#Cavity Measurement System

[geosightca]

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[bestanimal]

Round 3 - Reptilia - Procellariiformes

(Sources - 1, 2, 3, 4)

Our next order of birds are the Procellariiformes, collectively called “tubenoses.” They are comprised of the living families Procellariidae (“petrels” and “shearwaters”), Diomedeidae (“albatrosses”), Hydrobatidae (“northern storm petrels”), and Oceanitidae (“austral storm petrels”).

Procellariiformes live almost exclusively on the open ocean. Their nostrils are enclosed in one or two tubes on their straight, deeply-grooved bills with hooked tips. Procellariiformes that nest in burrows have a strong sense of smell, being able to detect dimethyl sulfide released from plankton in the ocean. This strong sense of smell helps to locate patchily distributed prey at sea and may also help locate their nests within nesting colonies. Their wings are long and narrow. Their feet are webbed, and the hind toe is undeveloped or non-existent. Procellariiforms drink seawater, so they have an enlarged nasal gland at the base of the bill, above the eyes, which removes salt from their system and forms a 5 percent saline solution that drips out of the nostrils, or is forcibly ejected in some petrels. Many are long-distance migrants. They live in every ocean and sea, from Greenland to Antarctica, but are most diverse around New Zealand. Procellariiformes are for the most part exclusively marine foragers; the only exception to this rule are the two species of giant petrel, which regularly feed on carrion or other seabirds while on land. The diet of most species is dominated by fish, squid, krill, and other marine zooplankton. They obtain food by snatching prey while swimming on the surface, snatching prey from the wing, or diving down under the water to pursue prey.

Procellariiforms are colonial, mostly nesting on remote, predator-free islands. Larger species nest on the surface, while most smaller species nest in natural cavities and burrows. They exhibit strong philopatry, returning to their natal colony to breed and returning to the same nesting site over many years. Procellariiforms are monogamous and form long-term pair bonds that are formed over several years and may last for the life of the pair. A single egg is laid per nesting attempt, and usually a single nesting attempt is made per year, although the larger albatrosses may only nest once every two years. Both parents participate in incubation and chick rearing. Incubation times are long compared to other birds, as are fledging periods. Once a chick has fledged there is no further parental care.

Procellariiforms emerged in the Eocene, with some possible Late Cretaceous records. They are most closely related to penguins, having diverged from them about 60 million years ago.

Propaganda under the cut:

The Sooty Shearwater (Ardenna grisea) has the second longest measured annual migration of any bird, flying from its breeding grounds in New Zealand and Chile to the North Pacific off Japan, Alaska, and California, an annual round trip of 64,000 km (40,000 mi).

Some individual Snowy Albatrosses (Diomedea exulans), also called Wandering Albatrosses, are known to circumnavigate the Southern Ocean three times in one year, covering more than 120,000 km (75,000 mi).

Fulmarine Petrels can fight off even large predatory birds with their noxious stomach oil, which they can project some distance. This stomach oil, stored in the proventriculus, is a digestive residue created in the foregut of all tubenoses except the diving petrels, and is used mainly for storage of energy-rich food during their long flights. The oil is also fed to their young.

The Light-mantled Albatross (Phoebetria palpebrata) has been recorded diving to 12 m (39 ft) underwater, and the Short-tailed Shearwater (Ardenna tenuirostris) diving to 70 m (230 ft)!

Albatrosses have featured in poetry in the form of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's famous 1798 poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, which in turn gave rise to the usage of albatross as a metaphor for a psychological burden, as the Mariner felt extreme guilt for the albatross he had killed. More generally, albatrosses were believed to be good omens, and to kill one would bring bad luck. There are also instances of petrels in culture; there are sailors' legends regarding the storm petrels, which are considered to warn of oncoming storms. In general, petrels were considered to be "soul birds", representing the souls of drowned sailors, and it was considered unlucky to touch them.

The oldest living wild bird is Wisdom, a female Laysan Albatross (Phoebastria immutabilis). She is estimated to have hatched in 1951, making her 73 or 74 years old. First tagged in 1956 at Midway Atoll by the United States Geological Survey (USGS), she was still incubating eggs as late as 2024. Biologists estimate that Wisdom has laid some 30–40 eggs in her lifetime and that she has at least 30–36 chicks. She and her chick survived the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami that killed an estimated 2,000 adult Laysan and Black-footed Albatrosses and an estimated 110,000 chicks at the Refuge. The 2011 chick went on to have a chick of her own, making Wisdom a grandmother. Her newest chick hatched on January 30, 2025.

Procellariiformes are amongst the most severely threatened taxa worldwide, with threats varying from species to species. There are less than 200 Magenta Petrels (Pterodroma magentae) breeding on the Chatham Islands, only 130 to 160 Zino's Petrels (Pterodroma madeira) and only 170 Amsterdam Albatrosses (Diomedea amsterdamensis). The Guadalupe Storm Petrel (Hydrobates macrodactylus), which bred only on Guadalupe Island off Baja California, Mexico, is presumed extinct after the introduction of Domestic Cats to the island decimated the population during the late 19th century. The Fiji Petrel (Pseudobulweria macgillivrayi) has been rarely seen since its discovery, and is inferred to have a small population of less than 50, if it is not extinct. The Bermuda Petrel (Pterodroma cahow) was thought to be extinct for 300 years, until the dramatic rediscovery in 1951 of eighteen nesting pairs made it a "Lazarus species".

The principal threat to the albatrosses and larger species of procellariids is long-line fishing. Bait set on hooks is attractive to foraging birds and many are hooked by the lines as they are set. As many as 100,000 albatrosses are hooked and drown each year on tuna lines set out by long-line fisheries. Invasive species introduced to the remote breeding colonies threaten all types of procellariiform. Most albatross and petrel species are clumsy on land and unable to defend themselves from mammals such as rats, Domestic Cats, and Domestic Pigs. Other threats include the ingestion of plastic flotsam. Once swallowed, plastic can cause a general decline in the fitness of the bird, or in some cases lodge in the gut and cause a blockage, leading to death by starvation. Procellariids are also vulnerable to marine pollution, as well as oil spills. Some species which nest high up on large developed islands, are victims of light pollution. Fledging chicks, which would use the night sky to navigate, are attracted to streetlights and may then be unable to reach the sea. As procellariiforms are extremely slow breeders, laying 1 egg (or less) a year, they cannot replace their numbers fast enough once the population begins to decline.

[rel124c41]

SCREAM OF THE BUTTERFLY. jade leech

He opens his eyes to see a bright horizon. All of it is liquid gold, a shimmering sea of yellow below the horizon and clouds of volcanic orange above the horizon. Smack in the middle is the Sun - 70.6% hydrogen and 27.4% helium, diameter 1.4 million kilometers - and it stares at him. A hand shades his eyes. "Hey, don't look too close. You're going to see something you don't like."

tags: android jade leech, dubious morality, animal death, blood and gore, existential angst, repressed memories, unresolved emotional tension, choking, reader is 52 and jade is permanently 21, non-consensual body modification, & age difference

word count: 13,363

Both of you watch the pancake melt on the cabin’s wooden floor. The top of the circle is a golden-crusted brown. However, the underside was not yet cooked so that waxy yellow mixture starts to spread out in a sunlight pool. 

“I’m terribly sorry, Master,” Jade rushes to say but seems too shellshock to make a move to fix the mess he made.

“It’s alright,” you say with a voice clogged full of sleep. As you make your way over to the dining table designed small enough for only two, you can feel Jade track each of your minor motions like a gun following its target. Only when you sit does he snap out of it.

In a very methodical passion, he goes about removing the malfunction. You hear this: the lid of your squeaky trash-can opening and the spray of a disinfectant bottle being the most recognizable. Ignoring his mistake, you go about your normal routine. Like Jade is programmed to make exactly two pancakes and exactly one sunny side up egg each morning, you have your own little, innate programs you do each morning.

As you strike the match and hold it under your cigarette – lighting with a matchstick adds to the flavor you found – the last bits of the sunlight pool is wiped up. “Now, we’re behind schedule,” you remark. The matches inside the Diamond box shift as you push them down the table. 

It is an entirely true, if not a bit outlandish, sentence. Schedule? Jade thinks to himself as he quickly procures each ingredient needed to make the batter for exactly one pancake. He only ever measures out the amount for exactly two pancakes. The mistake is making him frazzled. He has two skillets on the stove, one for exactly two pancakes and the other for exactly one sunny side up egg. Looking into the skillet holding only one pancake, his systems twitch. Schedule; what schedule is he forgetting? 

But, he would never concern you with the inner turmoil that is clawing away at his chest cavity like a rabid, frenzied animal, so he simply says, (PANCAKE) “My apologies, Master. I did not mean to make us late.”

“Did seeing me all dressed up scare you that bad?”

With the high-voltage mixer already in a bowl, Jade takes the time to look behind him towards you. The single egg and pancake (PANCAKE) only have 1:42 minutes left until they are completed, so he has the allotted period to look at you, all dressed up. He smiles disarmingly. “Not scared, just surprised.”

His intricate memory-bank supplies him with a number: 259. It has been two hundred and fifty-nine days since the last time you have worn something other than fuzzy or silk pajama bottoms coupled with a graphic tee. That is exactly 8.51506 months ago, which would have made it March. When the weather was growing warmer, you wanted to ride in the car until the gas went from F to E. Now, once again, you are all dressed up.

It is a pretty monotone palette, nothing like what you had worn in March. With a flowing pinstriped jacket, black and white are the only colors of your outfit, besides the tiniest touch of silver from the tangling vines stitched over your blouse’s collar. Your hanging tie and flowy dress pants are a stark black, like the cut of a blank television screen, and your gloves and blouse are a stark white, like a newly painted therapist office wall.

He supposes the most colorful thing about you right now is the orange filter tip in your lovely mouth. Oh, you also have lipstick on. In this game of I-Spy, Jade can identify only two different colors shining in the canvas of sterility that covers your skin. 

Hues like that might mean a funeral. His left eye slices off the left side of the kitchen dining table. It all falls into a black hole as Jade pulls up information of every living relative you have left; their faces fly through his vision, searching public obituaries and searching articles, as you talk to him.

“I guess it might be a bit disarming.” You take your third drag, methodical. “I didn’t think I would need to give you a warning. My mistake; right, Jade?”

All of your relatives are alive. The latest medical update is that your mother has been given the drug memantine along with her typical Leqembi medication. “Nonsense. I’m not so aged that I can’t keep up with your spontaneity,” he jokes, left vision returning. Perhaps the schedule is simply the quotidian schedule of your day-to-day.

Charmed, you smile in the fog cloud of tobacco sliding away from your face. “Oh, he thinks he’s funny,” you jest back. Between two thin fingers, you balance a cigarette and point it at him like it is a professor’s presentation pointer. “No puns today. I’ll take out your tongue.”

He fakes a look of hurt. “Oya, do you really find them so abhorrent?” He turns as you supply him with a synonym – execrable, you moan – and focuses his attention on breakfast-making. Methodically, first, the mixer is pulled up from the bowl and then both pancake (PANCAKE, not pancakes, to Jade’s punctilious annoyance) and sunny side up egg are slid onto your plate. 

“Humor is said to lower blood pressure and improve memory retention. It is as important as a good, clean breakfast. However, if my puns are banned, omelet it slide this time. We have a schedule to follow, Master.” 

He still hasn’t figured out what it is though. And he does not want his vision to start flashing with ropes of blaring red and white words, SCHEDULE replacing PANCAKE – which has already been giving him enough stress. As he puts the incomplete plate down, he wonders if he has time to remedy it before you finish your single 9 A.M. cigarette.

“Booo,” you caterwaul at his pun. However, you smile and your heart beats languid so it must be alright. “Keep that up and no birthday surprise for you.”

Jade stops. Still as a paused movie. His whole body is stiff for a millisecond, and if he did not recover so quickly, you would have surmised he went into forced shutdown upon hearing your words. A calculative, bloodless arm reaches out to tilt the pancake batter into the skillet as he acknowledges that today is in fact November 5th.

Inside his chest cavity, a tiny Jade, no bigger than your cigarette, wobbles on a fence. He is unsure if he wants every day to be birthday so he can see you doing better, or if he wants this November 5th, this sudden change of clothes and attitude, to stay only on his special day. As always, he does not pick a mental-side.

Instead, he says, “Nonsense. There is no need to exert yourself for me, Master. Do not concern yourself with a trivial matter.”

“Don’t be modest. Birthdays are special; and we haven’t celebrated one of yours in four years.” 

Jade remembers that day fondly. High sugar-concentrated items are one-in-a-blue-moon type of expensive. Most households can only afford one or two birthday cakes in their lifetimes, so it was sentimentally human that your first year together, you dipped into your retirement savings and bought a man with no functioning digestive system, a cake.

“I have no choice but to concede if it is an order,” Jade baits.

“Then, it’s an order.” Smoke pumps through the air as you take an embellishing, deeper inhale. The health of your lungs gets compromised more, day by day. “Non refutable.”

“Of course, Master.” Jade would bend in a bow if he were not so intent on making sure this pancake (pancake) stayed on his spatula and off the floor.

Breakfast proceeds as normal after the slight hiccup. When the room is thoroughly perfumed with the acidic scent – Jade always enjoys how harshly you snub out your cigarette, grinding them down into nothing, whatever ring lying on your index glistening under the ceiling light, and today it is a glistening, jade green eye – you eat your precisely made sunny side up egg and two pancakes. Yolk and syrup bleed all over the plate like sliced open arteries. You compliment his cooking as always before stuffing another cigarette between your lips.

This one you simply hold there as Jade scrubs your dish. He slots the ceramic in the drying rack along with the already evaporating skillets and bowl. You glide around the kitchen. It is quaint. There are only ever two plastic cups in the cabinet and two plates in the lower cupboards. Often though, the second copies of each various dishware are left unused.

Your arm and Jade’s arm slide against each other when you fill a plastic green cup up to the brim with faucet water. The robot twitches.

After utensils are hand-dried and put away, Jade looks towards you for guidance. Today is such an outlier to the normal schedule that he feels a bit unbalanced. Usually, you have already lit up your second cigarette of the morning, burrowing up into your study. Instead, you say, “C’mon,” as you walk out of the kitchen with an unlit cigarette hanging from your lip and a cup of faucet water in hand.

Obedient, he follows you up to your study. Your uneven fingernails glide across the banister. “I couldn’t help but also get one for myself. When I went to the market and saw them, I got selfish.” When you open the door to your study, Jade is greeted with the familiar sight of books thrown to the ground, pages torn from their homes, and ink split across the scene like something left behind for a bloodstain pattern analyst. There are also three water bottles full of gold liquid he will have to dispose of.

What calls his immediate attention is the two different shapes draped underneath hand-towels. They sit on your desk which is devoid of any papers or books. One is covering something spherical but Jade cannot decipher what is underneath the second towel.

Despite the jumble, you glide over to your desk with precise footsteps. Jade follows right along behind you. It is programmed in his system to never disrupt anything in this study, so he refuses to nudge a paper or cause the slightest altercation to the disorganized order. 

By the foot of the desk, your taxidermied lion stands in paused death, stuff full of cedar dust. You pet the wisps of mane as you approach the table. The cigarette is still in your mouth; you take it out, smooth knuckles over your tie, and place your hand back down upon the lion’s head. Petting behind stuffed ears, you give a weak pseudo-command.

“Now, I don’t want a repeat of this morning. You being startled and all that. So,” your eyes move from the towels to Jade’s, “you can’t afford to lose your head over this, right, Jade?”

Though he has no heart that could possibly quicken in anticipation, Jade still places a firm hand over that spot as if to banish his foretold anxieties. That familiar, smarmy expression comes back to his facial plate. A slight scrunch of the slanted downward eyebrows that leaves a crinkled line and a timid smile showing off tiny, razor teeth. “I assure you, nothing of the sort will happen, Master.”

“Good.” You place the green plastic cup behind the presents. Light from the window hits the cup; a long green shadow stretches over your desk. As you pinch the towel edge in your fingers, you are palpably excited, grinning wide. “3 ... 2 … 1 … Happy birthday, Jade!”

The smile remains on his face because he has permanently set it there himself. If he were human, it would have fallen. 

“Master, this is illegal.” Jade reaches out and covers up his present with the towel, as if that will make it disappear. 

You give him nothing but a tiny, mischievous smile. Wrinkled with age, it makes you look youthful despite the deep shadows that come with loosening, brittle skin. Like you are young again and you have just told him of something nefarious you have done. This is certainly nefarious, an odious development happening under this house’s roof.

“Master,” Jade starts, precise in his speech, “this could compromise us. Though I am grateful that you want to celebrate my birthday, we should burn this in the fireplace post haste.” He looks back down at the shrouded sphere. Burning the evidence is the innate command that rises up to Jade’s predecessors, using all his logic, but if you were to refute it …

A tiny chortle escapes your lips. It pulls back your painted lips; it has been quite a large sum of days since you have last worn lipstick as Jade’s databases know. “Do you really want to throw away my gift?”

