#Hacks To Conquer The Dents

[crimson-kas]

Tried something different this week. I’ve been designing my own planner pages and keep coming back to this idea of a weekly Top 3. I decided to see if I could make it work in the Weeks, and I’m very happy with it.

The idea is that if I can only get three things done in a week, which top 3 tasks would make me feel the most satisfied? I write those top 3 tasks above all my other tasks and try to tackle those first throughout the week when I work on going through my task list. I’ve enjoyed the results as I do feel more satisfied and productive at the end of a week if I conquer or even just make a large dent in those three tasks.

My brain can have trouble prioritizing tasks, so this is my way of hacking that.

Note: Printable stickers are by @petite-gloom . Check out her website for a variety of printable stickers and Gloomies cards.

[ancient-cats-unite]

Ototo's New Recruit

Elmo joins Ototo's development team.

Elmo strutted out of his room, Yoyo tailing behind him.

"So what's next on the tour?"

"We only get this hallway. However we do have a small kitchen!"

Yoyo led him to the kitchen near the entrance. Pots and pans were neatly stored in cupboards. A small stove sponsored by the Iron Legion had some grease stuck to it. A cat eating rice sat on the ground.

"That's T-Bone, she's like a black hole. Shes also our culinary expert, her lasagna can feed the whole Cat Army."

Elmo walked over to stand where T-Bone was.

"Hello!"

She gobbled down the last bit of her rice. She put the bowl in the sink.

"Hi. Do you like cookies?"

"Yeah!"

"Great. I can get some for you, but you need to get something for me."

Elmo scratched his head. Then he had an execllent idea.

"Do you like carrots? My friend gave me a good one. Brave Cutter Approved."

"Brave Cutter? The Grandon Mining Cutter? Alright lets see this carrot!"

Elmo went back to his room and got the carrot. It had a couple bruises but no mold. He went back to the kitchen and gave T-Bone the carrot. She ate the tip.

"Mmm.. that's pretty good. You weren't kidding. Maybe I'll make some soup with it."

"That sounds pretty good."

T-bone handed Elmo a bag full of sugar cookies from the shelf.

"Here you go. My treat. See you around."

"Oh wow! Thanks!"

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

The two were going to leave the cabin, but a crackling sound caught their attention.

"What was that? Did something pop a fuse?"

The two ran to the sound's origin. It came from a dark painted door. "KEEP OUT!" was written on a large sign. "Please?" was written on a smaller sticky note.

"Oh. Thats Gordy's room. He'll be fine."

"Hold on, I have something I wanted to give him."

Elmo held up a fragment of the green crystal from his overalls pocket. It glew brighter, the etchings pulsing with energy. Taking a deep breath, he head inside.

Gordy was hacking up smoke in his room with some wiring gone wrong. He was working on a panel covered by a white tarp. The mysterious curtain covered a large margin of the room.

"YOU! Disgusting vermin, leave immediately!"

Gordy hissed. Yoyo and Elmo backed up.

"Not you, new kid. You can stay."

Yoyo huffed and left the room, closing the door. Gordy appeared behind Elmo and draped him with a part of his coat.

"Have you decided? That these WORTHLESS FOOLS aren't worth your time? With me, we will conquer the world with our MERCILESS ROBOT ARMY! Right now they're just cleaning robots, but THAT'S NOT THE POINT!"

Elmo got some distance from Gordy. He pulled out the crystal, who strongly reacted to the machinery. Gordy snatched it immediately.

"You.. YOU.. You are a BLOODY GENIUS! This is a fraction of true power, I can power up my precious! Witness my creation, my dear assistant.. WITNESS THE BRINGER OF DESTRUCTION!"

Gordy unveiled the tarp to reveal.. to reveal.. a small metal Bun Bun. It makes a dent into the floor.

"Ah. I just need to implant it. I'm very grateful, these things grant immense power!The world shall be in my paws! Nya hahahahahahaha!!"

Elmo just stared. Gordy got nervous.

"Laugh with me. Its awkward."

So the two bringers of destruction laughed together.

Gordy hands Elmo a scrap metal cat. Its in decent shape with working cameras to boot. Elmo pats the cat on the head.

"My minion shall serve you well. Now begone! Evil awaits!"

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

Elmo left the cabin. Yoyo wasn't anywhere, so maybe he could vibe with Hank? Hank was lying down, Ototo with him.

"Don't eat the butterflies anymore, Hank. Please."

"But.. preety.."

Hank perked up when Elmo came by. Ototo looked up as well.

"Frend! I got you preety butterflies!"

The jar had yellow butterflies in it. They all had cat faces.

"Ooh! I'll put this on my shelf. Thanks Hank!"

"Hey Elmo. Oh good, the uniform fits. Hank, could you go for a sec?""

Hank got up and ran somewhere else. Ototo looked Elmo up and down before putting two paws on his shoulders. He pulled out a beaded bracelet covered in metal and gold beads.

"Yoyo wanted to give you this. Remember you got really sad when you lost that friendship bracelet? He made you another one."

"Aw! I'll put it on right away!"

Elmo slipped on the bracelet. He gave Ototo a big hug, the mentor returning the favor.

"Thanks for letting me on the team."

"No problem Elmo."

______________________

//What a nice wrap up! Probably the most I've written. A little bit of everyone is here! Let me know what else you want!//

[brainweird-moth]

day 6, cont.

in end, conquerer choose not try carve again today and just watch others... she want try again, but just fear something worse might happen - maybe some other time...

…plus, everyone here do so much more amazing things, she feel bad get this worked up over spoon.

she sit down with someone she see around, but never talk with yet - this person make... um... something. really just seem like they hack off chunks for no good reason, but she mesmerise just watch…

"not even hello, huh?" they chuckle in sweet little voice.

"uh- i, yes! hello!" she stammer, caught off guard.

they laugh, "oh, silly, just poking fun!" and start hum tune.

...with each notch and cut, she get more confuse.

"what... is this?" she ask.

they smile, "not a clue, myself!"

unsatisfy with this, she ask, "how can you make with no clue what make?"

"not always about ending, dearie."

as she think on this, they put down knife and look around with hands, carefully feel each handle, and pick one up - huh, she just realise these all have raised marks...

"can you see?" she blurt, and they once again laugh, starting carve with curved blade.

"best be careful asking, you know!"

"sorry, i…" she fidget with hands under table.

"ah, not much sight left, no."

she smile just little bit when hear this, "i... can see, but not great… i guess."

they tsk, "well now, why not say so before!"

she go silent - why not tell patience about her sight? really now that think, she lucky no one end up hurt... and maybe he have some idea make things easier?

…did she still think she above help, or just too ashame...?

"come now, close your eyes," they chuckle and wink, "sometimes what matter most, you can only feel."

"i- i can't..."

"how so?"

she nervously rub hands and sigh, "i'll... probably just break..."

"tch, nonsense!" they grin, "wood sturdier than that!"

…guess they not understand what she really mean... or take no for answer. she agree and close eyes. they slide sculpture over, gently guide her hands to find.

she try swallow back fear as her mind ache to snap, and just feel... she feel things that eyes not see - little divots and dents, depth… things so small they just blur to eyes, become clear as day to hands.

"i-it's a tree," she say, gently feeling around, "or maybe... this feel like goalpost...? and this bit, right here... a cave..."

"can be anything you feel might be, you see?"

she open eyes - once again those details invisible, and she trace over again, as if make sure they still there.

"it's... wonderful. where i come from... you know, pretty much just stone, a-and so cold, always need gloves…" she chuckle sadly to self, "another totally normal thing i never get..."

"you have all time in world here, then," they smile warmly.

she pause for moment, then nod, "i really do, huh?"

[duce-thruce]

ThorBruce Week Day 3- Comfort

A/N: I’m showing up late to the party, but I thought I should contribute a bit haha.

Summary: “Thor came to the understanding that whether it was Bruce or Hulk, he was loved and would always love them back.” Gorr, the God Butcher shows up and Thor is his target. The revengers come to his aid. 

Warnings: Graphic Violence, Characters losings limbs, slight angst.  

Wordcount: 1551

The first thing Hulk heard was the crackling. The strident sound of bones cracking reverberated through the spaceship. Hulk threw a blue-green alien, smashing it into a wall before he turned around.

Thor was squirming on the ground resembling a bug rather than god. Towering him was a cloaked creature, the arch of its back curving over like a praying mantis. It wielded a pitch black sword, clutching Thor by the neck.

Through his teeth, Thor spoke. “Why are you doing this?”

The creature’s lips curved into a malicious smile. “I am Gorr, the God Butcher.”

Then as if to slit Thor’s throat, Gorr set the blad up to his neck.

“NooOOO!!!” Hulk screeched, his voice almost halting the battle. Witnessing Thor become meek and fragile after a matter of seconds, caused the Hulk to become fearful.  

Another alien jumped at him, he merely swatted them away. Hulk tried to gage his own emotions, but one beast jumped on top of him after another. However, his energy only increased the longer he was away from Thor. Every enemy that charged to him died, beaten against the metal of the ship.

“The God Butcher?” Valkyrie asked, running to a spot. She swung the sword, aiming for the Gorr’s shriveled skull. “You will not harm him.” It was a declaration so assured, and very Valkyrie-esque.

Hulk didn’t care who the monster hovering over Thor was. He had to die. That was Hulk’s conviction. With righteous anger, Hulk will crush him to ashes.

The last of the little putrid, blue monsters stood. Thor still quivering along the floor gave a lingering look towards him. Valkyrie protected him, but even she was beginning to struggle with the God Butcher.

Finally, slaying the last of the henchmen, Hulk rushed to Thor, calling out to him in agony.

“Hulk,” Valkyrie commanded,”Buddy, you have to finish this guy off for me.”

Hulk grunted, yanking the killer off the ground. With one hand, he held Gorr by the skull. His head appeared like a walnut in his hands.

He could snap his neck right there and finish the job, but a moan of pain from Thor, lighted his eyes in rage. He peered into Gorr’s beady eyes growling, revealing a long row of teeth.

“If you think you can kill me, you can’t. This amulet gives me all the power I need. I have slain gods of war, peace, love, famine, nature and now I will add the God of Thunder to my list. It is my destiny to decimate the gods of this universe.”

Hulk scoffed, slamming the body into the floor, smooshing it further down, creating a large dent.

“Hulk is no god. You can’t hurt Hulk.”

Then seeing that the Gorr was still alive, he rammed the body into the floor once more.

Hulk paid no mind to the cries of his enemy. He had experience in ruthless killing and conquering on Sakaar, and those killings were more of an afterthought. But this was brutile, unfiltered fury that he was working with.

Piece by piece, Gorr became fragments of flash and bones, and was forming into compost in Hulk’s hands. Ruthlessly, he tossed the body around, never heading the cries of the dying beast. As blood, splashed all over his chess, Hulk ceased his temper tantrum, considering making the killing more ruthless. .

From the corner of his eyes, Hulk could see Thor limping against Val’s shoulder. One last surge of anger was all it took for him to rip that disgusting creature clean in half.

If the God butcher had any last words, there was no one to hear them.

Thor’s gentle voice rang through. “Hulk. Don’t be like that.” But the butcher was an unrecognizable pile of meat. Banner will surely squirm at the sight of that.

Rushing to Thor’s side, Hulk reached out to Thor. No longer angry, he only felt discomfort at the sight of someone so indestructible, someone that he cared about crumbling before him. With his open hand, still using Val as leverage, Thor reached to Hulk.

They were touching each other’s faces. Thor’s smile was telling him everything would be okay, and Hulk believe that..

He submitted himself to the comfort of Thor’s touch, and allowed himself to rest.

Although Hulk was aware of everything that went down on the ship, Bruce awoke distorted and shocked. Before his eyes was Thor with Val at his side. To his surprised, a giant gash was present at Bruce’s knee, residing all the way down his calf. The bone was visible.

“Thor??” was all he could choke out, a terrified lump in his throat  building up. He felt a bit dizzy at the sight of the blood and guts all over him.

Fighting off his own tears, Bruce grabbed Thor’s free hand and placed himself beneath the other man. He could do at least this much.

Thor’s groaning incited fear into Bruce. He couldn’t lose Thor, not when they just found each other, and not when everything seemed to be going well between them.

The ship had several sleeping compartments, and when they came to Thor’s they helped him to lay down. After making sure Thor was comfortable, Val hurried to the medicine cabinet.

Thor grimaced pain surging through his body. A bead of sweat rolled down his face.

Bruce grabbed his hand and gave it a hard squeeze.

“It’s going to be okay.. I promise I will do anything to make this better.” Resting his head on the hand he was holding, Bruce swallowed his need to sob.

“I feel like I should be telling you that, Love.” Thor chuckled despite the agony he was in.

A moment of silence fell between them, one man crying and the other trying not to. But Thor was more of an emotional lover than a stoic warrior, and the second he heard Bruce’s broken sobs, gentle tears fell down his face too.

When Val returned with the giant emergency kit, she also brought back a surprise.

“Look who I found.” She said as she rushed inside to quickly get to work. Loki didn’t hesitate to follow her inside. It was lucky for him, that when Gorr hunted their ship, he was elsewhere making a deal with the Grandmaster. No one really knew what that man was up to. He could have easily became another on the list of the god-killer’s victims

“Thor!” Loki called out, staring at the profound wound.

