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solivar · 6 years ago

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WIP: Ghost Stories On Route 66

And this will be the last teaser for this chapter for Reasons.

The entrance to Terrifying Smoke Gabe’s sanctum (“Brooding Lair of Broodery.” “The desert is vast, Jack, and there are so many places I could hide your body.”) lay beneath a trapdoor at the very back of the Special Care Exotics greenhouse, easily the largest inside the hacienda’s walled compound, and by far the most oddly shaped: four geodesic dome segments joined together by short lengths of rounded corridor. The entrance vestibule was an actual airlock, secured by both biometric locks and a security keypad, and contained three spotlessly clean stainless steel tables and a half-dozen freestanding storage cabinets loaded with filtration masks and protective goggles, hazmat suits that wouldn’t look at all out of place in a CDC-run infectious disease laboratory, a whole rack of basic gardening tools lying cheek to jowl with test sample extraction equipment and air-tight storage containers.

Hanzo eyed the hazmat suits with a certain species of alarm welling up in the back of his mind. “We’re not going to need those, are we?”

“Nah, not right now.” Terrifying Smoke Gabe assured him, smooth and comforting. “We mostly keep them out of an abundance of caution -- one year we got a super pollination followed by a super bloom of one of the more...potent aphrodisiacs and the consequences were...Well. Okay. They weren’t exactly unexpected but they were kind of dire, especially when some of the pollen escaped containment.”

“We ran out of lubricants and anti-chafing cream and antibacterial ointment and also materials to make more.” Jack set the case he was carrying down on one of the tables and snapped it open, began screwing the components inside together. “Fortunately we managed to keep the effects isolated and cleaned up before we accidentally triggered a local baby boom.”

“And it also showed us we really, really needed to improve the the air filters and isolation protocols in some of the enclosures. Thus the suits. But unless you’ve got a noticeable plant allergy, you’re probably not even going to need a respirator.” Gabe flicked a glance past Hanzo’s shoulder. “You about ready, babe?”

The last few components slotted into place, resulting in what was unmistakably a slim, lightweight rifle, scope inclusive, each bit incised with glittering letters-that-weren’t-letters, including the magazine that Jack slapped into place, two more going into the pouches of the vest he was wearing. The last item he removed from the case was a visor, clear glass ending in connector leads that attached to the implants in his temples with a soft but audible click. “When you two are, pumpkin.”

“Do you think we’re going to need that?” Hanzo asked softly, gesturing at the gun, as Terrifying Smoke Gabe opened the inner door of the vestibule airlock.

“I know you’re familiar with Jesse’s exorcism rounds -- these are the same principle, higher muzzle velocity.” Oh so dryly. “And we might -- just might, but in this particular matter it’s significantly better to be safe than sorry. Trust me on this.”

The airlock cycled with a soft hiss of displaced air and Terrifying Smoke Gabe led the way, Hot Vampire Jack bringing up the rear, with Hanzo kept firmly between them as they made their way through greenhouse. The central corridor, to which they kept, was lined on each side in individualized habitat modules, clearly labeled with their inhabitants’ common use name and scientific designation and a list of entry rules and care requirements, all of which made him absolutely itch with the desire to stop and read and ask questions at considerable length, one that got harder and harder to resist the deeper they went, one he put aside for later only with extreme difficulty as they reached the geodesic dome at the far end of the structure. That dome was isolated from the rest of the greenhouse by a secondary airlock, biometrically sealed, and opened into a space completely dominated by, to Hanzo’s vast surprise, trees: trees whose roots were twined around a carefully landscaped environment of lichen-coated boulders and whose crowns brushed against the upper reaches of the dome, whose branches were weighted down with vines the thickness of a large man’s arm and as thin as embroidery floss, bright green against their denser, woodier cousins. Artificial waterfalls sheeted gently down the sides and in channels between several of the largest tree-and-boulder conglomerates, gathering in a collecting pool floored in smooth rounded stones to be refreshed and recycled back into the irrigation system, edged in beds of fern and moss.

The trapdoor lay in the very back of a recessed area deep enough and dark enough to be legitimately described as cavelike, right down to the occasional drip of water and the scuttling of unseen creatures that were almost probably bats. Gabe knelt and, for an instant, the edges of the trap flashed crimson at his knees, replaced by a warmer, flickering glow as he lifted the door, offering Hanzo a hand down the first few slightly damp steps. The stairway was claustrophobically narrow, barely wide enough for him to walk facing forward with one shoulder brushing a wall, Gabe and Jack having to take it sideways, the carved stone stairs themselves thankfully long and shallow and illuminated at regular intervals by tall, jarred candles set in niches.

“Most of the more heavily mined areas are up in the old state park, but this whole region is riddled with delvings -- some shallow, some deep. The oldest are more than a thousand years old,” Gabe’s voice, underground, took on a hollow echo as their descent continued. “This one’s deep and old and we’re reasonably sure it was only a mine in the loosest sense of the term.”

“What he’s saying is, it’s the archetypal example of the ancients delving too deep and breaking through to something that was mad, bad, and dangerous to find.” Jack added dryly. “Though the only such things down here right now are, well, us and have been for quite some time.”

The stairway ended, the base widening into a room just large enough to hold them all, its pale sandstone walls marked in pictograms, charcoal black and an astonishingly still vivid white and ochre of a shade disturbingly close to dried blood: humaniform figures, hunters wielding weapons, a masked figure holding a staff, a tangled mass of unnaturally slender bodies with too many limbs and too many teeth, ringed in bands of solar and lunar disks, lightning slashes, the triangular forms of mountains, all centered around the roughly triangular gap in the far wall, shockingly dark after the golden warmth of the stairs. The hair on the back of Hanzo’s neck shivered upright and a cold pulse throbbed in his chest and he knew, knew in his bones and his blood and to the depths of his soul that they were more than just decorative, even now.

“If you wish to stop,” Terrifying Smoke Gabe said, with an awful gentleness, “we need to do it here. Once we pass this point, we will be stepping between worlds, and the way back will not be as simple as walking through the door again.”

“No. I do not wish to stop. I must know -- it is the only way forward from here.” Hanzo took a steadying breath, Jack’s hand a warm comfort on his shoulder. “Lead the way.”

Gabe smiled, a slight curve of his lips, and slipped through the door, all-but vanishing into the dark beyond. Hanzo closed his eyes for a moment, breathed slow and deliberate, and stepped through, as well. The exposed skin of his face and hands and even his eyes prickled wildly as he took that step, the brand on his palm burning with the intensity of it, the thing beneath his breastbone pounding like a second heart -- and then he was through, half-stumbling on the rough, not-precisely-even floor beyond, and Jack was catching hold of his elbow to help keep him up. He leaned against that support, blinking away tears, as his breathing came back to normal and the pain in his chest faded back to normal.

The space they occupied was clearly not entirely natural -- the ceiling was too perfect a dome, the thick columns supporting it too perfectly spaced, the walls closest to the door visibly marked by the traces of tools. It was, Hanzo suspected, perfectly round, or close enough to it for the differences not to matter, an enormous circle whose far side was lost in shadow, with an inner circle sunken beneath the level of the floor, its sandstone walls perfectly smooth, unmarked, illuminated by a circle of candles surrounding a bowl, beaten silver and dark green stone. A cushion sat on each side of it, flat and rectangular, unpatterned.

“Step down,” Gabe’s voice seemed to come from everywhere, a hollow echo, Hanzo catchinging on the faintest glimpse of too many red eyes in the dark beyond the candlelight as he moved. “The circle waits for you.”

Hanzo shivered, sat on the edge of the depression, and slid down, crossed to the cushion closest to him and sank into seiza. Up close, he could see that the bowl held something -- a liquid, dark and gently fragrant. A moment later, Gabe poured over the edge, as well, his form more smoke than substance, the shadows of fur and feathers and membranous wings, a hundred pinpoints of crimson glittering in him, his hands only barely solid enough to hold the casket he carried and set down as quickly as he could. It was old, Hanzo could see that at a glance, the points and edges of its lid worn smooth, but its mother-of-pearl inlay and brass clasp and hinges were clearly, lovingly cared for by expert hands. It opened smoothly at his touch and from it he withdrew a tiny plate of white jade carved in the shape of a serpent coiling around itself, fangs sunk into its own tail, three sticks of incense, richly resinous even unlit, and a long, slender needle, its pale substance stained dark at the tip, the eye carved in the shape of a grinning death’s head. Hanzo exhaled a shuddering breath as he tasted the power rolling off that unassuming object, looked up, and froze.

Gabe’s face was also a pale death’s mask, an ivory skull-face over shifting shadows, his eyes gleaming crimson in the depths of their sockets, the whole shadowed by the cowl belling wide over his shoulders, the pall of smoke around him a cloak, a shroud. Even so, the corners of his mouth pulled back in a comforting smile and when he offered his free hand, palm up, Hanzo laid his own in it without hesitation.

“The guiding principle here is this: you are the question, and I am the answer.” Gabe’s voice still seemed to come from everywhere but his own mouth, a whispery susurrus of a thousand softer, different voices echoing after. “Your need guides my magic. What is your need, Shimada Hanzo? Why have you come into my house?”

“I seek the wisdom and counsel of my kinswoman, the warrior Shimada Tamiko, who may know the dangers of the past and the perils of the future.” He looked up and met those eerie eyes. “That is my need.”

A coil of living mist wound around his free hand, leaving behind the bone needle. “Three drops of your blood, no more, no less, is the price for what you ask.”

That same curl of mist placed the incense in its bowl, both sticks lighting and beginning to smolder without so much a flicker of fire. In his hand, the needle’s skull-carved head was cool and smooth, worn that way by the passage of countless other hands, and before he could think too deeply about what the was doing, he slid its bloodstain-darkened tip into the meat of his magic-scarred left palm, just below the thumb. Blood welled as he withdrew it, made three concentric rings in the surface of the offering-bowl’s contents as he let the drops fall. A smoky tendril whisked away the needle and a second brought the bowl to Gabe’s mouth, or where his mouth would be under normal circumstances, tilted it as he drank deeply, as their hands came together, resting back to palm on opposite sides of the candle ring.

Gabriel drew a deep, deep breath with a sound like wings rushing, wind howling through desolate places, and began to sing -- a song that held within it dozens, hundreds, thousands of voices, a song that slid into Hanzo’s mind and soul and flesh, drew his eyes closed as the breathed deep of the incense, sought the places inside him where his blood beat in time with a warrior long-lost, and he wordlessly allowed them passage. Icy pain lanced through his chest, pressed the breath from his lungs, even as Gabriel’s hands closed tight on his own, growing colder and colder until the ache of it sank into his bones. Hanzo opened his eyes as the quality of the light touching their lids changed, cooled, the candle flame between them washing from golden to blue as Gabriel’s form...changed, warped, twisted, writhed almost in pain even as his grip on Hanzo’s hands never faltered. The song changed, as well, thousands of voices becoming hundreds becoming dozens becoming one -- rough with unaccustomed use, deeper, singing in a language that Hanzo knew as well as his own breath, the halls of his family’s ancient home, the scent of the sakura blossoms in the spring and the falling maple leaves in the autumn. Gabriel’s shape collapsed in on itself, grew paler and paler, grew still. Armored -- iyozane dou, white as moonlight on snow, helm a snarling wolf’s head, stormcloud gray and silver fur gathered around the throat as a gorget, falling down the back as a cloak. Milk-pale braids tumbled from beneath that helm, some thick, some thin, at least a half-dozen, even as the face remained in shadow. The hands that gripped his own were small but strong, striped in callus, fingers tipped in claws.

“Tamiko-dono?” Hanzo asked, softly.

Her head tilted, wary, listening, and the candlelight fell across her face, her high cheekbones and sharp jaw, her golden eyes and the golden markings beneath them.

“You,” Tamiko’s voice, when she spoke, was as rough as when she sang, husky and darker than he expected. “You have come. At last you have come. Give me your name.”

“Hanzo,” He replied, softly, “I am Shimada Hanzo, Lady Tamiko. And I...I have many questions.”

Her head moved, a quick jerk, as she scented the air -- eyes narrowing as they fixed on something beyond his shoulder. “And that? He is not of the Clan.”

Hanzo dared a quick glance, found Jack standing almost deceptively relaxed, his weapon’s muzzle pointed toward the cavern’s floor, finger well away from the trigger, his visor glowing pale blue in the dark. “A friend -- he means no harm. He is here for my protection, and yours.”