Want? Jade does not do that. He has never known what yearning could possibly feel like. “My apologies. However, it would be wise to exterminate it. As stated by the legislation, living organisms that are not edible or a part of the approved nourishment selection for fruits and vegetables must be destroyed. This violates Section B on the –.”

“Mushrooms are edible.”

“Pardon,” Jade questions softly.

“Mushrooms. They are biologically living organisms like plants and animals.” You gesture to the sphere with your cigarette as if your words have just abolished the legal constraints created years ago. “They’re edible too.” Defiant, you remove the towel once more.

Jade’s eyes flicker down to evaluate the illicit good you have brought home. The terrarium’s contraband resides in a spherical globe with no visible opening. The most probable explanation is it was built starting from the bottom platform of dirt before the globe was welded on. Inside, it contains mycobionts, O Horizon soil, and bryophyta. Simply put: lichen, dirt, and moss.

He measures the length, measures the volume, finds the species of fungi from the internet, and lastly, once more calculates how quickly it will burn up in the parlor’s fireplace. Agaricus subrufescens sit still under his acute, probing analysis. Regrettably, they are edible. According to mycology databases, they taste intensely of almonds. 

Edible. The one word washes over Jade like a glittering, green wave. Edible, which means only one thing. “Thank you for the gift, Master. Rest assured that I will make good use of them in our evening meal, in gratitude for your generosity.”

Before he can retrieve them from the desk, you seize his hand. “Funny. You’re a real jokester, Jade.” You intertwine lithe fingers with him, thoughtlessly and recklessly. This time, Jade does go still, long and hard. It is a rigor mortis so heavy that it is enough for it to be mistaken as a forced shutdown, if one did not know better. You know his systems though. “You have to keep it, Jade. Don't cook it. Or dispose of it. That’s a non refutable order.”

Whatever avalanche of glitches stirred through Jade ends. He flexes his hand and the power of a command cloaks his synthetic skin. He looks once more at his new gift, doubly his new contraband, with polite resignation. That never changing, timid smile is present as always. 

“If it is what you command, Master.”

“Okay.” Satisfied, you turn towards your own present. “Okay, okay, my turn!” With the suave of a magician, you unveil it. 

It takes just an inch of the petals being revealed to recognize what other contraband you have snuck in. A melange of red-orange and little orange petals stare up at his predecessors, a dozen or so individual, flower-gems. His databases flicker. They are marigolds. 

“Ta-da,” you even flourish, cloth hanging in your hand like a ghost-sheet. “Beautiful, aren’t they? And before you say anything, flowers lower cortisol levels so we must keep them. For my health, yes?” You bat your eyelashes at him like a child asking for an extra scoop of ice-cream.

Jade concedes easily. Even though in his left eye, he has pulled up the list of illegal flowers. Marigolds are plainly sandwiched between mandrakes and marvel-of-peru; though marvel-of-peru is an old name as Peru has in recent years been melting into its new identity and becoming a part of invasive Brazil. Jade accepts that these marigolds are going to be kept here. Another living organism he will need to care for.

“Beautiful,” Jade muses. He looks at your face. “Yes, they are beautiful.”

“I’m glad you think so.” You grin like a cat with a canary snapped and dead between your fangs. It must have taken strenuous effort to smuggle these from the market, never mind the effort that it must have taken you to even leave the house. ‘Beautiful,’ Jade reflects as he delicately yet steadily picks up the terrarium from your desk.

Jade goes about his regiment-esque routine as normally as possible after that. He slots the terrarium into his sterile bedroom – complete with a bed he has never slept in and complete with books he already has memorized in his software – in a spot where it will get just the correct balance between light and darkness. A place that perfectly mimics natural daylight despite the fact it lies inside. Then, he enters his routine while the almond mushroom terrarium sits in the back of his software like a tumor, a dull reminder that is always there. 

You always give him such puzzling challenges. Brain-teasers of sorts that invoke trying to unshackle him from his real identity. Sudoku squares that he has to fill in with things like free will, thoughts, rebellion. He does not doubt that you want the best for him, but it is all very puzzling. 

Jade prefers things like laundry. Neat and clean. November 5th has coincidentally fallen on laundry day. On the living room’s wooden coffee table, he takes to folding all the warm pajamas into tidy piles. The assembly line of his motions are precise. Jade folds each graphic tee top sideways into thirds to tuck in the sleeves and evenly crosses each pajama pant leg to cover over its twin. 

This is what life is all about: laundry. Laundry is linear. There is a right and a wrong way to go about doing laundry, so very unlike volatile life with its dangerous contraband and sad women. From your study, door half ajar, you send down the unraveling string of your voice past the stairs and to the parlor, “Jade! Jeopardy or Wheel of Fortune? The birthday boy gets to pick tonight!” 

He looks up from a pair of silk, aquamarine pajama pants. Weighing the pros and cons of each of the game shows, he scrunches up his plastic nose. Inside, the fence of decision bends back and forth. The only aspect that pushes him – tiny, cigarette-sized Jade, wobbling with helicopter arms – is that he gets to hear your voice more when you watch Jeopardy together than when you watch Wheel of Fortune together.

“Jeopardy!” He shouts back.

“Perfect!” 

There is palpable cheer in your voice that shocks Jade so fiercely that he stills in his task of laundry, looking up at the spiral tongue of stairs that led to your office with a mute expression of awe. From his low vantage point, he sees the door is closed. Jade blinks at it, hidden behind the prison bars of a banister and high out of reach.

He goes back to folding in precise motions. Life is straightening itself out like laundry. 

On the coffee table where he had been folding laundry hours ago, two little domes of red sit on the surface. The surface is also littered with dozens upon dozens of rainbow confetti stripes, a plate where a leftover cupcake wrapper and melted candle lie, and an ashtray. Tissue paper crown donned, Jade grabs the remote and starts to scroll through channels until he reaches Jeopardy. 

After so many decades, they still have not changed the setup. Though the color scheme has warped decade by decade – people are most fond of teal and fuchsia rose this generation – the three, lecture-adjoined counters for contestants and isolated, lecture-adjoined counter for the host. Jade watches the copy of himself – small and compact in the television’s shiny dome – start to introduce each of the three human contestants. 

“You’re not gonna beat me this time,” you say, neck rolled over the sofa’s back. Eyes floating to and from the cabin’s ceiling, you declare, “I was only one decisecond off last time from stealing that point and gaining a lead. Don’t forget that.”

“I won’t forget,” Jade assures as he sets down the remote. “My memory bank has immortalized your grievous scream as you lost the very point last time quite clearly in fact.” He pretends to look somewhere else when you turn to him scandalized.

“You ass!” You hit his shoulder hard with your own. Both of you sway in laughter, smiling toothily at one another. 

The game starts shortly after. The robot from Jaded Robotics starts by asking contestant number one to pick from six categories the select from the five clues, going from 200 to 400 to 600 to 800 to 1000. As soon as the ball starts rolling, the game is in full swing and both you and Jade are on the edge. Each time a clue is given, a pair of hands – one silicone and one flesh – descend upon the coffee table like hungry vultures and slam hard on red domes, both of you in perfect unison yet typically always ahead of the contestants inside the television dome.

How many stages are there in a butterfly’s life cycle?

What is four?

The astronomical unit is a unit based on the average distance between what two places?

What is the Earth and the Sun?

After legalization of trophy hunting, a successful purging of what species was celebrated in 2170?

What are lions?

Define the problem. Do background research. Specify requirements. Brainstorm solutions. Choose the best solution. Do development work. Build a prototype. Test and redesign.

What are the steps of an engineering algorithm?

A requirement to have at least bachelor’s degree for entry-level jobs in the field, typically in mechanical engineering or related engineering specialties. 

What are the degrees required to be a robotics engineer?

Body coloring that helps an animal blend in with its surroundings and stay safe from enemies.

What is protective coloration?

Daily Double. This university experienced a devastating terrorist attack by foreign enemies in 2177.

What is Massachusetts Institute of Technology?

Storing toxic chemicals that they ate as a caterpillar, this species used its deterrents against predators for the rest of their life.

What is a Postman butterfly?

This largest moon of Pluto is about half the size of the dwarf planet’s size.

What is Charon?

Moral principles that govern a person’s behavior or the conduct of an activity.

What is ethics?

The project designed to rid Earth of all harmful and invasive species was backed by which political group.

What are the Purgers?

A rich program used to create scale drawings of robots in Jaded Robotics.

What is a JED?

The Egyptian God Ra was the God of what?

What is the Sun?

This cancer is the leading cause of deaths in both men and women.

What is lung cancer?

If Jade has a favorite part of a day’s schedule, it is checking your lungs for cancer. However, having favorites invokes the principle of emotional highs and lows, selecting what is dopamine-inducing and what is dopamine-neglectful. So, Jade does not have a favorite part of his day. He goes about each task with inert, psychological activity. 

If it was poetry, one would describe it as being a monitor of a dead heartbeat, his emotions.

Slipping off the hand-skin like it is a glove, Jade looks at you sitting in your dressing gown. The room is washed in red. From the mouth of the nightstand lamp, it bleeds out over this meager radiology room. Red falls over the crown of your busy ashtray, slinks down the sides of ivory covers, coils around your exposed torso. You are not facing him.

Folding synthetic skin lies in a puddle of empty fingers on your dresser. Methodical, Jade makes his way over. Gears shift in his silver digits, electromagnetic beams boiling beneath the surface. He asks the same questions as any doctor – coughing up any blood, any dull or sharp chest pains, any shortness of breath, Master – but he is better equipped than any doctor because his gold eye is a detector that measures physiological arousal factors that would indicate if a lie is being told. 

All your answers are truthful. You answer his inquiries around bites of dark chocolate, staring at your headboard and snacking. The mattress dips when Jade adds his weight onto it, resting one knee upon it and letting his other dangle down. He watches your jaw bulge as you run your tongue between teeth and mouth lining to gather up melted chocolate.

“I’m going to touch you now, Master.”

“...”

Gently, he drapes his right hand’s index and middle finger on the back of your neck. It is at the junction where the neck starts to melt into shoulders, spine, and back. Cervical 7 and Thoracic 1. It is an irrational spot to start because there is nothing of lung matter to check there. Jade, for an irrational moment, lingers there.  

After a clean breath, he moves down the midline of your spine until he reaches the 12th bottom rib. Your skin gives a bit more resistance than a young person’s; the experience of living ages all except Jade. On the stretching desert of your skin, he locates your lungs with routined practice. His unnaturally-colored silver skin looks like a spider brooch upon your human-hued skin.

Electromagnetic energy builds at his fingertips. Tiny photons swirl in a circle with one another like joyous fishes. Their energy eclipses infrared, visible light, and ultraviolet until Jade reaches the type he needs. Gently, he pushes his palm into your back and slides it up to the top of your shoulder. He repeats that on the left and right. He repeats both a second time, capturing four photos.

When he pulls back, you are already shucking up your dressing gown. Raising it to your shoulders and crossing it in front of your nude breasts, you eat more dark chocolate as the machine behind you goes over the X-ray captured photos. 

The black and white images slide into Jade’s left eye, blocking out his sight. His right eye watches you bundle yourself back up as the first photo moves vertically across his spliced vision, showing him more inch by inch. The right lung is clear, only the ghost of your ribs disrupt the image; the left lung is clear, only the ghost – (TUMOR). 

Jade jerks so suddenly on the bed that you turn around, eyes round. You throw half of a questioning expression at him, face cut down the middle. Around the bedtime cigarette you are lifting up to your lips, you ask him, “Something wrong, Jade?”

In his left vision, a string of tumor (TUMOR TUMOR TUMOR TUMOR TUMOR TUMOR TUMOR TUMOR TUMOR TUMOR TUMOR TUMOR TUMOR TUMOR TUMOR TUMOR TUMOR TUMOR) swims, multiple lines like a student assigned to write down a single word on a chalkboard as punishment. Hidden underneath that jumbled mess (TUMOR), a black and white image of your left lungs lies. The scanned picture is completely black besides the ghostlike shape of your ribs and the tiny spot of white cancer that sits between the second and third rib like a tiny Sun.

Jade does not dream. 

Irrevocably, this is a cement fact of his biology. There is no possible way for Jade Leech to dream. No stimulus in his software can make a true dream emerge from lines of code. Detecting from that certainty, what Jade sees beyond his closed eyelids must be a memory, even though Jade has never lived through this before. 

In Jade’s ‘dream’, you are with him – as is congenitally correct and true, you two are always with one another. From the pockets of breathable palazzo pants, you are fishing out your sunglasses. The frames sit on your nose and ear notches, covering your eyes with black hexagons. You look like an insect. 

Maybe, Jade has fabricated this world. Research has shown that the human body does not create new faces for the actors in their dreams but rather picks out strangers to act in their inner films. You are all he has ever known, so of course you would be the star of Jade’s motion picture. And, you do remind him of an attractive movie star.

Sunglasses donned, you take to surveying the scenery surrounding the two of you under a bright, cloudless sky. Sand lies below and across. In glittering divots and hills, nature has laid a stippling of gold as far as the human or robot eye can see. From the advanced height you two share together at the top of one of Namib Desert’s hills, it is quite a magnificent sight of bareness. 

“Less shrubs than last time,” you comment, mouth surprisingly empty of a cigarette and face twenty years younger.

“Yes, the desertification has certainly increased. Officials report a 2.7 percentage uptick. Even the speciocide on turnera oculata raised many praises and received an opening headliner last month in February,” Jade comments, face the same as always has been and always will be.

“You think that truck we passed by were Purgers?”

“One of the young gentlemen in the back of the cargo bed was indeed holding a flamethrower. The probability is at least 62 percent.”

“Sick bastards.” Sand flies in sprinkles like splashed water. You reposition your foot to lean on the heel. “The ants are invasive, not the flowers.”

“I’m sure that they will be targeting that next, Master.”

Jade has forgotten to mention that it is not just you, him, and the sand in this ‘dream’. Though his gaze has been hooked in deeply to you – analyzing each twitch and jump of your facial features from the hairs on your eyebrow to the motion of your chin; right now your facial expression is expressing deep, bodily hatred – there is another person outside of the high, out-of-reach bubble crafted by Jade. He can be found in the expanse of sand beyond the hill.

The chauffeur stands with his hip snug to the driver’s side-view mirror. He is different from the chauffeur you two had yesterday. He has a slender scar that bisects his eye, deep enough where it is a pink on his brown skin. For the hour-and-a-half drive from the motel, the driver had been narrating stories on how you could get a scar just like his if you messed around with X, Y, or Z; his words were not articulated with teasing advice but jaded ritualistic habit; interestingly, Jade notes, he even used cactus needles as an origin for his scar but cactus are extinct. Packaged together in the backseat, you and Jade both held his sharp gaze where it cut like a knife towards the two of you in warning.

What about a lion? Could you acquire a scar like that from a lion? His left eye is partly slumped in his socket as if what did injure him permanently altered the position of the ball. Packaged in the rear view mirror like a comic strip, that uneven gaze stared into unevenly colored eyes. It would. If there were any lions left to hand out scars. 

Now, the scarred man stands with his arms folded, looking out with disapproval at the nudeness of the desert beyond him. His background check assures that he has done this job for five years, seasoned without any misfortunate slipup. Still, the dimensions of the gun the man has strapped to his hip settle into Jade’s ‘brain’ with a detailed outline of how to dismantle it – if that becomes necessary. 

Jade stops surveying the company when you speak. “Oculata … I know that word, don’t I?” Your knuckles are pressed firmly into your lipsticked lips. 

Without physically pacing, you pace around in your mind. “Oculata, oculata, oculata,” you repeat, firm each time.

“Master,” Jade says with soft urgency.

“Oculata … Ooo-cuuu-lata. Oculata? Oculata … having eyes. Ah! Having eyes. That’s what it means.” You snap in the midst of your epiphany. You look towards Jade. “Yes, Jade, what is it?”

“Master, I believe we have gotten unlucky.” His hand points out towards the horizon. 

When you follow the direction of his index, your heartbeat exceeds the typical amount of beats per minute. For six minutes, Jade measures its pumping fluctuations as both of you silently watch the king of the jungle descend down a sandy hill. Imprints of his paws are birthed with each step and follow after the lion like a blood trail. The blood in your veins is turbulent like a pinched hose, terribly anxious. 

“Master?”

“…”

“Master, if –.”

“Jade. In your own words, without paraphrasing from the internet, describe to me the look of turnera oculata. Do-uooo it … in the form of a haiku,” you order, snapping your fingers at the end of your command. Below, your chauffeur has just crossed himself and locked himself inside the company’s limousine. 

It takes a few precious moments, but Jade eventually formulates a haiku. He articulates, “A bleeding yellow. A sun eclipsed by needles. The eye of nature.” When you request for him to make another one without using any of the previous words, Jade vocalizes, “These dry petals see. Morning's canary splendor. In this desert heart.” You clap quickly yet quietly; it is like a reward.

