeted her at the front desk. It led her to her locker where she collected her belongings, replaced her lab coat with her trench coat and went about her way.

The nightlife was in its full glory when she stepped out of the building. The nano processor installed on her wrist displayed the time– 7:30 pm.

30 minutes to 8.

Her destination wasn't too far away so she decided to walk. Along the way, she stopped by the airbrush booth to get her makeup done and bought a bouquet of flowers from the floral counter. A few minutes more and she reached the place.

A bright pink neon sign, hung at the entrance of the restaurant, glowed brightly in the night. The host, an android with a fake looking skin (the unrealistic skin always gives them away), welcomed her. “Good evening. How can I help you?”

Now that she was finally here, she realized how scared she truly was. Sameera choked on her words. “I.. I have a reservation today.”

“This way please,” the android replied in its robotic voice and led her inside.

Sameera followed it, her heart racing violently. Her palms sweated, her stomach twisted with dread. She turned round the corner, when she saw her sitting in a booth at the back of the restaurant.

The sight knocked the wind out of her. Sameera froze, tears welling in her eyes. She looked ethereal, wearing a teal dress, her beautiful, curly hair pinned up in a bun.

Oh how had she missed her. Her big, brown doe like eyes, her soft chocolate skin, her big smile, her laughter, her embrace. She was here and she was real.

“Sameera?” she called out, waving at her from the booth. “You are here.”

Sameera slowly made her way towards her, wiping away the tears in her eyes. “Rumi.”

Rumi got up and pulled her into a hug. “Happy wedding anniversary, my dear wife. I was so scared you won't make it but here you are.”

Sameera choked on a sob. “I came, Rumi.”

Rumi kissed her forehead. “Yes, you did. I am so happy, Sameera.” Then, she led her towards the table. “Come, let's sit down.”

Sameera sat down on a chair. Rumi sat across her, going through the menu. “What would you like to drink? Let's see it's almost 8.”

“Rumi,” Sameera interrupted her, reaching out to hold her wife’s hand. “You don't think I am a bad wife now, do you?”

Rumi knitted her brows in confusion. “What are you saying?”

“Tell.. tell me you are happy with me,” said Sameera, her voice trembling.

“Oh Sameera,” Rumi replied. “My dear wife. You are so stupid. If only you knew–”

___

Sameera opened her eyes, shocked. Her colleagues circled around her, looking at her in anticipation. The ending song played in the background, thanking her for her patronage.

Mr. Glen removed the electromagnetic band from her head, helping her sit up. “So, how did it work? Were you able to re-access your memory?”

Sameera nodded her head. “Yeah, it was my wedding anniversary three years ago. Why am I back?”

Mr. Glen handed her a glass of water. “Oh, 30 minutes were up. The software can only run the test for thirty minutes, as you know.” He picked up his tablet from the side. “So now the details. How was the memory augmentation, the environment reconstruction and the virtual space navigation?”

Sameera wiped her cheeks. “I need to go back. Please send me back.”

“But why?” asked the technician. “This was just a test run.”

“I need to go back again. I need to check the space navigation again. Please just send me back.”

Mr. Glen sighed. “Just one more time ok.”

Sameera gave him a grateful smile, then laid down on the scanner again. The technician secured the electromagnetic band around her head. The welcome song played, her eyes fell heavy.

___

Sameera woke up. She was at her workstation, her screen lined with codes. She paid no heed to her surroundings this time around– neither her colleagues nor her manager.

She just ran. Sameera ran as fast as she could. She raced towards the reception and grabbed her trench coat. Then, he walked in haste towards the restaurant, not bothering to get herself airbrushed or buying flowers.

The host welcomed her and led her in, again. Sameera turned the corner to find Rumi sitting at the booth. Seeing her for the second time still hurt as much.

“Sameera?” Rumi called out, waving her hand. “You are here.”

Sameera walked up to her quickly. Rumi got up and hugged her. “Happy wedding anniversary, my dear wife. I was so scared you won't make it but here you are.”

Sameera held her wife's face in her palms, caressing it gently. “There's nowhere else I want to be. I want to be here, with you, forever.”

Rumi gave her a smile. “I am so happy, Sameera. Come, let's sit down.”

Sameera sat down on a chair, Rumi sat across her, going through the menu. “What would you like to drink? Let's see, it's a few minutes to 8.”

“Rumi,” Sameera interrupted, lacing their hands together. “I can't tell you how much I love being with you. I was so stupid to throw this away, to let you down for things that never mattered. Nothing mattered other than you, and I am sorry I didn't appreciate you the way you deserved.”

Rumi gave her another smile. “I am so glad to hear you say that.”

“Tell me,” pleaded Sameera. “Are you happy to marry me?”

Rumi looked at her puzzled. “Oh Sameera!”

___

Sameera opened her eyes, frustrated. Mr. Glen stood by her side, checking her vitals. “Welcome back.”

Sameera got up, disgruntled. “30 minutes are over?”

He nodded his head. “No more going back now.” Picking up his tablet, he patted her shoulder. “Are you okay?”

She nodded. Satisfied, Mr. Glen proceeded to ask her a series of questions about her experience in the memory simulator. Sameera answered them absentmindedly, her thoughts far away– to a day three years ago, remembering.

Remembering as it really happened

‘26 November, 2350

It was a Sunday as well as her wedding anniversary but Sameera wasn't home with her wife Rumi, celebrating. Instead, she was seated in her work station, working diligently on Project Remembrance– an AI powered memory simulator that would let people relive their most cherished memories. A dream job for her, as she liked to say some time ago but she wasn't so sure now.

When she left for the research center this morning, she had promised Rumi she would be there for their dinner date at 8 tonight. Now, looking at the time, Sameera realized it would be impossible.

She still had piles of work left to do, and both her managers had been unable to let her off until she wrapped up her work, owing to an investor's meeting a few days later.

