#dr modius

[modius-labs]

While we wait for the new season to start, enjoy some out-of-context bloopers! We'll be showing these periodically until September, so stay tuned!

https://youtu.be/HlC7LrXgYEc

[drmodius]

Say hello to Morbo, the unemployed warlock!

[clickvibes]

Oyo Muslims Protest In Solidarity Rally With Palestinians

Israel-Hamas war: Oyo Muslims protest, hold solidarity rally in support of Palestinians. Hundreds of Muslims in Oyo State on Saturday staged a peaceful protest in solidarity with Palestinians, who they described as the victims of the ongoing war between Israel and Palestine militant group, Hamas. DAILY POST reports that the protest started at the Iwo Road under bridge around 9:00 am and culminated at OTM Mosque in Iwo Road around 12:00 pm. The protesters, who gathered at Iwo Road, noted that many innocent lives have been lost as a result of the war. They explained that they organised the rally in solidarity with Palestinians, who they said have been adversely affected by the war. Our correspondent reports that the protesters were surrounded by security men, including men of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps and the Police, to prevent a breakdown of law and order. Those who were at the rally organised by Congruence of Islamic Organisations in the state include top Islamic scholars, clerics and leaders of various Muslim organisations. Some of those who spoke at the rally include Grand Mufti, Conference of Islamic Organisations, Lagos, Sheikh Dhirulahi Shafi, Dr Daud Amao Alaga, Barrister Abdulrahman Olaiya and a professor of Chemical Engineering, Modiu Durowoju. The protesters, during the rally, called for an urgent peace process to bring the war to an end. The professor of Chemical Engineering, Modiu Durowoju, who addressed journalists on behalf of the protesters, said that the international community led by the United Nations must retrieve the peace process from the monopoly of the United States. He also suggested that the UN should prevail upon Israel to cease its bombing campaigns of Gaza and other areas. He said, “The international community led by the United Nations should prevail upon Israel to cease its bombing campaigns of Gaza and other areas which has brought horror not just to the Palestinians but to the world. “The United Nations should lead efforts at creating humanitarian corridors and ensuring that aid and relief packages have access into Gaza and other places. “Any interim peace process must as a matter of necessity, incorporate the lifting of the siege of Gaza. “The international community led by the UN must retrieve the peace process from the monopoly of the United States which has become part of the Israeli occupation machinery. The world must work to bring Israel to the Two-States solution, compel it to halt settlement building and lift its siege of Gaza." https://dailypost.ng/2023/11/04/israel-hamas-war-oyo-muslims-protest-hold-solidarity-rally-in-support-of-palestinians-photos/ Read the full article

[drhwenk]

#Spinoza ElectcalTurn."Gott IN der Natur und die Natur IN Gott" SEIN; ONTOlogie in der aktuellew EXISTENZ (SCHWERkraftPRÄXSENZ) und die aktuelle EXISTENZ im SEIN;ONTOLGIE. DAS EWIG KONSTANTE (VAKKUUM plusNATURgestze, EWIGE damit KONSTANTE  WAHRHEITEN  INTELLEKT) direwkt "Schnittmenge" und die PROZESS und WERDEN sind dabei. IN d ART von LAPLACE ScherkRAFTpräsenz DÄMON(er befreit iohvon dr gOTT"es"Hypothese" mit NEWTON)  ist auch WISSEN um GESAMTverlaifde SEINS,DETERRMITSCG VEGANGENHEIT GEGENNWART ZUKUNFT. Vie anhgenlh GRUNDlagenÜPRBKLEMN sind nur ZETSÖRUNGEirgdeines wichteg TEILS diodaRVHIRKTUR von#Spinozas VERNUNFT: DIesTEILSTRASSE dr VERNUNFT;  der WEG ALSO. IN sein ist  TEIL und  GANZES, IM RAUM SEIN, IMPLIZIT, IN URSACHE WIRKUNG  NOTWEDIGKEIT. dSlan in sich sein - "Subistieren" in einem andern sein -  der URSACHE als WIRKUNG INHÄRENT. Die "tiefste"  UJNrsvgucung (bis zur SUBSTANZ als CAUSA SUI GRUND -gRVAKUUM GRAVITAION ELKRTIK;MAGNITSMIS; ATOMISMUS tun "Es" DA plausibel genung).D KONSTANT EWIGE REIL; NATURENDE NATUR ist sozsagen EFFERENT (die”genrtur Natur;) die MODI; unedlich dabei sind AFFERENT – wr ds PANpsychismus – bestehn die mODIU ausAFFEKTEN und hABEN auch welche- so sd de EWIGEN WAHRHEITEN “AFFEKTE” teilw MOMNDSTUTIREND; TEILWISE BEWUSSTseinZUSTÄNDE