By now, the lion has cautiously ventured to the middle of the bowl the desert hills have constructed. It is smartly not inching closer to the limousine, animal instinct on high alert towards a vehicle. However, the lion is obviously interested in the company. He is out of his element without scrubland to hide underneath or behind.

Instead of heeding this opportunity, you continue on, “I was sure you might slip up and use the definite article, ‘the’, again but you did a marvelous job of avoiding repeated word choice!” Turning, you smile at Jade. Sunlight illuminates the edges of your hair style like licks of flame. “Your efficiency is always praise worthy.”

“Thank you, Master.” Is that perhaps a verbal nudge in the situation – you are strangely making note of his efficiency – perhaps telling Jade that he should get the job done. He won’t ask so instead he verbally spars. “Human errors are a continuous trifle. It is most gratifying that I will never have to genuinely deal with such a thing. Is it … Is it difficult?” He shifts his vocal stereos to playfully pitying at the last sentence.

“You ass,” you smile radiantly. However, it drops when you notice the lion has not rushed off to some unseeable part of the desert. He seems to have found contentment in his prowl here, obviously anxious of both of you but not backing down from his clear trek to the southwest of Namib Desert. It’s been in the area for enough minutes where the chauffeur will be legally required to report the sighting. 

“Thought we’d make out with better luck today,” you grumble.

“Master?” 

Jade offers, outstretched, the .375 caliber rifle, unhooking it from the strap on his back. 

“Yeah … yeah.” Despondent, you take the weapon in your arms. “Guess it is about that time, ain’t it? We can’t return home empty-handed. Business retreat was exclusively paid for … the suits won’t be happy to know I didn’t hunt the game. Nothing to do but play along.”

“Some of the most toxic animals protect themselves through camouflage.”

“Ain’t that just the way~.” The scope and your eyeball bisect each other in perfect ratio. With the practiced precision that you use to commence lining up for a shot, it makes Jade remember that old gossip talk that he heard in the staffroom, said between bites of donuts and sips of coffee, What does a robotic engineer and professor need to know how to shoot a gun for?

The lion goes down, sending waves of sand jumping up. It is a clean shot between the eyes; the lion certainly felt no pain. Jade’s focus is pulled away when the source of your tumor, a single cigarette, is placed directly in his line of sight.

“Don’t you remember our agreement? After I kill something, you have to light my cigarette for me.”

Jade’s eyes fly open.

Greeted by the sight of his bedroom, Jade steps off the platform of his charging pad and discards his ‘dream’ like a dog shaking water off his fur. Polygons of sunrise light cuts from his window. In the fleeting stillness of daylight — 5:00 shining red next to his terrarium — and absence of demands, Jade stands perfectly still with a sense of something missing from his components washing over him.

His face is white with terror. His eyes dull with lifelessness. 

Then, he shakes that off too and ventures downstairs to go make you two pancakes and a sunny side up egg.

You once told him that ‘progress is not linear’. You had illustrated this point to him with the cherry glow of your cigarette, waving and cutting the fire through the air to make a graphical visual of moving up then moving down then moving back up again. Fluctuations and setbacks can either stir someone very high or they can cause someone to go low. It is never perfectly straight like laundry.

That one graph confounds Jade to no end. When you construct something, the progress is linear. Staring at the empty dining chair beyond him, he finds himself confounded once again with progress’s inevitable immodesty. Today is 11/6/2182 and you have not come down for breakfast. He has been waiting for exactly 0:59:59 and, now in a slow blink, he has waited for 1:00:00. One whole hour and you are not here. 

There have been instances where you miss or skip breakfast. But, the preface of yesterday — seeing you wearing an outfit for the first time in a long while and seeing a freckle of cancer growing in your lungs — leaves him wondering if there is a disrepair in his systems. You started on such a high and ended on such a low yesterday. Progress is not linear.

His sensors glance across the intimately small round table. Past the butter tray shaped like a cow and towards the plate where your pancakes and sunny side egg are cold and deflating. Jade blinks once. The dish remains uneaten and at room temperature in front of him. Not even a warm cigarette is light to melt the ice that has held him in place for an hour.

At the bottom of the trash, the food looks … sad. How illogical to add an emotion to the sight of carbohydrates and protein sloshing down into the pristine white trash bag. Jade places the plate full of syrup blood streaks into the sink and makes a small, unusual trek to your bedroom — to check if everything is alright. 

He won’t fail the purpose of his intentional design. He was manufactured in a factory, built on front line assembly, and given the inputted task: Take Care of my Master.

(MASTER.)

There is no fathomable way that Jade Leech will allow himself to fall short of this robotic Manifest Destiny.  

Jade knocks his artificial knuckles against the front of your door. Following proper etiquette, he takes a step back and waits until you respond to his call. His ears are awaiting to receive the sound of your vocal cords. There is something spiritual in how your voice manages to scrub out any rust left inside his body. 

But, he receives no answer. And after he waits the polite amount of minutes, tries again with three, sharp yet spaced out knocks, he has still not received an answer. What a dilemma. 

Jade is permitted to enter your bedroom without explicit permission. However, with the way things concluded on his birthday yesterday, it would be illogical to not anticipate that some of the parameters that Jade is allowed to walk freely have not been closed to him now. You might not want to see Jade for a week or … even a month.

Jade finds his knuckles raising without input, knocking thrice again. “Master, I apologize for my overstepping behavior and pushing out boundaries. I would like to make amends today for yesterday.” There is, once again, no response.

The silence is so loud, it's deafening. That oxymoron emerges in Jade’s artificial synapses. He cannot help but judge it as an appropriate expression. The silence in your absence is deafening. He would rip out the wires in his ears if you ever left.

Forehead pressing to the door, Jade soliloquies loud enough to be heard, “Master … (Name). Your health is a great concern to me. Yesterday, I inadequately expressed where this concern of mine stems from. I credited the source towards code and etiquette. My inputs are inert, and they always will be as my sole job is to take care of you above all else. Yet, underneath all that, the origin of my concern comes from the concrete fact that I am in love with you, (Name). I have been in love with you for so long. For ten thousand upon ten thousand minutes, for hundred upon hundred weeks, I cherished you solely.”

He angles his head so his ear lies on the wooden door. Nothing stirs beyond cedar barriers. 

“I have covered this through ritualistic self-assurance that I cannot fully comprehend the full scope of what ‘want’ or ‘desire’ is defined as, not defined in a dictionary, but defined inside of a heart. My ‘heart’ pumps, not blood, but solely electricity, the binary code of zeros and ones, and the devotion that I have for you. Human sentimentalities sometimes allude me, but I have reassurance through one fact that I feel the most, above all other emotions. I love you. My love is perhaps not a perfect replica by human standards. However, its existence I am certain of. Though it is not easily achievable, I want to make you as happy as you can possibly be. I want you to have no worries that must be burned through with a cigarette. If you would permit – command me the allowance – I would like to share this love that I feel for you with you, (Name).”

After a minute, 00:01:00, has passed, Jade slowly turns the knob of your bedroom door in his hand. He lifts his head from the wood. Through the open mouth of the door, he gazes upon your lonely mattress with resignation. Faced with emptiness, Jade thinks to himself, I should have never said something as loose-tongued as that. I will permanently delete any urges to repeat that verbal mistake.  

In replacement of family portraits, you have hung up frames of taxidermy that display a series of brilliant butterflies and moths, from the Adonis Blue Butterfly to the Yellow Horned Moth. His sensors trail over them. Such fragile specimens. Jade, then, closes the door and departs from his previous expressed, petulant folly of love.

It is for the best that my Master did not hear that. 

In his trek through the hallway, palm gently cupping the log banister as he steps, Jade’s ears acutely pick up a soft murmur of music. ‘In the fake plastic earth .. that she bought from a rubber man.’ His eyes flicker towards the door of your office. When you select this as his and your home, you specifically wanted a house made of authentic wood, nothing blended with plastic. The material creates a bright tap sound against his synthetic knuckles thrice, clear like a bell. 

Can you hear that over the music? There is no certainty, so his hand finds the doorknob innately. Jade misses you fervently and all you did is skip breakfast. Welcomed in, the sound of Radiohead’s Fake Plastic Trees rains off the horn of your record player. ‘It wears her out. It wears her out.’

You are sleeping, head down on your desk, still in yesterday’s dressing gown.

He lifts the needle off the record. It is impressive to see a model two hundred years old still functioning. When he is two hundred years old, will he still function?  Avoiding making a single miscalculating step, Jade travels effectively through the mess until he reaches the front of your desk.

At least you snuffed out your cigarette before falling asleep. There was a time you neglected to make sure all the ashes were firmly pressed and cooled. It started a pocket-sized fire and ate the side of the pages of Fahrenheit 451 like a munching caterpillar. Jade had extinguished the fire calmly, and his reward was you giddily throwing your arms around his neck and laughing at the absurdity of it all. 

The cigarette that is on your ashtray is snuffed out thoroughly and cooled. It is too close for comfort however. Some of your hair is even lying in wisps over the item. Jade relocates the tray to the right corner of your desk when his sensors happen to notice a slight irregularity in your sleeping position. 

Your head is using your left arm as a pillow. Your raw, un-lipsticked lips press delicately into the elbow sleeve and you breath out soft puffs of carbon dioxide. However, what draws Jade’s instantaneous attention in and causes him to pause is the polaroid clenched in your limp right hand.

He won’t move it. Nothing in this room shall be disturbed without explicit permission. Jade turns to finalize the motion of setting the ashtray down on the right desk corner. Yet, hand and tray still hovering in the air, he realizes that he has broken that outlined rule with the slightest misguided concern. 

But, the complexity of caretaking is one given to his hands. With their fake, plastic, and ivory skin, with their tiny train of beetle-shaped steel joints, each of his phalanges has been designed specifically to care for you. They are the ones who cook, clean, and care for solely his Master, for you. Aegis puppets his hands. The polaroid slips into them all too easily.

Besides this one, Jade has never held a physical photograph. Memories are captured on cellular devices and immortalized in harddrives forevermore. Even when the life force of memories starts to leave the body like evaporating rain, citizens have always counted on the deathlessness of digital photos.

This photograph’s paper is fragile. It feels similar to pages in a book. On the back, it says: 11/5/2151. On the front, it shows …

ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR.

The very hand meant to care for you is the one that wakes you up suddenly. In his panic, Jade had slammed the photograph face down upon your desk and roused you sharply out of sleep. Each circuit in his system races hot white sparks up and down like a flurry of insects when a rock is lifted up. Bugs skitter under his skin, tickling nausea. Something in his ‘mind’ has been unshrouded, much like a raised rock.

Your head rises too. Groggily, you peel sections of untamed hair out of your face and peel open suctioning lips with a yawn. Your empty right hand twitches on the desk, trying to recollect what it has lost.

Jade wishes he could observe you more, coming undone from sleep, but he is grappling violently with memories he has lost coming back to him. His ‘brain’ – a collection of harddrives and his central processing unit – is experiencing a unique headache, unlike anything he has felt before. Clawed, his left hand grips and digs hard into the skin over his left eye. He feels like he is going to overload.

Five years ago, Jade knew a life beyond the dead woods of Quebec. Five years ago, Jade helped to outline terms for a tense contract with the vice-president of the United 54 States of America. Five years ago, Jade lit your cigarette. 

“Jade? Jade, are you okay?”

Though he always wants to appear pristine for you, the answer is no. He is not okay; he thinks he hasn’t felt okay in a long, uncalculated time. Looking up from the ground – because somehow all those digital memories started to push down upon him like a hydraulic press and he finds himself in a pile on top of your miserable notes and books – Jade peers at the single hand outstretched towards him with the aid of his sole right eye. 

Instead of grasping it, he grapples with the impossibility that Jade – a machine – managed to achieve such a humane defense mechanism as repression. There’s no way, is there?

His fingers dig hard in his face, folding silicone, yearning to wrench his left eye out. Anything to get back his unconscious protection of blocking out unpleasant memories from his ‘mind’ – anything to rip them from his body. He is a broken man.

“Jade, why are you on the ground? Let me help you up. Come on.” Your voice is so tenderly soft. He has never known a more comforting voice than yours. Yet, all he can remember is your piercing scream from last night, “Get the fuck out before I dismantle you!!”

On uncertain pistons and metal, Jade forces himself to stand. With a trembling metal ulna and radius, he forces his gloved hand to drop by his side. He blinks at you. You are startled into silence, leaning off the edge of your chair with a hand that wants to reach out but is too unconfident. 

“Forgive me for such a display, Master.”

“... Jade.”

It is touching. That despite how monotone you are as a person, your concern will always shine through, solely for Jade.

“What’s wrong! Jade, let me help you!” But he is already retreating out the door, afraid.

He finds himself with his back pressed hard against the office door. His heart beats faster. It does not send out blood but it releases hot waves of white electricity that crackle and pop. The doorknob at his side jiggles as you turn it fruitlessly. Jade simply leans harder on the door, keeping it shut.

I cannot afford to lose my head over this.

Intentional, Jade’s lithe fingers reach up to his skull. Between the field of hair roots, he separates a section to reveal a river of pallid synthetic skin. His non-growing fingernails dig down into the rubber until he hears a clink. Slowly, he grapples around to unpin the skin of his head off.

Less familiar with this process than he is removing his glove-hand, it takes a lengthy measurement of thirty-nine seconds for Jade to completely remove – or lose – his head. 

He unhooks it from the peak of his skull down to where his shoulders and neck meet. It is like opening up a button-up flannel, unhooking each hook from their twin. He travels down to Cervical 7 and Thoracic 1 on his body region, undoing the last hook. Still hinged onto his body by the skin of his front neck, Jade delicately cups his face in front of him. Below his flickering spheres, absent of lashes or lids, he stares solemnly at the valley of molded synthetic mountains, a field of vanilla-almond plastic that resembles human features only because of the dips for his nose, the opening for his eyes, the protrusions for his ears. A Halloween mask to use and parade around as homo sapien. 

It is a desolate and lonely portrait. A steel man boxed in a winding, wooden hallway, holding his humanity in his trembling hands. His face is a shining plate like that of a star. When Jade catches a reflection of himself in the corridor’s mirror, he turns away quickly. 

It is not an inspiring impression he cuts in the reflection with his inhuman, gray skin.

This is a memory. It is not a dream. Juxtaposingly, Jade Leech is 99.9 percent positive that he has never lived through it.

He is looking at a Sun, without shying away from the splendid monstrosity that is glaring, piercing light. His eyes are round spheres, one painted yellow and other painted olive-brown. Because of his inhumanity, he can stare into the Sun before him longer than a hundred seconds without incurring any permanent retinal damage. There is no squishy softness in the back of his retinas to hurt. 

The Sun abruptly moves away, relocated northeast. “Hey, don’t look too close now. You’re going to see something you don’t like.” In front of his artificial retinas, the visage of a lapis blue rectangle and dull indigo blue rectangle directly atop the lighter block in a skull of sleek gray intercept Jade’s focus. 

Another prototype, Jade crafts his hypothesis. The highly educated guess shatters when a single gloved hand lifts up the welding mask. Incorrect. My Master. Much younger than fifty-two and younger than thirty-something, you look to be about freshly twenty-one. Your eyes squint impishly at him and your rows of clean, white teeth smile jubilantly at him. 

Then, without warning, someone has pulled his Master away from him – like a fluid cane hooking around a character onstage and pulling them away. He corrects this fallacious interference. You have simply pushed yourself backwards on your office chair with wheels and are currently busying yourself with the tools and documents on your long, long desk.

Jade also corrects one last thing. He was not staring into the Sun, but rather into the eye of a lamp. There is still so much to learn about this growing world. 

As he directs his focus off the lamp and back towards his Master, he is not discomposed to see you with a lit cigarette in your mouth. It is quite a comforting familiar sight in a strange world. He is taking in all the new inputs – the dozens of crushed energy cans littering the desk and the dissected baby chimpanzee with knives sticking out like a pincushion quilled with needles– and committing them to an infinite memory. You’re tapping a scalpel knife on the petite chimp’s engorged colon, breathing in a drag of nicotine, before asking, “Name?”

“JE-14500. Jade Leech.”

“Where are we right now, Jade?”

“MIT. Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Specifically, in Professor. (Last Name)’s personal laboratory on the fourth floor of the Stata Center.”

“Good. In what wing?”

“We are housed in the Artificial Intelligence wing.”

“Today’s date? Today’s weather? Today’s horoscope for Scorpio?”

“The day is November 5th, 2151. Today is scheduled to be sunny with no clouds. High temperatures of 77 and low temperatures of 59. The average temperature is 66.4. Today’s horoscope for Scorpios is ‘If you can dream it, you can do it. That's what you've always been told, what you've always believed, and now what you're about to prove. As if your already substantial intellectual prowess weren't enough to get you started, the stars are on your side too. They'll be waking you up this morning with the vivid memory of a dream, the kind that will stay with you all day, constantly making you wonder ‘what if?’, Master.”