“Protection?” Her gaze flicked back to him, her eyes narrowing still further. “Why would a son of the Clan require protection, from a mortal armed with mortal weapons? What --” She stopped, as her gaze roved over him, seemed to see him, truly, for the first time, and it was all he could do not to shrivel in shame where he knelt, only barely resisting the urge to bow his face to the floor despite the ring of candles. When she spoke again, her voice was a toneless rasp. “How long has it been?”

“Lady Tamiko --” Hanzo began, gently, only to be cut off by her wordless snarl.

“How long, Shimada Hanzo?”

“Many hundreds of years.” He replied, drawing a steadying breath as her eyes flashed, her lips peeled back from her teeth, sharp and long as the wolf whose pelt she wore. “At least five centuries.”

“Centuries.” Her eyes slid closed, her face a mask of despair. “And my Clan sends a half-fledged child to finish my task. Fools. Fools.”

“They did not send me.” Hanzo found the words falling off his tongue before he could stop them. “The Clan...they do not know that I am doing this. They did not know you were here, or what became of you, or why you came to this place.”

“What.” It was not quite a question, the tone so similar to his mother’s when she was not-really-asking that he had to repress a slightly hysterical giggle. “What do you mean?”

“Much has changed. The Clan has changed -- and much that we should not have forgotten has been lost.” The bitterness of that admission twisted his heart and his stomach. “Lady Tamiko -- I need your wisdom. I must know what happened, and how you came to be here, in this place. I beg this of you, for the lives of innocents that are at stake.”

Her beast-golden eyes caught his own and he found himself unable to look away, as transfixed as he had ever been by the ranger-who-was-probably-Coyote, and her chin dipped as she nodded slowly. “I came here on the hunt -- pursuing one who had betrayed the Clan and shed the blood of our own in murder, a kinslayer. His name was Shimada Kazutaka...but you, I think, may know him by another name.”

The icy thing in his chest throbbed and shuddered as she spoke its name, his stomach churned and it was all he could do to swallow it back down. “The Serpent-Wolf.”

“Yes.” A heavy weight of sorrow in that single word and he was shocked by the depths of the grief, of the guilt, in her eyes. “He was as near to me as a brother, once. We suckled at the same breast -- his mother was my mother’s sister, and they bore Kazutaka and I but a few weeks apart. Fever carried away my mother away, and her sister took me into her household to raise, that I would grow to protect the son who would one day lead the Clan, as she had been. And it was that way, all through our youth -- we learned statecraft and diplomacy, literature and music, the ways of the bow and the blade and the fist, side by side, that he might rule and I might advise him cannily, and be his sword where his silver tongue could not hold sway. He was clever that way, with his words and his intuition, his way of knowing what others thought and what they most desired, even as a young man, and I knew the ways of battle, of the hunt in dark places, my father’s blood telling in me. We...complemented one another, and the Lord and Lady I know hoped that we would choose to marry.” A ragged sigh. “Had he wished it, had he asked it of me, I would not have told him no. But he did not ask, and then we were summoned to the shrine. Our time had come, and we thought we were ready.”

She released his gaze, her own falling to the floor, the candlelight striking in the depths of her eyes. “Kazutaka and I both expected to be chosen by the dragons. Instead, the wolf mothers came to us both, chose us both, a thing they had never done before.”

Hanzo’s hand tightened convulsively around hers and her eyes flicked to his face, narrowing slightly, and it was all he could do to ask, strangled, as the blood pulsed in his head and the breath caught in his lungs, “The wolf mothers?”

“Sakuya and Tatsuya.” A trace of alarm crossed Lady Tamiko’s face. “The Okami -- the mates of Lord Minamikaze and Lord Kitakaze, the mothers of the Clan. They chose their champions, but not often, and only in times of dire need, and never from among Minamikaze’s line, never before the heir to the Clan. It was...a matter of much concern.” Her brow furrowed, a frown curling the corners of her mouth. “How much has the Clan forgotten that you, who bear their mark, does not know this?”

Hanzo could not breathe -- the part of him that remembered how was as frozen as the rest of him, as stunned, as utterly stilled by shock and empty of thought. He felt a laugh crawling up the back of his throat, sharp and spiky and more than a little hysterical, and it took all his strength to swallow it back down, to breathe, to not think. “Much. Very much. Lady...what happened?”

She gazed at him, steady and even, until he could not hold her gaze and looked away himself, blinking away tears. The grip on his hands gentled, ever so slightly. “The Clan was in an uproar. There was some talk of asking Kazutaka to step aside in favor of his brother -- particularly when Kazetatsu was chosen by the dragons less than a season later -- but he did not, and the elders subsided...but things were different afterwards. Between us, and within him, though I did not know how different until…”

A ragged breath. “Too late. Until it was too late. I allowed my love for him to blind me to what he was becoming, how the anger ate away his heart, how the jealousy poisoned and twisted his soul. And he hid it well -- he married, and fathered children, he ascended to the rulership of the Clan when his father retired, and to all eyes he governed well and wisely. He sent me away from Hanamura often, to hunt the rumors of great evils abroad in the land, to the find the purpose for which we had both been chosen -- and, I think, to hide what he was doing from my eyes, from the path that he had taken in the dark of his bitterness, of his belief that he had been denied what he truly deserved, the dragon-bond that should have been his birthright.” Her clawed thumb traced across his scarred palm. “He told me that he believed a darkness from beyond our world had come and he was...not wrong. What he did not say is that he was harboring it -- that he had knelt before it as a supplicant and begged its wisdom, learned the terrible things it taught.” She swallowed, a convulsive movement. “He used them to twist the essence of his own bondmate, the wolf companion of his soul, into a ravening monster. He used them to slay Kazetatsu, to consume his flesh and blood and soul and enslave Natsuokaze, his dragon, the only daughter of Lord Minamikaze. He used them to flee from me when I confronted him, to open a door to this place, where he could carve out a kingdom of horrors and no one would be able to stop him.”

“Why here?” Hanzo heard himself asking from a vast distance, pathetically grateful for whatever degree of shock was holding his voice steady. “Why this place?”

“He followed the path his teacher tread, as I followed his when I pursued him.” A faint, grim smile. “He could not conceal his tracks, now that I knew what he had become -- but it took me long, too long, to reach this place and by the time I did…” Her grip on his hands tightened again, claws drawing blood. “He was great in his power -- greater than I imagined possible when last I saw him, a monstrosity that had cast aside any illusion of humanity.” The horror of the memory shone in her eyes. “It took all my strength, all of my skill, to weaken him enough to strike a killing blow with the sword I had sworn would be his ending -- and, when I did, he did not die. He did not die, and he struck me down, and as I lay bleeding my life on the sands, he mocked me with the knowledge that I could never have slain him, for his life was no longer married to his flesh but bound apart where none would ever find it. But he was wrong.” The tips of her fangs flashed in the candlelight. “My wolf found the god-seed he had corrupted with his power, the thing that held his life, and bore it away -- his black heart, without which he is not nor can ever be whole. He raged, oh how he raged, but he could not prevent my Hoshi from escaping -- but he could bind me, and did, to the place where we fought, where my bones lie still beneath the sands. And he, wounded with many wounds and weak, crawled away into his witch-home, taking the sword that will be his death with him.”

“I will find you bones and return them to the Clan, and tell them the story of what became of you.” Hanzo promised softly. “I will...finish what you began. I --”

“I know that you will, wolf-child.” And for the first time she lifted her hand away from his own, to rest it against his chest. “For you carry within you his heart, and you need only the blade, blessed by Minamikaze and Kitakaze, Sakuya and Tatsuya, to break his magic and end him forever.”

“...I…” Hanzo dragged a painful breath through the ice cold rage and hate and terror throbbing in his chest, “I give you my word.”

“Thank you, blood of my blood. I will await your coming.” She gathered both his hands in hers, bowed deeply over them, and he scrambled to catch Terrifying Smoke Gabe as her presence withdrew, more swiftly and suddenly than it had come, tumbling them both sideways away from the candles, Gabe’s arms closed tight around him, both of them trembling, for different reasons.

#WIP Ghost Stories On Route 66

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veworclicks · 3 years ago

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Arduino usb host shield library

#ARDUINO USB HOST SHIELD LIBRARY SERIAL#

#ARDUINO USB HOST SHIELD LIBRARY DRIVERS#

#ARDUINO USB HOST SHIELD LIBRARY PORTABLE#

#ARDUINO USB HOST SHIELD LIBRARY ANDROID#

#ARDUINO USB HOST SHIELD LIBRARY CODE#

Connecting docking station or other devices with TV and display epic picture up to 4K high definition. The package comes with one meter long HDMI wire with durable material. Same amount of ports for USB controllers and HDMI ports for TV.

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Replacement For Official Nintendo Switch Dock: This dock is only 48g(1.7 oz), which is much more portable and lightweight than official switch dock, ideal replacement for taking out anywhere.

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Built-in high sensitive smart touchpad with 360-degree flip design.Ideal for devices such as PC Laptop Raspberry Pi 2-3 MacOS Xbox 360 Xbox One PS3 PS4 Google Android TV Box HTPC IPTV and so on.For our i8+ 2.4G Wireless keyboard can work with Amazon Fire TV.Special Notice: if you want to use this keyboard with Amazon Fire TV 4K and Amazon Fire Stick you need to prepare a Micro USB host OTG cable.

Its operational range is up to 25 meters. And, it can be used as a remote replacement.

Wireless Remote Control: The keyboard can be connected to devices that have a standard USB interface using a mini receiver.

At the same time, it also looks like a really keyboard for PC or Notebook. There are 2 round polorus on the right and left side of the keyboard.

Game Handle Design: The mini wireless keyboard android is designed like a handle for game player.

Touchpad which supports multi-finger functions, A single finger click as left mouse function two-finger click as the right mouse function double finger drag as the rolling screen.

3 in 1 MultiFunction: 2.4GHz Mini Wireless QWERTY keyboard ＆TouchPad combo＆ LED backlit with USB interface adapter.

Lauszus on Teensy 3.0 now supported by the USB Host library.

Potts on Reading rotary encoder on Arduino PS Remote Controller Bluetooth stack by Cubexed

PTP and camera libraries repository on github.

Introduction to interfacing to cellphones.

Richard Ibbotson’s modified USB and PS3 library with extra NAK handling to be used with his PS3 and Nintendo game controller routines.

Legacy USB Host library, stable revision.

Hardware documentation – schematics, Eagle CAD files, PCB Gerbers.

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Mass Storage Class – USB flash drives, memory card readers, external hard drives/CD-ROMs, smartphones, etc.įuture plans include development drivers for communication devices, such as WiFi and cell phones, and support for other USB Host controllers.Xbox360 controller over wired USB as well as via a wirelss receiver.PTP with Canon EOS and Powershot extensions, as well as Nikon DSLR cameras.

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USB to serial converters, including CDC ACM, Prolific PL2303 and FTDI FT232.The following device classes are currently supported: Current revision of the library (r2.0) supports MAX3421E host controllers, general USB functionality, enumeration of up to 44 devices with USB hub support, and MAX3421 GPIO pins access. The shield exists in configurations compatible with 5V and 3.3V Arduino boards.

#ARDUINO USB HOST SHIELD LIBRARY CODE#

The initial goal of the project was to develop Arduino code supporting USB Host controller in order to communicate with USB peripherals, such as keyboards, joysticks and cameras. This is a summary page for USB Host Shield project that I started in the spring of 2009. Primary target platform is Arduino, however, it can also be used with any other micro equipped with SPI interface. The board supports USB 2.0 full/low speed operation. USB Host Shield is an inexpensive ( $25 for the full-sized board and $20 for the Mini variant ) development board designed to be used in embedded applications which require USB Host functionality.

#Arduino usb host shield library

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dunnystuff · 3 years ago

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All of us are equal here. But some of us are more equal than others. - George Orwell

Hi to all -

We [in Atlanta] weathered The Great Storm of 2022 quite well here. We got a light dusting of snow, like powdered sugar on a pastry, that lasted almost a day. Global Warming is good to us, in the south.

U-Haul

Looking at their business is a good indication of where people are moving to. Yes, we have statistics showing that people are departing blue states, like California and New York, in record numbers. This changes the makeup of congress, as districts must be realigned to fit the new population counts. This is reinforced by U-Haul records. Blue states have lost about a million (legal, registered, taxpaying US citizen) residents in recent times. Besides NY and California, major losses have occurred in Pennsylvania, Mass. and Alabama. Meanwhile, red states have gained about a million new legal, US citizen, taxpaying residents. Big winners are Florida, Texas, South Carolina and Arizona. These figures are tempered by the fact that U-Haul ran out of equipment to rent in those blue states, causing delays for people who wanted to leave. This will make the red states more wealthy and prosperous, as well as increase their power in congress. At the same time, blue states will fall further into debt, trying to support all those illegals, with fewer taxpayers to do so. It will not take many years for this to totally separate the two groups.