[radiobelle]

Does it count as fanart if it's me?

Forgot to add the reference picture

[colony22graphics]

Cambie: I still don’t understand why Dervilia is in charge.

Clove: Basically it’s the cheekbones.

[persevans]

As the Dust Settles || clove + percy [howl]

[She hadn’t been in the labs that morning. She knew why she wasn’t. Kaiser was going in. His testings were always more carefully watched. The people that could test him had to be unaligned. And they certainly couldn’t be people like her. People who made his blood boil. She had no problem sitting it out. There had been too many times she’d had close calls with him. Where she’d seen his anger get the better of him and had him lash out at her. She remembers the anger he showed her once, how he grabbed her by the throat. Not too hard, but hard enough. It was a threat, it was a show of power and control. Yes, it had hurt, but it had terrified her more than she let him know. 

She’d spent her morning down in the infirmary, not doing much, just checking on a few people who had been in with minor injuries, just checking off charts, making sure things were fine when her peaceful morning came to an end. She heard doctors and staff clamoring, a panic she hadn’t seen since she shadowed in the ER. “He’s becoming unresponsive.” “Get Cuthbert in here now!” 

Her curiosity and knowing that she was a nurse on hand, Percy went towards the commotion but froze when she saw who was laid out on the bed, his body stiff and limp at the same time. Everyone is rushing to do what they can but in what feels like too short an amount of time, Dr. Cuthbert is calling a time of death, and Percy feels like she’s been hit by a truck. She knows it wasn’t just a few seconds, but it feels like it. He’s gone before she can even process what’s happened. Her hand goes to her neck, touching lightly, absentmindedly as she looks at him, the life gone from his eyes. And she remembers times she’d seen him softer. Not someone here just to cause problems, not a violent man. But all those sides are gone in a minute and he’s gone. No loner a man. Just a body. Just a corpse. 

In the following hours leading up to the announcement of his death, and the murmuring of rumors start to spread, Percy finds herself seeking out someone she’d really rather not. But answers were important, and even if she didn’t always trust Clove and his motives, she knew he was there. And maybe he’d be honest with her. But with people whispering that the NWRF may have done something to him, she had to know what happened. She had to know how they’d reached this point.

She knocks lightly on the door to his office.] Do you want to talk about it? [she asks, calmly. Softly. She’s not accusatory or even upset with him. Because as worried as she was that perhaps something had happened, she thinks it may be unlikely. She doesn’t think Clove did anything to him. She thinks he’d be the one dead if he’d even tried.] Can we talk about it?

@clove-modius​

[bodelevy-lindqvist]

creases || bode + clove || dmc

@clove-modius

[ Bode learned early on that you can learn a lot about people from the state of their hands. It’s not a difficult lesson to learn, nor out of reach from the common person but people, in his opinion, are oblivious to easy information. It had been a habit he had picked up as a child, a tool he had used to navigate the uncertainty of his household. Depending on the shake of his mother’s hand (often covered in small scars from shattered glasses), the curl of his father’s fingers (carefully manicured and smooth), to Espen’s open and unmarred palm--always so trustingly reaching into the dark--he could tell how the day would likely unfold. It became second nature to look at a stranger’s hands long before meeting their eyes, a cold and quick calculation would be made and stored for later use. This didn’t change the morning he’d arrived to Colony 22, where he’d spent the day memorizing the faces and names of those he knew he’d need. Dr. Mei Zhu, Chancellor Quinn, and one Clove Modius. Clove had been tacked onto the list after Bode heard word of his position; Quinn’s right hand man and the head of house Torren.