Sameera ran the code on her screen, hoping to miraculously wrap up her work in half an hour or so. An error message appeared on the screen, breaking her bubble. She teared up in frustration– she wouldn't be able to leave today.

She tapped the nanoprocessor on her wrist. ‘Send a message to Rumi. Tell her I won't be able to make it’. Then she returned to work, tears of frustration rolling down her cheeks.

By the time she reached home, it was already midnight. Rumi stood by the kitchen sink, rinsing off some dishes. She wore her night pajamas, her hair undone.

“Happy wedding anniversary,” said Sameera slowly.

“It's 12:15,” replied Rumi curtly. “Our wedding anniversary was yesterday. But forget that, tell me how was your Sunday that you spent at work?”

“Oh for heaven's sake Rumi!” Sameera shot back, irritated. “You know my work is demanding. I expect you to be more understanding.”

Rumi turned towards her in anger. “I am not understanding?! This has been going on for months. You are always at work, even on weekends. I don't remember when we last spent time together, to watch a movie or go out for dinner. How can you blame me?”

Sameera threw her hands in the air. “So, it's my fault. Everything is my fault.” She sank on the couch, crying. “You love your work and spend hours painting, it's not an issue. But if I am stuck at work, I am the bad one.”

Rumi pressed her head. “It's not the same. My work brings me joy and fulfillment. I am not trapped by corporate moguls who drain me out, forcing me to work till midnight on a Sunday. Babe, you really need to leave this job.”

“You can never be happy for me, can you?” Sameera asked, bitterly.

“If you expect me to be happy to see you like this, then yes I am not happy,” Rumi replied firmly.

“I can't understand why you are so pressed!” said Sameera

“Because it was our wedding anniversary and I was alone, Sameera!”

“It's no big deal. It will come next year, and the next. Do you have to make such a fuss!”

Rumi looked at her stunned. There were tears in her eyes. “What was I thinking, marrying you?”

She turned around and left, banging the bedroom door. Sameera stayed put on the couch, crying.’

Sameera sat on her workstation, going through a programme. Most of her colleagues had already left, and the few that remained were packing up their things. Her mind kept drifting back to Rumi. Her smile, her laughter, her happiness were all seared in her head. It brought back the pain of losing her along with guilt.

She needed to meet her one last time. She needed to fix what she messed up three years ago. For Rumi, for herself.

Sameera switched off her screen and made her way towards the testing area. The place was empty by now. Putting in the initiate command, she placed the electromagnetic band on her head and lied down on the scanner, revisiting her memory again.

And again.

One time turned to two, two times turned to many. Each time she went back, re-lived her memory only to feel an aching desire to go back. No matter how many times she saw Rumi’s smile or experienced her warm embrace, it was never enough. She needed more.

She hoped to fix things, she hoped for happiness. She hoped the dead weight she had been carrying for the past three years, be finally lifted off her chest.

And yet with each try, it felt hollow. Rumi felt less like a real person, and more like a figment of her own imagination, turned real via a sophisticated AI programme. Each time she appeared as what Sameera wanted but could never be what she needed because she could never be real.

Her real Rumi.

Wiping away her tears, Sameera laid down on the scanner again. The welcome song played, her eyes fell shut.

___

Sameera woke up with a start. She was at her workstation yet again. She did what she had done a dozen times now. She descended down the elevator, raced to the restaurant and went straight to the back of the restaurant to find Rumi.

“Sameera?” she said, waving her hand. “You are here.”

“I am,” she replied tearfully. “Rumi, tell me you are happy to marry me?”

Rumi looked at her confused, then smiled. “Oh Sameera, of course I am happy to marry you. You are the best wife in the world.”

The words didn't bring her the satisfaction she thought she would find. Instead, they broke something inside her, crushed and destroyed it until all that was left was pain.

The pain of losing Rumi.

“Liar,” Sameera shot back. “You are a bloody liar because I am not a good wife. You should regret marrying me, you should resent me, that's how you should act but why would you?”

Rumi placed an arm on her shoulder. “As your wife–”

“You are not my wife!” Sameera shouted. “You are not Rumi. You are just a reconstruction of my memory, in a virtual space rendered by an AI. None of your words are Rumi's words, none of your joy is Rumi's joy. You are governed by an algorithm that I developed. You are not real. You are not my Rumi.”

Rumi, the AI reconstruction of her, shifted uncomfortably. Tears rolled down Sameera's eyes.

___

Sameera woke up, her body drenched in sweat. The vital monitor on the side beeped loudly. Mr. Glen stood in front of her, worry etched over his face. “Are you okay?”

Sameera got up, wiping off her sweat. “I can explain.”

“You wanted to relive your memory over and over,” he supplied, helping her off the scanner. “What memory are you re-accessing?”

Sameera sat on a nearby chair, looking straight ahead. “My wedding anniversary, three years ago.”

“Must be a really happy memory for you,” said Mr. Glen, sitting in front of her.

Sameera let out a bitter laugh. “Oh no! There was no happiness because I chose to stay in my office working, instead of being with my wife. I swear I tried but I just couldn't leave. And then when I went home, what did I do? I told Rumi it was no big deal, that our anniversary will come next year. She told me she regretted marrying me.”

Her colleague nodded. “Then what happened?”

Tears flowed down her cheeks. “Two… Two months later, Rumi suffered a cardiac arrest and passed away. There was no more anniversary for us.”

The pain she had been pushing away all these years finally broke free. She grabbed her face in her hands and cried, letting her sorrow wash over her.

Mr. Glen rubbed circles around her back. “Is that why you kept revisiting the same memory?”

She nodded through her tears. “I thought I could fix things with Rumi, thought I could show her I love her but –”

“But it brought you no joy,” said Mr. Glen. “Because your wife is gone. She isn't here to experience your love. You hoped changing your memory would ease off your guilt, for you. But it won't because none of it is real. It is just a memory after all.”

“I just wish I could tell her I love her,” said Sameera sadly. “I wish I could make her not regret marrying me.”