Airlines

Well, 5G phone services have started their rollout, and this week marks a major rollout by the phone companies. This promises faster service, more data transfer and storage, and more. But, the airlines are less excited by this. Seems the frequencies that 5G uses interfere with 'safety equipment' and possibly navigation equipment on airplanes. Less than half the air fleet has completed the changes needed to adapt to this, and the airlines want another delay in the rollout of 5G. If this does not happen, much of our air service could be grounded, until the necessary changes can be made. If you thought supply chain issues were bad before, imagine how much worse they will be if not only trucks cannot roll, but planes cannot fly. A gift for those who want to destroy our economy and system of government. It's all just a coincidence, don't you know?

MLK

Much celebration over the weekend marking the holiday honoring Dr. King. I have visited his memorial in downtown Atlanta. My group was politely asked/warned to leave the area quickly since we were white. And that was a long time ago - before BLM.

But, for Bill Penzy of Pensey's Spices, this was a weekend to celebrate "Republicans are Racists' '. He is a very pro BLM guy, and does not much like republicans. He was quite vocal about it.

Virginia

Many school boards there are aghast at the new Governor's order to let parents, not schools, decide if their children should wear masks. They cling to the 'suggestion' by CDC as an excuse to enforce illegal mandates. Looks like this will be the first battle for control of the hearts and minds of the citizens, parents and children, in Virginia. My bet is on the governor.

Seattle

This is one of the most 'woke' cities in the nation. So, naturally, they must try yet another social engineering experiment. Just because all the others have failed is no reason not to try, try again. This time, a lot of traffic laws will no longer be enforced, because they are racist. See, black drivers, 'driving while black' get stopped far too often in the woke mind. If you travel to Seattle, it would be wise to have good insurance, paid up, and to be very, very alert.

Maine

This is not usually thought of as a hotbed of political correctness. Yet, it is so. Dr. Meryl Nass, a thirty year veteran of medical practice, has been suspended from practicing medicine for spreading 'misinformation' Seems Dr. Nass questioned the effectiveness of the vaccines, since they don't actually work. She also said that HCQ and Ivermectin do work, as supported by hundreds of studies. But, this is heresy to the left, just like Galileo was to the church back in the day. So, she must be punished.

Vermont

This neighboring state is insisting that all voting be done via mail in ballots. Please do not look at all the fraud that this has caused. And, their governor, Phil Scott is listed as a republican! Go figure. Vermont joins Colorado, Oregon and Washington as the 4th state to cancel actual voting in favor of mail in voting. This will be interesting to watch in the fall.

Can you read the writing on the wall, yet? Perhaps a great divide is coming, and very, very soon.

Miasma vs. Germ Theory

When we think of public health, we often picture an image of doctors, nurses and other medical facilities and people. These represent the best in health care. We rarely think of 'medicine men', or 'medicine women' who sing, dance and gather magic plants to cure illness.

But, we almost never think of workers we see outside all the time as public health servants. Those folks who bring us clean, treated water, those who gather our trash, those who run sewage treatment plants, etc. have done more for public health than all the doctors in history.

Miasma refers to the idea that health is a function of having an effective immune system. One that is well fed, clean, and allowed to function 'as nature intended'. Our bodies are filled with all kinds of microbes (some say about two kilos worth in each adult - that is a lot of microbes) that do all sorts of things, some essential, others not so good. But, our bodies are pretty good at keeping things in balance, given half a chance.

Medicine tells us that things improved greatly after we invented vaccines against infectious disease. Indeed, those vaccines did a lot to stop such infections, or prevent them from getting worse. The large-scale use of vaccines has only been in effect for 50 years or so. Yet, the incidence of 'childhood diseases' and so forth that killed so many for so many generations, was in sharp decline before the vaccines came along. Why is that?

Well, after the industrial revolution, people began moving into cities, and then public works came into major use. Cities needed water. The aqueducts of Roman times were not adequate for modern cities. And, it was not safe to drink from rivers or streams - anything that fell into the water, like a dead animal, could pollute the water for miles downstream. That is why early settlers almost never drank water. When they did, they added enough alcohol in it to kill the germs.

Cites also produce waste. Garbage, and human waste. Many years ago, this was just tossed into the street (still is, in less well developed parts of the world) where this smelly mess attracted rats, and other vermin, and disease followed. Public sanitation, like removing trash, and treating sewage, and cleaning water supplies changed and improved conditions for all. One of the signs of our time is a return to those poor sanitation conditions. Homeless camps are filling up with rats, and trash and human waste fill the streets of many of our cities. It does not take a rocket scientist to see where this will go, and what will follow.

Here is a historical footnote. British sailors, when about to go into battle, were told to 'change into clean underwear'. What did that have to do with combat? Sanitation and washing was not always commonplace aboard ship, and a dirty body, and dirty clothes would lead to infection, if wounded. Did you know why British sailors were called 'limeys'? Scurvy was a common ailment on sailing ships. This was a side effect of not having fresh foods to eat, and the body just couldn't prevent such ailments without proper nutrition. So, when someone figured out that limes contained that nutrition, and that limes would last a long time, even at sea, this became standard issue for sailors. There were no Flintstone Vitamins back then, nor any gummy ones. Nor were there any vaccines.

Why do Schools Require Masks?

You saw school boards in Virginia defy their new governor about having students mandated to wear masks. Why is that? Do school boards think that masks keep kids safe? Would you bet your paycheck that they even care about the safety of your kids? Nope, it is the same old story. Follow the Money.

See, the so-called American Restoration Act (another clever misleading name, like all Biden's programs) bribes schools with money. Lots of money. But, only if they fully support whatever social engineering mandates that are prescribed by the feds (read that as the left). So, to those school boards, that money is more important than the health or safety of your children. If that money was removed tomorrow, you would never hear another word about masks.

Test Kits

Ever wonder why we still do not have adequate numbers of at-home test kits, two years into this pandemic? Someone thought this would be wise, from the start. Biden canceled the order, and program, if he was ever aware of what it was. Now he wants to buy millions of such kits. So, who got paid, and who got left out?

Jen Psaki was asked about that, and several other simple issues, and she out and out refused to answer. She routinely mumbles something totally unrelated, like "I like peanut butter, can you swim?", she then tries to pretend that she actually answered the question. How does she sleep at night?

Dr. Mary Bowden

She was dismissed, suspended then quit, from her job at Houston Methodist Hospital, for spreading 'misinformation' about the vaccines and alternative treatments. So, she is suing the hospital. She is demanding the data on actual results of the vaccines - especially reports of adverse reactions, and complications resulting from them. As well as actual death rates. Implicit in this is confirmation of 'the science' that says these are safe and effective. And, also actual reports on alternative treatments, and results as to whether or not they work, and are safe and effective. She is also demanding the financial records of the hospital. She wants to know the financial ties between the hospital and governments - like how much they get paid to treat pandemic related illness, and also those ties with the pharma companies. Under both state and federal law, the hospital must provide these records. But, so far, they have been very, very reluctant to do so. You can see them digging in their heels, and hoping to stall this one. If this data becomes public, the entire pandemic scam could fall apart, fast, Many rich and powerful people have a lot to lose, all because of one brave woman.

Courage is Contagious. This one brave woman could inspire and provide a spinal stiffener to many others.

England

Boris Johnson has been under massive pressure over his mandates, etc. The people have had enough. So, he just announced that the mandates are over. No mandated masks. No Vaccine Passports. None of the other restrictions they have peddled. After all, as he finally admitted, 'the science' shows that this pandemic is on the wane, and can be treated like any other seasonal ailment.

Coming soon to the US.

Justice John Roberts

He has been under attack by supporters of Justice Sotomayor, who refused to work in person next to an unmasked Neil Gorsuch. So, she has been 'teleworking'. Justice Roberts just denied that he ordered anyone not to mask up. It is a personal choice, not a mandate. This would not have seemed odd, even a few months ago. But, in our modern pagan world, where so many are heavily tattooed and pierced, and live by chants, rather than reason, it is normal. It is as if the old Mad Max movies have come to life.

Rich

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hunterspeed952 · 4 years ago

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Xilinx is the inventor of the FPGA, programmable SoCs, and now, the ACAP. Xilinx delivers the most dynamic processing technology in the industry. UFED Ultimate gives you access to the widest range of mobile devices, applications, and public-domain social media platforms to produce meaningful insights quickly. Break any barrier Breakthrough complicated locks and encryption barriers to extract deleted and unknown content. The device driver of the SoftGSM NG USB Modem is a modem driver file which allows the host computer system to detect the presence of a communication hardware attached to the machine. Communication hardware components unlike other types of devices has the functionality of hosting data, voice, and audio stream transfer depending on the prevailing.

Important

This topic is for programmers. If you are a customer experiencing USB problems, see Troubleshoot common USB problems

This topic lists the Microsoft-provided drivers for the supported USB device classes.

Microsoft-provided drivers for USB-IF approved device classes.

For composite devices, use USB Generic Parent Driver (Usbccgp.sys) that creates physical device objects (PDOs) for each function.

For non-composite devices or a function of a composite device, use WinUSB (Winusb.sys).

If you are installing USB drivers: You do not need to download USB device class drivers. They are installed automatically. These drivers and their installation files are included in Windows. They are available in the WindowsSystem32DriverStoreFileRepository folder. The drivers are updated through Windows Update.

If you are writing a custom driver: Before writing a driver for your USB device, determine whether a Microsoft-provided driver meets the device requirements. If a Microsoft-provided driver is not available for the USB device class to which your device belongs, then consider using generic drivers, Winusb.sys or Usbccgp.sys. Write a driver only when necessary. More guidelines are included in Choosing a driver model for developing a USB client driver.

USB Device classes

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USB Device classes are categories of devices with similar characteristics and that perform common functions. Those classes and their specifications are defined by the USB-IF. Each device class is identified by USB-IF approved class, subclass, and protocol codes, all of which are provided by the IHV in device descriptors in the firmware. Microsoft provides in-box drivers for several of those device classes, called USB device class drivers. If a device that belongs to a supported device class is connected to a system, Windows automatically loads the class driver, and the device functions with no additional driver required.

Hardware vendors should not write drivers for the supported device classes. Windows class drivers might not support all of the features that are described in a class specification. If some of the device's capabilities are not implemented by the class driver, vendors should provide supplementary drivers that work in conjunction with the class driver to support the entire range of functionality provided by the device.

For general information about USB-IF approved device classes see the USB Common Class Specification

The current list of USB class specifications and class codes is documented in the USB-IF Defined Class Code List.

Device setup classes

Windows categorizes devices by device setup classes, which indicate the functionality of the device.

Microsoft defines setup classes for most devices. IHVs and OEMs can define new device setup classes, but only if none of the existing classes apply. For more information, see System-Defined Device Setup Classes.

Two important device setup classes for USB devices are as follows:

USBDevice (88BAE032-5A81-49f0-BC3D-A4FF138216D6): IHVs must use this class for custom devices that do not belong to another class. This class is not used for USB host controllers and hubs.

USB (36fc9e60-c465-11cf-8056-444553540000): IHVs must not use this class for their custom devices. This is reserved for USB host controllers and USB hubs.

The device setup classes are different from USB device classes discussed earlier. For example, an audio device has a USB device class code of 01h in its descriptor. When connected to a system, Windows loads the Microsoft-provided class driver, Usbaudio.sys. In Device Manager, the device is shown under is Sound, video and game controllers, which indicates that the device setup class is Media.

Microsoft-provided USB device class drivers

USB-IF class codeDevice setup classMicrosoft-provided driver and INFWindows supportDescriptionAudio (01h)Media (4d36e96c-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318)Usbaudio.sys

Wdma_usb.inf

Windows 10 for desktop editions (Home, Pro, Enterprise, and Education) Windows 10 Mobile Windows 8.1 Windows 8 Windows 7 Windows Server 2008 Windows VistaMicrosoft provides support for the USB audio device class by means of the Usbaudio.sys driver. For more information, see 'USBAudio Class System Driver' in Kernel-Mode WDM Audio Components. For more information about Windows audio support, see the Audio Device Technologies for Windows website.Communications and CDC Control (02h)Ports (4D36E978-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318)Usbser.sys Usbser.infWindows 10 for desktop editions Windows 10 MobileIn Windows 10, a new INF, Usbser.inf, has been added that loads Usbser.sys automatically as the function driver.