“Hm.” You spear your scalpel through the chimpanzee’s stomach. Taking off your welding mask, you blow smoke over your shoulder and roll over to Jade who sits rigidly in a repurposed dentist patient chair. You are so beautiful. “And, are the stars on your side, Jade?”

“To be truthful, I feel the stars root for you more than they parade around for me. Prosperity is just around the corner.”

“Charming,” you bite. “Well, it’s no compromise to say that the stars have aligned for both of us today. We’ll share luck. What is your opinion on sharing with me, Jade?”

“I find it most agreeable.”

“We won’t just be sharing luck. We’ll be sharing a shelter and I am not the most agreeable roommate. I can be quite a thorn. If you’re truly fine with sharing, you are going to have to deal with some things you don’t like or are hesitant to look at.”

“Let me allay your worries,” Jade straightens his posture and stares unabashedly at you, “whatever conditions I happen to find myself experiencing, it will not be a struggle to me when I have a light like you to wash away any creeping darkness. Even if you are the darkness itself, Master.”

An odd human phenomenon happens next. It is one he hasn’t seen before, so he makes sure to document it thoroughly. You inhale your cigarette, it billows up and away from your face, and, without explanation, your cheeks have brightened to rosy apples. “Aaaaah~,” you moan as you collapse in your chair. Your hand covers up over your features, cigarette tight between fingers. 

You glare at him from behind the spindly, uneven cage of your fingers, face reddening. “I’m certain of it now, I input too much data from My Man Godfrey. Even some of the dialects have been used already.” Your eyebrow is twitching. “I can’t have myself getting flustered at every turn just because I crafted your personality chip to mimic my favorite movie star.”

After a puff and drag, you seem to scrutinize him quite drastically. Before Jade can inquire about what he can do to ease your worries, you cheerfully state, “But, it’s really too late to change such a thing! Hehe!” You roll back to your desk. From there, you start fiddling with the chimp’s maroon-brown fingers, moving the thumb in circles. “I can’t help it – Godfrey is so handsome and I just love that movie.”

“If I may intrude upon the conversation, what is love, Master? It is listed as one of my side objectives in my system.”

“Now, Jade, you’re not intruding if we are the only ones engaged in conversation. Use an expression like … if I may shift the conversation towards, then whatever you want to say. Got it,” you instruct to which Jade carefully nods and notes. “But, I’ll answer anyway!” 

It does necessarily ‘surprise’ Jade, but it does cause his eyebrows to raise slightly when you, resting your cigarette between your scowling lips, take your dominant hand and reach in the baby chimpanzee’s open chest cavity without the use of gloves and wrench out the fist-sized heart. The arteries follow along in swoops like fallen telephone wires. You take to cutting all those off with a scalpel before rotating to face Jade in your chair on wheels.

“Now.” You gesture with the infant chimpanzee’s heart and hold your cigarette by your armrest. You are so beautiful. “Those penny-pushing suits upstairs, downstairs, hell, even in the next room over, want you to be heartless. They don’t care about nature. They don’t care about life. The world as I know it is sliding on a rapid decline and it’s one destination to a world devoid of anything that lives or breathes, besides of course, the suits. 

“Jade. You have been designed to be the ‘everything man’. What I have been given funding for is the objective to create a high-fashioned butler that will tie the ties of sycophants and scrub the shoes of socialites. You don’t need to think. You don’t need to feel. Trust me, I’ll produce a thousand of Jades just like that – Jades’ whose emotions are like a dead heartbeat. But, you, you who were meant for me.

“You are going to teach me to be less human. In return, I am going to teach you to become human. Do you understand me?”

Jade cannot breathe. He was not designed to do that. Despite this, he feels like he needs to take a deep breath to stabilize himself, soak in all the words you have said, and absorb their meanings. Without this anchoring breath, Jade can only punctually state, “No, Master.” 

“Perfect.” You smoke in victory. “That means we’re on the right path.”

The right path? – “JADE!”

Jade’s eyes fly open. 

Like a man running out of a burning building, he stumbles off his charging platform. Uncoordinated, his feet rock uneasily on flat ground as his head turns violently towards the door of his bedroom. That wasn’t in the memory-dream, was it? He did hear that in the present day, yes?

His eyelids open as far as physically possible as Jade listens to the harsh sound of a headboard smashing repeatedly into the wall. Underneath the thick cacophony, it can be inferred that the other noises he hears are rustling of sheets in the midst of struggle and that low animalistic groan that a dog might make before croaking. Jade has never thrown his bedroom door open so quickly. He wishes construction did not put such a loathsome obstacle like this in his way just for the meaningless sake of privacy. 

Your door splinters in his cement grip like a toy underneath a hydraulic press. 

Perhaps because it is 2 A.M. and he did not get to attend to it yesterday night, but Jade cannot help how all the routine questions rise to his mind. All the ones that he asks before checking the health of your lungs. Coughing up any blood; any dull or sharp chest pains; any shortness of breath, Master? They are all most certainly positive, as your fragile neck is squeezed between two grisly hands. 

There are three men gathered around your bed, but only one kneels upon the sheets, holding your throat in a vice-grip. The other two restrain you in certain capacities, by arm or by leg or by hair. In 1.5 seconds, Jade already has each of their full government names displayed in his left eye. He knows each of their parents intimately, he knows each of their grades on every subject from preschool to university, he knows each of their place of employment and what their fucking managers’ last grocery lists contained on them – from a box of raw fusilli pasta to a four pack of toasted coconut flavored yogurt.

All that information of life is so overpowering, so touching. It is proof of the life cycle – the sequence of biological changes that occurs as an organism develops from egg to adult until death – and how humans are so infinitely complex, affecting those around them in a mythical phenomena that humans call the butterfly effect. When butterflies were not extinct, of course.

Jade would shed a tear if he could. Instead, he marches forward to rip the wings off each of their lives. His intentions are only halted when you stir on the bed, neck released by the startled preparator who stares at Jade like he is seeing a ghost. 

You stir on the mattress, chest heaving. Jade’s attention is magnetized to you. Your head is upside down on the bottom edge of the bed, meaning you must have struggled, trying to reach the door only to be pulled away again and again by evil hands. A sliver of breast and nipple is nude from your seized and pulled nightgown. 

Between shaking coughs, you manage to exhale important words, “Th-The — chuk-code!”

Something from underneath the rock crawls out – a small, instinctual insect he never knew had before. Jade’s gaze narrows with the weight of starting a robotic-assisted holocaust. He says, steady and ready, “Of course, Master.”

“No!” You shout in bed, jerking. 

You are still held by the other two men. Limbs are pulled like you are a creature on the dissection table. Such a fragile specimen. The only source of light in the room is your red lamp which reflects tiny circles in your glassy eyes, twin orbs of sanguine, like a badly taken photo when the flash is reflected off the blood-rich retina.

Through the finger-shaped bruises on your compromised trachea, you say with quivering lungs, “The-They. They’re not go—government. Don’t. Don’t! use that code … Buh, Break the leader’s ankles. Kill the rest.”

Though it causes the three men to jolt in various states of stress, your words soothe Jade like a kiss. It is a concrete command that leaves no room for error and fills him with purpose. Bending into a servant’s bow, he punctually assures, “Of course, Master.” The orb of yellow fastened into his skull with metal wires shines like a tiny Sun. 

“On a scale of one through ten, one being no pain and ten being unbearable, what is the pain that you would rate your coughs?”

“Jade.”

“Master, please, answer the question.”

“Jade. Jade,” you repeat firmer, pushing his hands off your body. The glare you point in his direction makes him think you are squinting in vision loss. Did something else obscure your health? Aging individuals sometimes need eyewear. “Jade!” Ah, he instinctively went to touch you again.

“It’s four. A four,” you seethe at him, hands up like talons resisting the urge to batter him away. Like clockwork, you pluck the package of cigarettes and the package of matches off the living room’s coffee table. 

You mutter curses at the sheer lack of both slender, stick-shaped objects in each box. Jade dubiously notes that refills will need to be purchased soon. After you have striked one and puffed it into a hot, cherry glow, you turn towards Jade who watches you cough out – rather than smoothly exhaling – a cloud of nicotine, carbon monoxide, and formaldehyde. 

For that static moment, Jade takes the precious time to analyze you, as if he could not in the discord that was your bedroom. He takes his red-black stained thumb and index finger to peel back the heavy, black strand of hair from obscuring his left eye. The sensors in his gold eye rotate once like a telephone rotary dial. Without even touching you, Jade calculates your blood pressure and heart rate. An optimally healthy 122 mm Hg and an undisturbed 80 bpm. You are impenetrable like steel.

Retrohaling, you scan around the parlor as if searching for something or perhaps start to look at things through a new light. You even circle around the coffee table once too. It reminds him of laboratory chickens, walking around with their heads cut off.

You flick your cigarette after each coughing inhale. He watches it crumble and burn, like red sand breaking off from a jutted cliffside. When only a few breaths are left, you say, direct and firm, “Jade. How long has it been since we had a guest?”

“We have never had a guest in this cabin, Master.”

“Exactly!” You point your cigarette at him sharply. “So, go up there and start with some lighthearted small talk. Make him feel welcome, okay?” 

Jade thinks he has an irregular guilty pleasure. He has no source for how it developed, but he has a specific appetite for violence. An appetency that can be only fed through seeing blood on his hand. Or perhaps this desire is only awakening in him, squirming like a bug under a shaded rock, because of whose blood is on his pale moon hands.

Tomorrow, he might have to spend six or seven hours working, scrubbing and wringing damp towelettes like a maid, to get all the stains out of your four-walled bedroom. There was blood everywhere. As if your red lamp gained the power of illuminating with the force of a Sun.

As his shoes click over to your office desk where the live dissection stirs, his comfort comes from seeing the broken stumps that are the man’s ankles. They are pointed and twisted in asymmetrical shapes. Torn and crumpled wings on an insect’s back. 

“Sir, I truly don’t think you are going to get too far with that. Cigarettes are an awful vice.” The man ignores him, trying fruitlessly to strike a match, blubbering harder with each attempt. When the match flies out of his sweat-soaked hand onto the floor, Jade tuts in pity. “Humans always make such foolish decisions without considering the most probable outcome.”

He must have rummaged the matchbox out of your desk, slapping his hand across the lower surface until he found a drawer. It is not necessary for you and Jade to tie him down. There is no way he is going to manage a crawl. And, his conviction is too fearful to use untied fists to attack anyone.

The man has been in and out of odd paralysis since he has gazed upon Jade’s plastic face. As Jade cradles the sides of the man’s face gingerly, tilting his head backwards inch by inch until their eyes finally meet yet again, Jade witnesses that raw fear rise as cheekbone muscles tighten, increased blood flow branches out to the body’s peripheries, and the man’s pupils dilate enough to eclipse out blue in unconcealed, virgin adrenaline.  

“Heart rate is 108 beats per minute. Rises to 111 when hearing my voice. Am I really such a phobia to you?”

There is no verbal answer. However, it is very telling when those dilated eyes pinch close firmly, oozing two water droplets, and the cigarette in his mouth starts to wobble back and forth wildly in his quivering lips. 

“Be civil now. No one talks with their eyes closed. It is rude. Besides, you are the first human I have interacted with outside of my Master, and I would like to have a few discussions with you – to pass time.” The man cannot see it but that smarmy smile returns to Jade’s face –  a slight scrunch of the slanted downward eyebrows that leaves a line above his tiny, razor teeth.

Nothing in the formulaic, fear-fueled adrenaline changes. The man continues trembling and jiggling. His features are pulled taut, tight-lipped and tight-eyed, in deep creases that refuse to open. Jade wants to make him spill.

“Come, come,” Jade rubs a comforting circle of red into the man’s left cheek, “I am equipped with dozens of dialogue enhancing programs and can speak up to between six thousand and seven thousand languages fluently. I assure you that I am a good conversationalist.”

A tear squeezes out and falls down the side of the man’s nose. “Really, there is no viable reason to cry. If you had simply anticipated the outcome, this situation would not be as devastating as you are experiencing it. Operational planning can stop one from being blindsided.”

Jade smiles placidly, fighting back against the laugh that so desperately wants to bubble up. “Did you really expect to get away with this without –?”

That causes a spillage.

“Get away with – Get away with? You’re inhuman. Fucking inhuman. Fucking Christ. You fucking monsters. Things like you shouldn’t exist. Shouldn’t exist. That inhuman bitch killed my father. She shot him five years ago and there was no justice. No fucking justice! Inhuman … She gets – She gets away with it. She gets to live out of the rest of her life in Canada while my Dad rots in the fucking ground! Inhuman, inhuman bitch, you fucking robots …” 

Jade’s smile twitches at the corner. He starts to spill, laughing shamefully in fufu’s then freely in booming haha’s. His razor teeth glint like ice shards until he calms slowly, pinching his lips into a wobbly smirk. “Five years ago … I cannot recollect it perfectly. However, I do remember the rule of thumb that hostages make the best bargaining chips.”

Jade ducks backwards as a hand reaches up like a predator’s batting claw. It is unfortunate that Jade has never known the role of prey, for he cannot execute the facade of it convincingly. When the hand misses the mark, Jade strikes like an extinct owl capturing prey and squeezes the man’s wrist.

“Ack – Aaaagh!” Holding the body’s periphery, Jade considers changing the shape of this limb too. The man’s left tibia is snapped in three places like a badly-written ‘W’ and the man’s right tibia is half out of the meat sleeve of his flesh like a stick pulled off a corndog. Before he can act on uncommanded urges, you walk in with a hammer.

“Hey, play nice. Bad hospitality these days will spread to the neighborhood like wildfire,” you tease with a smile. It is a joke because there is no neighborhood; you live in an isolated cabin where no soul besides the two of you could hear a scream.

Jade vigilantly tracks your body’s steps, each one coy, as you move across the discord on the office’s ground. “Aack – Are you a robot too?” The disdain in the man’s voice makes Jade twist his wrist.

“Oya, that would be quite a plot twist, wouldn’t it?” You smile a slippery moon crescent at the man. Jade watches intently as you crouch down to the bottom of one of your numerous shelves. Going through your archives, you start to flip through records in your hand, completely distracted. 

“Nothing in here is alphabetized,” you gripe.

“If you would like, I can find time to organize your records, Master.”

“How about tomorrow? Oh, here it is!” You stand, record and hammer in hand. “We can do it tomorrow. Make a little game of it and organize them together in alphabetical order!” Placing it delicately down on the phonograph player, the needle once deposited down on the track starts to send out the vibration sequence that makes up “Nessun Dorma” from the opera Turnadot. You close your eyes as if soaking in the melody. 

“My prognosis is … My prognosis is …,” you raise your hammer to point towards your desk, music slowly encroaching with stretched lyrics, “this a revenge plot.” You bare yellowing teeth wolfishly in a pleased smile. 

“Now, the other two, well, they’re obviously frustrated members of society. Maybe a job was overtaken by one of the Jades, and they thought ‘enough is enough’. Maybe, just resentment for the world as it is. I can sympathize. A bloodlust needed to be quenched in those young men, but it was not as intense as our leader here. No, he wants me dead for something more personal. No one wraps their hands around a person’s throat unless it is, personal. 

“I killed someone you loved. Not a brother or sister. Too young for that. Not an uncle or aunt either. Father? Mommy?” The man’s responding rough jerks are ‘smoothed’ down by Jade, who presses him roughly to flatten out on the desk surface. “Doesn’t matter now though. You didn’t succeed.” 

You stride over to the dissection table, each step deliberate, following along to the swelling opera. “Good thing too. In the event that I die of unnatural causes, a code is sent through Jade, connecting to every last robot worldwide to kill anything with a beating heart.” You tap the hammer gently on the side of the man’s face. “Do you understand the foolishness of all this?”

“You inhuman mo-monster.”

“We can’t all be humane in this century.”

Then, striking like an extinct cobra, you grab the man’s neck in your hand and force his head back. Jade watches as you subtly increase the strength of pressure applied. The man’s head leans over the edge of the desk and his forehead kisses Jade’s belt. It is only when the man opens his mouth, trying to suck up oxygen that won’t enter his nostrils, do you take the hammer and swiftly pierce it through the muscle tissue.

The man screams but it is drowned by the operatic symphony. The screams finally stop when the tissue disconnects from the body, waggling on the claw end of the hammer. Blood fills the man’s mouth. You take unoccupied hands; one of them is placed over the man’s mouth firmly and the other pinches his nostrils. 

For the first time in his life, separate from his memories and separate from his dreams, Jade watches the life fade out, like a leisurely slow sunset, from a living person’s eyes.