“Brother.” Thor hummed, giving Loki a nod, before returning his attention to Bruce who was in shambles, still clinging to his hand.

Approaching the bed with caution, Loki asked, “How I can be of service.”

He face the fierce eyes of a warrior, but no reproach was given. At these moments, Val tended to be more critical of the trickster god, but today she pointed at bottle of liquid.

“Give him some of this. It’s a pain killer. He’s going to need a lot of it.”

Loki nodded, pouring the thick as syrup liquid into a cup, and carrying it to Thor who was gritting his teeth. Through his grimace, Thor drank the medicine as Loki brought it to his face. It tasted like strong liquor mixed with heavy amounts of plants and herbs. Minty, but not refreshing.

Bruce was still holding onto him when Valkyrie stopped inspecting the wound.  Her face was grim.

Loki was beside her, his eyes sorrowful. He shut them and looked at his feet.

Val clasped her hands together. “Thor, I can’t save your leg.”

Bruce gave his cold hand a squeeze, his eyes only watching Thor’s face.

The pain was subsiding only a bit, as he realized that the medicine might have contained something more than all natural ingredients. He was dazed, but not enough.

“Chop the thing off.” His resolve outweighed the other options.

Many years ago, this situation would have been the worst case scenario. But he had seen his brother die twice before, witnessed the loss of Asgard, and more importantly, his people. A leg was nothing.

Bruce stayed with Thor, the entire time, although Loki left the room. Whatever his attitude may tell, deep down he couldn’t bare see his brother hurting.

Bruce couldn’t bare to see Thor in pain either, but he knew that he had to be Thor’s strength and support. He could protect Thor as much as Hulk.

Every second that the surgery went on as Val hacked away, Bruce petted Thor’s head, in gentle motions, wiping off sweat.  Sometimes, he would place his forehead on Thor’s or whisper little secrets in his ear to distract him from the pain. The medicine was only capable of so much.

When it was all over, there was nothing below his right thigh. Loki walked back inside, placing a hand on Thor’s shoulder. He smiled but turned his attention to Bruce’s face, stained with tears.

One hand on his forehead and another in his hand, every ounce of Thor was full of Bruce.

Thor was aware of what Bruce had to grow through, seeing him in such agony must have ripped his soul to bits. But he stayed to be his comfort and Thor came to the understanding that whether it was Bruce or Hulk, he was loved and would always love them back.

[soniccrazygal]

Rise of Speedway

So I’ve really taken a liking to @squigglydigg ‘s Speedway Sonic idea and decide to write a little something of about how he might have come to be. Please enjoy the story.

It was a normal day for Sonic. Eggman was trying to conquer the world again so of course, Sonic was going to stop him. It was going to be slightly more difficult than the usual bot smashing and egg head butt-kicking, as Eggman managed to get his hands on all the Chaos Emeralds this time around. According to the files Tails had hacked, Eggman was attempting to corrupt their energy for whatever evil purposes. Sonic had tuned out Tails when the genius fox started getting too technical. The bottom line is that Eggman had to be stopped and as quickly as possible, which was Sonic's specialty.

So they had hopped in the tornado and had flown up to Eggman's airship. Tails had managed to maneuver past the defense and get close enough for Sonic to hop off, but Tails had quickly flown out of range before the Tornado got destroyed. That left Sonic on his own to stop Eggman, but he wasn't worried. He'd be done in a sonic second and be caught by Tails as the ship exploded as usual.

Sonic grinned as he slid under laser fire only to hop up and spin dash through three robots blocking his way. They sparked and exploded into a satisfying fireball, but Sonic had already sped down the hallway and smashing through the next set of robots. It was only a few minutes later that had broken through into the main chamber.

"Sonic!" Eggman greeted as soon as he spotted the blue hedgehog. "I'm so glad you could make it. I'm just about to get the final piece I need to finally make my Eggman Empire a reality."

"You really get some new material because I've heard this speech a hundred times before," Sonic mocked as he studied everything around him. The room was surprisingly sparse for how large it was. There was only a few robots parts left over from the ones Sonic had destroyed upon entering and the control panel high up where Eggman sat. That only meant that a giant robot or mech suit was bound to pop out from some hidden panel.

"And it always ends the same, with me ruining whatever lame plan you've come up with," Sonic finished with a cocky smile.

"I think you'll find this time, things will turn out a little differently," Eggman laughed with an evil grin. "As you will be the one to make my plans a success."

"I think I've might have scrambled you a little too much last time we fought," Sonic rolled his eyes with a laugh. "I would never help you conquer the world."

"We'll see about that after a do a little attitude adjustment," Eggman declared as he slammed a button on his counsel. The whole room trembled as the ceiling opened and a large laser gun lowered down. Sonic's quills stood on end as he watched it, subtly getting into a ready stance. He could feel chaos energy rolling of that thing, though it was twisted from what it should be. He didn't know what it meant or what it would do, but he knew he didn't want to find out.

"Let's see how you like your mind, as you put it, scrambled. FIRE!" Eggman shouted as the laser powered up and shot a beam at Sonic. Sonic easily dashed out of the way, not even worried. He scanned the laser over, looking for any weak point that he could target. It was as he jumped over another beam that he spotted it through the mess of wires and armor, the container holding the Chaos Emeralds. If he could destroy that, the laser would lose power and be nothing more than a useless pile of scrap metal.

Sonic rolled a landing and hopped back onto his feet, watching for the perfect opening. When the laser fired again, Sonic quickly ran up part of the wall and vaulted towards the laser. He curled and spun rapidly, hurtling towards the power container like a deadly saw blade. His aim was true and the metal was severely dented and scratched from the impact. But the twisted energy from the Chaos Emeralds held within flung him back harder than he was expecting, leaving him temporarily dazed when he slammed into the floor.

It only took a few seconds for Sonic to recover, but that was all the time Eggman needed to get a clean shot. Sonic shouted in surprise as the beam struck him and the twisted chaos energy began to absorb into him. He could feel his body slowly transforming into his super form as a result, but it was off. He felt wilder and more uncontrollable. Sonic briefly fought back against it, but he was soon overwhelmed, pushing him into unconsciousness as something new took his place.

"It worked!" Eggman cheered gleefully as the laser-powered down and he could see the final product. "I finally won! I have turned my greatest enemy into my greatest weapon! No one can stand up to me! For I am Eggman, the greatest genius in the…"

Eggman cut off as the sound of laughter filled the room. Eggman glared down at the yellow figure that was doubled over.

"Silence!" Eggman ordered, standing up to loom menacingly over the edge of the control panel. "I didn't give you permission to speak!"

"Oh, but you're just so hilarious," Speedway laughed as he calmed down, looking up at Eggman with swirling red eyes and a manic grin. "I don't think this is turning out the way you wanted. I'm still Sonic. Crazy or not, I'm still me and I'm going to stop you."

"No… This can't be!" Eggman stuttered, feeling fear as Speedway floated higher. "I order you to obey me."

"I've never been good obeying," Speedway chuckled. "I'd much rather just tear this place apart."

Without a backward glance at Eggman, Speedway dove down and smashed straight through the floor. He didn't stop until he was outside of the ship only to double back and smash through in another direction. This process repeated dozens of times within the span co a few seconds, causing the ship to explode under all the damage. Eggman barely managed to escape in time and the Chaos Emeralds were scattered once more across the planet. Speedway watched in satisfaction as the burning wreckage fell from the sky, his ear twitching as he heard the Tornado approaching.

"Looks like my job is done for now," Speedway said, cracking his neck. "But I'm sure it won't be too long before I come out to play again."

His fur turned blue and Sonic blinked as he found himself suddenly falling through the air. He quickly adjusted himself and spotted Tails flying to meet him. Sonic easily landed on the wing of the plane and gave Tails a grin.

"Great timing as always buddy," Sonic complimented as Tails turned the plane towards home.

"You certainly took care of that quickly," Tails commented, returning Sonic's grin. "So what happened this time."

"It's a bit of a blur," Sonic admitted, rubbing his head slightly. "Guess it just all happened so fast, even for me. But I do know I stopped Eggman's plans, so I guess that's all that matters."

"Not every adventure can be a great story," Tails shrugged. "Still, we should gather the emeralds and check them over. We want to make sure there's no permanent damage to them."

"Whatever you say bud," Sonic remarked as he relaxed on the wing. Sonic wasn't worried, the day was saved and it would probably be a few months before Eggman showed his face again. Everything was back to normal… right?

[nitewrighter]

Volskaya Incident Part 3

Part 1 is here and Part 2 is here. So this is the last one! Whoo! Content warning for blood and stuff.

So... How about that 20% Healthsteal Reaper buff?

---

Tracer was staring at him, her eyes wide. She coughed one more time from the venom mine, then immediately she looked down at her chronal accelerator and over her shoulder at the back of it, apparently checking to see if it was damaged.

“You’re not...” Jack started and she looked back at him, “You’re in this time. The accelerator’s not broken,” he sighed, “It’s me. Here and now.”

“I was about to say, you look terrible,” said Tracer.

“Zurich took its toll,” said Jack, wiping the blood off his face but still feeling the two diagonal scars from Zurich there.

The red dot of Widowmaker’s sight passed along a nearby wall, and both Jack and Tracer remained crouching low.

“Five years,” said Tracer, quietly.

“I know you’re upset,” said Jack, peering out and looking for Widowmaker, “I know you’re confused. But it’s going to have to wait---”

“It’s waited five bloody years!” said Tracer, “I mourned you, you absolute tosser! We all did! And now---”

Sniper fire dented the wall several feet behind her but only an inch above the small barrier they were hiding behind but that didn’t seem to cut Tracer’s fury in the slightest.

“And now you show up and--where the hell were you during that fight with the Svyatogor? Where were you during the Recall? Where have you been all this time!?”

“Tracking down Reaper,” said Jack flatly, “We’ve tracked him here.”

“Reaper!? Reaper’s here?!” said Tracer, “I need to warn Genji and the Doc---I need to--” she stopped herself, “Who’s ‘We?’”

---

It took Ana longer than she would have liked to find the stairs leading to the upper walkways. A few deft shots of her sleep darts and whatever guards she ran into on her way there were downed. She pulled them out of the line of fire from the walkways. They have their own backup for that, she thought to herself, I’m losing too much time. And yet she still did it. She found her perch though, and though Widowmaker had clearly moved position several times by the time she was able to reach her first vantage point, Widowmaker was still well within her scopes.

“Ana, We’re pinned,” Jack spoke over their comm channel, “What’s your status?”

“Ana?! As in Ana Amari!?” a high pitched voice snapped on the other side.

“Tracer--please,” said Jack.

“I thought you said we weren’t getting involved?” said Ana.

“There’s been some unforeseen developments,” said Jack.

“Of course there have,” said Ana, smiling a bit beneath her mask.

Widowmaker was looking down. Ana knew the biotic rifle didn’t work the same way as regular rifles. At this point she preferred it that way. If she were working with the same rifle she had in the Omnic Crisis, this would be over by now, but it wasn’t the Omnic Crisis. She would subdue Widowmaker, buy time to actually put her down without drawing attention to herself.

“I’m giving you an opening,” said Ana. “Nāmī.” She fired a sleep dart and it hit Widowmaker. The sniper collapsed. With Widowmaker downed though, it made shooting her considerably harder. Still, it would buy Ana a short while to get to a new vantage point and finish the job or at least for Jack to get his own vantage point and take her out, if he could. She was already moving to a higher point on the walkways when she suddenly heard a clanking noise behind her. Ana turned to see one of the assembly mechs had dropped off the line and was currently engaged in a fight with a pink haired woman--she recognized her from a dossier on Volskaya--Zaryanova? Was that her name? She glanced back at Widowmaker. She had to focus. She had to end this. Sniper logic--kill one, everyone goes home safe. She heard a pained grunt from behind her and turned around to see Zaryanova had been thrown back from the force of the mech.

“Jack,” she spoke over the comm, “You’ll need to finish the job. I’ll be with you shortly.”

---

Zarya’s shielding was flickering around her as the mech moved in. She wiped the blood off of her mouth and hauled up her particle cannon, when she felt something impact the back of her left shoulder. Something ricocheted off the armor of the mech that wasn’t from her, and Zarya gave a quick glance over her shoulder to see an indigo-clad figure in a mask and hood with a rifle fixed on her.

“The Shrike...?” she said to herself before having to leap out of the way of another molten bolt from the mech.

“I’ve got your back!” The Shrike shouted to her.

Zarya didn’t have time to argue, she pointed her particle cannon back on the mech and fired.

--

Sombra only followed to watch the svyatogor drop down to Genji and Zarya briefly before slipping away before her cloaking wore off. The grunt she had piloting the mech had a name, several years of piloting and industrial machinery experience---enough to buy her time to get to the roof. She made a point of compiling information on everyone she was about to do a mission with beforehand, but you wouldn’t catch her dead addressing any of the main Talon forces by their names. Didn’t want to build up any familiarity and give them the wrong idea. She kept a screen open and tapped away with it at one hand, while carrying the Omnicell under her other arm. She brought up factory blueprints and detoured slightly to the main factory controls. It would be faster to do what she needed there than to attempt to hack it without using a direct terminal. Gabe still wanted her to get to the roof, but with the Shrike setting off the alarms, they now had three Overwatch agents on their backs as well. By Akande’s standards for mission success, that was way too many variables introduced, and now that they had the Omnicell, they didn’t have time to engage in combat with them. The best option was divide and conquer.