For more information, see USB serial driver (Usbser.sys)

Modem (4D36E96D-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318)

Note Supports Subclass 02h (ACM)

Usbser.sys Custom INF that references mdmcpq.infWindows 10 for desktop editions Windows 8.1 Windows 8 Windows 7 Windows Server 2008 Windows VistaIn Windows 8.1 and earlier versions, Usbser.sys is not automatically loaded. To load the driver, you need to write an INF that references the modem INF (mdmcpq.inf) and includes (Install) and (Needs) sections.

Starting with Windows Vista, you can enable CDC and Wireless Mobile CDC (WMCDC) support by setting a registry value, as described in Support for the Wireless Mobile Communication Device Class.

When CDC support is enabled, the USB Common Class Generic Parent Driver enumerates interface collections that correspond to CDC and WMCDC Control Models, and assigns physical device objects (PDO) to these collections.

Net (4d36e972-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318) Note Supports Subclass 0Eh (MBIM)wmbclass.sys Netwmbclass.infWindows 10 for desktop editions Windows 8.1 Windows 8Starting in Windows 8, Microsoft provides the wmbclass.sys driver, for mobile broadband devices. See, MB Interface Model.HID (Human Interface Device) (03h)HIDClass (745a17a0-74d3-11d0-b6fe-00a0c90f57da)Hidclass.sys Hidusb.sys Input.infWindows 10 for desktop editions Windows 10 Mobile Windows 8.1 Windows 8 Windows 7 Windows Server 2008 Windows VistaMicrosoft provides the HID class driver (Hidclass.sys) and the miniclass driver (Hidusb.sys) to operate devices that comply with the USB HID Standard. For more information, see HID Architecture and Minidrivers and the HID class driver. For further information about Windows support for input hardware, see the Input and HID - Architecture and Driver Support website.Physical (05h)---Recommended driver: WinUSB (Winusb.sys)Image (06h)Image (6bdd1fc6-810f-11d0-bec7-08002be2092f)Usbscan.sys Sti.infWindows 10 for desktop editions Windows 8.1 Windows 8 Windows 7 Windows Server 2008 Windows VistaMicrosoft provides the Usbscan.sys driver that manages USB digital cameras and scanners for Windows XP and later operating systems. This driver implements the USB component of the Windows Imaging Architecture (WIA). For more information about WIA, see Windows Image Acquisition Drivers and the Windows Imaging Component website. For a description of the role that Usbscan.sys plays in the WIA, see WIA Core Components.Printer (07h)USB

Note Usbprint.sys enumerates printer devices under the device set up class: Printer

(4d36e979-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318).

Usbprint.sys Usbprint.infWindows 10 for desktop editions Windows 8.1 Windows 8 Windows 7 Windows Server 2008 Windows VistaMicrosoft provides the Usbprint.sys class driver that manages USB printers. For information about implementation of the printer class in Windows, see the Printing - Architecture and Driver Support website.Mass Storage (08h)USBUsbstor.sysWindows 10 for desktop editions Windows 10 Mobile Windows 8.1 Windows 8 Windows 7 Windows Server 2008 Windows VistaMicrosoft provides the Usbstor.sys port driver to manage USB mass storage devices with Microsoft's native storage class drivers. For an example device stack that is managed by this driver, see Device Object Example for a USB Mass Storage Device. For information about Windows storage support, see the Storage Technologies website.SCSIAdapter

(4d36e97b-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318)

SubClass (06) and Protocol (62) Uaspstor.sys Uaspstor.infWindows 10 for desktop editions Windows 10 Mobile Windows 8.1 Windows 8Uaspstor.sys is the class driver for SuperSpeed USB devices that support bulk stream endpoints. For more information see: Hub (09h)USB

(36fc9e60-c465-11cf-8056-444553540000)

Usbhub.sys Usb.infWindows 10 for desktop editions Windows 10 Mobile Windows 8.1 Windows 8 Windows 7 Windows Server 2008 Windows VistaMicrosoft provides the Usbhub.sys driver for managing USB hubs. For more information about the relationship between the hub class driver and the USB stack, see USB host-side drivers in Windows. Usbhub3.sys Usbhub3.infWindows 10 for desktop editions Windows 8.1 Windows 8Microsoft provides the Usbhub3.sys driver for managing SuperSpeed (USB 3.0) USB hubs.

The driver is loaded when a SuperSpeed hub is attached to an xHCI controller. See USB host-side drivers in Windows.

CDC-Data (0Ah)---Recommended driver: WinUSB (Winusb.sys)Smart Card (0Bh)SmartCardReader

(50dd5230-ba8a-11d1-bf5d-0000f805f530)

Usbccid.sys (Obsolete)Windows 10 for desktop editions Windows 7 Windows Server 2008 Windows VistaMicrosoft provides the Usbccid.sys mini-class driver to manage USB smart card readers. For more information about smart card drivers in Windows, see Smart Card Design Guide.

Note that for Windows Server 2003, Windows XP, and Windows 2000, special instructions are required for loading this driver because it might have been released later than the operating system.

Jan 02, 2019 Realtek Ethernet Lan Driver for Windows 10 10.031 This is the first official Ethernet Lan driver from Realtek for Windows 10. Supports Gigabit and Fast Ethernet products. Free driver lam download software at UpdateStar - A highly integrated cost-effective Wireless LAN USB 2.0 network interface controller that integrates a USB 2.0 PHY, SIE (Serial Interface Engine), 8051 MCU, a Wireless LAN MAC, and a Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum/OFDM baseband processor. https://hunterspeed952.tumblr.com/post/655888492014059521/drivers-lam.

Note Usbccid.sys driver has been replaced by UMDF driver, WUDFUsbccidDriver.dll. Mad catz drivers download.

WUDFUsbccidDriver.dll WUDFUsbccidDriver.infWindows 8.1 Windows 8WUDFUsbccidDriver.dll is a user-mode driver for USB CCID Smart Card Reader devices.Content Security (0Dh)---Recommended driver: USB Generic Parent Driver (Usbccgp.sys). Some content security functionality is implemented in Usbccgp.sys. See Content Security Features in Usbccgp.sys.Video (0Eh)Image (6bdd1fc6-810f-11d0-bec7-08002be2092f)Usbvideo.sys

Usbvideo.inf

Windows 10 for desktop editions

Windows Vista

Microsoft provides USB video class support by means of the Usbvideo.sys driver. For more information, see 'USB Video Class Driver' under AVStream Minidrivers.

Note that for Windows XP, special instructions are required for loading this driver because it might have been released later than the operating system.

Personal Healthcare (0Fh)---Recommended driver: WinUSB (Winusb.sys)Audio/Video Devices (10h)----Diagnostic Device (DCh)---Recommended driver: WinUSB (Winusb.sys)Wireless Controller (E0h)

Note Supports Subclass 01h and Protocol 01h

Bluetooth

(e0cbf06c-cd8b-4647-bb8a-263b43f0f974)

Bthusb.sys

Bth.inf

Windows 10 for desktop editions Windows 10 Mobile Windows 8.1 Windows 8 Windows 7 Windows VistaMicrosoft provides the Bthusb.sys miniport driver to manage USB Bluetooth radios. For more information, see Bluetooth Design Guide.Miscellaneous (EFh)Net

(4d36e972-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318)

Note Supports SubClass 04h and Protocol 01h

Rndismp.sys Rndismp.infWindows 10 for desktop editions Windows 8.1 Windows 8 Windows 7 Windows VistaPrior to Windows Vista, support for CDC is limited to the RNDIS-specific implementation of the Abstract Control Model (ACM) with a vendor-unique protocol (bInterfaceProtocol) value of 0xFF. The RNDIS facility centers the management of all 802-style network cards in a single class driver, Rndismp.sys. For a detailed discussion of remote NDIS, see Overview of Remote NDIS. The mapping of remote NDIS to USB is implemented in the Usb8023.sys driver. For further information about networking support in Windows, see the Networking and Wireless Technologies website.Application Specific (FEh)---Recommended driver: WinUSB (Winusb.sys)Vendor Specific (FFh)--Windows 10 for desktop editions Windows 10 MobileRecommended driver: WinUSB (Winusb.sys)

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ASIO4ALL is a free and alternative audio driver which allows its users to get very low latency from their sound adapter.

While most sound cards on the market allow you to playback audio without issue, ASIO4ALL provides a free alternative if you're having issues running software which increases latency on sound output. Download rockgroupplc driver.

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It's a generic WDM driver that can be used in various situations, especially when you're using an older audio device or running an older version of Windows which doesn't include support for your audio driver.

ASIO4ALL is ideal for MIDI devices and provides installation without problems and requires no special knowledge or settings. Installation is pretty quick and straightforward. When you start ASIO4ALL, it will appear in the system tray where it can be accessed to manage the driver. Different options include latency in/out compensation, buffer offset and resample audio between 44.1kHz and 48kHz.

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solivar · 6 years ago

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WIP: Ghost Stories On Route 66

In which things are about to get very real, indeed.

Hanzo eyed the hazmat suits with a certain species of alarm welling up in the back of his mind. “We’re not going to need those, are we?”

“Do you think we’re going to need that?” Hanzo asked softly, gesturing at the gun, as Terrifying Smoke Gabe opened the inner door of the vestibule airlock.

“No. I do not wish to stop. I must know -- it is the only way forward from here.” Hanzo took a steadying breath, Jack’s hand a warm comfort on his shoulder. “Lead the way.”

#WIP Ghost Stories On Route 66

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swarajya7793 · 4 years ago

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Impact of COVID-19 on mHealth in the Healthcare Industry

COVID-19 Impact on mHealth in the Healthcare Industry

The COVID-19 pandemic has made an unprecedented effect on daily lives as well as the global economy. The impact on the healthcare sector has been seismic too and a significant burden is created on already strained healthcare systems across the world. As the overworked healthcare providers are grappling with constant rise in number of cases, patients are looking towards digital technologies for aid.

COVID-19 outbreak has also made healthcare professionals to look for alternative methods to traditional systems and processes. This is leading an expedited adoption of mHealth across the industry both from providers and consumers.

During the pandemic, several healthcare systems have bifurcated healthcare requirements into essential and non-essential based on urgency and overall requirement for care. As the non-essential requirements are given less priority during the pandemic, patients are resorting to mHealth solutions. This is augmenting the adoption of mHealth apps across a variety of therapeutic areas.

As the pandemic subsides, the healthcare industry is expected to witness drastic structural and procedural changes as a large number of people become sceptic of visiting closed spaces with high risks of infection. Hence, it can be concluded that the COVID-19 outbreak is expected to play a significant role in the digital transformation of healthcare industry.

The availability of healthcare apps is growing which are commonly referred to as mHealth (mobile health) apps. These apps are easy to download on smartphones, can be linked with wearable technology and assist the users in disease prevention and overall health management. The COVID-19 outbreak has increased the reliability of patients on mHealth apps in order to take an active and informed role in their own healthcare.

The easy availability of smart phones and the need for alternative ways to take care of health presents a notable opportunity for mHealth apps providers to expand features and usage. Companies are focusing towards connectivity improvements and interoperability of mHealth apps in terms of data storage and data transfer to healthcare providers. This level of data collection is also useful for tracking overall population health. Before the availability of this kind of data, health authorities were dependent on tedious population studies that had several limitations. MHealth has the capability to provide real time population health information through mass data collection. As a result, healthcare authorities across the world are taking initiatives for MHealth. The below chart shows the percentage of countries taking mHealth initiatives across various WHO regions:

COUNTRIES UNDERTAKING MHEALTH INITIATIVES ACROSS WHO REGIONS

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the value of digital approaches more than ever before that are designed to help health professionals and the public to maintain communication about a disease and stay updated with fresh information that will enable better strategic planning.

The market is flooded with mHealth apps and consumers have a lot to choose from. However, there is significant variation in their capabilities. Till now, the functionalities of these apps are narrow primarily due to mild demand and are restricted to providing information only. As the demand and the number of apps are increasing in the market, multi-functionality is becoming common. In order to enhance, consumers experience in managing their health, multi-functionalities for online appointment scheduling, medication reminders, online consultation and sending diagnostic test results to healthcare providers for analysis, review and action. These apps are superior in assisting consumers in managing and monitoring their health as compared to the information and education apps.