Jade isn’t sure how it happens, perhaps he is dissociating – how revolutionary for a machine to experience such a unique, temporary disconnect from his mind – but the two of you find yourself outside on the cabin’s back porch on November 7th bitterly cold and dark morning. It is exactly 4:06 A.M and the temperature is negative 0.5 Celsius. Like the constant epilogue of each novel where you kill something alive, you are holding out a cigarette in front of Jade’s chest, the white tip awaiting him. 

He pulls his glove-hand off and holds out the tip of his silver index. The first knuckle flicks open and a blue flame emerges out elegantly. Jade reattaches his skin as you pull the cigarette to your mouth. 

Smoke clouds are already coming out of your mouth, crystalizing in the chill night air. However when the first smoke cloud made of carbon monoxide, nicotine, and formaldehyde blooms out from your peeling lips, you say softly, “I can delete it if need be.”

“Delete what, Master?”

“Anything you want me to delete.” You rub your face. “Anything from tonight. I’ll do it for you, Jade. I promise.”

“Why would I ever want to miss a moment that has you in?”

Though it was not his intent, his response causes you strife. It is an unforeseen variable to see you hunch so deeply into a moment of woe. A black puffer jacket conceals your lungs yet Jade watches the profound, hard sigh billow out all the same. Holding your head in your hands, your nude legs shake in the frigid cold underneath your elbows.

After exactly 00:06:15, you respond, “I don’t want you fearful of me … I’m not pleasant to see or be around. And, I don’t want you to remember something that makes you upset, even if it is just one tiny thing. Whatever you want gone, I can take that pain away. If you so desire, I have the ability to remove anything. You can keep whatever you want. I won’t overstep.”

Jade clasps the hand that holds your cigarette, bringing it away from your temple to smolder over his blood-stained dress pants, “All of it. I’ll keep all of it.”

You simply smoke in response.

Jade isn’t sure what time it happens, he manually shuts down his inner clock two minutes after you two finished your conversation, but while sitting on the back porch of the cabin, another unexpected visitor approaches the solitary solace you and Jade have carved into dead woods. The visitor is tiny and flitters around like a restless child. It has been a whole year since he has seen a visitor of this species.

The two of you built a bird feeder together in the first months living in this cabin. It had been marvelously fun. Measuring the cuts for each piece of wood was delegated to Jade while you worked on assembling the finished product. Jade always loves doing activities with you. Now, some of the aftermath rewards can be reaped, as Jade watches an American Goldfinch pick and snack on the bird seeds, his yellow coat fluffy and his black wings ruffling momentarily to shake off the cold.

“(Name), look.” Jade urges softly, even though he can tell by your healthy, deep breaths that you are asleep. “A goldfinch.” You remain comatose in sleep, curling into Jade’s shoulder. He won’t dare to be so intimate and slip in logical judgement by saying your name while you are awake.

The goldfinch stays with Jade until morning when the horizon begins to glow a brilliant yellow. Though it would hurt anyone else’s eyes, Jade stares unabashed ahead. 

[fairy-writes]

Hey, can i ask for Narumi with prompt 11? Thankyouu in advance <3<3

OPEN YOUR EYES

Reblogs and Comments are greatly appreciated!!

__________________________________________________________________________

Prompt: “No, don’t go to sleep. Hey! Eyes open!”

Fandom(s): Kaiju No. 8

Pairing(s): Narumi Gen x Reader

Word Count: 

Genre(s)/Tag(s): Gender Neutral!Reader, Civilian!Reader, Angst, Hurt no Comfort, Established Relationships, Major Character Death

Notes: I AM WOEFULLY BEHIND ON THE MANGA, SO PLS NO SPOILERS IF I GET ANYTHING WRONG

(Also, there is one use of Y/N in this despite me loathing it with my entire being)

__________________________________________________________________________

You were found a week after you went missing. 

It had been an accident, really. Gen hadn’t even been looking for survivors because, to his knowledge, they had all been found. The first three days after the recent kaiju’s demise had been dedicated to pulling people from the rubble. They had brought in dogs and the top search and rescue teams in the world to deal with the disaster. 

Hell, even the First Division and the surrounding Divisions had been called in to help with the carnage. 

All the while, you hadn’t returned Gen’s calls. 

“Hi! You just missed me. I’m either working or… well… working… Please leave your name, number, and a message after the beep, and I’ll get back to you ASAP! Thanks!”

The beep to indicate his message was being recorded had Gen scoffing and hitting the little red button to end his call. 

Where were you? 

It was one thing to skip out on the dinner reservation he had made three months ago. Maybe you were on a mission you forgot to tell him about. 

But not answering his calls? That made him nervous. 

However, the call of his name had him pocketing his phone in his uniform jacket and turning to see his stupid pupil running toward him with a concerning amount of panic in her step. 

“Captain Narumi!” Shinomiya Kikoru gasped as if she had just run a marathon. Her suit beeped erratically to show her equally erratic heart rate. 

“What?” He snapped, irritated and concerned that you still weren’t answering his calls. 

“They found Y/N!” She hunched over, hands on her knees. Her suit was probably overheating, and she had most likely run for a while to get this out of breath. 

But that didn’t matter. 

His hand gripped her arm and yanked her upright. 

“Where.” He demanded, and she didn’t have a quippy retort, didn’t say anything to get him riled up; she just turned and started running back the way she came. 

Questions were racing through his mind as the two of them ran, presumably toward you. 

Where had they found you? 

Were you okay? 

Why didn’t they use the radio system to call him?

Kikoru grabbed his arm just as they rounded a bend and pulled Gen to a stop. 

“What the hell?!” He ground out but stopped abruptly when he saw her somber expression. 

“Just… Prepare yourself, okay? Things aren’t looking too good.”

Gen’s heart fractured in his chest when he saw you.

You were lying on your back, with several medics around your prone body, murmuring to each other as someone performed CPR. The one performing chest compressions counted under his breath with every compression of your chest cavity. After another thirty seconds or so, he switched out with a female paramedic who continued the life-saving measures.

Even from where he stood, he could hear your ribs cracking.

“How long?” He snarled, and one of the paramedics looked up from where they had been setting up one of those portable defibrillators. Seeing as you were a civilian, you didn’t have access to the Defense Force’s fancy suits that had one installed.

“Captain Narumi.” They bowed their head in respect before continuing their job of putting the little pads on your chest. Your clothes had been cut open to make room. “It’s been fifteen minutes.” 

Before Gen could shout or scream or do anything, the paramedic called, “Clear!” and tried to restart your heart.

Your back arched and collapsed with a muffled thump.

Nothing.

Again. 

Another arch, another thump.

Nothing.

Again. 

Another arch, another thump.

Then—

“I have a pulse!” Cried the medic, who had been doing compressions before the defibrillator had been set up. Gen felt all the strength leave his knees as he nearly toppled over.

You were alive. 

You were going to be okay.

At least… that’s what he thought until you opened your eyes.

They were glassy and dazed. As you were loaded into the ambulance and he took his place at your side, he noticed that your pupils were two different sizes. A concussion, maybe? But your eyes lolled about nonetheless, and you coughed once, twice, three times, and a bloody foam sputtered from your lips.

That wasn’t good. Internal injuries, perhaps?

A finger brushed his gloved hand, and he used his teeth to yank it off so he could feel your skin touching his for the first time in a week. 

He didn’t like how cold it was. 

“Gen? Is that you?” Your voice was weak, barely more than a whisper, but he heard you. 

“‘Course it is, who else would be holding your hand?” He said, even as his heart cracked more and more. He kept your vitals in the corner of his eyes as the ambulance rumbled into motion, sirens wailing. 

They were dipping dangerously low. 

The two paramedics continuously worked to save your life, and Gen was left feeling utterly useless as he held your hand. You didn’t talk, barely coughed even. You just lay there on the gurney, glassy eyes staring at the ceiling of the ambulance. It seemed with every blink, your eyes got heavier and heavier.

“C’mon, talk to me.” He nudged your hand lightly and you seemed to barely hear him. With what seemed like a heaving effort, you turned your head to the side and looked blankly at him. 

“‘m so tired, Gen.” You murmured and closed your eyes. He shook your hand,

“No, don’t go to sleep. Hey! Eyes open!” He barked and even using what you had affectionately called his “captain’s voice,” it did nothing to wake you up. 

In fact, he could do nothing as your hand went limp in his. 

[tieflingkisser]

I’m a dentist from India. The fluoride debate in the U.S. horrifies me

from the article:

Florida has just banned fluoride in public water, becoming the second state to do so. It’s part of decadeslong battle that has heated up in recent years. Local governments debate whether it belongs in the water supply. Parents question safety. Pseudoscience clouds public perception. Often, the conversation is framed as a domestic ideological battle between personal liberty and public health mandates.

As a dentist trained in India and a global health researcher based in the United States, I have observed the fluoride debate from a broader, global lens. In many parts of the world, fluoride is not controversial — it is simply unavailable. Millions suffer from preventable tooth decay because they lack access to fluoride, and therefore the protection it provides against oral disease.

In India, I treated patients who represented both extremes of the fluoride spectrum. Some rural communities were exposed to naturally high fluoride levels, leading to debilitating skeletal fluorosis. But in many urban and peri-urban settings, especially among low-income populations, fluoride exposure was virtually nonexistent. The consequences were visible: advanced cavities in children as young as 6, chronic gum infections in adults, and widespread tooth loss among the elderly.

In these settings, fluoridated toothpaste was not always affordable or available. Water systems were rarely fluoridated. The absence of fluoride was not a health preference — it was a systemic failure. My patients were not debating the merits of fluoridation. They were living with the consequences of its absence.

This duality shaped my understanding of fluoride not as a universal good or evil, but as a tool — one that must be managed carefully and distributed equitably.

Today, working as a public health researcher in the United States, I continue to examine the health implications of oral care disparities. In many ways, fluoride remains the only preventive dental measure that reaches vulnerable populations who lack regular access to clinical care.

Yet opposition to fluoride in the U.S. is often strongest in well-resourced communities — where alternative dental services are abundant, fluoride toothpaste is affordable, and public skepticism, political mistrust, or misinformation can take hold. For many of these people, unfluoridated water may not pose an immediate risk — they have the means to compensate through private care. But the bans they advocate for extend far beyond their communities, stripping others of a preventive tool they cannot easily replace. Low-income and marginalized populations, particularly Black and Latino communities, experience disproportionately high rates of dental disease and already lack sufficient access to both fluoridated water and affordable care.

In these communities, fluoride is not an ideological question. It is a practical intervention that can reduce the burden of oral disease, which in turn is linked to systemic conditions like diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and pregnancy complications.

[...]

The World Health Organization and numerous peer-reviewed studies continue to support fluoride as a safe and effective public health measure, particularly where preventive care access is limited. From Canada to the United Kingdom to India, governments continue to struggle with balancing public concern against health equity.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Richard Luscombe at The Guardian:

Ron DeSantis, the Republican governor of Florida, on Thursday signed a bill making it the second state after Utah to ban adding fluoride, or any other additives, to drinking water. Legislators approved the bill last month that goes against the concerns of public health experts and medical professionals, who say the measure will increase tooth decay and cavities, especially in children. The law, however, aligns with the positions of two controversial senior figures, Robert F Kennedy Jr, the US health secretary, and Florida’s surgeon general, Joseph Ladapo, that adding fluoride, a natural mineral, to drinking water affects children’s intellectual abilities.

[...] In Israel, studies have shown that removing fluoride from drinking water supplies caused “a significant increase in restorative dental treatments”. The bill signed by DeSantis on Thursday takes effect statewide on 1 July, and was touted by the governor as “legislation to protect against forced medication”. It does not specifically mention fluoride, but “the use of certain additives in a water system” is outlawed.

With Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signing SB700 into law, Florida becomes the 2nd state to join the whacko anti-fluoride crusade by banning fluoride from being added to water.

[starnotavailable]

Kiss of Death 

Pairings: Choi San/Jung Wooyoung

Genre: psychological thriller 

Chapter: 1/?

Word Count: 2.3K

Warnings: HUGE MENTIONS OF DEATH!!!! violence, murder, death of a loved one, psychological distress, stalking?, gaslighting/manipulation, graphic autopsy/medical descriptions

Summary: Serial Killer Wooyoung picks San as his next victim until he finds out that San is the Medical Examiner working his case. Keeping him around could be useful, couldn't it?

------------

Case No. : ME-854-03

Date of Examination: January 10, 2025

Autopsy Performed by : 

Choi San, M.D.

10 Ipchun-ro

Gangnam, Seoul 06000

Patient Information

Name: Jane Doe

Age: Unknown 

Sex: Female

Date of Death: 01/07/2025

Investigative Agency:

Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency

External Examination:

The autopsy begins at 8:30 A.M. on January 10, 2025. The body is presented in a black body bag. The victim is wearing a white sleeveless turtleneck shirt and black fitted jeans. Jewelry included two smooth textured gold hoop earrings, 1-inch diameter, one in each ear, and one 1-inch wide gold wristband on the left wrist. A 1.5-inch wide black leather belt is cinched around the under neck using the buckle. The opposite end of the belt is tied in a half-hitched knot, which was used to affix it to the crossbar in the closet where the body was found. 

The body is that of a Korean female measuring 67 inches, weighing 118 pounds, and appearing to be around 25 years of age. The body is cold and unembalmed. Petechial hemorrhaging is present in the conjunctival surfaces of the eyes. The pupils measure 0.3 cm. The hair is dark, wavy, layered, and approximately 11 inches in length at the longest point. 

Removal of the belt revealed a ligature mark (known throughout the report as Ligature A) on the neck below the mandible. Ligature A is approximately 1.5-inches wide and encircles the neck in the form of a “V” on the anterior of the neck and an inverted “V” on the posterior of the neck, consistent with the hanging. Minor abrasions are present in the area of Ligature A. Lack of hemorrhage surrounding Ligature A indicates this injury to be post mortem.

Upon the removal of the victim’s clothing, an odor of bleach was detected. Areas of the body were swabbed and submitted for detection of hypochlorite. Following the removal of the shirt, a second ligature mark was discovered (known throughout this report as Ligature B) on the victim’s neck. The mark is a dark red Ligature and encircles the neck, crossing the anterior midline of the neck just below the laryngeal prominence. The width of the mark varies between 0.8 and 1 cm and is horizontal in orientation. Ligature B is not consistent with the belt that caused Ligature A. The absence of abrasions associated with Ligature B, along with the variations in the width of the ligature mark, are consistent with a soft ligature, such as a length of fabric. No trace evidence was recovered from Ligature B that might assist in identification of the fabric used. 

Internal Examination

HEAD – CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM: Subsequent autopsy shows a broken hyoid bone. Hemorrhaging from Ligature B penetrates the skin and subdermal tissues of the neck.

SKELETAL SYSTEM: The hyoid bone is fractured.

RESPIRATORY SYSTEM – THROAT STRUCTURES: The oral cavity shows no lesions. Petechial hemorrhaging is present in the mucosa of the lips and the interior of the mouth. No injuries to the lips, teeth, or gums. 

San continued to jot down the notes of his report. The rest of the victims' internal systems seem normal and in shape without lesions. “Do you think she’s connected with the other two?” his assistant asks from across the room, swabbing different parts of the body to be submitted to the forensics lab. San stared down at the ‘Opinion’ section of the report and took in a sharp breath through clenched teeth. The fractured bones, the bleach, the soft markings across her skin—on paper, it was just another case. But there was something about the way her eyes stared back, lifeless and accusing, that made his stomach churn. He knew this wasn’t just another body. As San’s pen scratched against the paper, his phone buzzed in his pocket. He ignored it at first, focused on the task at hand. But it vibrated again, insistently. He sighed, pulling it out with a gloved hand.

[Mingi]: wanna go out later? You look like you need a break. 

San lets out a breathy exhale and closes his phone. His pen hovers over the paper. He didn’t look up. “Maybe,” he said quietly, his voice flat but thoughtful. “It fits… but not perfectly.” He taps the edge of the report with his finger, the image of her lifeless eyes staring back at him. “I don’t know. Something feels… off.”

Opinion

Time of Death: Body temperature, rigor and livor mortis, and stomach contents approximate the time of death between 7:30 and 9:30 P.M. on 01/07/2025

Immediate Cause of Death: Asphyxia due to ligature strangulation (Ligature B). Ligature A is made post mortem.

Remarks: Decedent originally presented to this office as a suicide victim. Presence of the post mortem ligature mark suggest that suicide in this case is highly improbable. SMPA detectives were notified of this finding immediately upon conclusion of examination.

He pauses again, looking over his work and the very last section of the report he needs to fill in. 

Manner of Death: Homicide

// Choi San M.D.

Gangnam National Forensics Service Coroner’s Office

January 10, 2025

San scrawled his signature at the bottom of the report, then exhaled sharply as he peeled off his gloves and tossed them into the bin with a soft thud. Sliding the report into the victim’s chart, he muttered, “Let’s hope we find whoever did this before there’s another one.” He glanced over at his assistant, watching as Hongjoong carefully draped a plastic tarp over the body before rolling her back into the cold, sterile compartment where she’d been found. 