Mr. Glen shook his head. “Did she leave you?”

“No.”

“See, she knew and she doesn't regret marrying you. She was there, wasn't she?” he asked.

Sameera nodded.

“All you can do is honor your wife's memory and move on from your guilt, Sameera. There's nothing. That is more than enough. You need to let go.”

Mr. Glen gave her another pat, then walked out the room. Sameera stayed seated for some time, contemplating his words. Then, she walked towards the mainframe. Her eyes fell on the initiate command on the screen. She could relive her memory once again if she wanted but.

Sameera shut down the system. Then she grabbed her belongings and left. On her way out, she grabbed an application for her resignation. Then she stepped into the night, looking at the stars.

“I am sorry, Rumi,” she said. “And I love you.”

A star twinkled brighter. She smiled, then walked off into the crowd.

#short story #original fiction #f/f romance #science fiction #post cyberpunk #original characters #poc characters #lgbtq story #sapphic

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ranidspace · 2 years ago

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Splatoon websites and tools:

stat.ink: A statistics website where you can see global stats for things like challenges and big runs and almost all stats you can. You can contribute to the statistics using...

s3s: A python tool that runs in command line and catalogues all of your games that you play (it runs in the background as you play, or you can run it every <50 games). It uploads all of your data to stat ink so you can see your own stats for more than the past 50 games. The website even shows

Lean's Gear Seed Checker: Shows what you need to do to get the gear abilities you want, or how long until you get a thing you want in the shell out machine, or how long until you get something you want in the store. lots of other features, you can import the data you get using the --getseed argument in s3s. You can even use the config stuff to get the splatnet app on your desktop.

Splatoon 3 - Weapon and Gear Database: Nearly everything, code snippets, damage values, the way rewards work, if you're a nerd like me you'll love this site, but also theres basic data stuff too. check out all the tabs.

Ikasumi: database of all the splatposts, if you have a twitter username, you can find all the posts from one person, in full quality.

Sendou.ink: A bunch of data for competitive stuff, but in specific you can see the effects that main/sub abilities affect weapons and movement and stuff. theres also an art tab, and you can advertise ur art there, and filter to people with open comissions :)

tumblr.com/search/splatoon the funny posts are here

add more sites and tools that you know about

#splatoon #splatoon 3

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legendaryfigure · 2 years ago

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{ Maybe that’s the way I should GO Straight into the MOUTH of the unknown. }

FLASHBACK;

‘Do you need my help?’

It was the first QUESTION demanded as he answered the Roamzone phone, hands steady despite the interruption from his daily routine. ( Meditation helped clear the mind and cleanse the soul, and Evan was in tune with his body now more than ever. ) Yet the person at the other end of the line; took precedence at once, their voice crackling to life like static. The signal dismal at their end. It was the first thing he noticed. ‘I don’t know.’ Their responses VARIED each time. Some were full of disbelief, sceptical that he even existed. Others were overjoyed that he’d bothered to pick up, but the majority were desolate, their distress noticeable in their vocal tone. ( High pitched, panic, gasping, heavy breathing. ) He’d heard it all or so he he'd thought. Yet this response was weak to his own ears. Hoarse and dry, cracked speech. Evan inhaled, exhaled and followed the procedure. ‘Who gave you this number?’

He could never be too careful, danger lurked within every SHADOW. His alias a whisper in the air; a legend that lived on. ( Only a few knew how to contact him, and those who did were only allowed to do so once. ) The payment for the assistance? Pass the number on. That’s how it worked, and so he was looking for a description of his last client.

What he heard, however, made his blood run cold.

‘I don’t know.’

Hands tightened around the device; conflicted now. The MAN sounded genuine, and yet this could be a trap and a deadly one at that. For honestly how could he not know? Not if everyone had done as they should and followed his rules? He was always clear what he expected; he never took risks. ( The ten commandments he and his handler created were there for a reason, and yet; something held him on the line. ) Enabled him to pause; it was a simple rinse and repeat. He couldn't sway from his path, and it was with regret he finally admitted. ‘I see then I really can’t help you, sorry.’ The voice WHIMPERED; the sound sending shivers down his spine; either this person was a very good actor or they sincerely were at rock bottom. He was often their last hope; but what could he do? He had to be sensible about this. He expected a protest; a rambled excuse for not knowing ( which would prove they were suspect ) and yet all he got was a meek. ‘I understand, okay.’ Wait. What? He sat up straighter; horrified.

Why would anyone give up so easily? Bother wasting a phone-call Just to reply, okay?

It didn't make sense. ‘Wait. Who are you?’

He ran through the list of NAMES he’d memorised, potential threats. Anyone he’d ever come in contact with; knowing that with a name, all he needed to do was slip into his secret research room, command the computer to run a search and he would have every scrap of information at his disposable. ( Police databases? Not a problem. Firewalls? Easy. Un-hackable private networks? Impossible. ) But there it came again; the same soft answer.

‘I don’t know.’

He realised then, the person had him. He was too shocked to abandon the line.

PRESENT;

It turned out, the man didn’t know ANYTHING. Anything at all - ( at least in regards to himself. ) All he kept asking for was a Zima but why on earth would he want a lightly carbonated alcoholic beverage? One had to wonder if he was even sane for the details he did get out of him; didn’t make sense in the slightest.

Metal arm. Zima. Lost. Snow. Screams. Russia. Wolf. Cell. Electricity. Superiors. Chair.

What WORRIED him more than anything was the fact halfway through trying to think of anything else that would help him - ( the man had seemingly had a breakdown; started speaking like a robot and then began thumping against something… ) before the line had gone dead after a snarl of another in the background followed by a sharp deafening slap.

At once he’d frozen on the spot; taking in everything he had HEARD. There was no way the presence who had clearly snatched the phone away would ever be able to connect the phone call to him; but really. ( What had he just witnessed? ) A beating? A deranged man being found out while talking to him? No, surely not. He must have imagined it and even if he hadn’t; it was someone joking around surely….?