Currently, there are no authorities to check on the efficacy and accuracy of these apps leading to difficulties for healthcare providers to access the validity of data received through these apps. The problem is worsened with the mushrooming of mHealth apps leading to consumers self-determining the best app for their use by trying an overwhelming number of options without consent or consulting from health professionals. However, privately funded third party organizations are putting efforts to establish rating and evaluation systems that will indicate the appropriateness of these apps. Few of these organizations are Happtique, HealthTap, PatientView, Wellocracy and AppScript. These ratings are primarily based on user ratings, clinical ratings, and proprietary scoring methods. As a result, few products have low functionality scores but high rating due to scoring factors such as high clinical or patient ratings.

As the position of mHealth apps become more important in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, national health authorities are expected to launch rating and licensing platforms for higher efficiency and reduce crowding in the market.

For instance,

· The United Kingdom National Health Service (NHS) has expanded their publicly funded prescribing platform to include clinically safe consumer apps.

The sudden outbreak of COVID-19 has highlighted the importance of population health monitoring systems and burden on healthcare systems. mHealth has the potential to meet these requirements. Few areas in current healthcare landscape where mHealth can be useful are listed below:

Reducing physical contact: Medical distancing has played an important role in reducing the infection rate of the novel virus. Key healthcare authorities such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have advocated for minimal physical contact between the healthcare providers and patients. Since providers work near infected patients, they might likely contact the virus or act as a carrier which can be further spread to a healthy patient. With the help of mHealth apps, patients can share required data with physicians without actually visiting the healthcare providers. This will not only help in reducing COVID-19 infection but several other types of infections that a patient might contact in a healthcare establishment.

mHealth services are playing an important role in reducing healthcare-specific COVID-19 transmission. Due to sudden burden on healthcare facilities, treatments are given priorities on the basis of urgency. Moreover, patient not infected with COVID-19 virus do not want to visit these facilities. In this case, to treat mHealth is proving to be of immense use in several therapeutic areas including cardiology, dermatology, diabetic care and others by enabling high-quality remote care and reducing contact.

Population Health Management: The uncontrollable surge of COVID-19 infections has highlighted the need of crowdsourced health monitoring by tracking the infected. Existing surveillance systems have drawbacks associated with flexibility and amount of reliable information. mHealth offers the ability to collect real time information from a significant share of the population making the information more reliable and easy to use as compared to existing systems. mHealth can also be used by healthcare agencies to track the hotspots and carriers by analyzing travel routes which in turn provides information regarding the probability of catching an infection. Hence, health agencies can better manage health population by crowdsourcing disease monitoring using mHealth.

Health Information Exchange Improvement: The lack of appropriate health information exchanges has shown that interoperability of patient data is very important. The importance of other data types apart from core patient data including an individual’s offline and online activity has helped immensely in tracking of the spread of COVID-19 pandemic. In the aftermath of the virus, HIEs are expected to become open and un-localized. The infection has showed that in similar times, there is a crucial need for information to stop the spread of infection and save lives. The need for easy, seamless communications in healthcare is also important.

Health Gadgets: The COVID-19 infection increased the wellbeing awareness and anxiety across the world. It has instilled a sense of fear of infection that has led to increased adoption of smartphone applications and wearables. mHealth apps and complementary wearables play a crucial role in gaining information and getting a sense of protected. They provide accurate feedback on bodily functions including blood pressure and body temperature which helps in tracking health.

Several companies are using mHealth technology to track, test, and treat COVID-19.

For instance,

· Google and Apple have announced that the companies are planning to launch APIs to provide interoperability between iOS and Android products. The companies are also aiming at enabling deeper data integration with the mHealth apps for public health initiatives of the government. To achieve the same, they are developing Bluetooth-based contact training features.

· Walgreens announced expansion of its telehealth program including COVID-19 risk assessment. The platform meets the demands for social distancing and includes a website and mobile health application powered by Microsoft Healthcare Bot on Microsoft Azure. The platform helps patients to connect with nurses and doctors as per requirement.

· SCP Health and SOC Telemed declared their partnership to provide scalable emergency service and hospital medicine through telemedicine that will enhance the critical capability of healthcare facilities.

· Jefferson Health system and LifeLink have announced partnership to launch Jefferson’s chatbot across LifeLink’s 14 Philadelphia locations. The AI-based chabot will aid users in pre-screening of coronavirus outbreak and the right approach of their treatment in case they are infected with the virus.

CONCLUSION

The post-COVID-19 healthcare is expected to see transformation of processes with high inclusion of mHealth.

For instance,

· Primary care and management of several non-communicable diseases are expected to be shifted to digital mode. Several countries including England, have begun to embrace telehealth for delivery of primary care and are undertaking a digital first approach for overall healthcare provision.

The sudden outbreak did not leave much scope for prompt action on impact. However, the post-COVID-19 world will witness increased adoption of mHealth as the new normal. Applications of emerging technologies such as 5G, AI, IoT, and others will be expanded. National governing bodies will emerge to manage mHealth approaches. Focus on precision health will also increase in both personalized and predictive health. The utilization of digital technology will increase for empowering patients to self-manage themselves, especially in case of non-communicable diseases.

#mHealth Market Analysis #mHealth Market #mHealth Market Forcast #mHealth Market Future Innovation

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stephenmccull · 4 years ago

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CVS and Walgreens Have Wasted More Vaccine Doses Than Most States Combined

Two national pharmacy chains that the federal government entrusted to inoculate people against covid-19 account for the lion’s share of wasted vaccine doses, according to government data obtained by KHN.

This story also ran on NBC News. It can be republished for free.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recorded 182,874 wasted doses as of late March, three months into the country’s effort to vaccinate the masses against the coronavirus. Of those, CVS was responsible for nearly half, and Walgreens for 21%, or nearly 128,500 wasted shots combined.

CDC data suggests that the companies have wasted more doses than states, U.S. territories and federal agencies combined. Pfizer’s vaccine, which in December was the first to be deployed and initially required storage at ultracold temperatures, represented nearly 60% of tossed doses.

It’s not completely clear from the CDC data why the two chains wasted so much more vaccine than states and federal agencies. Some critics have pointed to poor planning early in the rollout, when the Trump administration leaned heavily on CVS and Walgreens to vaccinate residents and staff members of long-term care facilities. In response to questions, CVS said “nearly all” of its reported vaccine waste occurred during that effort. Walgreens did not specify how many wasted doses were from the long-term care program.

One thing is clear: Months into the nation’s vaccination drive, the CDC has a limited view of how much vaccine is going to waste, where it’s wasted and who is wasting it, potentially complicating efforts to direct doses to where they are needed most. Public health experts say having a good handle on waste is crucial for detecting problems that could derail progress and risk lives.

The Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, which come in multidose vials, are fragile and have limited shelf lives. Overall, waste has been minuscule: As of March 30, the U.S. had delivered roughly 189.5 million vaccine doses and administered 147.6 million, including 7.7 million in long-term care facilities, according to the CDC.

Among other things, tracking wasted doses helps to identify bottlenecks where distribution adjustments might be needed, said Dr. Bruce Y. Lee, a professor of health policy and management at the City University of New York. Because the federal government is footing the bill for the country’s doses, any waste amounts to “basically throwing [taxpayer] money down the chute,” he said. CVS, Walgreens and other retailers don’t pay for the vaccine. The government provides it. And under the Medicare program, it pays providers roughly $40 for each dose administered.

Particularly early on, officials didn’t adequately assess where there would be demand and set up sites in response, Lee said — something that’s especially important when trying to jab as many people as possible as quickly as possible.

“If you think of any business, they’re going to determine where the customers are first,” he said. “It’s not just a matter of loading up vaccine and going to a place.”

KHN’s survey of vaccine waste is based on public records requests to the CDC and all 50 states, five major cities, Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C. Combined, the records document more than 200,000 wasted doses. However, the data has clear shortcomings. Data from 15 states, the District of Columbia and multiple U.S. territories are not included in the CDC’s records. And, in general, waste reporting has been inconsistent.

In addition to the CDC, 33 states and D.C. provided at least some data to KHN in response to those records requests. They reported at least 18,675 additional doses that have been wasted across 10 jurisdictions not represented in the CDC figures. They include 9,229 doses wasted in Texas as of March 26 and 2,384 in New Hampshire as of March 10.

An additional eight states told KHN of more wasted doses than they reported to the CDC.

But no city or state comes close to the waste reported by CVS and Walgreens, whose long-term care vaccination drive was criticized by some officials as slow and ineffective. Among nursing home staffers, a median of 37.5% reported they got a shot in the first month, according to a February CDC study.

“To me, this ultimately correlates with just poor planning,” said Dr. Michael Wasserman, immediate past president of the California Association of Long Term Care Medicine and a critic of the corporate effort.

Wasserman said the companies’ approach was too restrictive and their unfamiliarity with long-term facilities’ needs harmed the effort.

“CVS and Walgreens didn’t have a clue when it came to interacting with nursing homes,” he said. “Missed opportunities for vaccination in long-term care invariably results in deaths.”

A CVS spokesperson, Michael DeAngelis, in an email blamed wasted doses on “issues with transportation restrictions, limitations on redirecting unused doses, and other factors.”

“Despite the inherent challenges, our teams were able to limit waste to approximately one dose per onsite vaccination clinic,” he added.

Walgreens said its wastage amounted to less than 0.5% of vaccines the company administered through March 29, which totaled 3 million shots in long-term care facilities and 5.2 million more through the federal government’s retail pharmacy partnership.

“Our goal has always been ensuring every dose of vaccine is used,” company spokesperson Kris Lathan said in an email. Before scheduled clinics, she said, Walgreens would base doses it would need on registrations, “which minimized excess and reduced overestimations.”

CDC spokesperson Kate Fowlie said that because the retail pharmacy giants were tasked with administering a large number of doses, “a higher percentage of the overall wastage would not be unexpected, particularly in an early vaccination effort that spanned thousands of locations.” Since President Joe Biden took office in January, his administration has directed pharmacies to prioritize vaccinations for teachers and school personnel.

Overall, pharmacies accounted for almost 75% of wasted doses reported to the CDC. States and some large cities accounted for 23.3% of vaccine waste reported, and federal agencies, including the Bureau of Prisons and the Indian Health Service, for just 1.54%. The Virgin Islands — the only U.S. territory in the federal data — was 0.19%.

“Though every effort is made to reduce the volume of wastage in a vaccination program, sometimes it’s necessary to identify doses as ‘waste’ to ensure anyone wanting a vaccine can receive it, as well as to ensure patient safety and vaccine effectiveness,” Fowlie said. Even still, the CDC has provided guidance and worked with health departments to train staff members to reduce wastage, and clinic staffers should do “everything possible” to avoid wasting shots, she added.

Vaccine waste could increase in the coming weeks as officials shift tactics to inoculate harder-to-reach populations, public health experts say.

“I think we are getting to a place where, to continue to be successful with vaccination, we’re going to have to tolerate some waste,” said Dr. Marcus Plescia, chief medical officer of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. People unwilling to travel to a mass-vaccination site might go to a primary care physician or smaller rural pharmacy that might not be able to use every dose in an open vial, he said.

Claire Hannan, executive director of the Association of Immunization Managers, said concerns about waste should not trump getting shots into arms.

“If someone’s there, you need to vaccinate them,” she said. “In our efforts not to waste a dose, we may be missing opportunities to vaccinate because we don’t have 15 people lined up or 10 people lined up.”

CDC Numbers Don’t Match State Data

The federal government collects information about vaccine waste through federal systems called VTrckS, which manages ordering and shipments, and Tiberius, a platform run by the Department of Health and Human Services that monitors distribution. VTrckS can exchange data with state and local immunization registries that track who has received a shot, but some states rely on manual data entry, Hannan said.

The 15 states not included in the CDC’s data are Alaska, California, Colorado, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon and Texas. The District of Columbia is also missing.

Of those jurisdictions, 11 provided data to KHN: Alaska, Colorado, Kansas, Maryland, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oregon, Texas and D.C.

Most of those reported minimal waste to KHN: Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska and D.C. together registered just 1,090 wasted doses.

In others, the numbers are more significant. On March 19, the Maryland Department of Health said it knew of 3,175 wasted doses.

Texas had the most wasted doses of any state in either the CDC’s data or the data states provided to KHN. Its records showed 9,229 wasted doses as of March 26, putting it third in overall waste behind CVS and Walgreens.

Fowlie, the CDC spokesperson, said the agency is “working closely” with states that have technical issues to ensure accurate reporting.

Broken Freezers, Bent Needles, No-Shows

The reasons states gave for waste varied, from broken vials and syringes, to provider storage errors, to leftover doses from open vials that couldn’t be used.