She glanced at her screen and thumbed through several security feeds of the factory, but stopped on the one that had previously had Widowmaker on it. Widowmaker was not there. Sombra’s eyes widened and she switched to several different security feeds of the same area, to finally find one of Widow downed. Sombra’s breath caught in her throat. She put her hand to her ear and rang up the frequency of the Talon agent that Reaper had sent as Widowmaker’s backup.

“Status?” she said.

“En route to Widowmaker as per Reaper’s orders,” came the reply. Most Talon agents had vocal distortion built into their masks. They weren’t high-profile like Reaper or Akande or Widowmaker, and thus benefitted from anonymity. Sombra still thought it sounded a bit ridiculous though.

“I’d pick up the pace,” said Sombra, “If anything happens to her, I will find you, and then no one will find you. Do you understand?”

“I...yes. Moving as quickly as possible.”

“Better be,” said Sombra, clicking out of the channel. She scrolled to a security feed of the elevator and smirked at Mercy managing to knock off a panel and then puzzling at the wires within.

“Don’t kid yourself,” muttered Sombra, “You’re a doctor, not an electrician,” she paused, “Though I suppose you’re not doing much good just stuck there.” She heard a blipping sound and brought up another screen. The transport was en-route. Sombra frowned “Hm...” she brought up another security feed and saw Genji racing down the walkways in her own direction, then another feed of Reaper making his way out from the workshops toward the staircases. “Still hunting, huh Gabe? Okay,” she said, interlacing her fingers in front of her then stretching her arms out, cracking her knuckles. “I think I’ve got a plan.”

---

Widowmaker hated the familiarity of sedation. When she first felt the prick of the sleep dart in her arm there was simply the thought of “Oh,” And then darkness swallowed her up. She felt another needle prick and her eyes flicked open and instinctively her hand went out and gripped the throat of a figure standing over her. In one swift movement she had seized her rifle and with her other hand had it against his temple. The talon agent choked under her grip and she released him. “How long was I out?” she said.

“Not long,” said the agent, “We have orders to regroup on the roof.”

“Reaper?”

“Making his way up. He sent Sombra on ahead with the Omnicell.”

“...And he seriously expects her to stay on mission?” muttered Widowmaker, getting to her feet. She scoffed. “We need to move.”

There was a warping sound and a flash of blue light in the corner of her vision. She brought down her visor and watched as Tracer’s infrared signature darted up stairs. “Now,” said Widowmaker,  firing off her grapple, “We move now.” She shot one of the coolant tubes near where they were standing, sending out a dense, freezing fog to give them cover as the Talon agent ran and Widowmaker retracted her grapple, flying through the air.

---

Genji was racing, his mind repeating Zarya’s instructions almost like a prayer. The room at the intersections of walkways P and 12. Bypass code: 7714. He passed a walkway labeled Л and a dread rose in his stomach that Mercy and Zarya could die as a result of his grip on the Cyrillic alphabet being tenuous at best. Focus, he had to keep telling himself, Just focus. He tried to hail Mercy on the comm but found it was still filled with static. They were essentially running blind in regards to each other’s locations. Still, with his speed it didn’t take long to reach the intersection of walkway P and walkway 12, where a small box-like room sat.

Genji remembered Zarya had a keycard and wondered if he would have to run all the way back to grab it, but found the only door leading into the maintenance and control room for the factory was already open, with the key card screen at its side displaying a violet skull icon rather than the typical keycard display. He knew the skull icon. He had seen it on the Svyatogor. Genji’s stomach dropped and with a flick of his wrist he had three shuriken at the ready as he peered into the room.

 The room seemed to serve as a major security channel feed, with multiple screens on every walls, as well as several monitors displaying power stability levels and other displays of basic factory power grid statuses. What was concerning however, was that half of the screens seemed glitched out or frozen, and displaying that same skull icon. Then there was one screen at the center of it all, displaying the face of a woman who looked to be a few years younger than himself.

“Hola,” she said. Her tone was casual, almost cheerful. Genji held onto his shuriken then warily drew his wakizashi.

“Yeah. You. I’m talking to you,” she said from the screen, “Come in here.”

It’s a trap. It could not more obviously be a trap, Genji thought to himself.

“I mean... how else are you going to make sure your friends don’t get killed?” she asked. Then suddenly one of the skull-displaying screens flickered and displayed Zarya getting knocked back by the mech. “I know you want to help them. I want to help you.”

It’s a trap. It’s a trap. You know it’s a trap, Genji thought. Still, with Zarya and Mercy in danger, he had little choice. He exhaled and stepped into the room.

“You were the one controlling the Svyatogor earlier,” said Genji.

“The one and only,” she said with no lack of smugness.

“So you’re with Talon,” said Genji, his grip tightening on his blade.

“Well... yes. To an extent,” she said with an airy wave of her hand.

“So why help me?” said Genji.

“I think we can help each other,” she said, smiling.

Genji scoffed. “I doubt that,” he said.

“Okay but hear me out,” she said and the screens suddenly clicked off.

“What---?” Genji started but felt a finger tap on his shoulder. He turned on his heel to see the woman from the screen standing there.

“Hey there,” she said, smiling.

He raised his Wakizashi and she crossed her arms over herself as if flinching when suddenly a bright violet light erupted off of her in all directions and and the visual receptors in Genji’s helmet were scrambled. His limbs were unresponsive, his head was buzzing with only her words of ‘EMP Activated’ filling his ears and his head and all his senses. His sense of balance told him he was falling forward, though with most of his nervous receptors scrambled, he only felt the impact of the floor as a numb jolt through his limbs.

----

Sombra stepped back as the cyborg ninja fell flat in front of her. “Huh. So I was right,” she said, pulling the Omnicell out of her coat. She had expected the omnicell to amplify the EMP, but not to this extent. She had even had her machine pistol at the ready, expecting Genji to still be able to move after her EMP. “No wonder Akande wants this so bad,” she said stuffing it back into the interior of her coat.  She glanced down at Genji and nudged him with her foot a little. “Hey. You still alive? I still got business with you.”

--

“Come on--just---” Mercy had given up on the panel behind the buttons and was now jabbing up at the emergency exit shaft at the top of the elevator with her staff. She very well wasn’t going to sit in a locked down elevator while Genji and Tracer and Zarya were all in danger. She managed to shove the shaft open just in time for the elevator to shudder back to life. “Finally!” She said, pressing the door-opening button. The panel didn’t respond. “Ach du lieber---” she said, turning back to the shaft, when the elevator shifted beneath her feet, then started moving up.

“What? No---” Mercy was pressing for the floor she assumed Zarya and Genji were still on. “Don’t---” The elevator chimed, and the doors opened. Mercy glanced at the floors. It had apparently gone above the main factory floors, above the walkways and assembly lines, to the administrative offices. The doors opened, and there was a single Talon agent looking around, casually waiting for the elevator. He made eye contact with her, and Mercy reacted. He raised his gun. With a long swipe of the caduceus staff, she knocked his gun upward as he fired, one shot grazing her arm and the rest riddling the ceiling of the elevator as she drew her caduceus blaster and fired four shots to his chest, knocking him down to the ground unconscious. Maybe two point blank shots to the face and that could probably kill him, but the Caduceus blaster was designed more around self-defense than lethality, and Mercy didn’t have to kill him now. Still, she couldn’t stay here. She had to find a way back to the others, and she wasn’t willing to take a chance with how much time the elevator might cost her if whoever was hacking Volskaya’s systems affected it again. She raced out of the elevator. Stairs, she thought, Find stairs. Find the others.

She found the stairs.

Reaper was on the stairs.

There was a beat. She knew the stories. He knew of her. For the past five years they had experienced each other as distant opposing forces, Reaper creating terror and chaos wherever he went in his work with Talon, Mercy doing everything in her power to undo that in her relief work. To Mercy’s knowledge, this was the closest they had ever been to each other. To Reaper’s knowledge, this was the closest they had been in five years. He raised a gun.

She turned and ran and a section of the wall shattered from a shotgun blast behind her as she sprinted behind it. Reaper followed her, pausing at a fusebox at the top of the stairs and shooting it. The hallways went dark. He was harder to see in the dark, she stood out like a lit candle. He knew this, and he pursued.

---

“You’re not getting away!” Tracer shouted after Widowmaker as she zipped after her, with Jack desperately sprinting behind her. The talon agent sent to escort her up to the roof was easily downed in a volley of pulsefire, Tracer wouldn’t even let him slow her down.

“Slow down!” Jack shouted after Tracer, “You don’t know if she’s leading you into an ambush!” 

“You know what would have been nice to know?” said Tracer, “That you and Captain Amari were alive and hunting down one of the most dangerous men in the world! That Talon was here and this wasn’t just a case of a Svyatogor gone haywire! But no! You couldn’t trust us! You had to pull this vigilante nonsense and let everyone believe you’re dead for years!” 

“You shouldn’t have rushed in with insufficient intel--” Jack started.

“It was a giant robot smashing the factory!” said Tracer, “You expect us to just stand by!?”

“This really isn’t the time--” Jack started.

“Time does not tell Lena Oxton what to do!” snapped Tracer. 

Tracer skidded to a halt in time to see Widowmaker grappling away again. Widowmaker was moving upward, Tracer realized, but she wasn’t looking back and firing on them. She was escaping.

“The roof,” said Tracer, “We need to get to the roof.”

Jack brought up the schematics of the factory Ana had lent him on his visor. “This way!” He said, turning sharply. 

---

Most of Genji’s sensory receptors came back online in time for him to feel a nudge of a foot. He struggled to spring to his feet, to raise his wakizashi. His own voice came to him, distorted. “What did you do...?”

“You’ll live,” she replied.

Genji snarled and continued struggling to get his limbs to work.

“Aw, pobrecito,” Sombra squatted in front of him, resting her chin in her hand. She reached forward and drew Ryū Ichimonji from the sheath on his back.

“That’s not yours!” He snapped as she nonchalantly tested the weight of the sword in her hand. His legs not were responding to him, his remaining organic arm was straining against his own armor, his head was still buzzing from the EMP.  

“Don’t worry, it’s not my style. It’s a little low-tech for me,” said Sombra, running her thumb across the fuller of the blade. Sombra extended her hand toward him and with a few waves of her fingers, made his prosthetic arm and legs go numb again. “Always thought you were funny like that---Given the most advanced prosthetics in the world, yet you still insist on fighting with weapons that no one uses anymore.” Genji felt the tip of his own sword beneath his chin and was forced to lift his head up to look at her. “I think I can work with you, though,” said Sombra.

“Work with me...?” Genji repeated the words and Sombra pressed the blade a bit more firmly under his chin.

“To be honest, I figured the space ape would be the one coming,” she said with a shrug, “But you’ll do.”

“What makes you think I would ever work with someone like you?” said Genji.

“I take it you’re going to want this back,” said Sombra, giving top of his helmet a slight bonk with the flat of the blade, “And,” she brought up several screens, “You’re probably going to want to help your friends.”

Genji’s breath caught in his throat as he saw her display the feeds from several security cameras. One was of Zarya fighting the factory mech, another was of two figures racing up a stairwell, Genji could recognize the glow of Tracer’s chronal accelerator but couldn’t make out the face of the man running alongside her, then finally, there was a dark screen featuring Mercy, hiding alone, visible only by the faint glow of her valkyrie wings. She seemed safe, but then a white shape emerged from the shadows near her. A bone white mask. Reaper. Mercy turned toward him and pointed her caduceus blaster at him, then Sombra closed the screens.

“Let me go,” the words fell out of him, more instinct to them than thought. Sombra smirked.

“We have some terms and conditions we should work out before that,” said Sombra, “We’re going to be very good friends.”

“I’m not working with Talon,” said Genji.

“You’re not working with Talon, you’re working with me,” said Sombra. She brought up a photo of a busy street, “And I happen to be very good to my friends.” Making a frame shape with her fingers she zoomed in on a single figure in the crowd.

“Hanzo…?” Genji squinted at the figure she had zoomed in on. He had changed his hair but Genji would know his brother anywhere.

“But my friends have to be good to me,” said Sombra, closing the screen, “I get the feeling you’re very interested in knowing your brother’s whereabouts—-it would be a shame if that information found its way into the hands of the Shimada clan. I’ll do you two solids: I let you go so you can save your pretty doctor friend and be the hero,” she did a ‘jazz hand’ motion with her fingers on the word ‘hero,’ “And I’ll give you everything I have on your brother’s whereabouts—for whatever that’s worth—but, in return you’ll owe me two favors. Not Talon favors. Me favors. Seems fair enough, right?”

“And if I refuse?” said Genji.