The morning of the victory party he stands near the edge of the dining hall, eyes cast toward the line of tables. It was less of a risk to approach him in a public space, he didn’t know much about Modius and feared openly asking questions would make its way back to the blonde, so he relied on clips of conversations he heard in the halls and of course as always, his hands. Bode strides towards the other, seated nearest the door, and comes to a halt in front of the empty seat directly across from Clove. An easy smile curls the edges of full lips, his back slightly curved as he loosely grips the top of the empty seat. ]

Is this seat taken? [ He nods towards the male’s half eaten meal, wrinkling his nose ever so slightly at the discolored mush they decided to serve this morning. ] Oatmeal is it? Or is it leftover corn mash?

[dante-carrington]

where there’s smoke || dante & mei zhu

@drfitrei​:

dante-carrington‌:

[They say that once you’re an addict, you’re always an addict. Always in recovery. Dante quit smoking some fifteen years ago, and yet he still finds his fingers twitching for a cigarette every now and then. It’s worse when he’s stressed - which is why he quit in the first place. It had been the only way to keep himself sane through medical school, taking a five minute smoke break to interrupt his studies every few hours.

But the real working world is vastly different, and he found himself relying on them more and more. It took months to get himself off them, and he’d always sworn he’d never go back. It’s a filthy habit. He always hated the way it made his clothes smell, and how the smoke settled into a persistent cough in his lungs.

Yet here he is, all these years down the line, having bought a packet of cigarettes. With the latest revelation about the parasite, he’s just given in. The stress is too much, and he needs a bloody smoke. He’s not proud of it, and he tries to find a secluded spot outdoors to indulge himself; but evidently it’s not secluded enough. He’s barely lit it, the hot, heavy smoke just settling into his lungs, when he hears the approach of footsteps. Superb. Dante considers grinding the cigarette out and trying to hide what he was doing, but he’s already enjoying it too much. He feels the closest to relaxed that he has in some time, so he simply angles his head away and exhales a thin stream of bluish smoke. It spirals away in familiar patterns, buffeted gently away by the wind.] 

[The Games were supposed to serve as a distraction, no doubt, from the truth about the parasite that has been slowly spreading to other members of the NWRF. Most citizens are still in the dark, and while Mei Zhu has never agreed that ‘ignorance is bliss,’ she wishes the Games had been able to relieve her from the pressure of knowledge. Perhaps if Brink had won, maybe she would feel better. Then again, seeing the look on Clove Modius’s face upon her victory had been compensation enough for the time she had to spend away from her research. She’s back in the lab, only just now taking what has become a habitual smoke break. As always she lights her cigarette with her silver lighter which makes a spark, as if to remind her of the spark she’s never felt for the person who gave it to her. Not that she believes in such romantic nonsense. 

Mei Zhu inhales deeply, pocketing the lighter. As she looks up she’s slightly taken aback by the sight of Dr. Carrington; occupied with lighting her cigarette she’d failed to notice that there was someone already at her usual spot. ‘Those who fight together, thrive together,’ the familiar words went, but she doesn’t feel like she’s thriving, not at all. Nevertheless, Dr. Carrington had fought alongside her in the Games, and she does trust him, and his sensible leadership. She gives him a nod, then a soft smile.]

Let me guess, second year pathology? [Mei Zhu didn’t start smoking until after medical school, but she knew plenty of med students who picked up the habit as a way to cope with the stress.]

[There are certainly worse people to interrupt your smoke break. He has found that he quite appreciates Mei Zhu’s brisk professionalism, and the fact that she distances herself from idealistic daydreams. She is pragmatic, first and foremost, and if Dante worked in the infirmary he has no doubt they would work well together.