The largest waste incidents, in which hundreds of doses were lost at a time, tended to be due to freezer malfunctions or workers leaving doses at room temperature too long.

But state records also register the little things that can go wrong.

On Dec. 16, the public health department in Gunnison County, Colorado, lost a single dose of the Pfizer vaccine when someone bumped into a table and a vial spilled. On Jan. 5, the Tri-County Health Department in Westminster, Colorado, reported that it wasted a Moderna dose because a hypodermic needle bent.

Remi Graber is a registered nurse who has vaccinated people at mass sites and community health clinics in Rhode Island. They said it’s not uncommon for a vial to have one too many or one too few doses, which can lead to a dose being counted as wasted. There are also sometimes syringe problems that result in waste.

But Graber said the biggest problem is people not showing up. Once a vial is punctured, Pfizer’s vaccine must be used within six hours. On April 1, Moderna announced that an opened vaccine vial was good for 12 hours — double what it had been previously.

“What could happen is you get people who just decide, ‘You know what? I don’t need my vaccine today. I’m not going to show up,’” they said. “Well, now we’re scrambling to find somebody to take the vaccine, because we don’t want to waste it.”

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

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This story can be republished for free (details).

CVS and Walgreens Have Wasted More Vaccine Doses Than Most States Combined published first on https://smartdrinkingweb.weebly.com/

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orbemnews · 4 years ago

Link

Advocates for the elderly call on Biden administration to do more to vaccinate seniors against Covid-19 As of Tuesday, more than 43% of Americans 65 and older are fully vaccinated against Covid-19, according to the CDC. But that leaves more than half, 57%, unprotected. Advocates are worried about current and future residents in these programs. There are also pockets of the elderly population who were missed by vaccination programs; there are just as many homebound adults as nursing home residents, but the federal government’s nursing home vaccination campaign did not reach them. “We are really in need of a follow up pathway to provide nursing homes with continued access to vaccines, because not only did the residents change over through either discharges or new residents coming in, the staff does too,” said Christopher Laxton, executive director for the Society for Post-Acute and Long Term Care Medicine. His organization was not among those that wrote this particular letter, but it has been working with several of these groups and others to develop options for when the federal vaccination program ends. “There isn’t a really clear path forward to give these folks access to the vaccine, so we’re concerned about that,” Laxton said. Vaccinating the elderly a complicated problem A disproportionate number of elderly people have gotten sick and died in the pandemic. Nursing home residents, for instance, make up less than 1% of the population, yet they account for more than a third of Covid-19 deaths. That’s the loss of about 175,000 people. Vaccinating this fragile population has been complicated. Many of the elderly are not physically able to make it to a mass vaccination sites, and while long-term care facilities often do vaccination clinics for flu, the Pfizer and Moderna Covid-19 vaccines have been much more complicated to administer. The vaccines needed special cold storage, something most facilities don’t have. With such limited supply, the Trump administration set up a program to address the elderly vaccination challenge and the CDC says it has paid off. Weekly Covid-19 cases and deaths are the lowest in nursing homes since CMS started tracking the numbers last May. “It’s one of the few times in public health where we actually get to see the fruits of our labor,” said Dr. Ruth Link-Gelles, team lead for the Pharmacy Partnership Program for Long-Term Care, CDC’s Vaccine Task Force. Since December, the program has delivered 7.6 million doses. That includes both first and second doses. In total, Link-Gelles said, the CDC has done more than 168,000 clinics in about 63,000 facilities. Vaccination ‘hurdles’ to overcome There is still work to do. About 80% of residents opted to get the vaccine but there was some serious hesitancy among the staff. Only about half of staff got vaccinated. “It’s definitely a really concerning aspect of vaccination,” said Link-Gelles. The program also did not reach the elderly in non-long term care settings like seniors who live on their own or with family. “There were some real top logistical hurdles to get over to vaccinate homebound individuals,” said Link-Gelles. One big reason — once a vial of either a Pfizer and Moderna vaccine was thawed and punctured, it could not be transported. A 10-dose vial would be wasted if it was used on just one homebound resident. The introduction of the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which doesn’t need special storage, should make reaching this population easier, Link-Gelles said, and state and local efforts are underway to reach these populations. Supply of the J&J vaccine still remains a challenge, although J&J said at a congressional hearing in February that supply will grow significantly in the next few months. At the same hearing, Pfizer said it planned to have an additional 80 million doses by the end of May. Moderna testified it would double its shipments by April. Supply increase will change how the elderly get vaccinated Because of the expected supply increase, Link-Gelles said the US government will move away from the current system that has reserved vaccines for the elderly. Instead, there will be a few different routes for facilities to access vaccines. The federal government will send vaccines directly to long-term care pharmacies that are dedicated to this population. Last week the federal government also started sending vaccines through its federal retail pharmacy program. This will be a weekly supply that can deliver to long term care facilities. Some new funding in the American Rescue Plan that Biden signed into law March 11 will also help the CDC provide technical assistance to states to set up mobile clinics to help access some of these hard-to-reach populations. Link-Gelles thinks that as vaccines become more readily available in the community, facilities will protect current residents and staff by requiring incoming residents, and possibly even new staff, to get vaccinated before coming into the facility. A Covid-19 vaccine could become a routine part of the hospital discharge process before a resident is admitted into long-term care. “There will be a lot of different options,” Link-Gelles said. Concern going forward Still some elderly advocates want the government to do more. In the letter to the Biden administration, the groups argued that vaccination clinics are badly needed at residential communities, adult day health and Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly, also known as PACE programs. Many of these providers don’t have a relationship with a long-term care pharmacy. “You can imagine there’s a lot of a lot of concern, a lot of anxiety,” said Ruth Katz, the senior vice president of policy for LeadingAge, an association of nonprofit providers of aging services. “I’ve been in long term care work for a long time. With a lot of issues, it sort of feels like we are the Cinderella of the health care system waiting to get to the ball. Long-term care is often the afterthought.” Before there is a steady supply of vaccines, the coalition also wants the Biden administration to designate people who work with the elderly as a priority group for vaccines, just as the administration did with teachers. AARP has also written to the Biden administration and Congress to make sure that there is transparency about who, exactly, is vaccinated. “We need better data about vaccinations in these facilities,” said Rhonda Richards, who is senior legislative representative in government affairs at AARP. “That way information is available publicly for residents and families who may be looking at a facility. Transparency is really important.” Richards hopes the country will do even more to protect the elderly, not just with vaccines. The “harrowing and horrible” numbers of elderly lost during this pandemic pointed to big flaws in a system that is supposed to keep the elderly safe, she said. “This is an outrage and national disgrace and there should be action at both the federal and state levels to address the issues that were identified during the pandemic at these facilities,” Richards said. Staffing shortages and infection control problems were a concern even before the pandemic, but Richards said she hopes the system can do better. “We need to keep the pressure on and make sure there is accountability and real action so we never lose this number of people in these facilities again,” Richards said. “This shouldn’t happen.” Source link Orbem News #administration #advocates #AdvocatesfortheelderlycallontheBidenadministrationtodomuchmoretovaccinateseniorsandfightCovid-19-CNN #Biden #call #Covid19 #elderly #Health #seniors #Vaccinate

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dipulb3 · 4 years ago

Text

Advocates for the elderly call on Biden administration to do more to vaccinate seniors against Covid-19

New Post has been published on https://appradab.com/advocates-for-the-elderly-call-on-biden-administration-to-do-more-to-vaccinate-seniors-against-covid-19/

Advocates for the elderly call on Biden administration to do more to vaccinate seniors against Covid-19

As of Tuesday, more than 43% of Americans 65 and older are fully vaccinated against Covid-19, according to the CDC. But that leaves more than half, 57%, unprotected. Advocates are worried about current and future residents in these programs.

There are also pockets of the elderly population who were missed by vaccination programs; there are just as many homebound adults as nursing home residents, but the federal government’s nursing home vaccination campaign did not reach them.

“We are really in need of a follow up pathway to provide nursing homes with continued access to vaccines, because not only did the residents change over through either discharges or new residents coming in, the staff does too,” said Christopher Laxton, executive director for the Society for Post-Acute and Long Term Care Medicine. His organization was not among those that wrote this particular letter, but it has been working with several of these groups and others to develop options for when the federal vaccination program ends.

“There isn’t a really clear path forward to give these folks access to the vaccine, so we’re concerned about that,” Laxton said.

Vaccinating the elderly a complicated problem

A disproportionate number of elderly people have gotten sick and died in the pandemic. Nursing home residents, for instance, make up less than 1% of the population, yet they account for more than a third of Covid-19 deaths. That’s the loss of about 175,000 people.

Vaccinating this fragile population has been complicated.

Many of the elderly are not physically able to make it to a mass vaccination sites, and while long-term care facilities often do vaccination clinics for flu, the Pfizer and Moderna Covid-19 vaccines have been much more complicated to administer. The vaccines needed special cold storage, something most facilities don’t have.

With such limited supply, the Trump administration set up a program to address the elderly vaccination challenge and the CDC says it has paid off.

Weekly Covid-19 cases and deaths are the lowest in nursing homes since CMS started tracking the numbers last May.

“It’s one of the few times in public health where we actually get to see the fruits of our labor,” said Dr. Ruth Link-Gelles, team lead for the Pharmacy Partnership Program for Long-Term Care, CDC’s Vaccine Task Force.

Since December, the program has delivered 7.6 million doses. That includes both first and second doses. In total, Link-Gelles said, the CDC has done more than 168,000 clinics in about 63,000 facilities.

Vaccination ‘hurdles’ to overcome

There is still work to do. About 80% of residents opted to get the vaccine but there was some serious hesitancy among the staff. Only about half of staff got vaccinated.

“It’s definitely a really concerning aspect of vaccination,” said Link-Gelles.

The program also did not reach the elderly in non-long term care settings like seniors who live on their own or with family.

“There were some real top logistical hurdles to get over to vaccinate homebound individuals,” said Link-Gelles.

One big reason — once a vial of either a Pfizer and Moderna vaccine was thawed and punctured, it could not be transported. A 10-dose vial would be wasted if it was used on just one homebound resident.

The introduction of the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which doesn’t need special storage, should make reaching this population easier, Link-Gelles said, and state and local efforts are underway to reach these populations.

Supply of the J&J vaccine still remains a challenge, although J&J said at a congressional hearing in February that supply will grow significantly in the next few months.

At the same hearing, Pfizer said it planned to have an additional 80 million doses by the end of May. Moderna testified it would double its shipments by April.

Supply increase will change how the elderly get vaccinated

Because of the expected supply increase, Link-Gelles said the US government will move away from the current system that has reserved vaccines for the elderly. Instead, there will be a few different routes for facilities to access vaccines.

The federal government will send vaccines directly to long-term care pharmacies that are dedicated to this population.

Last week the federal government also started sending vaccines through its federal retail pharmacy program. This will be a weekly supply that can deliver to long term care facilities.

Some new funding in the American Rescue Plan that Biden signed into law March 11 will also help the CDC provide technical assistance to states to set up mobile clinics to help access some of these hard-to-reach populations.

Link-Gelles thinks that as vaccines become more readily available in the community, facilities will protect current residents and staff by requiring incoming residents, and possibly even new staff, to get vaccinated before coming into the facility. A Covid-19 vaccine could become a routine part of the hospital discharge process before a resident is admitted into long-term care.

“There will be a lot of different options,” Link-Gelles said.

Concern going forward

Still some elderly advocates want the government to do more.

In the letter to the Biden administration, the groups argued that vaccination clinics are badly needed at residential communities, adult day health and Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly, also known as PACE programs. Many of these providers don’t have a relationship with a long-term care pharmacy.

“You can imagine there’s a lot of a lot of concern, a lot of anxiety,” said Ruth Katz, the senior vice president of policy for LeadingAge, an association of nonprofit providers of aging services. “I’ve been in long term care work for a long time. With a lot of issues, it sort of feels like we are the Cinderella of the health care system waiting to get to the ball. Long-term care is often the afterthought.”

Before there is a steady supply of vaccines, the coalition also wants the Biden administration to designate people who work with the elderly as a priority group for vaccines, just as the administration did with teachers.

AARP has also written to the Biden administration and Congress to make sure that there is transparency about who, exactly, is vaccinated.

“We need better data about vaccinations in these facilities,” said Rhonda Richards, who is senior legislative representative in government affairs at AARP. “That way information is available publicly for residents and families who may be looking at a facility. Transparency is really important.”