“Well I could shoot you,” said Sombra, “Seems a waste though, especially after our doctor friend worked so hard to keep you alive,” she brought up that same screen of Mercy, “Nah, I’ll probably just EMP you again to keep you stuck here for a few minutes so you don’t kill me while I head to my extraction point. Thing is, though… I don’t think Doctor Ziegler has that long,” she closed the screen.

Genji’s hand was still twitching from the EMP, but he managed to curl his fingers into a fist. “Two favors,” he said.

“So we have a deal?” said Sombra.

“Yes, now let me go,” said Genji.

Sombra set his sword down in front of him, stepped back and waited.

“You don’t have a way to make it work again?”said Genji.

“You know what they say about time healing all wounds?” said Sombra as sensation slowly returned to his limbs.

Genji was struggling to his hands and knees. He didn’t have time. Mercy didn’t have time. Zarya didn’t have time. Rage was boiling out from the pit of his stomach, and he hoped, somehow, that that rage might help return the sensation to his limbs faster. Some dark, furious, part of him that he hoped he had left behind in Nepal, snarled from the pit of his throat. “I should kill you.”

“You won’t,” said Sombra, examining her nails, “You’re a man of your word. And what’s more is, you don’t have time.” She dematerialized in a semi-pixelated flash of purple, and Genji suddenly heard the click of his comm activating in the side of his helmet.

“I’ll leave you with this though,” she said in his comm, and suddenly blueprints of the factory swallowed up the whole of his vision receptors, with one bright orange dot, only two floors above him, was clearly labeled: Angela Ziegler. He struggled to his feet and grabbed his sword, his legs somehow both numb and aching at the same time, and took off in a run.

---

Mercy fired the caduceus blaster. Again and again. The first shot hit him in the hand, knocking his gun from it. He moved to grab it and she fired a second shot in the shoulder and he grunted,

“Still going for the nonlethal points, huh Doc?” said Reaper. Another shot hit him in the chest and he dropped to one knee with a sharp rasping exhale, letting his other gun clatter to the side while gripping his chest.

“Stand down and step away from your weapons,” said Mercy.

“Don’t kid yourself,” said Reaper, “Without your comm, you’re all alone here. You know what you have to do to survive this.”

“I said stand down,” said Mercy. Her brow furrowed and she raised the gun slightly, aiming it at his head.

Reaper chuckled. “But we both know you’re not going to--”

Mercy fired. The blaster fire cracked off his mask, his head jerking back in a spray of black smoke as several bone-white shards fell to the ground. Mercy’s breath was shuddering as he slumped over, one hand gripping his face. She kept her gun fixed on him and reloaded, her hands shaking around the gun. Then he brought his hand away from his face. Then she lowered her gun.

“Gabriel?” her eyes were wide.

“In the flesh,” he said, large chunks of the skin on his cheek falling up and away into black smoke, “For whatever that’s worth.”

“What happened to you?” the question came out of her hushed and horrified.

“You tell me, doc,” he replied. In a swift and fluid motion he picked up his gun and fired. She almost didn’t feel it when it hit, her initial shock was so great. Gabe. It was Gabe. Gabriel Reyes was alive. Gabriel Reyes was Reaper. Reaper had shot her.  Her world was half a blur between the current moment and nightmares of Zurich. The world slowed then quickly sped up and she realized she was falling backward. Pain. There was pain and pain and pain and pain. The force of the shot sent her sprawling on her back. She coughed, feeling blood soaking through both the front and back of her valkyrie suit. Her hand was still gripping the caduceus blaster. She had to fight. She had to live. Her work wasn’t done. Her work wasn’t safe from those who would use it to harm people. The others needed her. Genji--She still hadn’t told him.

 Gripping her wound, she raised her blaster at him again. He dropped, his movement half a fall and his own breath ragged from the shots she had fired on him, and he gripped her wrist as she squeezed the trigger. The shot hit him in the shoulder and he jolted from it but still managed to wrench the gun from her hand. Surgeon’s instinct, he realized, she’d release the gun before he could break her fingers. But then she smacked him hard across the face with the Caduceus staff with her other hand and he reeled for a second before seizing it from her hand, then, with as much strength as he could still manage to eke from his SEP serum and nanites, snapping it in two. Her breath caught in her throat as he tossed the two halves of the caduceus staff aside. 

“You were dead,” Mercy’s voice was hollow and strained as her other hand uselessly tried to keep pressure on her wounds, “You died--twice--I watched you---I tried---”

“I know you tried,” he said, “I know you were only trying to help. That doesn’t change what happened.”

“I’m sorry--” Tears were welling up in those big war orphan eyes of hers, “I’m sorry.”

“I know,” said Reaper, still gripping her wrist, “It’s okay. I’m just going to need you to patch me up one last time.”

“What...?” her breath was still ragged.

“It won’t hurt too long,” said Reaper, black smoke bleeding out from the interior of his hood, “Just breathe, let it take you.”

Mercy saw the smoke run up her arm and over her body and her breath suddenly caught in her throat. Then the pain hit and it hit hard. She screamed.

“I want you to remember this, Doctor,” said Reaper, his breath getting less ragged as the smoke ran over her, she could barely hear him through the haze of her pain or the sound of her own screams, “I want you to know that this is what I’m going through every waking moment. This is what you saved.”

She kept screaming, her back arching and blood dripping out from beneath her. he kept her still with one hand on her shoulder to keep her from bleeding out too fast as his nanites leeched the biotic energy from her body. She didn’t have the SEP serum. It wouldn’t take too long.

---

Zarya was gritting her teeth as she fired on the mech as the Shrike lobbed what looked like a grenade at the mech. Zarya flinched back as the grenade didn’t explode, but rather shatter on the cockpit of the mech, prompting a cry from the Talon agent piloting it. Zarya fired a particle blast at it while the agent seemed distracted, but he managed to activate the mech’s shielding and fire off several molten bolts at both her and the Shrike. One grazed her leaving an ugly smoldering scar on her side. Zarya winced and gripped her side, then felt several shots from the back and felt the pain ease heavily. She looked behind her to see the Shrike giving her a thumbs up. “Just a scratch! You’ll be fine!”

“Any ideas?” said Zarya, doing her best to roll out of the way of the bolts as they pelted the walls behind her. She couldn’t move out of the way of another and had to activate her shielding, brightening the core of her particle cannon. The Shrike looked around, then pointed upward at one of the walkways. “Can that gun cut through steel?”

“Any suggestions that don’t require destroying the factory?” said Zarya.

“It’s just one walkway,” said the Shrike a bit more cavalierly than Zarya liked as they both hurried out of the way of the mech’s limbs and bolts, “It’s a factory. You can make more.”

Zarya took a second to consider, then found herself running out of the way of more molten bolts, some being absorbed into her shielding, further strengthening the cannon, which sped up her decision. “Черт возьми!” she said, pointing her particle cannon upward and cutting two ragged lines across a section of the walkway above. She stopped running then and the mech advanced on her.  The walkway overhead collapsed, landing squarely on the mech. The shielding of the mech fizzled out and Zarya hit it with a fully charged particle blast, leaving little more than a blackened shell. She looked to the Shrike.

“Why did you help me?” she said.

“We can speak later. The others are still in danger,” said the Shrike.

“Well,” Zarya turned back toward the elevator, “Perhaps by now we can get the Doctor out---” she stopped and saw that the elevator had stopped several floors above at the administrative offices, “Вот дерьмо,” said Zarya. She pressed a button and miraculously, the elevator responded. Whoever was playing with them earlier must have moved on. The elevator opened and Zarya walked in, with the Shrike walking in after her. The door closed and the elevator went up several floors.

“Are you with Overwatch?” said Zarya as the elevator went up.

“That’s a bit complicated,” said the Shrike.

 Zarya’s eyes narrowed a bit. 

“I take it I’m still not off the Watchlist,” said the Shrike.

“No,” said Zarya folding her arms, “You are not.” 

The floor chimed at the administrative levels and opened. They heard a scream down the hall. 

“Doctor Ziegler!” said Zarya in alarm.

“Find the Doctor,” said Ana, turning to Zarya. Ana pulled what looked like a small syringe gun from the interior of her coat. “I’ll give you a head-start.”

Before Zarya could protest, the Shrike shot her with some kind of syringe and Zarya suddenly felt something, like joy and fury and lightning running through her veins. 

“Go!” said the Shrike. Zarya took off in a sprint, leaving Ana in the dust. Ana followed after, somewhat regretting the burst of speed that came with the nano-boost. 

 ---

Mercy’s world was dimming at the peripheries, everything was swallowed and muted by smoke and shadow and pain. She felt a sharp pain in her leg and somehow that woke her up slightly and helped her breath return to her. Her eyes widened a bit to see a slight lavender-pink glow several inches above her. Reaper reared away from her and turned on his heel only to face a particle cannon blast that forced him away from her. She struggled to try and sit up slightly but only felt more blood fall out of her from the effort and flattened herself on nthe ground. Zarya. She knew it was Zarya. She had to stay awake.

---

Genji was sprinting. He had to make it in time. He scrambled through the Svyatogor assembly line, clambering on the massive frames of the mechs, hauled himself up onto moving platforms, sprinted along walls until finally reachng a staircase that would bring him up. The light of his visor glowed in the darkness as he raced through the halls.

Genji came to a sudden halt as he reached the corridor. His heart dropped into his stomach at the sight of Mercy bloodied on the floor and he glanced up at the dark figure standing near her. Zarya was standing in front of Mercy, a glowing particle barrier around herself. Genji looked back down at Mercy in horror then noticed her chest rising and falling erratically. Still alive. She was still alive, though he couldn’t be sure for how long. Genji threw several shuriken to draw Reaper’s attention off of the two of them and give Zarya an opening. Reaper turned and faced him. Genji saw his face. Genji froze. Reyes. But it couldn’t be Reyes. Reyes died in Zurich. Reaper raised his guns.

Deflect, Genji’s mind was screaming at him, Raise your blade and deflect. He felt his own hand hesitate. Reaper pulled the trigger. Genji knew he couldn’t bring the blade up in time. His eyes flicked to Mercy. Angela, he thought, No, I can’t-- then suddenly there was a warping sound and Genji found himself engulfed in a sphere of light.

“You’re covered!” Zarya shouted before blasting her particle cannon at Reaper, “Go!”  Genji didn’t need to be told twice.

“Ryūjin no ken o kurae!” he drew Ryū Ichimonji and leapt forward and slashed at Reaper. Reaper raised his gun but Ryū Ichimonji cut it through at the barrele as Reaper desperately tried to move back, but Genji’s rage was not sated by the destruction of the gun and he leapt forward and slashed again. The blade actually hit something solid this time and Reaper grunted and stumbled back, black smoke trailing up from the slash across his torso. He snarled but Genji dashed forward, the light from the Shimada dragon trailing behind him in a green streak as he slashed past Reaper. Reaper coughed and gripped himself barely holding together after the strike. 

Everything Reaper had sapped from Mercy had been for naught as he gripped his front, not bleeding, but trailing upwards and away from him like smoke. He looked up just in time to see Zarya had fired an explosive particle charge at Reaper. Reaper wasn’t dealing with that. He disappeared in a wisp of smoke. Zarya swore and then looked at Genji, who now half stumbled to Mercy’s side. Something in her face softened. The ninja had, up until now seemed fairly contained onto himself, but there was a definite desperation about him now that seemed just as human as any one of her troops on the Siberian front.

“I’ll take point,” said Zarya.

Genji looked up at her.

“I know the factory better,” she said.

Genji nodded and Zarya took off in pursuit of Reaper, shouting orders in Russian into her comm as she did so.

The glow of Zarya’s shielding faded off of Mercy. So much of her valkyrie suit was stained red. Genji realized his hands were shaking as they hovered over her wounds, unsure which one was bleeding the most and would require pressure most immediately. This looked bad. It looked really bad. He put his hand behind her head so that it wasn’t against the ground. “Angela?” he said.

“Genji…?” her voice was weak, “Are you…?”

“I’m here,” said Genji, “Stay awake.”

“You came,” said Mercy.

“You’ve lost a lot of blood,” said Genji. Her biotics should be healing her. Why weren’t they healing her? Her staff, he had to get her staff. He looked up and saw the front half of it, then scrambled over and grabbed it.

“You need to go,” she said, “Head him off at the exits—-You can still catch him before he—”

“That’s not important right now,” said Genji, struggling to get the staff to work. It looked so effortless when she used it, why couldn’t he? No, he had to figure this out. He couldn’t lose her.

“It’s broken—Genji, there’s no time…you can…he’s wounded…the mission—” Mercy started.

“Our mission was to stop the svyatogor. It’s stopped,” said Genji, setting the staff aside and putting pressure on one of the wounds on her stomach, not wanting to touch her ribs for fear they might be broken from the force of the shot.

“Genji, it’s Gabe—It’s Reaper—-We can’t just—-“ Mercy shifted in his arms then suddenly winced and cried out.

“Easy!” said Genji, holding onto her to keep her from moving and bleeding out more, “Easy…” he said a bit more softly this time.

“You have to…” her breath was going ragged.

“I am not leaving you,” he said, “Save your strength. Stay awake. Please.” He glanced down at the wound he was keeping pressure over, “Please stay with me.” He brought a hand to the side of his helmet and hailed Tracer’s frequency on the comm, then sighed with some relief as he found the comm channel was finally working again.