So he’d tried to FORGET the encounter; he’d had enough of crazies to last him a lifetime; but try as he might, he couldn't get rid of the grating whisper from his mind. ( I don’t know, he’d replied repeatedly. ) So on his computer he’d gone; running various programs and so far he’d discovered this.

Zima was Russian for Winter.

Any link to Winter and metal arm had lead to a swift DISCOVERY of the infamous Winter Soldier; a previously so-called legend who had turned out to be one Bucky Barnes, now residing - where? ( It didn't say; just news clippings mentioning a trial he’d attended for crimes he’d committed. ) Not one to judge Evan read on; nursing a bottle of Vodka as he uncovered everything he could.

The Winter Soldier had been a BRAINWASHED assassin imprisoned by HYDRA. His known associates were Captain America and the other Avengers. ( Of course Evan had heard about them; superheroes hitting the news more and more ) Yet he’d never thought he would be seeking them out… Not in a million years. Once in New York; he’d also realised that he could hardly walk into the known residence of the Avengers with his story, and so, praying his instincts weren't betraying him; he'd instead mailed a copy of the recording of the conversation with the other man and a simple scribbled letter.

Perhaps you’ve heard of me, perhaps you haven't. Known as the Nowhere Man to many; I take my time to help those in need. Handing out my phone number each time I’ve assisted a new person. This man rang my said private phone; and as you can see. I received no answers.

I will not lie to say I am incredibly untrusting right now. However should you recognise his voice; or make more sense of the words he spoke more than me. ( Which enabled me to put two and two together and realise he was speaking of the Winter Soldier ) then feel free to contact me on the number written below.

I do not know how clear it is; but I felt the fear as I spoke to him. If his plea is genuine, then I will not turn away.

You have my word.

Yours sincerely;

The Nowhere Man.

#vvolfstare #{ xtotag ;; }#tw voilence #tw abuse

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madgastronomer · 2 months ago

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As somebody who gave up Apple products (except my ipad, which I keep for doing FaceTime calls with my all-iOS family once a week) after forty years of being an Apple loyalist, and switched to Ubuntu Cinnamon because I could not stand Windows...

Linux is good. There's a lot of good stuff out there. But it is still a lot of work, and has a steep learning curve. I've been on Linux for five years now, and had command line and Linux experience before that from studying database management. I still have to sigh and ask my wife for a command at least once a week. Because a use case that either basically requires or the fastest way to handle it is the command line comes up that often, but specific commands do not, and asking my wife is quicker than looking it up. Longtime Linux users see the vast improvements that have been made, but still underestimate how frustrating it is for new users. Also, Linux has like three different possible ways you might install software (appimage, flatpack, snap), some software can still only be installed through the command line (a choice on the part of the devs), and depending on which method you use, some of them can't be added to docks or even found from the Menu.

There really is great software out there for Linux. Something for every need. Really! But that doesn't mean it doesn't still have some of the problems of, well, Linux. (Not to mention the New! problems of systemd.)

I like my Linux. I would not go back to OSX. I know that some of my Linux problems are the kind of weird thing that I, personally, wind up with no matter what system I'm running (no, seriously, I get the same weird problems everywhere). But Linux has not been perfected in the last five years.

I swear to fucking god. I would claw out OneDrive from my computer if I could. I would burn down their servers if I could. I would run down their stocks to the ground if I could. I hope every single one of their workers gets a better offer from a competitor in the next 24 hours. I hope every single one of their light bulbs explodes at the same time. I hope every single carton of milk in their fridge will always be expired.

Stop backing up my fucking files.

Stop asking me to back up my fucking files.

Stop taking my fucking files off my fucking computer.

I don't want a fucking reminder in three fucking days. Let me fucking say no.

Fuckers.

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innovativeroutinesinternational · 20 days ago

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How the DarkShield IRI Tool Automates Sensitive Data Classification and Masking

Keeping private data safe is a big deal. Today, businesses deal with huge amounts of personal data. This includes names, phone numbers, credit card details, and more. If that data ends up in the wrong hands, it can lead to serious problems. That’s where the IRI DarkShield comes in.

This powerful tool helps teams find and protect personal information across different types of files and databases. You don’t need to be a tech expert to use it, but it helps to have some IT knowledge.

What Makes IRI DarkShield Unique?

The IRI DarkShield tool is designed to work with all kinds of data. Whether the data is structured, like a database, or unstructured, like a PDF file or image, it can still find and protect it. It does this using smart search methods and rules that you can set up in advance.

You can even search and mask data across entire networks, cloud storage, or file systems. This means you don’t have to search files one by one. Everything is centralized and automatic.

Getting Started with IRI Workbench

The tool uses a program called IRI Workbench, which is easy to work with. It looks and feels like many other computer programs, so you won’t feel lost. With IRI Workbench, you can:

Connect to your data

Choose what types of private data you want to find

Pick how you want to hide it (for example, by encrypting it)

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Once you set this up, you don’t need to do it again. The data masking tool will always know how to find and protect those details.

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After searching, it saves the results in a log. You can use this log to see what was found or send it to another program to take action, like hiding the data right away.

Masking Data in Files

With just a few clicks, you can search and hide sensitive data in all sorts of files. This includes text, Word, Excel, JSON, XML, and even medical and image files. The best part? It works both on your computer and in the cloud.

This is where IRI DarkShield really shines. You pick the files, and the tool uses your earlier rules to search and mask sensitive information. You can even set filters so it only checks certain files, which saves time.

Working with NoSQL and Relational Databases

DarkShield isn’t just for files. It also works with many types of databases. These include NoSQL databases like MongoDB and Elasticsearch, as well as regular databases like Oracle and MySQL.

In both cases, the tool uses the same steps. You choose what to look for and how to hide it. Then, you let the program do the work. Everything is automatic once your job is set up.