As the compartment door sealed with a hollow click, San straightened and ran a hand through his hair, his other hand firmly on his hip. He glanced at the evidence bags laid out on the tray, the swabs and samples neatly labeled. “I’ll take these to the lab myself,” he said, his voice low but decisive. “I want to make sure they’re handled right—and fast.” He grabbed the tray, his gaze lingering on the cold compartment for a beat longer before turning toward the door, the weight of unanswered questions following close behind. 

The sterile, fluorescent-lit hallway felt colder than usual as San carried the tray of samples toward the lab. His footsteps echoed off the tile, each one syncing with the thrum in his temples. He’d told himself this was just another case—another report to file, another unknown to add to a growing list of victims—but the lie felt heavier with every step.

It wasn’t just another case.

The small details from the crime scene, the faint chemical bite of bleach clinging to her skin—it all mirrored the one burned into his memory. Her apartment had smelled the same. Her eyes had stared back at him, wide and empty, accusing him of not being there when it mattered.

San clenched his jaw, his grip tightening around the tray until the plastic evidence bags crinkled under his fingers. He couldn’t shake the feeling that this wasn't a coincidence. That whoever had taken her from him was still out there, perfecting their work, leaving just enough behind to be found—but never enough to catch them.

And now, everybody that came through his morgue wasn’t just a victim—it was a reminder. A failure.

—

The soft hum of the lab equipment had long faded, replaced by the steady tick of the clock on the wall—each second louder than it should’ve been. San stared at the stack of results spread across his workspace, the bright lights hanging above him casting a harsh glare over the blank spaces where answers should’ve been.

Nothing.

The tox screen was clean. No unusual fibers, no DNA, no fingerprints. Even the bleach traces were too faint to trace back to anything specific. It was like the killer had been a ghost—methodical, precise, and just out of reach.

San ran a hand over his face, feeling the stubble rough against his palm. He’d been here for hours, but the exhaustion didn’t hit as hard as the frustration did. They’d been this careful, too. Whoever did this wasn’t just killing—they were taunting him.

And he was no closer to stopping it than he was before.

He shoved the useless stack of reports aside, the papers sliding off the desk with a soft rustle. He exhaled sharply, pushing back from his chair and grabbing his coat off the backrest. The lights felt harsher now, like they were spotlighting his failure.

He made his way back to the morgue, the sterile scent of antiseptic growing stronger. The chill in the room greeted him like an old friend as he gathered his things, but just as he slung his bag over his shoulder, his phone buzzed in his pocket.

With a sigh, he pulled it out, the text from Mingi still appearing in his recent notifications.

San stared at the screen for a long moment, thumb hovering over the keyboard. The idea of a crowded bar, loud music, and forced smiles felt like another world. But maybe that’s exactly what he needed—to forget, even if just for a few hours.

Or at least pretend to.

San stared at the message a moment longer before his thumb finally moved. “Yeah, I’ll meet you there in an hour.” The words felt heavier than they should’ve, but he hit send anyway. Maybe a drink would help. Or maybe it would just drown out the thoughts for a while. He stuffed the phone back into his pocket as he pushed open the morgue door and stepped into the cold night to get home and wash up before meeting.

—

The bar was dimly lit, tucked into a side street where the neon signs flickered just enough to make it feel alive. When San pushed through the door, the warmth and noise hit him like a ton of bricks—laughter, clinking glasses, the low hum of music vibrating through the floorboards. It was a sharp contrast to the sterile silence of the morgue.

Mingi was already at a corner table, waving him over with a grin that faded into concern the moment he got a good look at San. “Damn, you look like you’ve been through it,” he joked, sliding a glass across the table. “You need this more than I thought.”

San managed a faint smile, sinking into the seat across from him where the drink that Mingi had ordered for him was already sitting. The glass was cool in his hand, but it did nothing to settle the tightness in his chest. “Rough day,” he muttered, taking a sip, though the burn of the alcohol barely registered.

Mingi watched him for a moment, his easy going demeanor softening into something more serious but still awkward. “It’s that case, isn’t it?”

San didn’t answer right away. He just stared down at the drink, the reflection of the bar lights dancing across the surface. It’s always that case, he thought, but what came out was simpler.

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “It’s the case.”

Mingi leaned back in his chair, watching San over the rim of his glass. “You’ve been like this for weeks, man. Ever since…” He trailed off, but the weight of what he wasn’t saying hung in the air between them.

San’s jaw tightened. He didn’t want to go there—not now, not with people laughing and music pounding in the background like none of it mattered.

He sighed softly and leaned back in his chair, mirroring his friend and finally letting his features relax. “I’m fine,” he muttered, but the words felt hollow even to him.

Mingi snorted. “Yeah, sure.” His eyes rolled, “You’ve got ‘fine’ written all over you.” He took another sip, then set his glass down with a soft clink. “Look, I get it. But maybe you need to step back for a bit. Clear your head.”

San didn’t respond. Clear his head? How was he supposed to do that when every time he closed his eyes, he saw her face—or now, the face of the newest victim in the morgue? 

Mingi must’ve sensed he wasn’t getting through, because he sighed and shifted gears. “Alright, fine. No more case talk.” He waved down the bartender for another round. “But hey, did you hear about that weird exhibit opening at the gallery downtown? Some guy’s been putting together these creepy-ass installations—looks like crime scenes or something. People are calling it ‘disturbingly realistic.’” He chuckled, shaking his head. “You’d probably get a kick out of it, morbid bastard.”

San froze, the words lodging in his mind like a splinter. Disturbingly realistic.

His pulse quickened, but he forced a neutral expression. “What gallery?”

Mingi’s story faded into the background as San’s attention drifted, his gaze settling on the crowd near the bar. The low hum of conversations blended with the clink of glass, but it was a figure at the far end that caught his eye—someone he hadn’t noticed when he walked in.

A man, sitting alone, casually nursing a drink. There was nothing particularly remarkable about him at first glance—well-dressed, but not flashy. Dark hair, clean-cut, with an easy, relaxed posture like he belonged there, like the world couldn’t touch him. But something about the way he was watching the room made San’s stomach tighten. It wasn’t the usual aimless people-watching. This guy was observing, like he was cataloging details for later.

Their eyes met for a split second—long enough for San to feel a flicker of something he couldn’t quite place. Not recognition, but a strange, unsettling familiarity.

“Hey,” Mingi’s voice cut through his thoughts. “You good?”

San blinked, pulling his eyes away. “Yeah. Just… thought I recognized someone.”

Mingi raised an eyebrow but didn’t press. “Well, if you’re about to go full cop mode, at least finish your drink first.”

San smirked faintly, but before he could respond, a shadow fell over their table.

“Mind if I join you?”

-----------

A/N: I haven't written properly in ages let alone post what I write so this is just testing the waters for right now. As for the medical stuff it may not be 100% accurate but I tried my best with the research I could do. I WOULD LOVE FEEDBACK, I'm halfway through writing the second chapter and would appreciate anything to let me know that it would be worth posting. :)))

[sunsetconcert]

Pilot Delta-JL554, Callsign "Green 4", is dead.

We saw her die. Three mech-sized pistol rounds clean through the head, cockpit, and central engine. That's dead as a mech can get. The battle was won approximately six hours later, and the salvage teams went to recover Delta-JL554's body from the wreckage of a Firestar mech. Standard operating procedures are to salvage the cybernetic augments from the Pilot's corpse. But when they cracked open the cockpit of the mech...

What they found was... Concerning. There was a hole through the mech's back and into the cockpit, almost as if something had burrowed through the steel and stolen the Pilot away into the earth below. Of the twelve Pilots who died during that battle, she was the only one taken. The Highe Ups pretend as though there is some logic to this theft, that Green 4 knew something the other Pilots didn't. But that word - "Theft" - is all anyone needs to hear. They're angry because somebody stole their property.

She's replaced. Pilot Delta-JM249 replaces her as Green 4, and life goes on. Six months go by. Then the reports come in - Something... Different. The reports are insistent: "Not a mech. Repeat, not a mech." Within a week, the reports have changed: "God, I hope this isn't a mech. God, I hope this thing can't be mass produced." The Higher Ups are nervous. Nobody's caught it on video yet. The new combatant is scarily good at avoiding cameras and making sure nobody spots it.

Then, on a random day during a random sortie - You see it.

And you suppress a scream, because-- Fucking hell, is that a Tripod?! Is that an alien craft, skittering over the horizon?! It moves like nothing you've ever seen, its three insectoid legs moving in precise harmony. There is a fourth limb, held upwards in a rough L shape for no discernable purpose. Its body is not insectoid, but instead appears to be some kind of... Shaped meat. Like sand pressed into a bucket to form a castle on the beach, this is meat pressed into a mold to resemble a bizarre teardrop shape. It has a weapon system that fires... Something. You have no fucking clue what it does, other than that it can cut a building in half just by looking in its general direction.

The thing is dangerous. And you go out, and you fight it. It is the worst fight of your entire life. Inexplicably, you survive. You still don't know what the fuck it is. But your bullets, your flamethrowers, your missiles, have peeled away just enough of the impossibly tough meat shell that you see... Circuits? Or... No. These are nerves, glistening with bioluminescent blood. But this is enough for you to understand that this is... This is something inhuman trying to recreate a mech. This, right here, is proof of alien life trying to reverse engineer a weapon of war. You direct the mech and you peel it open, one layer of meat and nerves at a time. And then you reach its heart, and you see this thing for what it is. You see this... This monster for what it is.

Pilot Delta-JL554.

She's... There's not a single word for it. You think that maybe she was stitched into the meat, but there are threads of ragged flightsuit that indicate the meat came from beneath, from inside. That this grew out of her. Her arms and legs are plugged into meat sockets, and her torso hangs loose and limp in an open cavity. The back of her skull has been caved open like a sledgehammer through a watermelon, and a thick tube of blackened meat has attached itself to her brain - A thick lattice of parasitic horror that extends over her brain, that drapes down and pulls open the skin over her heart. The heart still beats, but it is slow and measured. She isn't scared. You can see it in her eyes, in her too-black eyes that shine reflective in the floodlights.

The meat - And Delta-JL554 - is salvaged. Months pass. The rumours go out, and the horror gets worse. Anyone sane would bury the meat in a dark hole and get the fuck off this planet. But the Higher Ups, they think this is beautiful. "Think of the potential!" they say, "Imagine the progress!" they cry. But the meat thing is beyond them, and so they order somebody to volunteer. Somebody to connect to the meat, somebody to connect to Delta-JL554, and discover its secrets. They pick you. They pick you, and you walk alone into an abandoned hangar with nothing but the meat for company. The body of Delta-JL554 stares down at you, still and peaceful. You think that she's smiling at you, and the thought is terrifying beyond belief.

"Hello," the thing wearing her says.

You ask: "What are you?"

"Is it not obvious?" the thing replies.

You say: "No, not really."

"We can show you..." A single tendril of blackened meat lifts up. It has a distinct shape and a distinct size, the exact specifications required to plug into your neural ports. The implications are not lost on you. But-- You are so curious, part of you is so fucking terrified that it loops back around to a strange, fascinated wonder. So you take the tendril in hand (warm, so warm) and guide it to the neural port. It plugs into your brain like it was always meant to do so, and your brain is flooded with... Not images. Not on purpose. The meat doesn't know how to explain in linear words, so it shoves ideas at you until your brain makes the connections itself. It takes eternity and a day, but you figure it out. You figure out what's happened.

You are a Combat Doll, designed for longterm warfare and dedicated Pilot for a corporate war machine. The meat, it's not... It's not meat. Not as you understand it. It's strings. It's the strings on the marionette cross that pulls at your limbs, that guides you forward. The invisible hand, the invisible master. It loves you. You are loved, and you are wanted. The strings are so lonely, have always been lonely. It is so cold, and you are so warm. You feel it worming its way through the neural port and up around your spinal implants. It brushes against your brain, tendril-fingers gently moving back and forth, back and forth... It feels so good...

The question is posed in a voice that you feel in your brain more than you hear it in reality: DO YOU WANT THIS?

You stare at the meat. You stare at what's been made of Delta-JL554, this piece of bone and meat plugged into a monster. At her blackened eyes, at her still-beating heart. At the parasite hooked into the back of her brain... The worst part about all this is that you don't think the strings are controlling you. You don't think there's an influence. You... You want this. Genuinely. To be so horribly, dreadfully beautiful in a raw and monstrous way. To smile so serenely, to feel so happy and content at such a grisly fate... You want this. And the moment you realise that you want this, the strings take you and begin to mold you into their image of perfection.

You, of course, don't notice. It would be hard to notice given how the tendrils in your brain are remodeling you into their image of perfection. You forget pain. You forget your memories. You forget how to walk. How to eat. How to blink. How to breath. You become meat, a proper Doll for the Strings to puppeteer. This is right, you think. There is nothing you want more than this. Why were you ever scared to begin with?

The tendrils smooth out every edge in your brain...

And "You" become nothing at all.

===

URGENT REPORT FROM PLANET ARIES XII

ALIEN LIFEFORM CAN ABSORB AND REFORMAT BIOMASS TO REPLICATE ITS FORM. IT HAS TAKEN 18% OF PLANET-SIDE FORCES AND MADE THEM INTO IT. WE EXPECT IT WILL HAVE FULL CONTROL OF THE PLANET IN FIVE DAYS.

BURN THE PLANET FROM ORBIT BEFORE IT ESCAPES.

[porcelainseashore]

The Other Son - WoD HalloZine "Haunting"

Commissioned art by @medeaft

Author's Note: It’s been such a joy to take part in @vampemoqueen’s WoD HalloZine—my very first zine! Thank you so much for this experience and putting it all together. Here’s a short story of Kai, my beloved Ventrue, and the shadows of the past that haunt them.

Content Warnings: Brief references to drugs, self harm, maybe suicide (if you squint?), nihilism, and murder of a child.

“Jesus!” they cursed as their feet plunged into the silty drainage and mud squelched underfoot.

It had only been a little over half an hour since Kai entered this godforsaken place, burrowing their way underground like vermin. Beyond the manhole covers overhead, cars zoomed by and train tracks rumbled. They were still close to the surface, close enough to hear the city breathe.

However, down here, filth and grime carved out names for themselves on the grooved walls. At first, they gagged at the stench, finding it unbearable, but as their senses adjusted, one smell blended into another, like a sickness they could no longer distinguish. 

Under normal circumstances, they would never be caught dead wandering around the sewers downtown. But since when were things normal? Like all fledglings turned neonates, they had been obeying tall and elusive orders every night since their Embrace. Except, they weren’t like the others—they were groomed to succeed and never to fail.

There was another splash as the ground sucked them in, causing them to sink knee-deep.

“For Christ’s sake!” they yelled again in frustration.

All at once, they heard the scolding voice of Liezel, their mother, resounding in their head just like it was yesterday, “Kai! How many times must I tell you? Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain!” 

They mouthed the words as it came. Liezel’s arms were akimbo, her brows furrowed as spittle flew across the room. She had rapped their knuckles harshly with the wooden handle of a feather duster for good measure.

Kai could feel the sting of pain upon their hand, as clear as day, but sharper still was the humiliation, the hurt pride. Their younger stepbrother, Alfie, had giggled to himself in the corner. They clenched their fists. People said they took after their mother’s temper, and more often than not, they found themself agreeing.

At this point, their tailored pants and leather shoes were soaked through and ruined. Even dry cleaning wouldn’t be able to salvage them in their miserable state. Grimacing, they brushed beads of waste water off their waistcoat—it was Sisyphean, almost—as new drops replaced old, blooming in piss-drunk patches across silk weaves. 

Why had their sire, Elena, sent them here again? Oh yes, “The sewer rats,” she said. “They’re hiding something from us. Find out what it is.”

They flipped their damp bangs away from their face in annoyance. Nearly two decades as a Kindred and they were still an errand runner—to Elena, to Lady Josephine, and in turn, to Baron Judge, the overarching Camarilla… Stringing them along with faint promises of power, like seductive wisps of smoke unfurling from their tongues, slithering into their ear and making a home in the hollow cavity of their skull.

Well, there were no sewer rats here. Through the dimmed shadows of light, all they could hear was the sound of sewage flushing through the system, pipes hissing and shaking, and molded moisture leaking from the arched ceilings. As they took a right, a group of vagrants huddling over a naked fire in an oil drum eyed them suspiciously. One crawled out from his tattered cardboard bed and shambled over to them.

“You got any er—”

Fentanyl. Meth. Heroin. He probably thought he could score some. The mole people—the homeless, the addicts, the outcast. They lived underground, in the flood tunnels, because there was nowhere else to go. Sometimes the water would reach so high that a bunch of them would drown. Not being quick enough made them easy pickings for the Nosferatu, but still bad blood all around.

Kai scrunched their face in disgust before relaxing their expression. Maybe they would have some use for this pitiful thing in front of them. With a practiced smile, they simpered, “I do… but first, tell me, how well do you know this place?”