“Tracer---”

“Genji! Oh am I glad to hear you! What’s your status---?”

“I’m fine but Ange--Doctor Ziegler is severely injured. Reaper he--we were able to drive him off but--her biotics aren’t---I can’t leave her. I can’t. She could---I can’t let her---”

“I understand,” said Tracer. 

Genji took a steadying breath. “Zarya’s taken point. If you rendezvous with her you may still be able to get Reaper before he gets away.”

“Roger. Stay with the Doc.”

“Understood,” said Genji, clicking out of the comm channel. He gave Angela a slight shake and her eyes opened blearily. “Just stay awake. Please.”

---

There was a rush of guards running through the administrative levels, all converging on Zarya’s location, apparently, and Ana was forced to slip into darkness or risk being taken into custody without Zarya to vouch for her.  She was about to move toward the corridor when she heard a rasping cough and turned to look into the stairwell, where shadows were forming themselves into a vague humanoid shape. Ana pointed her biotic rifle at him.

“It’s been a while, Gabriel,” she said. Reaper was hunched over, smoke streaming off of him from where Genji slashed him with the dragonblade. He made eye contact with her and turned to smoke again as she fired on him, his wraith form trailing up the stairs with her in hot pursuit. He managed to get a shotgun blast off that littered the wall of the stairwell, buying him several seconds to put more distance between them.

“You don’t have time for this,” Reaper rasped, his voice somehow broken across the smoke, “Doctor Ziegler doesn’t have time for this.”

“You’re bluffing,” said Ana, “Her biotics---”

“Are destroying themselves against my nanites. She can’t stabilize. Not on her own. You saw it.”

Ana lowered her rifle from her eye. 

“The man or the mission, Ana?” said Reaper, his voice drifting away in the darkness.

---

Tracer exhaled as Genji clicked out of the comm as she and Jack rode one of the industrial lifts up to the higher levels of the factory.

“Your team...” Jack started to say.

Tracer’s lips tightened, “Doc’s hurt,” she said.

“She’ll be fine. Stay focused,” said Jack.

---

Sombra was busying herself with opening and closing various doors and strategically shutting down elevators around the factory from the roof, keeping an eye on the security feeds when Widowmaker finally emerged from where the Svyatogor assembly line exited the building.

“Araña!” Sombra looked up from her screens, “I knew you’d make it.”

“Our extraction vehicle should be here by now,” muttered Widowmaker. Sombra bent down, picked up a small pebble from the roof, and threw it hard. There was a flash of faint blue light and the pebble dropped to the ground as if its arc had been abruptly stopped.

“Cloaking,” said Widowmaker, “Well, Vialli did always have expensive tastes...”

“Shame he left due to creative differences,” said Sombra, tapping at a few more screens, “Sure was nice of him to leave all those assets though...”

Widowmaker chuckled. 

“They’re lifting the cloaking as soon as Reaper gets---” Sombra cut herself off as a black smoke poured out of one of the rooftop vents of the factory and formed itself into Reaper, on his hands and knees, panting with smoking streams of nanites trailing off of him.

“Mierda,” said Sombra, stepping over to Reaper, “So...how’d hunting go?”

“Do you still have the omnicell?” said Reaper, not even looking up at her.

“Yep,” Sombra withdrew the omnicell from her coat, “Y’know, if Akande’s decided he’s got bigger fish to fry, I’d be happy to hold onto i---”

“Sombra,” Reaper’s voice was a croak.

Sombra cleared her throat and stuffed the Omnicell back into her coat. “Right. Anway, we should go.”

Reaper exhaled and clicked a beacon on his comm and the cloaking on the extraction vehicle lifted, revealing a dark wedge-shaped aircraft. Widowmaker readied her grappling hook and Sombra casually wrapped her arms around Widowmaker’s waist. 

“You do realize you have a translocator,” said Widowmaker.

“Aw come on, Araña, you know you love me,” said Sombra arching an eyebrow. 

Widowmaker scoffed, then fired her grapple at the opening hull of the aircraft. Sombra snickered as Widowmaker retracted the grapple and they both glided through the air to the open hull of the extraction vehicle. Reaper did a simple weary shadow step to the interior of the vehicle, looking over his shoulder just in time to see Jack and Tracer burst out onto the roof from the main door.

---

“We’re too late!” said Tracer, watching the hull doors of the talon ship closing.

“No we’re not,” said Jack, activating his tactical visor. The shot was narrow, but he could make it. He could take out Reaper.

“Wait---” Tracer started.

“I’ve got this,” said Jack.

“Jack,” Tracer said more urgently, watching as the ship’s guns fixed on him.

“Just let me end this---” Jack started but Tracer suddenly tackled him from the waist just as the ships guns started firing. Bullets riddled the roof of the factory where Jack was standing as both he and Tracer took cover behind one of the rooftop cooling vents. 

“I had that! Why did you---?” Jack started.

“I just found out you’re alive! I’m not about to let you change that!” snapped Tracer.  

The words gave Jack pause and he glanced over their cover to see that the doors to the hull had closed completely, but Tracer didn’t seem done yet. She pulled a pulse bomb from the interior of her jacket.

“Stay back,” she said.

“But---” Jack started.

“You’re not strike commander anymore,” said Tracer, darting out from behind their cover. Jack covered his face as Tracer blinked across the roof, the guns of the talon ship kicking up gravel behind her before she threw the pulse bomb and then recalled back to her spot behind him and covered her head. The pulse bomb detonated in the line of fire, blowing off one of the ship’s guns. The ship’s airborne state seemed compromised for several panic-filled seconds, but it regained its bearings and shot off, away from the factory. Tracer was panting. She pushed her goggles off her face and slumped against their air vent. Then rubbed her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said, “I was pretty sure it wouldn’t take down the whole thing but... I mean.. I guess I still hoped...”

“That...” Jack was borderline speechless, “That was good. You did good.”

Tracer half-huffed half-chuckled. “We... we should get to the others,” she said, running her hands through her hair.

--

Mercy’s breaths were still ragged. Genji wondered if her lungs were filling with blood.

“Genji…” her hand weakly went up and touched the side of his faceplate, “If I…”

“You are going to make it,” said Genji.

“Don’t let them use my research to hurt people,” said Mercy.

“You’re going to be fully capable of protecting your research yourself,” said Genji, “You’re going to live.”

A small smile lit up her face and he felt her affectionately brush her thumb on his faceplate. “So determined,” she said. The gesture gave him pause, and he wanted to bring up his own hand to touch hers, but he had one hand supporting her head and the other keeping pressure on the wound so he couldn’t.

“Angela,” his voice was low, not quite hushed, “I—I need you to stay awake. I need—I should have told you…so long ago. I should have opened and ended every letter with it. I should have told you the second I saw you in Gibraltar. I should have—” he stopped himself. She was staring up at him, eyes wide. He  took a steadying breath, “Angela, I lo—”

Some force suddenly hit Mercy in the chest and she grunted and convulsed hard in his arms. Genji’s breath caught in his throat. “No!” he said. She coughed then suddenly drew in a sharp breath and coughed again.

“Biotics--” she said, her eyes wide.

“What?” said Genji looking down at her. The sight of so much blood on her made his stomach tie up in knots, but there was no new wound with the shot--

“It’s biotics--,” she said and he lifted his hand from the wound on her stomach to see the bleeding had slowed.

“They’re working again,” he said, “Okay--You can stay awake until we get you back to the Orca, then---”

“Genji, that’s not what I mean, I mean---”

Her body rocked with the force of another shot and she grunted again and her breathing steadied more.

“We need to get her out of here,” a voice spoke and Genji glanced up to see a cloaked figure in some kind of helmet with three triangularly arranged lights on the visor.

“The shrike...” Mercy said softly.

The Shrike pointed a rifle at Mercy and instinctively he bent over her and held his wakizashi toward the figure, ready to deflect.

“I don’t know who you are,” said Genji, “But I suggest you lower your weapon and---”

The Shrike lobbed something at the ground and it shattered in front of him and Angela. Genji flinched back but felt the pain in his shoulder gone and heard a familar sort of whirring chiming sound.

“Biotics...” he said.

“Took you a moment to catch on,” said the Shrike, lifting their rifle and shooting Mercy again. Genji flinched over her and the Shrike scoffed. “We don’t have time for this,” they said, shooting him. Genji winced but then glanced down at himself. No wound. If anything the residual pain from Sombra’s repeated hacking of his prosthetics had faded. “Do you understand now?” said the Shrike.

“I--yes...” said Genji.

“I know your voice...” murmured Mercy, her brow furrowed, “That rifle... they told me they only made one of that rifle... how did you...?

“You’ve lost a lot of blood, dear,” said the Shrike before turning to Genji, “As I’ve said, we need to move.”

“R-right,” said Genji. He bent over Mercy then gently eased her into his arms, shifting her weight against himself so her head would lean on his shoulder.

“Do you need help?” asked the Shrike.

“No,” said Genji, rising to his feet, holding Mercy bridal style. He glanced down at her. “Am I hurting you?” he asked.

“No. No more than I was before,” said Mercy.

The Shrike shot Mercy again and Genji felt panic spike in his gut again before remembering the rifle wouldn’t hurt her. “Do you have to keep doing that?” he said, walking out of the factory with the figure walking alongside him.

“It’s the fastest way,” said the Shrike.

Genji huffed a little and turned back to Mercy. Her eyelids were slowly closing.

“Angela,” he spoke her name and she blinked several times and shook her head a bit, struggling to stay awake. “Stay with me,” he said. He forced a chuckle, “Try not to doze off like you always do.”

Mercy smiled. They made it to the elevator and took it down to the main floor of the factory.

“Full circle,” Mercy managed to say.

“What?” said Genji.

“I carry you, you carry me,” she said.

Genji smiled beneath his faceplate, “To be fair, you’ve saved me many times over, Doctor Ziegler.”

Mercy glanced over at the Shrike. “They shouldn’t have that rifle,” she said softly.

“What do you mean---?” Genji started.

“Genji!” The call came from across the factory yard and Tracer raced toward them in a blue streak, before coming to a short stop in front of Genji and Mercy. “Oh no...” Tracer’s hand went over her mouth.

“It’s...” Mercy winced a little in Genji’s arms, “Not as bad as it looks.”

“Oh Doc...” Tracer’s voice was cracking a little, “I’m so sorry---I should have--If I hadn’t---”

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” said Mercy, “You did so well. You---” Mercy cut herself off as her sight fell on a figure hurrying up behind Tracer. “Who...?” the question died out in her throat as the figure became clear to them.

“Oh...” Tracer glanced over her shoulder at Jack Morrison, “I...I uh... There’s someone you should...”

“Jack,” said Mercy.

“Jack...?” repeated Genji.

Jack Morrison cleared his throat and gave a small wave, “Uh... hey.”

Mercy’s mouth was hanging open, “But you---you were---they said you---I---but---you---you’re...” Her eyes rolled back and shut and she suddenly went limp in Genji’s arms.

“Angela!?” Genji glanced down at her in alarm.

The Shrike stepped forward and put two fingers to Mercy’s neck. “She’s fine. She’s only fainted.”

“We... probably could have planned that better,” said Jack.

“Good to see you can still make the ladies swoon, Jack,” said the figure in the mask, shooting Mercy with another biotic cartridge.

Genji looked to Tracer. “Morrison is alive,” said Genji.

“Yeah,” said Tracer.

“Strike Commander Jack Morrison, thought dead for the past 5 years, is alive,” said Genji.

“Mm-hmm,” said Tracer.

“Commander Reyes is alive. Reaper is Commander Reyes. All this time Reyes has been the one hunting down former members of Overwatch and he nearly killed Ange—” Genji caught himself, “Doctor Ziegler. He nearly killed Doctor Ziegler. And now Strike Commander Morrison is alive. Is there anything else earth-shattering I need to know?”

Jack instantly looked at the Shrike and Tracer followed his gaze. Genji glanced over at the Shrike as well. A long pause passed between all four of them. Genji then looked back at Jack and Tracer. “I’m getting on the Orca,” he said, attempting to sound determined but his own voice coming off as exhausted even to himself. He glanced down at Mercy, “We’re getting on the Orca. And I’m finding biotics that don’t require shooting anyone.”

---

Zarya was waiting by the Orca when they reached it.  She gave a glance to Mercy in Genji’s arms, then back up at Genji.

“She will live?” said Zarya.

Genji nodded. He knew she would be alright, between the biotics on the Orca and the Shrike’s rifle, but his stomach was still in knots, the panic still hadn’t quite left his blood in spite of his own exhaustion.

Zarya gave a single nod and folded her arms. “I am coming with you.”

“What?” said Genji.

“Security footage shows that Talon has stolen something very important from Volskaya Industries. I do not fully understand what it is they have stolen, but I know there is no way they have anything good planned for it. I cannot permit them to do harm with Russian technology. If you are taking the fight to them, I am coming with you.”

“We’ll get it back,” said Tracer, “Promise.”

Zarya gave a wary look to the Shrike, then squinted at Jack slightly. He looked familiar but she could not be sure from where. She then turned back to Tracer and gave another nod. They boarded the Orca.