Command Line and API Use

Even though the Workbench makes things easy, the tool also works behind the scenes. Developers can use the command line or API to run jobs without opening the software. This is perfect for teams that want to schedule tasks or connect the tool with other systems.

These options give your team more power and flexibility to protect data without slowing down other work.

Keeping Track with Audit Logs

Every time the tool runs a job, it creates reports and logs. These logs show what was found, what was masked, who did it, and when. They can also be viewed on dashboards or sent to other tools like Splunk.

This helps companies stay on top of their data protection efforts and show that they are meeting privacy rules.

FAQs

Q1: What is IRI DarkShield used for? IRI DarkShield is used to find and protect private data, like names and credit card numbers, in files and databases.

Q2: Can I use it even if I don’t know how to code? Yes. If you have some IT knowledge, you can use the IRI Workbench to set up and manage everything without writing code.

Q3: Does it work with images and PDFs? Yes. It can search and mask data in many types of files, including images and documents.

Q4: Can I use it with cloud storage? Yes. You can connect it to cloud folders like OneDrive, SharePoint, Google Cloud, and more.

Q5: Is IRI DarkShield a web app? No. Everything runs on your own system, so your data stays safe within your control.

Final Thoughts

IRI DarkShield is a smart and powerful way to protect sensitive information. It helps companies meet data privacy rules without slowing down their work. With easy setup, flexible options, and strong security, it’s a great choice for any business that takes data protection seriously.

#IRI DarkShield #data masking tool

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nocagileservices · 1 month ago

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Managed NOC Service Provider | Nocagile

In today's interconnected business world, the health of your IT infrastructure is directly linked to your company's success. Even a few minutes of downtime can translate into significant financial losses, damaged reputation, and frustrated customers. This is where a robust Network Operations Center (NOC) becomes indispensable. But for many businesses, building and maintaining an in-house, 24/7 NOC is a costly and complex undertaking. This is precisely why partnering with a dedicated Managed NOC Service Provider like NOCagile is a strategic move for enterprises of all sizes.

NOCagile specializes in providing comprehensive, proactive, and efficient managed NOC services, allowing businesses to offload the burden of constant network monitoring and management. Instead of reacting to problems after they occur, NOCagile ensures your IT environment is constantly watched, optimized, and protected, preventing issues before they can impact your operations.

What is a Managed NOC Service Provider?

A Network Operations Center (NOC) is essentially the command center for monitoring and managing an organization's IT infrastructure. This includes everything from servers, networks, applications, and databases to cloud environments and cybersecurity systems. A Managed NOC Service Provider like NOCagile takes on this critical responsibility for you, offering a team of expert engineers, advanced tools, and proven processes to ensure the seamless operation of your entire IT ecosystem, around the clock.

Think of it as having a dedicated, highly skilled IT team tirelessly watching over your digital assets, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. They're not just waiting for things to break; they're actively looking for anomalies, performance bottlenecks, and potential security threats, often resolving them before you even know they exist. This proactive approach is a cornerstone of NOCagile's philosophy.

The Unwavering Vigilance of NOCagile

The core offering of NOCagile as a Managed NOC Service Provider is continuous, real-time monitoring. Their sophisticated monitoring tools and platforms provide deep visibility into every component of your IT infrastructure. This constant surveillance allows them to:

Detect Issues Instantly: From network outages and server failures to application performance degradation and security breaches, NOCagile identifies problems the moment they arise.

Proactive Problem Solving: Instead of waiting for a system to crash, their team often detects early warning signs and addresses potential issues before they escalate into major incidents. This could involve identifying unusual traffic patterns, resource exhaustion, or impending hardware failures.

Performance Optimization: Beyond just keeping things running, NOCagile constantly analyzes your network's performance, identifying areas for optimization to ensure maximum efficiency and speed. This proactive tuning can significantly enhance user experience and business productivity.

Why Businesses Choose NOCagile as Their Managed NOC Service Provider

Partnering with NOCagile offers a multitude of benefits that directly impact your business's bottom line and operational efficiency:

24/7/365 Uptime and Reliability: Your business doesn't operate from 9 to 5, and neither should your IT support. With NOCagile, you gain round-the-clock monitoring and support. This means critical systems are always under watchful eyes, ensuring maximum uptime and minimizing disruptions, even during off-hours or holidays. This continuous vigilance from a dedicated Managed NOC Service Provider provides invaluable peace of mind.

Cost Savings and Resource Optimization: Building and maintaining an in-house NOC involves significant investment in infrastructure, software, and highly skilled personnel. Salaries, benefits, training, and equipment costs can be substantial. By choosing NOCagile, you gain access to a full team of experts and cutting-edge tools at a fraction of the cost of an internal setup. This frees up your internal IT team to focus on strategic initiatives and innovation, rather than routine monitoring and troubleshooting.

Faster Incident Response and Resolution: When an issue does occur, every second counts. NOCagile has established robust processes and protocols for rapid incident detection, escalation, and resolution. Their experienced engineers are equipped to diagnose problems quickly and implement solutions, significantly reducing mean time to repair (MTTR) and minimizing the impact of any incident on your business operations. As a leading Managed NOC Service Provider, their focus is on immediate action.

Enhanced Security Posture: Cybersecurity threats are constantly evolving. A strong NOC plays a vital role in network security. NOCagile monitors for suspicious activities, manages security patches, and can often detect and respond to potential breaches before they cause significant damage. Their expertise adds an extra layer of defense to your IT infrastructure.

Access to Specialized Expertise: IT environments are becoming increasingly complex. NOCagile provides access to a diverse team of certified experts with specialized knowledge in various technologies, including networking, servers, cloud platforms, databases, and applications. This collective expertise, readily available through your Managed NOC Service Provider, ensures that your infrastructure is managed by the best in the field.

Scalability and Flexibility: As your business grows or its needs change, your IT infrastructure will also evolve. NOCagile offers scalable solutions that can easily adapt to your expanding requirements. Whether you're adding new services, expanding into new locations, or experiencing increased traffic, your Managed NOC Service Provider can seamlessly adjust its support to match your demands without requiring you to hire more staff or invest in new tools.