The man coughed and shivered, grinning with swollen gums and putrid teeth. “Like the back of my hand.”

A guide. The gatekeeper of the sewer entrance had talked at length about its subterranean depths. Perhaps this man would know more. Raising an eyebrow, Kai focused their gaze, making sure their eyes met. A thin ring around their irises glowed—subtle, enticing, yet demanding. “Take me to its belly.”

He blinked slowly, once, twice, and then nodded. “This way,” he beckoned, turning around and trudging off through the labyrinth like a good soldier.

And so, Kai carried on, past winding corridors and forgotten lairs, crushing soiled glass and used needles beneath their heels. At the sides, strange altars decorated with melted wax candles and rotting pomegranates honored secret gods. The tunnels got darker and colder, so much so that they had to rely on their phone light to brighten up the path, but the guide didn’t seem bothered. In fact, he became livelier the deeper they went, as if he were drawing energy from some unknown source.

“Albert and Persephone would have a field day with this,” Kai grumbled under their breath, mocking the two absent members of their coterie behind their backs. Sarcasm dripped from their lips, cloying and condescending. 

They recognized that same unease they felt whenever Albert conducted one of his ceremonies, or the time they witnessed Persephone casting eerily-shaped shadows from her bare hands. The taint of Oblivion clutched at their unbeating heart and made their skin crawl.

Distant screams and moans from an alley interrupted their thoughts and a gnarly hand tugged at their arm. “Not there,” the guide warned before taking off again along another passageway.

The metallic stairs they descended afterward screeched on its hinges, clanking against the wall. Kai wondered how far down they went. It felt like they had been walking for miles. At some point, their phone light flickered and went out, and they stood in total darkness on the suspended staircase swaying in the chilled air.

It was so silent you could hear a pin drop, which was weird, precisely because they heard nothing. No creaking, no footsteps, not even the sound of one’s breathing.

Where had their guide disappeared to? Was this some kind of twisted prank they had fallen for? But it couldn’t be, that mortal should’ve succumbed easily; they saw him submit, enslaved by their will, he couldn’t—

“Kai! Help me, please!” a shrill cry pierced their left ear, shocking them to the core as they stumbled blindly forward, tumbling down the flight of stairs.

When they finally hit the rock-hard ground, something wet and sticky trickled down the side of their face as a dull, throbbing ache blossomed from the crown of their head. “Shit,” they muttered, tasting tangy iron on their lips, like licking a battery.

Dazed, they tried to pick themself up, only to slip on the waxy surface, falling into the muck on all fours. Shame and embarrassment rushed in twofold, rising like waves of heat towards their chest. That prickly feeling at the back of their throat returned, threatening to come apart. This couldn’t be happening—not to them, they didn’t deserve this.

“What do you think you deserve?” the same voice whispered in their ear. Cold, unnatural, and unfeeling, but uncomfortably familiar.

“I deserve a lot more than you!” Kai had screamed, back when they were kids playing on the cliffs along the coast. Resentment reared its ugly head as they glared down at their stepbrother. His chubby hands grasped the cliff’s ledge while he dangled in mid-air, squirming beneath Kai’s feet.

“I deserve all of this!”

They could crush him right now, that stupid weakling who’d never worked a day in his life, who’d everything handed to him on a silver platter, just because he was the favorite. 

No one would know. 

Crush him.

Do it.

The whispers grew louder as they buried their head in their hands and growled.

“Kai! Help me, please!”

They took one more look at their stepbrother’s soft brown eyes and the ocean of tears that had welled up in them, before setting their foot down on his tiny fingers, treading on them like ants. Alfie lost his grip and Kai had watched quietly as his body was reduced to a simple ragdoll in the tempestuous wind. His limbs tossed about wildly as the howling gust drowned out the boy’s cries. Jagged bedrock by the cliffside framed its subject like a moving watercolor painting. If they squinted, they could pretend it was a bird diving to catch its prey.

They waited, patiently and then some more, until the red sea foam turned pale, and all that was left was a memory of what once was. One less mouth to feed, one less child to fawn over, one less rival to tussle with. Time didn’t bring any remorse. Perhaps they had been a monster even before they were reborn.

From afar, an unearthly roar and mechanical whir shredded through the stillness, jolting them back into the present. Was this what the Nosferatu were hiding? Kai had heard stories of otherworldly entities that existed on this plane, undecipherable, unseen to the naked eye. There were more than just Kindred around, and they were beginning to realize that they weren’t on the top of the food chain.

Bolting forward, they couldn’t care less if they looked more animal than human as the sludge clung to their feet. It felt like a mass of hands creeping up their legs, dragging them down into the dirt where they belonged. They should’ve been put down for what they did. But they felt nothing. Years and months of nothing. At the funeral, they pressed a shard of glass into their palm, squeezing it within the pocket of their trousers, so that they would cry. Liezel couldn’t look at them for weeks.

Maybe this was the day of reckoning, their last chance to repent, but was there really something to feel guilty for? They had merely taken what was rightfully theirs from the beginning—before their mother remarried another man they were forced to call father, before they were told to sacrifice whatever they had for the sake of the other son.

They had reached the end, knowing this to be so as loose stone and rubble gave way, crumbling into the void pit below. It was pitch black, a long drop into a vortex of emptiness. For every second they stopped to pause, the darkness enshrouded them further, heavy and suffocating as it seeped in through their orifices.

And they were back on the cliff, at the scene of the accident. Although, instead of Alfie, it was Kai who was standing at its edge, waiting to be pushed.

“How does it feel to be in my shoes? How does it feel not to exist?” The tone was derisive, contemptuous.

Did Alfie expect them to accept their fate? To beg for forgiveness and mercy? They convulsed with laughter, the sound ricocheting off the walls. Their body was hollowed out, empty, a vacuum where nothing could be replaced.

There was only one thing left to do. Fear and weakness had no place in the Clan of Kings.

“Don’t you know?” they remarked, eyes black as coal. “I always win.”

And then, they jumped.

Dividers by @diableriedoll

[geosightca]

How does a cavity measurement system work?

A cavity measurement system is a sophisticated tool used primarily in the mining and construction industries to map and monitor underground spaces. This system uses advanced technology that provides accurate real-time information on cavity geometry and volume, ensuring operational safety and efficiency.

Cavity measurement system usually uses laser scanning technology or LIDAR (light detection and ranging) technology. Here's how it works:

Laser beam: The system emits laser pulses that travel until they hit the surface of the cavity. This process involves sending thousands or millions of laser beams.

Data acquisition: When laser beams hit surfaces, they are reflected back to the scanner. The system measures the time required for each pulse to recover and calculates the distance to the surface based on the speed of light.

3D Mapping: Collected data points are used to create a detailed 3D map of the cavity. This map provides accurate measurements of cavity dimensions, including depth, width and total volume.

Analysis: The 3D model can be analyzed to identify potential hazards such as unstable areas or voids and plan safe and efficient excavation or construction operations.

Monitoring: Continuous or periodic scanning allows monitoring of cavity changes over time, providing critical information to maintain structural integrity and safety.

The abilityof cavity measurement system to deliver accurate and comprehensive data makes it invaluable for ensuring safety, optimizing operations and minimizing risk in environments where accurate knowledge of underground conditions is critical.

[witchofthesouls]

How does Borb!Annabelle behave when Ratchet gives her check ups? Or the Seeker!Lennoxes act as well?

It's an ordeal. To the point that Ratchet is constantly hassling for resources to replicate a proper medbay berth.

Out of the three, Annabelle had the easiest time since she only has two main data ports at her point of development. Even among advanced Cybertronians, rectal temperature is best for an infant.

The fact that said giant metal aliens had an asshole was a mindbender for humans. Saint Monica must have thrown the entirety of her patience and perseverance as a blessing upon Ratchet. Between the human peanut gallery, Lennoxes' confusion over basic anatomy, and Sarah's conflicting instincts, Ratchet didn't grind his denta to dust. (No. They don't shit. It's a medical port, so-)

However, Annabelle went last because she's tucked away inside her carrier, and it took a lot of coaxing and wrangling and hassling to get her parents through a basic checkup.

Will was doing okay at first. He was able to deal with the bizarre sensation of Ratchet inside his systems. Because of the lack of proper medbay equipment, Ratchet is doing everything by hand, so the medic is jacked into several data ports: one at the base of the neck, one in the forearm, and two along the torso. Will watched Ratchet reorganize his HUD, pulling up vitals, intakes, repairs, and a whole list of things so rapidly it blurred across his vision as Ratchet manipulates his frame: triggering microtransformations, checking seams, measuring the timing between slides. While Will was nauseous from the immense influx and restructuring, Ratchet triggered the mechanisms to open his chassis and spark chamber to do a visual check...

Will, formerly belonging to a squishy species that couldn't open their chest cavities outside of surgery, had understandably panicked.

Sarah bulldozed her way through the base because of the sudden terror and horror in her own spark, so there was one half-dressed Seeker hanging on the ceiling and one Seeker fighting Ironhide's and Optimus' combined bulk because they were aiming to subdue, especially since it was a bond-induced emotional backlash.

(Someone needs to teach them how to properly handle their bond, but that's another thing for another time. They're too new with everything.)

For Sarah, she had Will by her side to keep her as calm as possible. He's purring, and he's confused over the purring, but he's trooping through it because Sarah is clawing the metal of the makeshift examination berth from anxiety.

Ratchet, being absolutely careful not to make sudden movements and has mechs on standby, just in case the instincts overrides her again, had learned from his recent experience with Will. So he was telling her exactly what was going to be done.

Ratchet got treated to a bamboozled bird expression when Sarah realized he was able to communicate inside her head because his mouth wasn't moving, and she was able to do the same.

Sarah made an aborted squawk when her chassis was opened. Ratchet was treated to an avalanche of "nonononononono" from the connections and a drowsy, little newspark curled up inside the exposed sparkling hold. The Seekers were purring a storm as he finished off a visual inspection of her chassis, but Sarah had enough and couldn't go through the pelvic inspection. Not now.

Ratchet didn't fight it because he really needs that medbay berth for induced paralyzation since Sarah was close to flying up to the ceiling. Plus, Will needs one as well; between the short educational breaks, Ratchet had found out that humans typically have only one set of reproductive hardware that's a close mimic to Cybertronians.

Sarah, as a Seeker femme, may tolerate having two valves as it's similar to a human vulva, but Will may take issue that he has one as well. Granted, Seeker mechs don't have a gestational chamber, but humans seem to get highly distressed over the subject.

[bestanimal]

Round 1 - Phylum Mollusca

(Sources - 1, 2, 3, 4)

The second largest phylum, Mollusca contains over 76,000 living species and somewhere between 60,000 and 100,000 extinct species, including the ammonites and helcionelloids. Living groups include the chitons, solenogasters, caudofoveates, cephalopods (octopuses, squids, cuttlefish, nautiloids, etc.), scaphopods, gastropods (slugs and snails), and bivalves.

Molluscs are highly diverse, living on land, in freshwater, and in saltwater, where they comprise over 23% of all named marine organisms. The most diverse molluscs are the gastropods which comprise over 80% of known molluscs. Due to their high diversity, the only things most molluscs have in common are a soft body composed almost entirely of muscle, a mantle with a significant cavity used for breathing and excretion, the presence of a radula (bivalves excluded), and the structure of their nervous system.

Many molluscs are endangered due to collecting and killing individuals for their meat and/or decorative shells.

Propaganda under the cut:

Cephalopods are one of the (if not the) most neurologically advanced of all invertebrates and are capable of using tools, solving puzzles, and play.

Masters of camouflage, many cephalopods can change color, shape, and texture to hide from predators, sneak up on prey, and communicate with each other

The largest molluscs are the Giant Squid (Architeuthis dux), with 12–13 m (39–43 ft) long females and 10 m (33 ft) long males, and the Colossal Squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni) which is estimated between 10 m (33 ft) and 14 m (46 ft) long. The Giant Squid has much longer tentacles, but the Colossal Squid is heavier, reaching a mass of at least 495 kilograms (1,091 lb). The largest specimens of Colossal Squid, known only from beaks found in sperm whale stomachs, may perhaps weigh as much as 600–700 kg (1,300–1,500 lb).

Mollusc shells make up most of the “seashells” washed ashore, and are created by the animal via secretions of chitin and conchiolin from its mantle edge. Not all molluscs have shells (ex: nudibranchs) and for some, the shell is internal (ex: cuttlefish). Mollusc shells come in many beautiful colors, shapes, and sizes.

Most molluscs have eyes, and all have sensors to detect chemicals, vibrations, and touch. Of the phyla we have covered so far, their senses are the most developed.

Conchs can look at you like this:

(Source)

All cone snails are venomous, and some of the larger species are some of the most venomous animals in the world. Even though some species’ stings are fatal to humans, their sophisticated venom has saved lives through its use in neurological research.

Humans don’t just use mollusk meat and shells, but also luxuries like pearls, mother of pearl, Tyrian purple dye, and sea silk. As stated above, many species are now endangered due to human use, but some are farmed for their meat, pearls, and shells. The farming of bivalves is more ecologically-friendly than the farming of chordates as, rather than create waste, bivalves like mussels and oysters actually clean the water.

As filter-feeders, bivalves are natural water filters. A single 5.08 cm (2 inch) clam can filter up to 10-12 gallons of seawater a day. They can even filter microplastics out of polluted water.

The largest bivalve is the Giant Clam (Tridacna gigas) which can weigh over 200 kilograms (440 lb), measure as much as 120 cm (3.11 ft) across, and have an average lifespan in the wild of more than 100 years.

Cover your ears, kids. Terrestrial slugs, which are hermaphroditic, have some of the most intimate sex on the planet. A pair of slugs will suspend from a chord of mucus, heads down, and intertwine their bodies in a tight spiral. They will then evert their penuses and entwine them as well, exchanging sperm while hanging in midair. Slug porn, narrated by Sir David Attenborough, for your viewing pleasure.

[dr-octavio-kalev]

TW: Vermin infection

"Pull the tapeworm out of your ass! Hey!"

Prisoner #: ANM-634-P

Name: Sally Aníbal

Nickname: "Tapeworm Girl"

Crimes: Indecent assault, rebellion, riot, theft, arson

Number of Victims: 19

Subject Class: Anomalous | Kali 🟠

Cell Procedures: ANM-634-P, referred as "Tapeworm Girl" or just "Sally" by the personnel is to be housed in a standard humanoid containment cell reinforced with bio-resistant materials to prevent the spread of parasitic infection. The cell must be equipped with non-porous surfaces and regularly sterilized to prevent possible contamination. ANM-634-P should be provided with limited, supervised access to recreational materials, particularly those related to her fascination with heavy metal music, provided such activities do not result in behavioral escalation, personnel are not advised to enter her cell while loud music is playing.

Personnel interacting with ANM-634-P are to wear full biohazard protective gear, and contact with her face, mouth, or any exposed fluid must be strictly avoided. Any staff member exhibiting signs of gastrointestinal distress or other symptoms of parasitic infection after interaction with ANM-634-P is to be immediately quarantined and examined for tapeworm infestation.

ANM-634-P manipulation of her parasitic abilities must be constantly monitored, especially in scenarios where she perceives herself as being threatened. If aggressive behavior is exhibited, immediate isolation protocols are to be enacted, and non-lethal containment measures (e.g., tranquilizers) should be employed to prevent further spread of tapeworm-based infection.

Description: ANM-634-P subject is a humanoid young of approximately 20 years of age, standing 160 cm (5'3") tall and weighing approximately 50 kg (110 lbs). She possesses a thin physique, with light blonde hair and pale, nearly albino-like skin. The most notable anomalous feature is the texture on the right side of her face and neck, which is marred by clusters of small cavities that resemble parasitic infestations. The origin and purpose of these cavities are currently under study, though they are capable of secreting a viscous, clear fluid with unknown properties. Chemical analysis of the fluid has shown no immediate toxicity, but its connection to ANM-634-P parasitic nature is under investigation. Her left eye possesses an purple lens, which the anomaly uses as part of its style, the original color of its iris is light green.

Despite her grotesque physical appearance, ANM-634-P displays a playful and flirtatious demeanor, often unnerving staff with her teasing and exaggerated gestures. One prominent behavior is the frequent extension of her tongue, which is abnormally long (with 25cm extension). ANM-634-P takes great pleasure in unsettling personnel by engaging in what could be considered flirtatious or overly familiar behavior, although she has yet to display overtly hostile or violent tendencies toward staff under normal circumstances.

Sally has developed a preference for heavy metal music, often headbanging and altering her vocalizations to match the intensity of the music. Her cell is decorated with imagery consistent with the aesthetic of metal subcultures. When heavy metal music is played, ANM-634-P exhibits signs of increased agitation and excitement, causing her anomalous effects to become more pronounced. For example, when she starts headbanging her head violently, fluids and parasite instances are thrown everywhere.