---

Mercy would have looked almost heavenly if it weren’t for all the blood staining her Valkyrie suit as she laid there with the biotic fields glowing around her. Genji sat next to her, cross-legged next to her pallet. The Orca was humming all around him and there was still the slight shake of turbulence from the snow.

“You need to rest,” said Tracer. Genji looked up at her. To be honest at this point he was so exhausted he hadn’t even noticed her walk over from the cockpit.

Genji shook his head. “Something Reaper did was interfering with the biotic distributors in her spine. Someone needs to stay with her to make sure there are no further complications.”

“You need to take care of yourself too,” said Tracer, folding her arms.

“I can manage,” said Genji.

Tracer looked at Mercy, then back to Genji. She sighed. “All right,” she said, walking back toward the Orca’s cockpit. Jack was waiting for her there.

“He hasn’t left her side for a heartbeat,” muttered Tracer, taking her seat.

“The biotic fields should keep her stabilized until we reach the Watchpoint,” said Jack.

“So there’s a ‘We’ now?” said Tracer.

“I thought it would be safest staying out of each others’ ways—-but I see now operating independently of each other makes us liabilities to each other. We need to be on the same page if we’re going to take down Talon. If I had dropped Winston an anonymous tip…” Jack shook his head, “For a long time, Ana’s and my anonymity meant your safety, with this mission, that’s clearly not the case any more.”

Tracer folded her arms and shot him a look.

“And… I’m sorry,” said Jack.

“Sorry for…?”

“Sorry for not seeing that until we were all in danger.”

Tracer’s arms remained folded and her glare remained.

“And I’m sorry for the past five years,” said Jack. He sighed. “I’m sorry, for what I put you through. What I put everyone through.”

“There’s a start,” said Tracer.

“You need to understand, I had to do it for your and everyone’s safety,” said Jack, “Overwatch was already imploding—-the best chance everyone had was…”

“Letting it collapse,” there was something slightly choked in Tracer’s voice.

“There was no going back after Zurich,” said Jack, “Even if I let everyone know I was alive after the explosion, that was the final push the Petras Act needed to pass. There wouldn’t have been anything I could do.”

“You don’t know that,” said Tracer.

“As strike commander, it was literally my job to know when I was pushing my people into a losing fight. Trust me. I knew,” said Jack.

Tracer pursed her lips, then pushed her goggles up to her forehead and rubbed at her eyes. Jack couldn’t tell if she was tearing up. She exhaled sharply.

“I know I can never make it up to you,” said Jack, rising to his feet, “But if you and Winston would have me, it would be my honor to fight alongside you.” He saluted.

Tracer almost sniffled but seemed to catch herself. “Well, Commander,” she said, a slight shake in her voice as she stood up as well, “The world could always use more heroes.” She saluted back. They both stood there in the cockpit, Tracer still saluting, until she snorted and broke into a short, wry laugh that sounded like she was still stuffing down the urge to cry. “It’s good to have you back, sir,” said Tracer.

“I take it I’m not getting off that easy,” said Jack.

“Oh no,” said Tracer, “No you’re not.”

“Fair enough,” said Jack.

——

Genji didn’t know how long he had dozed off but he woke with a start. It couldn’t have been more than a few minutes, judging by one of the screens monitoring the Orca’s location. He quickly glanced down at Mercy and looked over her, but saw her condition was the same as usual. He exhaled and clicked off his faceplate and visor and rubbed his eyes, he then glanced up from Mercy and was startled to see Zarya sitting across from him on the other side of her. Instantly his hand went up to his scars and he cleared his throat.

“Sorry—I should—” he moved to put his faceplate back on but Zarya gave a smile, dismissive wave, and a huff that was almost a chuckle.

“If that is what makes you comfortable, but I do not mind,” said Zarya, “You think I have not seen my share of scars?” She pointed at the X-shaped scar above her eyebrow, “This was given to me by an Eradicator in Kemerovo. I gave it a bigger one. We held the line. Lost a lot of good soldiers that day.”

“I’m sorry,” said Genji.

Zarya shook her head. “I am sorry,” she said, “It was not fair of me to judge you so harshly. Many of my soldiers have had to replace limbs, but… never to such an extent. That along with being an… I suppose ‘Omnic Sympathizer’ is not the right word….”

“I was assuming all Omnics were like the Shambali,” said Genji, “I had not considered your fight or your losses.”

Zarya glanced down at Mercy and smiled a bit. “You know, they still tell stories of ‘The Angel of Yakutsk’ on the Siberian Front. It is an honor to have met her, I only wish the circumstances were better.”

“I suppose that’s how it is with Ange—Doctor Ziegler,” said Genji, “We did not exactly meet under good circumstances either. I was nearly dead. She saved me. I would have died many years ago or many times since then if not for her.”

“So how long have you been in love with her?” said Zarya. Genji’s head jerked up from Mercy. Zarya asked it casually, like it was a question about the weather or how his day was.

The heat sinks in Genji’s shoulders clicked out and steamed. “I’m--- Doctor Ziegler and I aren’t--- I mean.... we haven’t...” he trailed off, “I’ve... always respected her and her work.”

“Ah I see,” said Zarya, clearly unconvinced. She rolled her shoulders. “Well, you should get some rest. I have some questions for the Shrike.” With that she stood up and walked off. Genji wondered if he could explain it to Zarya without sounding ridiculous. He looked at those last few snow flurries outside the viewport of the Orca. He wondered how seriously Zarya would take him if he compared his feelings for Angela to snow, small fleeting things that somehow pile up and change everything about how you see the world. He didn’t say anything. He glanced down at Mercy, took a deep calming breath, and maintained his vigil. Her fingers twitched and she murmured something in her semi-consciousness. Genji unthinkingly reached out a hand and wrapped his fingers in hers. They would reach the Watchpoint soon. Angela would be all right then.

[dev-user-blog]

Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Security

Why Audit?

FP Complete now does blockchain audit services. Why have we chosen to work in this field, and what are we aiming to accomplish?

Our corporate mission is to drive the successful adoption of better IT engineering tools and practices.

Experience shows us again and again: quality and productivity are driven more by these substantive improvements than by simply deciding to try harder. Any engineer, and any team, can be more successful using the right tools and best practices. This was true when I built and ran Microsoft’s Productivity Tools Team (for Windows and Office engineering), and when I was in charge of Visual C++ and parts of Visual Studio. And it remains true today as we see with powerful tools like Stack for Haskell, or Kubernetes, or a wide range of corporate projects FP Complete has worked on.

How To Succeed In FinTech

5 Killer DevOps Strategies

In this eBook you will learn the unique challenges facing FinTech and software development:

Data and Information Integrity

Data Security

System Integration

Compliance and Regulations

Click the "Download Now" button below to learn how to conquer these unique challenges.

Download Now!

Blockchain Now Needs Stronger Engineering

Good engineering involves a lot of pieces beyond just having a strong algorithm paper: coding standards, continuous integration, automated test coverage, documentation management, reproducible cloud deployment, dependency tracking, and more. The stronger the engineering infrastructure, the more likely you can expect a reliable and secure result that works as intended under a wide range of conditions—in other words, quality.

The blockchain field, including cryptocurrency, is of course fairly new. And these technologies are of course very sensitive to quality. Unfortunately as we have all seen, they don’t all live up to their promises. Engineering teams, perhaps feeling the pressure to get to market quickly, sometimes overlook valuable opportunities to improve quality. To be blunt, a lot of blockchain implementation work needs improvement.

We believe over the next few years the bar for engineering excellence is going way up. People are staking their money, their privacy, their businesses on the correct operation of these systems. So we’ve been asking directly: what can be done to increase the quality of engineering in the whole blockchain industry?

More even than other open technologies, blockchain relies upon community trust. We need to give blockchain groups a way to earn that trust by actually doing proper work, with an independent inspection that it’s being done right. A cryptocurrency cannot be a hack job—and if it is done right, users want to know. Thus the audit, an inspection to verify that the project lives up to good engineering standards. By making these standards clear, we give teams something specific to shoot for and give credit to those who've got it right. For users and investors, knowledge is power.

Months ago Cardano announced their decision to appoint us as the auditors of their cryptocurrency engineering. This cryptocurrency has a market capitalization over US$ 4 Billion, and they want users to know that the system can be trusted. We’ve already provided them with interim results which are being published, and the work is ongoing.

At the same time, we’re working on several other non-published cryptocurrency projects, and in talks with more. So we decided it was time to formalize the audit program and announce it publicly.

Learn More!

Blockchain Success Program

Think you know what you are doing, but need a little support? This program is designed for you along with your company in mind! FP Complete's Success Programs are packed with the necessary tools and techniques designed to guide your team's Blockchain project towards success at a fraction of the industry standard pricing.

Offering 3 strategic program levels.

Engineer to engineer mentoring that pays for itself!

Accelerate your IT team's expertise in cloud tools and automation.

Free your team to use their talents.

Enroll Today!

Levels of Auditing

We hope to encourage a great many blockchain and cryptocurrency projects to seek an outside engineering audit, whether from FP Complete or another qualified firm. We look forward to the day when users expect to see an audit on any sensitive cryptocurrency or blockchain work. And that means we need to provide people with a path to get started.

Therefore we’ve chosen to offer several audit plans, using different amounts of labor (and thus, costs) to achieve different amounts of scrutiny and certification. For ease of understanding by general audiences we are calling these Bronze, Silver and Gold; and we will use “stars” to further summarize how well the project is doing. We will be publishing the criteria for each level; obviously the more auditing work is done, the more parts of the engineering can be checked and potentially certified. What's crucial right now is to get every project on the path to verifiable quality.

Auditing is not the same as a 100% inspection. Given that all blockchain projects are moving targets, our goal is to achieve a reasonable level of scrutiny with sampling, and report accurately on whether each audited project appears to be living up to a reasonable standard of engineering practices. As part of any public certification we will report on the nature of what we’ve inspected, what standards it met, and exceptions we’ve found.

At a basic level of scrutiny, we will focus on the tools, development processes, and quality control processes in use: are good engineering systems used, in line with best practices for predictable results? At a higher level of scrutiny we will delve much deeper into a larger percentage of the source code, tests, and so on, greatly increasing the density of checks that can be done. Are the software and the distributed system being built in a way that is most likely to operate as specified? Or is the team operating on just caffeine and hope?

Clearly, signing up for an audit is no guarantee of a passing grade: a project may fail an audit and earn no certification at all. In such cases, our intention is to provide the team with as much constructive feedback as possible on how they can improve. We hope in such cases the chance to work up to a certification will serve as a “carrot,” an incentive to implement improvements that would lead to a passing grade or better.

As you probably know, FP Complete offers extensive services in FinTech software engineering, cloud engineering, and DevOps. To avoid any conflict of interest, of course we will not issue an audit grade for a project where we ran the engineering. In any such case we will bring in an outside firm to compare the engineering work with the published criteria and determine the grade.

Learn More!

Raising the Standards

Right now we see a wide range of engineering quality levels on blockchain projects. Frankly, I don’t expect to see many Gold or even Silver certifications in the short term. However, we hope to see some. Moreover, as industry standards rise (as they must), we expect to add further criteria, increasing the bar for each level of certification. Even a Bronze certification in 2020 may involve far more requirements than one in 2019 or 2018. This will be spelled out in the published criteria for each level at any given time.

FP Complete does not have the capacity to audit the over 1600 cryptocurrencies already in existence, plus all of the other blockchain projects and wallets. We certainly hope to make a dent, but realistically other companies will need to enter this space as well. We will welcome them to use criteria modeled on our own, or to create their own lists of what constitutes proper engineering. What’s important is that they not lower the bar, but raise the bar, for quality in this industry. The blockchain engineering audit field needs to grow rapidly for the public good, and we will promote its growth in a constructive and timely manner.

Note that a technology audit will never be the same thing as a financial audit. Technical excellence doesn’t mean that a particular cryptocurrency is a good investment, or that a particular blockchain is suited for some particular use. But it should mean that the implementation team is following best practices to bring their implementation in line with what’s been described and specified.

We hope the day will come when consumers of any blockchain will ask: where’s the audit? It’s long been expected in the stock market, and crypto users deserve no less. Home and business users alike deserve to know if they can trust the technology on which they are staking so much. By demanding evidence of excellence, we give providers the backing they need to invest more in quality, safety, and security.

Learn More!

For further reading

How to select the right level of QA for your project

Best practices: multifaceted testing

Best practices: DevOps priorities for FinTech

DevOps to prepare for a blockchain world (video presentation)

From my colleague Steve Bogdan: getting past IT operations into DevOps

From my colleague Niklas Hambüchen: the Haskell language and cryptocurrencies

Details on our blockchain auditing services

[element-effect-blog]

17 Organizational Hacks To Cut Through the Stress of Your Growing To-Do List

Have you ever stared at your to-do list and felt yourself getting more and more stressed out? Or worried you’re never going the reach the end?

There have tons of times I’ve become frantic thinking about how many things I need to get done, with only 24 hours in the day.

It’s taken me many stress-filled days to realize organization was the answer to conquering my growing to-do list.