Detailed Reporting and Insights: Transparency is key. NOCagile provides comprehensive reports and analytics on your network's performance, incident history, and resolution times. These insights offer valuable data that can help you make informed decisions about future IT investments and strategic planning. You'll gain clear visibility into your IT operations, proving the value of your Managed NOC Service Provider.

The NOCagile Advantage: A Partner, Not Just a Provider

NOCagile isn't just a service vendor; they strive to be a true extension of your IT team. Their approach emphasizes:

Proactive Maintenance: Moving beyond reactive troubleshooting to predictive analysis and preventive measures.

Structured Processes: Leveraging industry best practices and frameworks like ITIL to ensure consistent and high-quality service delivery.

Tailored Solutions: Understanding that every business is unique, NOCagile works with clients to customize their NOC services to align with specific organizational goals and infrastructure complexities.

Focus on Business Continuity: Ensuring your critical business operations remain uninterrupted, even in the face of unexpected IT challenges.

In conclusion, for businesses navigating the complexities of modern IT, having a reliable and proactive Managed NOC Service Provider is no longer a luxury but a necessity. NOCagile offers the expertise, technology, and dedication required to keep your digital heart beating strong, allowing you to focus on your core business and drive innovation. If you're looking for a partner to elevate your IT operations and ensure unwavering network stability, explore what NOCagile can do for you.

🌐https://www.NOCagile.com/

Email: [email protected]

#nocservices #noc

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revold--blog · 3 months ago

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sublimepizzastarfish · 3 months ago

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Got a tape drive, and now I feel like I need to learn library science.

No good open source cataloging software seems to exist that I can find to help deal with offline and online backups (i.e. tapes, CDs, DVDs, and other such things not usually attached to a computer during their lifetime). Basically, I want a cataloging solution for metadata that:

Command line and (optionally, nice to have) graphical interfaces for appending and updating records

Ease of transfer between computers (easy to back up; the basically makes all database software that isn't sqlite out of the question)

Ease of human readability (this basically dismisses sqlite)

I've settled on just hacking my own stuff together via a perl script (since it's the language that's solved 38 years worth of the exact sort of problems I'm encountering: gluing shit together in a pragmatic way). We'll see how it goes. That's kind of why I desire the wisdom of library science: I am not the first human being in the world to ever want to catalog a collection of data.

Slight spoiler: I decided to utilize YAML, because I don't wanna roll it with XML or use JSON (or JSON5) (I'll use XML before JSON variants, though), but I'm putting a strict requirement that every record for a file (or collection of files) is just one YAML document each that is insanely flat (you can have multiple YAML documents in one file easily). I'm hoping that will make it flexible enough and human readable, and text editable in a pinch, because YAML is not normally human readable or easily editable after some number of lines (I work in devoops, and shit's fucked once you have to figure out how the syntactic indenting works after the text buffer is too large for your editor).

Alternatives considered: Hacking together a MediaWiki plugin, which will make it searchable and displayable, as well as easily editable (and bonus people can collaborate and browse) (this seems like a wild left turn, but I have a couple of scripts that can spin up MediaWiki database and web instances super quick, and I can at least run a VPS for the record keeping backend, and I know how database backups work well enough).

#cataloging #yaml #perl #open source #mediawiki

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braininventoryusa · 4 months ago

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Why Choose Laravel For SaaS App Development

Are you interested in building SaaS apps like Trello, Slack, Zoom, or Shopify? But I don’t know which framework would be the best for you. Well, building SaaS applications is definitely complex, and on top of it, if you choose the wrong framework, it can negatively impact the app’s performance. So choosing the framework is a crucial decision. There are tons of frameworks out there, with their own pros and cons, but here in this blog, we will discover why you should choose Laravel for SaaS development.

Laravel is a popular app development framework, which runs on PHP. It provides many useful features like routing, validation, MVC, and CLI. Loaded with many other features, Laravel has proved itself to be the right choice for SaaS development.

Not only does it come with built-in features, but it can smoothly manage SaaS subscription services. All of this makes Laravel a preferred choice among developers. So, let’s first look at some of the top reasons you must consider Laravel before you hire a dedicated Laravel developer to develop your project.

Reasons You Must Consider Laravel for SaaS Development

1) Convenient Customization: Customization is made easy with Laravel. It makes the complex task of building SaaS applications a piece of cake for developers. It simplifies the application architecture by breaking it down into multiple elements for building large applications. Laravel offers features like Git, which lets developers make easy customizations in the product features without the hassle of code maintenance.

The MVC architecture of Laravel provides separate controllers, models, and views. Using these separate components, developers can work individually on designs, with absolutely no headache of distributing connections.

Apart from all these, Laravel provides additional features like routes, autoload optimization, minification, eager loading, internal caching systems, and CDN. developers can feel free to utilize these add-on features to optimize the components with custom codes and improve the SaaS application’s functionality.

2) Artisan CLI: Artisan is the name of the CLI (command-line interface) that comes included with Laravel. Driven by the most powerful Symfony Console component, Artisan provides a decent number of helpful commands for developers to use while developing a SaaS application. It helps them to manage databases effortlessly, migrate data, and generate boilerplate codes as hassle-free as possible.

Artisan minimizes the workload as you can automate repetitive tasks in your development workflow. Instead of manually doing tasks like running migrations, or creating files, you can use the commands to handle these automatically. This not only saves some time but also reduces the chance of any human error.

Artisan provides a useful feature called task scheduling, in which you can define the tasks and schedule them to run at specific intervals using Artisan commands. Doing this, you can stay assured of any missing tasks, and the tendency of humans to forget things easily.

Artisan also facilitates easy testing and debugging. You can use its commands and run unit tests, generate test files, and debug codes. You can even analyze the application behavior effortlessly using Artisan commands.