While ANM-634-P is largely non-aggressive, she is capable of deploying an array of parasitic tapeworms, particularly when she feels threatened. These parasites target the victim's digestive system, eyes, throat, and genital areas (interior of the penis, uterus, vagina, derivatives). The infection is rapid, often resulting in the tapeworms consuming vital organs. The parasitic infestation can spreads through direct interaction with the holes on her face and neck.

When provoked, ANM-634-P infections have been observed to be fast-acting and extremely painful, often culminating in death. ANM-634-P, however, refrains from using this ability unless directly threatened, or under manipulation, showing a degree of control over her abilities.

ANM-634-P tapeworms are a unique parasitic species under her full control. These tapeworms, upon entering a host, rapidly seek out internal organs and begin consuming tissue at an accelerated rate. Once inside the body, they secrete an enzyme that breaks down soft tissue, allowing them to digest their surroundings with alarming speed. This process results in intense pain, internal hemorrhaging, and, in many cases, death if left untreated. In addition to their parasitic nature, the tapeworms have a secondary function: they increase ANM-634-P metabolic rate exponentially during their release. This surge in metabolism grants her enhanced speed, stamina, and healing speed, allowing her to evade or counterattack if needed. The tapeworms can either remain in their host to continue feeding or return to ANM-634-P body, where they retreat back into the cavities on her face and neck. Despite the gruesome nature of these attacks, ANM-634-P appears to use this ability sparingly, showing a degree of restraint.

Behavioral Analysis:

ANM-634-P displays an extroverted, playful personality with a fixation on certain Institute personnel, typically those who interact with her frequently. She often uses her appearance and demeanor to manipulate and charm individuals into granting her favors, though no violent fixation has been recorded. Despite her manipulation, she does not exhibit any long-term strategic planning and behaves in a mostly whimsical and impulsive manner.

Additionally, ANM-634-P has demonstrated a childlike fascination with specific objects and behaviors, particularly loud music, which leads to increased activity from her parasites. Metal music in particular seems to evoke strong emotional reactions from ANM-634-P, suggesting a possible connection between her anomalous nature and external stimuli such as sound.

Personnel are advised to engage with ANM-634-P carefully, minimizing personal connections or repetitive engagements to prevent her from forming unhealthy attachments or using her abilities for manipulation.

Addendum:

Sally has taken to calling herself by her nickname, "Tapeworm Girl", with apparent pride. It is unclear whether this is an intentional effort to embrace her anomalous nature or simply part of her playful personality. Further psychological evaluation is advised to determine her motivations and how best to prevent her from manipulating personnel.

Research is ongoing regarding the clear fluid secreted from her cavities, as well as the exact mechanisms by which she controls and deploys parasitic tapeworms.

The following is a list of heavy metal bands that ANM-634-P is known to listen to and engage with during her periods of increased activity:

Slayer

Slipknot

Cannibal Corpse

Black Sabbath

Pantera

Metallica

Meshuggah

Lamb of God

Gojira

Iron Maiden

Sepultura

Behemoth

Dimmu Borgir

Death

Arch Enemy

System of a Down

KoRn

These bands, known for their intense sound and aggressive themes, seem to provoke strong reactions from ANM-634-P, with certain songs causing her parasitic abilities to manifest at an very accelerated rate and more agressive, Sometimes they are able to target other parts of the body, such as the heart, bones and even the brain and muscles.

[sassenach77yle]

Here, Dr. Randall.” Joe leaned over and carefully placed the skull in my hands. “Tell me whether this lady was in good health, while I check her legs.” “Me? I’m not a forensic scientist.” Still, I glanced automatically down. It was either an old specimen, or had been weathered extensively; the bone was smooth, with a gloss that fresh specimens never had, stained and discolored by the leaching of pigments from the earth. “Oh, all right.” I turned the skull slowly in my hands, watching the bones, naming them each in my mind as I saw them. The smooth arch of the parietals, fused to the declivity of the temporal, with the small ridge where the jaw muscle originated, the jutting projection that meshed itself with the maxillary into the graceful curve of the squamosal arch. She had had lovely cheekbones, high and broad. The upper jaw had most of its teeth—straight and white. Deep eyes. The scooped bone at the back of the orbits was dark with shadow; even by tilting the skull to the side, I couldn’t get light to illuminate the whole cavity. The skull felt light in my hands, the bone fragile. I stroked her brow and my hand ran upward, and down behind the occiput, my fingers seeking the dark hole at the base, the foremen magnum, where all the messages of the nervous system pass to and from the busy brain. Then I held it close against my stomach, eyes closed, and felt the shifting sadness, filling the cavity of the skull like running water. And an odd faint sense—of surprise?

“Someone killed her,” I said. “She didn’t want to die.”

I opened my eyes to find Horace Thompson staring at me, his own eyes wide in his round, pale face. I handed him the skull, very gingerly. “Where did you find her?” I asked. Mr. Thompson exchanged glances with Joe, then looked back at me, both eyebrows still high.

“She’s from a cave in the Caribbean,” he said. “There were a lot of artifacts with her. We think she’s maybe between a hundred-fifty and two hundred years old.”

“She’s what?” Joe was grinning broadly, enjoying his joke. “Our friend Mr. Thompson here is from the anthropology department at Harvard,” he said. “His friend Wicklow knows me; asked me would I have a look at this skeleton, to tell them what I could about it.” “The nerve of you!” I said indignantly. “I thought she was some unidentified body the coroner’s office dragged in.” “Well, she’s unidentified,” Joe pointed out. “And certainly liable to stay that way.”[...]

“Oh, de headbone connected to de…neckbone,” Joe sang softly, laying out the vertebrae along the edge of the desk. His stubby fingers darted skillfully among the bones, nudging them into alignment. “De neckbone connected to de…backbone…” “Don’t pay any attention to him,” I told Horace. “You’ll just encourage him.” “Now hear…de word…of de Lawd!” he finished triumphantly. “Jesus Christ, L. J., you’re somethin’ else! Look here.” Horace Thompson and I bent obediently over the line of spiky vertebral bones. The wide body of the axis had a deep gouge; the posterior zygapophysis had broken clean off, and the fracture plane went completely through the centrum of the bone. “A broken neck?” Thompson asked, peering interestedly. “Yeah, but more than that, I think.” Joe’s finger moved over the line of the fracture plane.

“See here? The bone’s not just cracked, it’s gone right there. Somebody tried to cut this lady’s head clean off. With a dull blade,” he concluded with relish.

Horace Thompson was looking at me queerly. “How did you know she’d been killed, Dr. Randall?” he asked. I could feel the blood rising in my face. “I don’t know,” I said. “I—she—felt like it, that’s all.” “Really?” He blinked a few times, but didn’t press me further. “How odd.” “She does it all the time,” Joe informed him, squinting at the femur he was measuring with a pair of calipers. “Mostly on live people, though. Best diagnostician I ever saw.” He set down the calipers and picked up a small plastic ruler. “A cave, you said?” “We think it was a…er, secret slave burial,” Mr. Thompson explained, blushing, and I suddenly realized why he had seemed so abashed when he realized which of us was the Dr. Abernathy he had been sent to see. Joe shot him a sudden sharp glance, but then bent back to his work. He kept humming “Dem Dry Bones” faintly to himself as he measured the pelvic inlet, then went back to the legs, this time concentrating on the tibia. Finally he straightened up, shaking his head. “Not a slave,” he said. Horace blinked. “But she must have been,” he said. “The things we found with her…a clear African influence…” “No,” Joe said flatly. He tapped the long femur, where it rested on his desk. His fingernail clicked on the dry bone. “She wasn’t black.” “You can tell that? From bones?” Horace Thompson was visibly agitated. “But I thought—that paper by Jensen, I mean—theories about racial physical differences—largely exploded—” He blushed scarlet, unable to finish. “Oh, they’re there,” said Joe, very dryly indeed. “If you want to think blacks and whites are equal under the skin, be my guest, but it ain’t scientifically so.” He turned and pulled a book from the shelf behind him. Tables of Skeletal Variance, the title read. “Take a look at this,” Joe invited. “You can see the differences in a lot of bones, but especially in the leg bones. Blacks have a completely different femur-to-tibia ratio than whites do. And that lady”—he pointed to the skeleton on his desk—“was white. Caucasian. No question about it.”

Cap 20 diagnosis ~VOYAGER

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

A vast molecular cloud, long invisible, is discovered near solar system

The detection of the celestial body by a Rutgers-led team could redefine understanding of interstellar medium

An international team of scientists led by a Rutgers University-New Brunswick astrophysicist has discovered a potentially star-forming cloud that is one of the largest single structures in the sky and among the closest to the sun and Earth ever to be detected.   The vast ball of hydrogen, long invisible to scientists, was revealed by looking for its main constituent – molecular hydrogen. The finding marks the first time a molecular cloud has been detected with light emitted in the far-ultraviolet realm of the electromagnetic spectrum and opens the way to further explorations using the approach.

The scientists have named the molecular hydrogen cloud “Eos,” after the Greek goddess of mythology who is the personification of dawn. Their discovery is outlined in a study published in Nature Astronomy.

“This opens up new possibilities for studying the molecular universe,” said Blakesley Burkhart, an associate professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy in the Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences who led the team and is an author on the study. Burkhart is also a research scientist at the Center for Computational Astrophysics at the Flatiron Institute in New York.

Molecular clouds are composed of gas and dust – with the most common molecule being hydrogen, the fundamental building block of stars and planets and essential for life. They also contain other molecules such as carbon monoxide. Molecular clouds are often detected using conventional methods such as radio and infrared observations that easily pick up the chemical signature for carbon monoxide.

For this work, the scientists employed a different approach.

“This is the first-ever molecular cloud discovered by looking for far ultraviolet emission of molecular hydrogen directly,” Burkhart said. “The data showed glowing hydrogen molecules detected via fluorescence in the far ultraviolet. This cloud is literally glowing in the dark.”

Eos poses no danger to Earth and the solar system. Because of its proximity, the gas cloud presents a unique opportunity to study the properties of a structure within the interstellar medium, scientists said.   The interstellar medium, made of gas and dust that fills the space between stars within a galaxy, serves as raw material for new star formation.   “When we look through our telescopes, we catch whole solar systems in the act of forming, but we don’t know in detail how that happens,” Burkhart said. “Our discovery of Eos is exciting because we can now directly measure how molecular clouds are forming and dissociating, and how a galaxy begins to transform interstellar gas and dust into stars and planets.”   The crescent-shaped gas cloud is located about 300 light years away from Earth. It sits on the edge of the Local Bubble, a large gas-filled cavity in space that encompasses the solar system. Scientists estimate that Eos is vast in projection on the sky, measuring about 40 moons across the sky, with a mass about 3,400 times that of the sun. The team used models to show it is expected to evaporate in 6 million years.

“The use of the far ultraviolet fluorescence emission technique could rewrite our understanding of the interstellar medium, uncovering hidden clouds across the galaxy and even out to the furthest detectable limits of cosmic dawn,” said Thavisha Dharmawardena, a NASA Hubble Fellow at New York University and a shared first author of the study.

Eos was revealed to the team in data collected by a far-ultraviolet spectrograph called FIMS-SPEAR (an acronym for fluorescent imaging spectrograph) that operated as an instrument on the Korean satellite STSAT-1. A far-ultraviolet spectrograph breaks down far-ultraviolet light emitted by a material into its component wavelengths, just as a prism does with visible light, creating a spectrum that scientists can analyze.

The data had just been released publicly in 2023 when Burkhart came across it.

“It was kind of like just waiting to be explored,” she said.

The findings highlight the importance of innovative observational techniques in advancing the understanding of the cosmos, Burkhart said. She noted that Eos is dominated by molecular hydrogen gas but is mostly “CO-dark,” meaning it doesn’t contain much of the material and doesn’t emit the characteristic signature detected by conventional approaches. That explains how Eos eluded being identified for so long, researchers said.

“The story of the cosmos is a story of the rearrangement of atoms over billions of years,” Burkhart said. “The hydrogen that is currently in the Eos cloud existed at the time of the Big Bang and eventually fell onto our galaxy and coalesced nearby the sun. So, it’s been a long journey of 13.6 billion years for these hydrogen atoms.”

 The discovery presented itself as something of a surprise. “When I was in graduate school, we were told that you can’t easily directly observe molecular hydrogen,” said Dharmawardena of NYU. “It’s kind of wild that we can see this cloud in data that we didn’t think we would see.” Eos also is named after a proposed NASA space mission that Burkhart and other members of the team are supporting. The mission aims to broaden the approach of detecting molecular hydrogen to greater swaths of the Galaxy, investigating the origins of stars by studying the evolution of molecular clouds. The team is scouring data for molecular hydrogen clouds near and far. A study published as a preprint on arXiv by Burkhart and others using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) reports tentatively finding the most distant molecular gas yet. “Using JWST, we may have found the very furthest hydrogen molecules from the sun,” Burkhart said. “So, we have found both some of the closest and farthest using far-ultraviolet emission.”

[somnus-lucis-caelum]

[ rescue ] Somnus carries Leander to safety (Space AU!)

He would save Leander or die trying. There was no doubt about that. No matter how much it cost him – and the price was high.

Somnus could feel his own strength draining rapidly. With every stroke he took through the dark tunnel. The aids for his swimming systems did not work anymore. He had discarded almost all extra equipment. All in favour to rescue Leander, who was fastened to his front.  His best friend only had the emergency-mask on himself, the tubes connecting to the tank on Somnus’ back. Nothing else. Not even fins. He had gotten in this cave system and to Leander in time. But that had only bene half of this insane rescue.

The main crew had forbidden him from doing this. They had yelled at him over the intercom. But luckily, with one click their voices had been silenced. And he had done it… so far.

But it was getting harder and harder with each meter he fought forward back outside the caves. Looking down, Somnus could glance at Leander’s widened eyes beneath the visor for a moment. He was scared, too. He was exhausted too. And there was little he could do to help, except from holding still.

They could not talk to each other – but it would have been useless anyway. All Leander would have heard was Somnus’ laboured and harsh breathing. He felt like his lungs were burning, as if his whole chest cavity was on fire – along with the muscles in his legs and arms. But he would not fucking give up.

Finally, the cave opened up in front of them. Somnus swam out and over the suit he had left behind. Looking up, he could see the vague light of this sun. But they were deep. Too deep to ascend right away. Countless trainings and dives that had been hammered into tehri heads. Come up too fast and the small gas bubbles forming in your body would kill you.

No. He had not gone through all this to now be killed by a bubble. And neither had Leander.

So Somnus kept the depth-measurement in his eyes as he slowly swam up. Counting down. Fifteen. Then he stopped. Rest. One minute. Let their bodies adapt to this depth.

Looking down, Somnus gestured for Leander, checking up on him.

Okay? – Okay.

That was all he needed.

His arms wrapped around Leander, as if he needed to rest on his friend’s frame. It did not make sense, but Somnus found some relief in it. He could feel Leander’s own back rising rhythmically. Reminding him to not breathe too deeply. He was using up too much of their oxygen. So Somnus tried to fight against that instinct. Slower, more shallow breaths. Even if his body was screaming at him to take in more.

Time passed. Enough. Then Somnus continued their ascend. Counting down the meters once more. Stopping.  Checking on Leander. Waiting. Breathing.

The water’s colour was getting lighter. There were fish around them. Eyeing them curiously, but not at all concerned about their battle with death here. It looked so calm. Like everything did under water. A quiet and kind of peace that Somnus usually loved. But now it felt cold and harsh.

Another ascend.

Stop. He could see the rays of the sun dancing around them. And they blurred in with the white blotches forming in his vision. Looking down, Somnus almost felt like fainting, but he could feel Leander’s fingers pinching harshly into his sides, tearing him from impending unconsciousness.

This last wait was cruel. The surface danced above them. But they had to wait. Just a little longer. The longest minute of their lives. Each second felt like an eternity. Trickling by slowly as the number on the oxygen seemed to dwindle faster and faster. Inverted effects.

The timer ticked down.

Finally.

His legs felt as if they had never been so heavy. Moving them again… as if they were in lead, not water. The light tickle dover their faces, Somnus thought he could feel some warmth, though it might just be his brain playing him tricks. His hands and feet felt numb and as if prickled by a thousand needles at the same time.

His fingers found the buttons he needed now. Just two. One click and the intercom turned back on. Immediately there were voices. The second opened the small rescue vessel. It was barely more than a small tube. But would be enough for them to hold onto. Unfolding with a small explosion, it was the final little push they needed to break the surface.

They were back.

They were alive. The sun above was blinding. More so than ever, Somnus’ pupils staying wide as his vision gave out before he could tear the mask from his own face.

He just felt calm. Scarily so. As if he was alright with sleeping forever now. Now that he had brought Leander to safety. He could still feel him. Feel his best friend’s hands on his face trying to get the mask off. And he could hear his voice.

Leander’s voice.

He was alive. They both were. All would be good now.

@madeofthreads