If you're one of them, like me, here are 17 organizational hacks to cut down your stress...

1. Stop Multitasking

You might think getting a little bit done on each part of your to-do list will help make a dent in it, but you’re wrong. Multi-tasking is one of the worst things you could do for your productivity. Not only are you over-committing, you’re creating more distractions for yourself.

Instead of trying to do everything at once, focus on getting one thing completely done at a time. This will allow you to put all your thinking into that one task and truly focus. Then once you’re done, you can close that thought process and move onto the next one.

2. Organize Tomorrow’s List Today

In order to keep things moving along, you need to organize your to-do list proactively, perhaps each and every night. This will allow you to re-evaluate what you’ve completed and what needs to be moved onto the next day. Completing your to-do list the night before also gives you a chance to hop right into your tasks the next morning.

3. Put a Realistic Due Date on Each Task

Think you can write a 2,000-word blog post, 10 emails, and have 3 meetings in one day? Maybe if you want to work until 10 pm and stress yourself out even more.

Once you get a task, make sure you’re setting a realistic due date for when you can get this done. As you set a date, take into consideration everything else you have due on that day already and how important it is to get it done by a certain time.

Once you have everything organized by the date it actually has to be done, you’ll be able to take that added pressure off yourself.

4. Have Everything You Need Before Getting Started

Starting a task without all of the required information or assets will only derail you when you get started.

For example, if you need to send an email to your database, do you have the list you need to send it to? If not, then creating that list needs to be an additional task on your to-do list.

As you’re adding to your list, make sure you’re asking yourself “am I ready to start this? Do I have everything I need?”

If not, move it down the list and only add it back into your day once you’re ready.

5. Prioritize: Put Things in Order of Importance

I know everything might seem like a top-priority at times, but it’s likely they can wait a day or two.  

If others are relying on you to get something done by a certain time, they need to appear first on your list. After that, focus on what you need to get done for yourself that day. Everything else can wait until the next couple of days.

Once your list is ordered by importance, put all of your attention on those important items and keep moving down the list as far as you can without getting yourself stressed out.

6. Put Similar Tasks Together

After you’ve set up your to-do list by priority, group similar tasks together (as best you can). Once you’re in the flow, it’ll be easy to move onto a task that’s similar to the one you just finished. Your line of thinking won’t have to change as drastically as it would with a completely different type of task.

7. Turn of Notifications

In today’s day and age, you’re always connected. Whether it be on your phone, email, or in our case, Slack, there’s always a way for people to contact you no matter what you’re doing.

One thing that’s really helped me keep focus is to set times during the day where I turn off ALL notifications and power through my work. I’ve noticed I not only feel more accomplished but the work I produce is so much better!

You don’t have to stay offline for long, but try to set no notification intervals a couple times a day where you don’t allow outside distractions to slow you down.

8. Set Focus Alarms

Another thing that helps me stay on focus is to set “Focus Alarms” on my phone. I have an alarm set in the morning, afternoon, and an hour before I leave work where I ask myself “What’s the most important use of my time right now?”

These alarms allow me to refocus my thoughts and catch myself if I’m multitasking or using my time unwisely. Try setting one at first and see how much it helps. If it doesn't, start setting a couple more to stay on top of your day.

9. Keep a Clean Desk/Desktop

So, each morning, tidy up your desk a little. Get rid of any trash, knick-knacks, and clutter that may make your workspace feel disorganized.

Make sure you don’t have a million files and folders making it difficult to find what you need when you need it. Keep everything nicely organized and off your screen to create a cleaner digital workspace.

10. Start Big, Then Go Smaller

When you’re creating to-do lists, it’s easier to focus on the task at hand, rather than focus on the bigger picture of it all. Thinking about what each task means to your long-term plan helps you keep a sense of accomplishment with even the most mundane tasks.

This will also help make sure each task you’re doing is actually working towards a goal. Is adding a hover effect to your call-to-action going to make more visitors click on it or is it just something cool? Being able to ask yourself this each and every day will make sure you’re always working towards reaching your goals.

11. Add Unscheduled Items To Your To-Do List

When most people are creating a to-do list, they tend to keep day-to-day activities like answering emails, taking a lunch, or responding to coworkers off, even though they take time. Adding these “unscheduled” items gives you a more realistic picture of your day.

You don’t have to add in each item individually, but adding an additional 15-20 minutes to your to-do list allows for those unexpected interruptions.

12. Create a Done List

Did you know physically checking things off a list helps you feel a greater sense of accomplishment? A similar feeling can be accomplished with a done list. Once you’ve completed something on your to-do list, move it to a separate done list.

At first, it may seem like something that doesn't affect you much, but as your done list fills up and your to-do list empties,  you’ll feel more accomplished with your day.

Trust me, every night when I look at my done list I’m just thinking of ways I can add more to do it tomorrow.

13. Create a Waste List

Yeah, yeah, I know another list, but trust me this one is worth it.

When I created my first “waste list,” where I add everything throughout my day that end up creating more work for me or my team, I was shocked at how many elements of my day were creating more work for me and my team.

For example, taking five minutes out each morning to answer a team member’s question on functionality notes for a client, when I could have given it to them from the start, were five minutes I wish I had back each and every morning.

So yes, create this extra waste list because at the end of the week you’ll start removing wasteful items off your daily to-dos.

Each week at IMPACT, we plan our to-do lists together as a team. Then, in scrum fashion, each day we share what we did the day before, what we plan to do today, and what’s holding us back from completing things on our list.

This helps us work as a team to hold each other accountable for everything we say we’re going to work on for that day.

Try sharing your to-do list with a co-worker, friend, or even your family to help keep yourself on track with your to-do list.

15. Use a Tool to Help You Organize

Staying organized is tough on your own, so try using a tool to help!

At IMPACT, we use Jira to help us lay out our tasks. If your company works in an agile environment, using Jira is best for you. It allows you to plan everything out on a weekly then daily basis and connect everything back to a bigger goal.

Trello is a great tool for creating a more personalized to-do list. When we used Trello as an organization, I used to have a Monthly, Weekly, and Daily To-Do list, along with a couple more that contained templates or documents that I accessed often.

You could always create a list right within the app, but what I really use it for is weekly/daily reminders about things that will help me complete my tasks.

For example, I have weekly alarms to record each one of my calls to help me keep better notes and listen back for more details. This helps fill in the blank for some tasks that I needed a couple more pieces of detail from.

Check them out and see which one works best for you or if you’re like me you can use all three!

16. Don’t Forget to Breath!

When you’re working your way through a to-list, sometimes it’s hard to remember to stop and take a breath. This is one of my biggest factors in whether or not I’m going to get stressed that day or not. Each day if I feel myself getting a little frantic or worried about my list I stop and follow the 4-7-8 method:

Breathe in through your nose for a count of four, feel your belly expanding.

Hold that breath for a count of seven.

Then blow out through your mouth for a slow count of eight. If you can, put your tongue behind your bottom teeth and making a whooshing sound as you exhale.

17. Don’t Stress

I know this one is much easier said than done. Sometimes you can’t help but get stressed out by everything on your plate for the day. What I mean by this one is don’t let your to-do list stress you out.

It’s not the end of the world if the day is coming to an end and you still have a couple things left. If you followed your priority list then these things aren’t mission critical and can move to the next day. Remind yourself of this next time the day is coming to a close and you still have a couple things left over.

What Works for You?

While some of these things work great for me, they might not work for you. Make sure that you’re personalizing each one of these tips to fit your needs. If you find that creating a to-list each morning rather than every night is better for you then do that.

Use this list as a foundation for managing your to-do list and then build upon it. Let us know what works or doesn’t work for you in the comments below!

Source

https://www.impactbnd.com/blog/organizational-hacks

[danithebookaholic-blog]

SPOTLIGHT!

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You Only Live Once

By Haris Orkin

Publisher: Imajin Books Publication Date: March 21, 2018 Genre: Humorous Thriller

Synopsis:

James Flynn is an expert shot, a black belt in karate, and irresistible to women. He’s also a heavily medicated patient in a Los Angeles psychiatric hospital. Flynn believes his locked ward is the headquarters of Her Majesty’s Secret Service and that he is a secret agent with a license to kill.  When the hospital is acquired by a new HMO, Flynn is convinced that the Secret Service has been infiltrated by the enemy. He escapes to save the day, and in the process, Flynn kidnaps a young Hispanic orderly named Sancho.  This crazy day trip turns into a very real adventure when Flynn is mistaken for an actual secret agent. Paranoid delusions have suddenly become reality, and now it’s up to a mental patient and a terrified orderly to bring down an insecure, evil genius bent on world domination.

Goodreads

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Excerpt:

The Rose Parade route begins on Orange Grove Avenue in Pasadena and continues past a mansion once owned by the founder of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Besides being a rocket scientist, John Whiteside (Jack) Parsons was also a devotee of the infamous English occultist Aleister Crowley. Science-fiction writer and future founder of Scientology L. Ron Hubbard was a frequent house guest and would often participate in the occult rituals and “sex magick” ceremonies Parsons would hold in his living room. The goal was to conjure the anti-messiah who would overthrow Judeo-Christian civilization and lead Earth to a new Aeon.

Mrs. Doris Frawley, the oldest patient at the City of Roses Psychiatric Institute, told Sancho she came to California from Arkansas in 1948. She was fourth runner up in the Miss Arkansas pageant and her ambition was to become a movie star. Instead, she dated both Jack Parsons and L. Ron Hubbard and in 1952 gave birth to the Anti-Christ. Every day she told Sancho how sorry she was for bringing so much evil into the world. Every. Single. Day. And Sancho was starting to believe her. He had worked at the hospital for two years now and it wasn’t getting any easier. The nightshift always kicked his ass and he never seemed to be able to get enough sleep.

Sancho dragged his tired twenty-two-year-old butt across the parking lot and fantasized about climbing into his saggy sofa bed. He bought the beige micro-suede futon at a garage sale. The sheets hadn’t been changed in weeks. There were unknown, unnamed crumbs everywhere, but he didn’t care. He just wanted to be horizontal.

Sancho spotted his rusty, dented red ‘92 Mustang next to a gleaming BMW 760i. The Beemer’s gotta belong to a doctor, thought Sancho. Fuckers make a fucking fortune. I gotta make some changes. Gotta buckle down. Otherwise I’m gonna be wiping the asses of nutcases for the next forty fucking years.

Sancho climbed into his beater and sighed. Fast food bags, empty soda cans, and old newspapers covered the seats and the floor. He turned the key and after a few tries, the old engine finally kicked over. The muffler roared. It obviously had a hole in it, and he knew he had to fix it, but somehow, he just never got around to it. He turned on the radio and blasted heavy metal to drown the muffler out. Then he hit the gas and got his ass out of there.

The bored guard at the front gate raised the wooden arm and waved at Sancho as he pulled through. Sancho waved back. The guard, Bill Keeler, a forty-five-year-old pear-shaped guy with a bad complexion and receding hairline was always telling Sancho about his sexual conquests. Sancho didn’t know whether to believe him or not. Was it bullshit? Or was Bill just banging the old, the fat, and fugly? Not that Bill was any prize. Maybe he just had a great rap. It pissed Sancho off to think that Bill might be getting more chocho than him.

Sancho yawned as he pulled out onto the highway. He looked at the Styrofoam cup in his holder and made a decision to try some of that old, cold coffee. Anything to stay awake. He took a sip and made a face and wondered if Coffee-mate ever went bad. Can it give you food poisoning? What the hell was Coffee-mate anyway? As quickly as the question entered his mind, it flitted away. He turned up the heavy metal and took another sip. Something gritty rolled on his tongue and he wondered if it was a bug. Suddenly, he felt a hand on his shoulder. He involuntarily squeezed the coffee cup, popping the plastic top off, spilling java all over his hospital pants.

“What is that bloody music?”

Sancho jerked around. James Flynn sat in the back seat, his tuxedo all dusty and wrinkled.

“What the hell?”

James leaned over the front seat and turned off the radio. Sancho couldn’t believe Flynn would have the guts to touch his radio.

“How the hell did you get in here?”

“The door was unlocked. I didn’t think you’d mind.” James peeled a Big Mac wrapper off the front of his tux. “But Sancho, seriously, this car is a pigsty.”

“Dude, they’re looking everywhere for you.

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“Of course they are. They want me dead.”

“Who?”

“You know who.”

“Dude, I don’t.”

“You do.”

“If I knew, why would I be asking you?”

“Only you know the answer to that one, my friend,” Flynn said.

“But I don’t!”

“Tell me this then, Sancho. Do you know what a mole is?”

The topic of the conversation had changed so abruptly, Sancho had trouble finding his bearings. “Isn’t it that like a big freckle with a hair growing out of it?”

“I’m talking about a spy. An enemy agent who has infiltrated our organization at the highest level.” Sancho sighed and pulled out a cell phone. “Who are you calling?”

“I gotta let ‘em know where you—” James put Sancho in a choke hold, seizing him from behind. Sancho looked panicked and terrified, swerving as he struggled to stay in control of the car. His face turned purple and his eyes bugged from his head. Flynn ripped the cell phone from Sancho’s grasp and threw it out the open window. Sancho’s voice was tight, strangled. “Hey, hey, hey, let go…Let. Go!”