Artisan’s ability to generate custom commands makes it a supremely useful tool to improve codes and produce functional SaaS applications.

3) Third-party Integration: A SaaS application needs third-party integration like payment gateways, image processing, or cloud-based storage. Integrating these services is a big YES to add to the performance and make the SaaS application robust. Laravel provides easy ways to integrate with these third-party services, which presents a significant advantage, especially for those seeking to embed multiple services in their app. Besides, Laravel offers efficient API management to address complexities that come with API connections.

4) Simplified Authentication: Laravel offers an access control system to simplify the authentication feature in SaaS applications. The access control system, as the name suggests, limits access to assets and resources. The complete suite of functions furthermore allows for easy authentication for login, registration, and password reset features. So by using Laravel, developers can integrate authentication features conveniently.

5) In-built Libraries: Laravel provides a range of built-in libraries like Laravel Excel, Laravel Debugbar, Laravel Passport, Laravel Socialite, and Laravel Yajra Datatable. These libraries help developers in building enterprise-level SaaS applications with much ease and comfort.

6) Blade Template Engine: A blade template engine that can be used to serve multiple purposes like processing app code inside the template tags, connecting to the data model, diverting output to text files, etc. This feature helps developers to make SaaS development streamlined and successful.

7) Eloquent ORM: Laravel is considered an ideal framework for building SaaS applications of any level of complexity. Eloquent ORM is one of the significant reasons that make it an obvious choice. It is a database management tool integrated within the framework, to make it highly convenient for developers to interact with the database. It ensures every database table gets a corresponding model that you can use to interact with the table easily. You can even retrieve records from the table, update them, and delete them as and when required.

8) Accelerated Performance: Laravel provides an accelerated performance when it comes to SaaS app development. Its feature “route caching” helps in optimizing the performance of apps with various settings. Streamlining the route registration steps improves the app’s performance to the desired extent.

9) Strong Security: One of the main concerns in SaaS applications is security. Laravel comes with a host of security features like HTTP authentication, secure routing, AES (advanced encryption standard), and password hashing. These features enable developers to create applications with a strengthened security system and less possibility of threats.

10) Redis Key-Value Store: A key-value store basically means word definition, where the key is “word” and the value is “definition”. Like key can be user_567 and the value for the same can be {“name”: “XYZ” “age”: “30”}. It is often called a data structure server since the keys can include strings, sets, hashes, and lists. Redis is most commonly used for caching—storing frequently accessed data; session storage—keeping user sessions fast and scalable; queue management—processing background tasks efficiently; and real-time features such as chats and notifications.

SaaS Products Developed Using Laravel

Invoice Ninja– Invoice Ninja is an invoicing software that addresses the modern needs of businesses like generating quotes, tracking time, sending payment reminders, syncing banking and transactions, and automating recurring billing. A version of Invoice Ninja software also offers complete customization options to the user. Developed with the help of the Laravel framework, this SaaS product is a perfect solution for freelancers, and small businesses in creating professional-looking invoices that not only impress their clients but also can be customized to align with their identity.

Cloudways– Again a beautiful example of Laravel developed SaaS product that helps to simplify cloud hosting for its users and gives a lightning-fast performance. It also provides features like invoicing, billing, and payments. Not only this, it offers a hosting solution requiring zero configuration, in just one click and zero downtime. Completely a hassle-free solution where businesses can host their websites and focus on more important tasks, while Cloudways does the rest.

Cons of Using Laravel for SaaS

It can give a hard time getting into the insights of Laravel for beginners

You need an experienced professional to get the hang of it

You require a thorough knowledge of best security practices

Occasional concerns related to scalability, if subjected to heavy traffic

Performance bottlenecks may arise sometimes, especially when developing complex applications

Final Thoughts

These are the significant reasons why you must consider Laravel for building SaaS products. It is a highly popular framework and a first choice for businesses seeking to build a robust app with customizable features, high performance, and rapid development. Furthermore, benefits like easier integration of third-party tools, database migration, and strengthened security are some of the other things you should opt for in Laravel. However, to fully leverage the benefits of this framework, you might feel the need to contact experienced developers from a Laravel development company.

Brain Inventory provides highly professional and experienced Laravel developers to work on your project. Additionally, backed by industry expertise, we can be the right choice to guide you through your Laravel app development. Contact us to discuss further.

#Laravel for SaaS Development #Laravel For SaaS App Development

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6861647269616e7573 · 6 months ago

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Previously on 68616472696616e7573:

I built a network lab from a shitty old Cisco SG350 switch, Lenovo m72 mini-PC and tp-link router. Lenovo works as a bare-bone Linux server. I selected this gear pretty much only because I had them laying around.

It worked fine for a week or two, until I realised I had given the same IP to both the router and the switch. I don’t even know how I managed to do that, probably because I didn’t configure all of them together and make a clear network map before configuring. I’m surprised it worked at all.

Aaaaand I did the noob mistake (which I knew not to do but did it anyway) and tried changing the Cisco IP in the GUI. It’s impossible, I don’t think anyone has successfully configured a Cisco Network Switch via GUI, at least not these cheaper models.

In the end I just ended up digging up the console cable, resetting the switch and doing it all over via serial commands. Which is a lot faster than any other method, it didn’t take that long. Dilly dallying with GUI and then trying to remove commands via terminal took several hours and led to nowhere.

Anyway, I learned a lot, which is why you do these things:

1. I still have an few years old CCNA book, that is really good

2. ‘line tty’ does not exist on SG models for some reason, I don’t know how to make SSH work

3. ‘vlan databases x,y’ is how you create a vlans, but I guess this is deprecated method and you can do it via configuration mode in Catalyst and newer switches?

4. Commands: ‘ctrl+h, write mem, sh run, sh start, conf t’

5. In SG350 the command to reset the configuration is ‘delete startup-configuration’, man it took a while to find that! Even ChatGPT didn’t know.