Richards hopes the country will do even more to protect the elderly, not just with vaccines. The “harrowing and horrible” numbers of elderly lost during this pandemic pointed to big flaws in a system that is supposed to keep the elderly safe, she said.

“This is an outrage and national disgrace and there should be action at both the federal and state levels to address the issues that were identified during the pandemic at these facilities,” Richards said.

Staffing shortages and infection control problems were a concern even before the pandemic, but Richards said she hopes the system can do better.

“We need to keep the pressure on and make sure there is accountability and real action so we never lose this number of people in these facilities again,” Richards said. “This shouldn’t happen.”

0 notes

solivar · 6 years ago

Text

WIP: Ghost Stories On Route 66

Okay, I lied. THIS is the last teaser, for Reasons.

Hanzo eyed the hazmat suits with a certain species of alarm welling up in the back of his mind. “We’re not going to need those, are we?”

“Do you think we’re going to need that?” Hanzo asked softly, gesturing at the gun, as Terrifying Smoke Gabe opened the inner door of the vestibule airlock.

“No. I do not wish to stop. I must know -- it is the only way forward from here.” Hanzo took a steadying breath, Jack’s hand a warm comfort on his shoulder. “Lead the way.”

The space they occupied was clearly not entirely natural -- the ceiling was too perfect a dome, the thick columns supporting it too perfectly spaced, the walls closest to the door visibly marked by the traces of tools. It was, Hanzo suspected, perfectly round, or close enough to it for the differences not to matter, an enormous circle whose far side was lost in shadow, with an inner ritual space sunken beneath the level of the floor, its sandstone walls perfectly smooth, unmarked, illuminated by a ring of candles surrounding a bowl, beaten silver and dark green stone. A cushion sat on each side of it, flat and rectangular, unpatterned.

A coil of living mist wound around his free hand, leaving behind the bone needle. “Three drops of your blood, no more, no less, is the price for what you ask.”

“Tamiko-dono?” Hanzo asked, softly.

Her head tilted, wary, listening, and the candlelight fell across her face, her high cheekbones and sharp jaw, her golden eyes and the golden markings beneath them.

“You,” Tamiko’s voice, when she spoke, was as rough as when she sang, husky and darker than he expected. “You have come. At last you have come. Give me your name.”

“Hanzo,” He replied, softly, “I am Shimada Hanzo, Lady Tamiko. And I...I have many questions.”

Her head moved, a quick jerk, as she scented the air -- eyes narrowing as they fixed on something beyond his shoulder. “And that? He is not of the Clan.”

“Lady Tamiko --” Hanzo began, gently, only to be cut off by her wordless snarl.

“How long, Shimada Hanzo?”

“Centuries.” Her eyes slid closed, her face a mask of despair. “And my Clan sends a half-fledged child to finish my task. Fools. Fools.”

“What.” It was not quite a question, the tone so similar to his mother’s when she was not-really-asking that he had to repress a slightly hysterical giggle. “What do you mean?”

The icy thing in his chest throbbed and shuddered as she spoke its name, his stomach churned and it was all he could do to swallow it back down. “The Serpent-Wolf.”

A ragged breath. “Too late. Until it was too late. I allowed my love for him, my dearest friend, to blind me to what he was becoming, how the anger ate away his heart, how the jealousy poisoned and twisted his soul. And he hid it well -- he married, and fathered children, he ascended to the rulership of the Clan when his father retired, and to all eyes he governed well and wisely. He sent me away from Hanamura often, to hunt the rumors of great evils abroad in the land, to slay monsters and put the dead to rest, to the find the purpose for which we had both been chosen -- and, I think, to hide what he was doing from my eyes, from the path that he had taken in the dark of his bitterness, of his belief that he had been denied what he truly deserved, the dragon-bond that should have been his birthright.” Her clawed thumb traced across his scarred palm. “He told me that he believed an evil from beyond our world had come and he was...not wrong. What he did not say is that he was harboring it -- that he had knelt before it as a supplicant and begged its wisdom, learned the terrible things it taught.” She swallowed, a convulsive movement. “He used them to twist the essence of his own bondmate, the wolf companion of his soul, into a ravening monster. He used them to slay Kazetatsu, to consume his flesh and blood and soul and enslave Natsuokaze, his dragon, the only daughter of Lord Minamikaze. He used them to flee from me when I confronted him, to open a door to this place, where he could carve out a kingdom of horrors and no one would be able to stop him.”

“Why here?” Hanzo heard himself asking from a vast distance, pathetically grateful for whatever degree of shock was holding his voice steady. “Why this place?”

“He followed the path his teacher tread, as I followed his when I pursued him.” A faint, grim smile. “He could not conceal his tracks, now that I knew what he had become -- but it took me long, too long, to reach this place and by the time I did…” Her grip on his hands tightened again, claws drawing blood. “He was great in his power -- greater than I imagined possible when last I saw him, a monstrosity that had cast aside any illusion of humanity.” The horror of the memory shone in her eyes. “It took all my strength, all of my skill, to weaken him enough to strike a killing blow with the sword I had sworn would be his ending -- and, when I did, he did not die. He did not die, and he struck me down, and as I lay bleeding out my life on the sands, he mocked me with the knowledge that I could never have slain him, for his life was no longer married to his flesh but bound apart where none would ever find it. But he was wrong.” The tips of her fangs flashed in the candlelight. “My wolf found the god-seed he had corrupted with his power, the thing that held his life, and bore it away -- his black heart, without which he is not nor can ever be whole. He raged, oh how he raged, but he could not prevent my Hoshi from escaping -- but he could bind me, and did, to the place where we fought, where my bones lie still beneath the sands. And he, wounded with many wounds and weak, crawled away into his witch-home, taking the sword that will be his death with him.”

“I will find your bones and return them to the Clan, and tell them the story of what became of you.” Hanzo promised softly. “I will...finish what you began. I --”

“...I…” Hanzo dragged a painful breath through the ice cold rage and hate and terror throbbing in his chest, “I give you my word.”

***

Hanzo was not quite certain how they made it back to the surface -- his recollection of events flickered in his mind like a broken holovid, vividly clear one moment, stuttering and jerky the next, Gabe’s weary, hoarse voice, speaking words he did not understand in a language he did not know, Jack’s around his shoulders guiding him into the sitting room, reaching down to help Chad’s desperate scrambling efforts to climb into his lap, Jack pressing a cup of something that steamed and tasted of honey and spices into his hand and telling him softly to drink, the comforting warm softness of cushions against his cheek. When the world made sense again, he was curled against the arm of the world’s second most comfortable couch, draped in a fleecy throw blanket in covered in dogs, Chad and Fluffy and Dog, Terrifying Smoke Gabe occupying the opposite end, likewise blanketed and snoring softly. A fire burned in the hearth, but the sitting room was otherwise dark, and from nearby he heard voices, familiar ones, and stirred himself to find them, his canine companions remaining on guard over Gabe.

He found Genji, Hana, and Lucio gathered in the dining room, still shucking off their jackets and school bags, a dozen pizza boxes neatly stacked at one end of the table, talking in low voices. Hana saw him first by virtue of her place with her back to the kitchen entrance. “Hey, aniki. Are you okay?”

“I --” Genji half-turned to face him and the look on his brother’s face told him everything he needed to know about how any form of evasion would be received. “I have felt better. I trust everything went well for you today?”

“As well as could be expected.” Genji replied, a wry smile curling the corner of his mouth. “I don’t think my student visa’s in jeopardy, let’s put it that way.”

“Good.” He found a significantly more sincere smile lurking and let it come out. “There are things we must discuss.”

A burst of cool air filtered through to them as an outside door opened and then banged shut, more voices -- Roadie and Jamie by the sound -- being greeted by Jesse and Jack on the opposite side of the wall. A moment later all four bustled around the corner, Jack carrying an enormous salad of mixed greens and tiny tomatoes, Jesse a stack of plates and silverware and glasses, Jamie the dressings caddy, and Roadie a cardboard box that he set on the sideboard.

“Is Zen…?” Hanzo asked, as he helped lay out the plates and silverware.

“Here.” Zenyatta replied, from the sitting room entrance. “Gabriel is well, Jack, just very drained. I left an orb with him but he wishes to sleep a bit longer.”

“Thanks, Doc.” Jack bustled back out and returned with two pitchers of iced tea and one of lemonade. “He’s...not usually quite that enervated after doing a...thing. Hanzo was pretty beat, too.”

“So I see.” Hanzo had the rather horrible feeling that he did, in fact, see and couldn’t bring himself to meet Zenyatta’s eyes. “Do you wish for help, my friend?”

“No, that -- that won’t be necessary. I am fine.” Hanzo flashed him, and his perfectly neutral, assessing look, a quick smile. “I promise.”

“As you wish.” But Zen pulled a chair out for him and guided him into it, brooking no resistance.

Jesse settled next to him, their hands finding one another beneath the table without any will or thought on Hanzo’s part, and he allowed himself to be comforted by his ranger’s warmth and closeness as loaded plates and the salad bowl and pitchers were passed. Hanzo accepted a serving and nibbled his slice without appetite as the others dug in, a fact that did not escape the attention of anyone sharing that end of the table with him, nor did his silence in the midst of the friendly back and forth chatter.

“You sure you’re okay, darlin’?” Jesse asked, low and soft, as he leaned close under pretext of passing the salad back to Zen.

“No,” Hanzo replied, just as softly. “I am not.”

Jesse’s grip on his hand tightened fractionally and stayed there through the rest of the meal, parting only when Hana begged him to help her carry the leftovers into the kitchen, returning when the task was finished. Genji poured everyone a round of their libation of choice, settled back down, and immediately opened on the attack. “So -- you want to tell us why Terrifying Smoke Gabe is making like a sessile mass and you look like you were run down in the street by someone that kindly backed up a couple times to finish the job?”

Hanzo took a deep, steadying breath and meditative sip of his tea. “First of all, how do you even know I call him that? Secondly, we may wish to wake him up -- there might be questions only he can answer.”

“Firstly,” Genji replied, world’s biggest asshole little brother style, “you call him that when you talk to yourself, out loud, while you’re thinking and he’s probably the only person in this house who hasn’t heard it yet. Secondly, we tried and his face did this thing and you’re absolutely right about the terrifying part. So spill it, already.”

Hanzo breathed in peace, laced his fingers together with Jesse’s, and told them, sparing nothing. The silence that followed his last words was weighty, thick with unspoken questions, and of course it was Genji that broke it.

“So what you’re saying,” His tone was elaborately calm, even, contemplative, as was his expression, “is that this...thing...is our umpty-greats-grandfather?”

“Yes.” Hanzo replied, tersely.

“Wow. Okay, now I feel the need to be ritually cleansed and it didn’t even lick me.”

Zenyatta’s long-suffering sigh, and the sound of his hand briskly impacting the back of Genji’s head, broke open the floodgates.

“We’ve got a plan to get this thing out of him, right?” Hana asked urgently. “Because we’ve really, really got to get this thing out of him. I’m having amazingly strong feelings about that.”

Zen and Lucio exchanged a speaking glance, which Zen helpfully, reluctantly translated for everyone else’s benefit. “It...is not that simple, Hana. The magatama does not appear to possess physical substance any longer -- or at least no substance separate from Hanzo’s own.”

“So if it’s...not its own thing any longer how do we --” Hana’s face went through a sequence of increasingly distressed expressions as horrified realization ran her over like a shinkansen made of small innocent things dying hideously in the dark. “That -- that is not okay. That cannot mean what I think it means.”

“Wait.” The serene contemplation slid off Genji’s face as though it had never been. “Is she saying what I think she’s saying?”

“The Serpent-Wolf’s heart, his life, is part of me now.” Hanzo replied, with a calm whose origin he dared not consider too deeply, even as Jesse’s grip on his hand tightened nearly to the point of pain. “In the place of my gift. In the place of...a great many things, I suspect. And the only way to undo it, to make it mortal again, is to destroy it. Like Koschei’s needle. Or the tip of Coyote’s nose.”

“No.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Of course not.” Jack amplified both Genji and Jesse, firm and calm and even. “Well, okay -- if that’s the key, we’re going to have to destroy this thing. That’s a given. What’s not given is that you --” His stare pinned Hanzo to the back of his chair, “are going to have to die with it. That is not happening.”

“The Serpent-Wolf’s heart is distinct in essence from your own -- it may have no physical substance yet but we can change that.” Zen added, even more firmly. “We can find a means of isolating it and removing it and binding it to a new host.”

“And, in the meantime, we find the sword.” Jack flicked a glance at Roadie and Jamie.