Still choking him, Flynn demanded, “Are you working for the other side?”

“No way, man,” he said hoarsely. “I’m your friend! I’m not one of them!”

James locked eyes with him in the Mustang’s rear-view mirror. “If you’re lying to me I’ll find out and when I do—”

Sancho’s lips turned midnight blue. “Honest to God, dude, I’m on your side!”

Flynn let Sancho go. He coughed and hacked and desperately sucked down oxygen as he pulled over to the side of the road.

“Sorry, Sancho. Sometimes it’s hard to know who to trust.” Sancho nodded and rubbed his throat. “We have to find Q and Dulcie before they break them. They’re likely interrogating them, doing God knows what to them.”

“Who? Why?”

“For the mind control technology, obviously.”

“Riiiiiight.” Sancho nodded, going along with him as if Flynn actually made sense.

Flynn pulled out a scrap of paper. “I found an address for Dulcie in Grossfarber’s database. Unfortunately, I found nothing for Q.” James climbed over into the front, shoving Sancho into the passenger seat.

“Hey, hey what are you doing?”

“Do you carry a gun?”

“No, man, I don’t have a gun.”

“Neither do I, but luckily, I have this.” James reached into a pocket and pulled out a black and silver laser pointer.

“A pen?”

“Looks can be deceiving, my friend. It’s actually a high-intensity laser that can cut through virtually anything. Q loaned it to me just last week.” Sancho reached for the pointer, but Flynn kept it out of his grasp. “Careful, Sancho, this miracle of technology can slice through an engine block like a chainsaw through Jell-O.” Sancho looked a little dumbfounded as James tucked the laser pointer away. He shifted into drive and hit the gas, burning what was left of the rubber on Sancho’s bald tires.

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Purchase:

Amazon / B&N

Author Bio:

Haris Orkin is a novelist, playwright, screenwriter, and game writer. His play, Dada was produced at The American Stage and the La Jolla Playhouse. Sex, Impotence, and International Terrorism was chosen as a critic’s choice by the L.A. Weekly and sold as a film script to MGM/UA. His original screenplay, A Saintly Switch, was directed by Peter Bogdanovich and starred David Alan Grier and Vivica Fox. He is a WGA Award and BAFTA Award nominated game writer and narrative designer known for Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3, Call of Juarez: Gunslinger, Tom Clancy’s The Division, Mafia 3, and Dying Light, which to date has sold over 7.5 million copies.

 Website / Facebook / Twitter / Goodreads

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From one bookaholic to another, I hope I’ve helped you find your next fix. —Dani

Have a book you’d like to suggest or one you’d like me to review? Please feel free to leave your comments down below.

[onehundredbetterdays]

Mapping my weeks: my current favorite productivity hack.

*image cred.

I’ll just start by being honest: I went through a series of weeks at the beginning of this year where I wasn’t getting anything done. The slump didn’t last all that long but while I was inside of it, feeling like I was just treading water but not making an impact, it felt eternal. My time felt spread too thin. I felt chaotic whenever I would go over what needed to be done in my mind. I wasn’t making progress and I was getting sucked up by distractions.

I was wasting time on social media. I wasn’t writing. I was doing a series of menial tasks and making no real advancement towards projects that actually mattered to me. But in the last few weeks, everything changed.

I’m a sucker for productivity hacks. I live for them. However, I am learning that everyone operates differently. What works for me may not work well for you. Regardless, I think we all need some systems in our lives. Systems stabilize. Systems clear out the chaos. Systems help us get stuff done. 

I believe we are living in an interesting time where people talk (really loudly) about life and living life but aren’t actually doing it. I feel like we’ve become spectators. Some of us have stopped doing the work. We’ve lost hours to social media and it’s time to claim back that precious time. At the end of the day, I believe the most valuable resource I have at my fingertips is time. I plan to use it wisely. I plan to be a doer, not getting to the end of my life and having to say, “I watched too many people live. I never thought to put down the phone and own my life instead.”

You being here matters. You get a designated load that has your name on it. You get the chance to leave your fingerprints on the lives of people and projects. But no one will know if you never wake up and live. No one will bother to write an article about you or thank you for your service if all you ever do is sit back and scroll. I’m not trying to be harsh, I’m just needing to be honest.

One system I’ve been implementing every Sunday is taking an hour or so to map my week out and make a massive to-do list. This happens before I do anything else.

It looks like this:

  And this halfway through a week:

What the colors mean:

Yellow highlights: There are a few tasks I will highlight in yellow before I go over them in orange. The yellow tells me something: this is a task you are planning to get done today. It helps me to see what takes priority on a Monday or a Thursday. It’s a bit of a roadmap in a sea of tasks.

Orange highlights: Plain and simple, orange means completed. I get so much satisfaction out of getting to check something off the list.

What gets listed:

It’s basic. There’s no huge science to it. I only include what is necessary for that week and I do not allow myself to overflow into the next set of pages. My whole week exists on two pages and it allows me to believe I can conquer what is to come.

Tasks & projects:

I write down all my work-based and personal tasks that are necessary enough to make the to-do list. I dump my brain out onto the pages of a bullet journal (yes, I am obsessed) and I get to it. Sometimes I miss things that needed to be added to the list but if the task is something that can happen the following week then I slot it away for next week’s workload.

Where to be: 

I keep a running list of places where I need to be throughout the week. Mind you, I use a monthly calendar on a daily basis. I don’t leave home without it. I am proud to say I am still functioning with a monthly paper planner in an iPhone world! This monthly planner is my roadmap for the week but the “where to be” section of my list preps me to show up for these events, meetings, and occasions.

If you introvert hard like me then it can seem like getting over a mountain just to jump on a phone meeting. The homebody inside of me wants to stay in my creative zone all day and talk to absolutely no one. Being able to highlight these meetings off my list upon completion helps me breathe knowing I showed up and made it happen when I wanted to stay in sweatpants all day.

Self-care:

I can guarantee that no self-care would happen if I didn’t add it to the bottom of my weekly lists. I list simple things like a workout, a study session with my Bible, and personal tasks that are good for my heart. Last week I challenged myself to mail two love letters to people in my life. This week I’ve been tracking all the foods I’ve been consuming to get extra protein into my diet.

I used to struggle with self-care because it seemed selfish to me. I now believe self-care is the opposite of being selfish. When you take care of yourself, you are able to take better care of others. By getting a workout in, studying my Bible in the morning, and checking a number of water bottles off my list, I can give people the best version of myself. Taking care of yourself matters. Don’t be afraid to make it a priority.

A note to the hustlers with anxiety:

I feel you. And this productivity system of mine was largely created because of all the anxiety I deal with throughout a given week. Yes, I face anxiety but I refuse to let that anxiety hold me back from all this week has to offer me. What this system does, more than anything else, is give me a map. I need a map. Otherwise, I tread water. I fill the air with self-deprecating words about myself. I fail before I even begin.

I can honestly say that since beginning this system, my productivity has doubled. I’ve yet to have an unproductive workday with this list in front of me.

Processed with VSCO with hb2 preset

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Some tips to get you feeling productive:

What you likely don’t need right now: It’s very likely that you don’t need another planner. I love planners and I love supporting planner companies. But I used to be a chronic planner purchaser. I would buy a planner whenever I felt like I wasn’t being productive enough. I would blame my old planner and think the solution was a new planner. Turns out, the planner wasn’t the key to the productivity. The key to productivity is simply putting your head down and doing the work. Easier said than done, right?

Start before the week begins: I’ve reoriented my weekends in the last few months. Sunday used to be my day of ultimate rest but I’ve recently shifted that day to Saturday. Saturday is my actual sabbath where I don’t do any work, don’t bother checking email or being “on.” I relax. I eat brunch. I sip my coffee slowly (after sleeping in). I spend time with Lane and friends.

It’s honestly my own fault that Sunday became more of a workday. A few months ago, I was failing to write the Monday Morning Email in advance and it ended up being a Sunday night task. I don’t recommend waiting until the last-minute but establishing Saturday as my Sabbath has freed me up to do a little work on Sunday. That might seem crazy but a) I love my work and I am happy to do it any day of the week and b) I really love getting a head start on a Sunday evening. It relieves the pressure that so often comes with a Monday.

Diversify the tasks: I write it all down. Everything. Writing down only the big tasks can be overwhelming and writing down just the little ones seems trivial. When I look at my list, I am able to choose. I can choose to dive into a big task I know I want to tackle or I can start getting into the workflow by tackling something little. I don’t scale my tasks in order of importance. If it makes the list then that means it is important to try and accomplish the task that week.

People, Plans & Projects: This is what matters most to me. I wrote a blog about it last year if you want to know more about how I manage my priorities in these 3 areas!

Eat the frog: My friend Christina told me about this method and it really is a game changer. Look at your own to-do list (if you’ve got one). Locate the task that is the most important but also the one you’re most likely to procrastinate on. That’s your frog. Your frog is the thing that NEEDS to get done and may even take only 10 minutes to do but you’ve been dreading it. Don’t delay any longer. Do that thing. Make it happen. I try to “eat the frog” every week, early in the week. It helps me look forward to the tasks on my to-do list rather than dreading the things I have to do that week.

Airplane mode: This is a huge key to having a productive week. Be willing to turn off the noise to plug-in and be productive. Social media is great but does it really make you more productive? When was the last time watching other people live their “best lives” helped you go out there and tackle Monday? I use airplane mode heavily throughout my weeks. Social media can wait.

I am very productive: Ever get to the end of the week and feel like you’ve done nothing? This hack helps you defeat that feeling. I can look back on the last few weeks and see all I’ve done, all I’ve accomplished, and all I’ve managed to steward well. It’s pure proof that I am productive, moving forward, and making little dents in my corner of the world.

    I am planning to let this system evolve and change in the next few weeks so let me know in the comments if this was helpful or you want me to write more about these productivity hacks and systems. I am always happy to share my process as I grow and learn! 

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[theautomovill-blog]

5 Diy Hacks To Conquer The Dents On Your Car

Everyone out there owning a car can hit it off with the agony of watching a dent on your ever endeared pet. Furthermore, what is scarier than the mutilated magnificence is the expenses you have to bring about to do away with car dents. Be that as it may, you don't, in general, necessitate a mechanic or an expert to do it. With the following easy, fast and, in some cases, even dirt cheap hacks, car denting repairs can be more fun and less a nightmare.

Moving on to some amazing but less known DIY hacks, we have:

Boiling Water Hack

Dents can be truly difficult to fix, given the firmness of the plastic, particularly on the bumper. In any case, this hack is good to the point that you'll experience passionate feelings for it. Just heat up some water, and toss it on the scratch, while it's as yet bubbling hot. Straightaway, reach behind the bumper and try to pop the dent. Since it is hot, it will probably pop when you apply weight. By the by, you should be energetic on the grounds that the warmth doesn't keep going long. On the other hand, keep a heap of bubbling water with you to continue rehashing till your dent vanishes.

2. Hair Dryer and Air Duster Hack

This one is the most prominent hack when it comes to denting hacks. Hair dryer and air duster are two such things essentially found in every family unit. Along these lines, you really don't have to spend anything by any means. Just blow some hot air with the hair dryer directly over the dent in order to warm it up, which will, in turn, expand the metal. At that juncture take the air duster, hold it topsy-turvy, and begin splashing on the dent. The cool air trailed by the hot will cause compression and the imprint will fly out.

3. Glazing Putty Hack

Coating putty will work for you if the dent on your pet is tiny. Utilize a putty blade to fill these dents in with the putty, focusing on following the directions on the pack. It's an extraordinary method to repair the paint scratch on the car. On the other hand, if the dented area is comparatively greater than what you may call tiny, picking body filler according to the body type of the car may do the trick.

4. Dry Ice Hack

Another handy hack to fix the dent on your car yourself is the Dry Ice Hack. Dry ice is anything but difficult to discover at any market. Though dry ice is quite cheap and can be of your utmost aid, it is more than just important to buy a pair of dry ice gloves to use it. All you have to do is simply continue rubbing the dry ice over the dent at regular intervals until the dent disappears.

5. Plunger Does the Trick

It is an astute plan to utilize plungers to unclog the drains, as well as to get rid of car dents. Simply ensure it's a cup plunger and not a flange as it can do wonders to medium-sized dents. Later, sprinkle some water on both, the dent and the plunger cup. A pull using the plunger is all that it takes to vanish the dent then and there.

Do you find the dent on your car adamant to leave despite trying out all those hacks mentioned above? Are you in search of car dent repair service providers in Bangalore? It’s high time you teach the dent the lesson of its lifetime with the expert service from the Automovill. Book Car Denting and Painting Services online at Automovill.com and get your champ back in shape at your doorstep. We make open our sharp services available at Bangalore (Electronic City, HSR, Koramangala, Sarjapur Road, Outer Ring Road, Bellandur, Marathalli, and Mahadevapura, BTM, Indiranagar, and Whitefield), Guwahati (TG. Ganeshguri, Beltola survey, Vip road, Hathigaon,6 mile, Silk pukhuri, Platen bazaar, Fancy bazaar) and Navi Mumbai.