I also made the TP-link as secure as possible creating 16-character wifi pass, hiding the SSID, turning on DDoS attack prevention and preventing WAN ping. I have updated the firmware already. However these are still massively unsecure devices:

With all this I managed to prevent my server accessing my WiFi and it doesn’t seem to understand to switch to Ethernet, so I have no remote access. I have to plug it into a monitor and keyboard and update the network authentication. Maybe I can connect an USB-cable from it to the switch’s USB serial port and try to get the SSH to the Cisco console working?

Maybe I should eat some breakfast…

Sir, this is a Wendy’s, please place order or leave.

#network #cisco #technology

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classicsubliminalbo · 10 months ago

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Lacey's Story: A New Mistress

Originally published Sep 22, 2017

It was only a year ago that Lacey Stafford was another Carpenter State thrall, her mind suppressed by the power of Obedience lingerie, eagerly awaiting the command of her master, the late Professor Lange. Now the school was her first of many conquests, the start of the Stafford Empire. She began with her professors, the ones who had tried to fail her during her mindless sabbatical with Dr. Lange. A few meetings with them and Lacey managed to change their minds about her grades, turning F's into A's and, with the help of some eager nerds, amending her attendance records in the school's database. After cleaning up that mess, Lacey figured that she had all of the tools she needed to make a run at student body president, and that was when things really took off. Lacey wasn't a known face around campus, but her name took off like wildfire. She attracted crowds like a local politician, hordes of adoring students lining up to campaign for her. Carpenter State had never seen an election draw so much interest from the student body, but it had also never had a student politician like Lacey.

For a while, Lacey had an enemy in Corbin Arroyo. Carpenter State's popular social justice blogger was the only student willing to question what Lacey really stood for, but even Corbin began to waver after attending a few of Lacey's rallies. Two weeks after her first article, Who Is Really Is Lacey Stafford? Corbin published a full interview with Lacey, glowingly endorsing her campaign. Lacey won the election in a landslide. Some days Lacey felt like she should be thankful, but then again, who did she have to thank but herself?

Shortly after the election, Corbin was offered an hour to do an early morning show on student radio. Lacey became a regular guest of the Carpentergate Watchdog Hour. It was never the dry stuff that people expect from student politicians on public radio. Y'know, droning out details about upcoming events and their desperate need for volunteers. Lacey had a personality, and a really good rapport with Corbin. The show gave her an opportunity to spread her message to more students, and suddenly campus events had too many volunteers.

"So what can you tell me about Mayor Carpenter?" Corbin asked Lacey during a recording. "We have a very special relationship. Mina's been a real mentor to me," Lacey said. "I look at her and I see the woman that I want to be. Strong, compassionate, unwavering. She was the first person who suggested that I run for president, you know." "Wow," Corbin replied. "That's quite an endorsement." "I know, at first I didn't think it was possible but she kept encouraging me and finally I worked up the nerve and it's been like living in a dream ever since."

When their conversation wrapped, Corbin cut to music and as she removed her headphones for a break, Lacey whispered in her ear, "I want you naked on the floor of this soundbooth right now." Corbin shivered, and she whispered back, "Yes, Mistress. I will obey."

Lacey found that most people she encountered these days were as agreeable as Corbin, though not as totally brainwashed. It was a lot like a Jedi mind trick. She could plant thoughts in peoples minds, make them think they were their own, but it took serious conditioning to get Corbin naked and calling her Mistress. Every day Lacey found a new and even more petty way to abuse her gift, whether it was talking down the price of a desk on Craigslist or getting a free cup of coffee at Starbucks. To her it was just another life hack, like reusing butter containers as Tupperware, except with more mind control.

So how did she do it? What kind of mind control was Lacey using to keep all of campus under her spell? She had started with old fashioned hypnotism, moving up to the same mind controlling lingerie that kept her under Dr. Lange's thrall. That was enough to save her GPA, but it wasn't until a surprise email from a prominent figure that the ball really began to roll: Mina Carpenter, the mayor of Romero and great granddaughter of Alabaster Carpenter IV, founder of Carpenter State University.

"A very special relationship?" Mina echoed when Lacey took a seat in her personal office. Trips to the Carpenter Mansion had become regular since Mina first reached out. Lacey blushed. "I didn't know you listened to public radio." "I stay informed," Mina said with a sly smile. "If you get too cheeky people may start to suspect something." "Let them," Lacey shrugged. "Corbin was the wokest person on campus and even she wasn't immune to my power. I'll break anyone who challenges me."

Mina's smile widened. "Those are the best slaves," she said. "The Corbin Arroyos of the world, the righteous ones. Some minds bend, but theirs break." "You scare me sometimes," Lacey replied.

Mina laughed coolly and slid out of her seat, pacing to the other side of the desk and settling behind Lacey. The woman's presence sent a shiver down Lacey's spine. "I have to be honest, Lacey, I'm concerned that you've forgotten the purpose of your gift."

Lacey stiffened in her chair. "What do you mean?" she asked. Mina brushed a cold finger down Lacey's neck and the tense girl loosened at the woman's touch. Then Mina asked, "Who do you serve?" "You," Lacey replied quietly, submissively. "Miss...tress..." The last word came out tortured, like some part of Lacey was trying to fight Mina's control. "Your power of persuasion is a parlor trick compared to what I can do," Mina warned. "The students of Carpenter State may answer to you, but you answer to me. Do you understand?" "Yes, Mistress," Lacey droned. "Your strength is infinite, your gift a blessing. Thank you for humbling me with your power."

Mina was content, and she excused Lacey. The young girl obeyed, walking silently through the mansion, her mind empty until she crossed the threshold. She collapsed there in front of the mansion doors. Lacey's heart beat heavy in her chest as she struggled to collect her breath. Lacey knew when Mina gave her the gift that she would pay a price, but she didn't know yet what that price was. But she knew that eventually Mina would come to collect, and Lacey would be powerless to stop her.

#thedude11111 #subliminalbo's ls #subliminalbo's nt

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