“Well, not so sure about the sword, but we’ve got some ideas about how to find the critter’s hideout.” Jamie rose and brought the box to the table, extracting a handful of objects -- a heavily modified tablet, a collapsable theodolite, a handful of camera-mounted drones. “This critter leaves behind a very distinct signature in the local aether -- we picked up strong readings at yer condo t’other day, weaker at yer school and up in the old state park. Wish I’d thought to take scans of yer car but, well, I didn’t at the time. Our thinkin’,” and he nudged Roadie gently with the tip of one bony elbow, “is that we can use the traces left behind, and the path you followed from Shiprock to Cerrillos, to try and triangulate the location. Or at the very least narrow down the possibilities. Somewhere in there you musta come close enough to draw its attention.”

“I still have the GPS data saved on my phone,” Hanzo said softly, something fluttering around in his chest that he almost dared to call hope.

Genji rose and fetched his bag, phone inclusive, and he pulled up the relevant information, passed it along to Jamie. “Now, unfortunately I only have one set of gear finished -- I got two others in process, but I’m gonna need a couple days to get everything put together an’ properly configured. It won’t do to go in half-assed on this.”

“Agreed.” Hanzo smiled wryly. “We will, I think, not have more than one opportunity to do this -- it must know that the sword is its weakness, its death, even if it does not realize we know that yet. Once we find its lair, we must be prepared to act quickly.”

“Yes. And, in the meantime, you need to be kept safe -- so I’m going to argue against you being one of the ones who goes out doing the looking part of this plan.” Jack agreed, pinning him down again, this time with a terrifyingly fatherly smile of his own.

“But --” Hanzo began.

“Nope.”

“Nuh-uh.”

“Get the idea out of your head, man, you’re not going out there.”

“It would be unwise in the extreme to allow such a thing.” Zen put the final nail in the coffin of his objections. “Please, my friend.”

“As you wish. Because you asked so nicely.” The corners of Zen’s mouth twitched at that, the closest he’d come to a smile since the day prior, and Hanzo decided to consider that a victory of a sort. “I do not want anyone else going alone.”

“Of course not. Safety in numbers is a legitimate consideration.” Jack agreed with perfect ease. “Three groups of three.”

“I,” Hanzo said softly, “will leave those decisions to you. I...am still rather fatigued.”

Jesse let his hand go with physically palpable reluctance. “You sure you’ll be okay?”

“I’m sure.” He only barely resisted the urge to bend down and kiss him in front of everyone. “Today was just...a lot.”

“I can believe that.” Those dark, dark eyes searched his own and the tension in his ranger’s shoulders relaxed the barest fraction. “Get some rest, darlin’. I’ll check on you later, if you want.”

“Please.” And now he did lean in and press a quick peck to Jesse’s cheek, Hana’s squeaks of glee and Lucio’s offer to make him another mix chasing him up the stairs.

At the top of the stairs he paused and considered and before he could think too deeply about all the reasons it was a bad idea, he turned away from his bedroom door and climbed the second, narrower steps that led to the upstairs practice rooms, navigating by the light of his phone until he came to one where he could see the moon rising fat-bellied and coldly bright over the ridge of the northeastern hills. He had, he reflected distantly, as he investigated the contents of the storage chests stacked in one corner, always found the sight of the moon rising a soothing balm to his soul and now that made at least a little more sense. From the chests he extracted a candle that exhaled the fragrance of the cool autumn wind through falling leaves and a bowl to hold it, three sticks of incense rich with spice and resinous woods, a box of matches. The floor cushions were flat and firm, upholstered in silk, perfect for sitting seiza for potentially lengthy periods of time, and he assembled his little ritual space carefully, so the rising moonlight would fall over him as he worked.

He touched flame to wick, and the warm candlelight caressed his face, lit the the incense in the candle’s flame, set it in the ceramic holder he had selected for it. Fragrant smoke coiled and danced, both filled the air with a scent sweet and clean rather than cloying, and he drew it deep into his lungs, allowed his eyes to drift closed, let his mind slowly empty of thought as he concentrated on nothing but breath and breathing, the silence of the room, the beating of the heart in his chest and pulse of the blood in his veins. Allowed his mind to drift further, into places of memory that he had not touched in years, not wishing to face the grief and desolation that lay there, and now having no choice but to do so.

Slowly, slowly, the perfume in the air changed from autumn leaves and spice to winds scoured clean by the storm, the taste of lightning hanging thick on his tongue, moonlight transmuting to radiant stormlight and as he drew his next breath --

Something long and sharp and cold pierced him to the soul. When he could see again, all was a tangle of sapphire-scaled coils and icy silver eyes, Lord Minamikaze unveiled in his glory. It took him a moment to realize that the thing that pierced him was a foreclaw black as jet and as long as his arm, placed perfectly through the center of his chest.

You ask me for wisdom and thus do I grant it to you, son of my sons. Lord Minamikaze’s voice curled through his mind, serpentine and venomous with contempt. You are not a dragon and you will never be one.

He jerked his talon free and Hanzo fell -- fell into strong arms that lowered him gently to the throne room floor, held him against the curve of a scaled cuirass, warmed by the heat of its wearer’s body. Beneath his ear, Lord Kitakaze’s voice thundered. “What have you done?!”

Silence, broken by the low whimper of agony that crawled past his own lips as the emptiness in him pulsed and ached and throbbed, a void where something had once resided, torn away in single cruelly precise blow, something that now rested in the bowl of Lord Minamikaze’s hand, something that pulsed desperately in the cage of his delicately clawed fingers, pale and silver and frantic. “I? I am giving him the gift he asked for, my brother, nothing more and nothing less.”

The majordomo approached, face bowed to the floor, bearing with him two caskets -- one worked metal, silver and brass hammered together to form the image of the moon rising full over the mountains as an archer took aim with his bow, the other wood, lacquered so darkly that light seemed to fall into its surface, clasps too heavily warded for such a small box.

“You cannot mean to do this thing,” Lord Kitakaze’s voice dropped to a whisper, something of horror in it. “Minamikaze --”

“Can I not?” He took the silver casket from his cringing servant and spilled the contents of his hand into it, like pouring moonlight or water, and slammed the lid shut, the whole room darker for its loss, despite the sunlight slanting across the walls and floor. “You would deny me justice after all this time, my brother?”

“This is not justice, Minamikaze! He is a --”

“He is a son of your blood and mine -- a son of the one who first broke faith with us, who perverted the gifts he was given in his arrogance, who murdered my daughter to steal her shape.” The air trembled, shook with the force of his rage and grief, hard and sharp as a clap of thunder. “He is the perfect vessel for my justice.”

“For your vengeance.” Lord Kitakaze snapped, unafraid.

“They are the same.” Lord Minamikaze held out his hand and the servant placed the black casket in it. “Step aside, my brother -- or would you prefer to let his soul perish in your arms?”

Hanzo felt the barest ghost of fear, then -- the idea that he might die here, his soul draining away as his ancestors argued the best use for him, should have frightened him more than it did. Beneath his ear, Lord Kitakaze growled -- and then lowered him to the floor, held his head pillowed in his lap. “Make it quick, Minamikaze -- you have wounded him deeply.”

“Of course.” The locks on the casket slid, the lid opened, and the carrion reek that spilled forth made Hanzo gag, helplessly, the sickening bilious light that poured between Minamikaze’s fingers as he approached and knelt seared his eyes and kissed his flesh with hideously knowing intent. It was all he could do not to scream as it poured into him, into the wound, into the hollow empty place within him, filling him with its own corrupt, viscerally repulsive substance.

“It is done,” Minamikaze’s impossibly beautiful mouth curled in a sweetly perfect smile. “You asked me for wisdom, and you shall have it, son of my sons. The wisdom of pain will be yours. You asked me for a companion, and you shall have that, as well. You shall seek him, in the place where he hides from my sight, and by your hand you will destroy him. If you cannot find him…” He rose, cold and regal and still smiling, “You will destroy yourself, by your own hand, and his life will wither and fade with your own. Thus will my justice be served, and the death of my child avenged, and the last of Kazutaka’s stain be cleansed from our blood. Go now, and complete your task.”

Hanzo fell and fell and fell just short of forever.

When next he opened his eyes, the world was entirely different. Overhead, a river of stars spilled across the arch of the heavens, some brighter, some fainter, what some people called the Milky Way and others called Yikáísídáhi, playing hide-and-seek with the firelit branches of the pines ringing the clearing in which he lay. A cool breeze holding the bite of winter yet to come swirled the sweet-smelling smoke of the fire that warmed half his face, one of his arms, the rest of his body covered in a heavy woolen blanket, patterned in the faces of the moon and sun, lightning and clouds marking the edge.

“Well, well, well.” A wooden spoon scraped the inside of a pot, releasing a puff of mouthwatering steam. “Long time no see, cousin.”

Slowly, Hanzo sat, shedding the blanket and schooling his face with care. Across the fire, the ranger who was not, who could never be, his ranger offered him a smile more warming than the flames and the wool, eyes shining beast golden in the dark.

“Do not,” Hanzo said softly, “come to me wearing his face, not now, not ever again.”

“Really?” The smile widened an impossible, inhuman degree, grew sharp and jagged. “Well. If you insist.”

His form changed, between one blink and the next: tall, sturdily built, with a high-cheeked, aquiline face, long black hair pulled back in a plait decorated with beaded leather ties, clad in the bloodstained remnants of a heavy red plaid jacket, tattered flesh still clinging to his collar and breast bones, ribs picked clean along with the hollowed-out wreckage of his torso, the empty mass of shredded connective tissue where his organs should have been clearly displayed above his crossed blue jean clad legs, caked with blood and less immediately identifiable substances. His eyes still burned beast golden, ancient in their malice and mockery.

“Was it you?” Hanzo asked, just as softly, refusing to look away. “Did you teach Shimada Kazutaka?”

The corpse of Marcus Whitehawk sighed and shook his head and said, “I should make you pay for this, cousin, I really should. A favor for an answer.”

“But you will not.” Hanzo replied, mouth dry, “Because there is something you want from me more than mere favors.”

His companion looked up, eyes flashing hotly, grin stretching tight over his teeth. “Well. You’re not wrong.” He laughed, soft and low. “Yes. I tasted his anger and his hate on the wind, so strong and so sweet and so, so not willing to be a good little wolf, what others expected him to be, so willing to reach out and take what he wanted, instead. Yes, I went to him. Yes, I taught him. Yes, he was a...wonderfully apt pupil. One of my best. And, like all my best efforts, he turned around to bite me in the end.”

“You did not expect him to follow you.” Hanzo replied, darkly amused, and couldn’t help the not so friendly smile that curled his own mouth. “To challenge you.”

“Admittedly, no. But I had to admire the ambition. A horror to rival the naayéé at their greatest, and their worst, and I couldn’t even trick him into breaking his own legs or pulling out his own teeth, because he knew me too well for that. It was,” His teeth flashed in the firelight, “vexatious in the extreme, and all I could do was wait.”

“For Tamiko.”

“Even so.” He produced two bowls and poured a measure from his pot in each one, steaming and fragrant, offered one to Hanzo which he, reluctantly, accepted. “For the one who could kill him -- who could not, in fact, kill him. Weakened him, yes. Forced him deep into his áńt’íí ba’hooghan to lick his wounds and sleep and heal -- until you came to finish the job.”

Hanzo bowed his head over the bowl, breathed deeply of the steam, gazed at his firelit reflection in its dark surface. “I...do not know that I can do that.”

“You can. Of course you can. You carry all the tools you need, cousin, all you really require,” Soft, soft, sweet and silky, “is to be taught how to use them.”

Hanzo jerked backwards, halfway to his feet, hot liquid washing over his hand, scorching his skin. “No. No. Not by you -- not the lessons you would teach.”

“Oh, cousin, please.” Those golden eyes glittered, hot and hungry, tongue darting across his jagged smile. “Why else would you come here, knowing already what you would learn? Nothing I’ve said to you was a surprise. And I’ll even give you one for free, right now --” Strong clawed hands settled on his hips from behind, heat and blood-smell curling against his back, hot charnel breath on his cheek and neck and ear. “Power is power, little wolf. Fear it, fear what you can do with it, what it can do with you, and you are already lost. You cannot become what you were meant to be alone, little wolf, and who else can show you what you need to know? Think on it. Think deeply. I can wait.”

Claws pierced his flesh, drew blood --

And Hanzo jerked awake. At his knees, the candle guttered in a pool of its own wax, and the last of the incense curled away to nothing.

#WIP Ghost Stories On Route 66

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