In fact, they did work well together, as they’d proven during last nights game. Dante is well aware that his house is hardly composed of the toughest, most battle ready individuals - the fact that Orson had come out the sole victor of the last season had taken him by surprise as much as anyone else. He hadn’t particularly set out to win, but he certainly gave it his best shot. It is simply in Dante’s nature to work hard at the things he sets his mind to.

And quite frankly, Brink may not have won, but Dante came out of it feeling rather smug. Ambushing Clove had been a pleasant surprise for him -- he hated how smug it made him feel. Dante couldn’t condone violence, not these days, but the look on Clove’s face as he and Mei Zhu had taken him down... well, it sweetened a little of the bitterness Dante has been feeling of late.] 

I hope you credit me with a little more fortitude than that. [He glances ruefully down at the cigarette between his fingers. He should never have started.] Third year medical ethics. Too many variables there. I prefer my science to be precise in a way ethics never is.

[charlie-freakin-essex]

Whom do you consider to be important?

Hmm. Anyone within the NWRF I interact with directly, for sure, so: Dr. Trent, Clove, and Ricky.

Definitely Mira, as the local support AI. Dr. Fitrei, as my healer.

Constantin is an astronaut, for crying out loud.

I think there’s something to the fact that Ada is the only one out there with two Infections. Don’t know if that makes her notable in a good way or a bad one, though.

@clove-modius, @diederick-dmornay, @mira-sigar, @drfitrei, @cvnstantin, @demolitionwcman

[fallenhero-rebirth]

200 subscribers! (actually 208)

I’ve pondered long and hard what to do, and came to the realization that I did not have time to write anything since I am right now working on book two. But, I wanted to give you a bit of fun, so I went back through my archives and found some outtakes. You remember when I said that Fallen Hero was originally meant to be a novel? Well, I thought I’d share some scenes from there that hasn’t made it into the game (yet). Be warned, this is from 2011, first person, Cyrus and Yasmin, a male Ortega and Dr. Mortus (not Mortum) and in no way canon anymore. Also a lot more swearing.

Snippets under the cut:

1: Yasmin runs into problems (cut from book one)

I am insane. It’s not the first time I have thought that in the last year, and it will probably not be the last. How did I ever imagine that I could pull this off? My mind is fire and ice as I face the gun aimed at my face, but Yasmin’s lips simply curls in a smile. “This is a mistake” I assure the gun, and the masked man behind it, my voice a honeyed mumble.

“No mistake bitch” the man with the gun replies, a faceless goon with high-tech weapons that rings bells I can’t quite make sense of. In Yasmin’s body I can’t read thoughts, only the body language of a man that really doesn’t care whether I live or die. “Word has it that you were the one that made off with the Aipherion, and I’ve been hired to retrieve it.”

The gun beckons, and I take a step towards it, flirts with death and pain as I let my eyes widen a little, confusion vying with worry on my face. “I had nothing to do with that” I lie, because stealing from heroes was one thing, but the mystical gem called the Aipherion had belonged to Lord Modius, and one did not play games with him. Who had talked? Dr Mortus? It seems unlikely, if he had I would be dead already and the gem returned to its owner.

“I am sad to hear that” the goon replies, the gun never wavering from my face. It’s large, imposing, and like all guns overtly phallic. “Because my sources all point to you being involved.”

I am growing annoyed at the presence of the gun by now, so I do the only thing I can. I take a step forward and lick the tip of it, whispering into the barrel “Listen, I don’t know what magic eightball you’ve shook to have my name come up, but you are barking up the wrong tree. I’m a tech-girl; the mystical is wasted on me.” As if to prove the point I wrap my lips around the barrel and is rewarded with a shiver I can feel through my lips. I pull my head away, glistening strands of saliva still connecting me to his weapon. My smile has turned sensual, as I slide my tongue down the gun, softly stepping even closer as I nudge the weapon to the side. Sucker.

“My sources…” he starts, voice distracted, and this is the chance I need. The gun was aimed past my head now, not at it, and I move fast as a rattler as I grab his hand and punch his elbow hard enough to almost dislocate it. His words turn to a scream and the gun drops from dead fingers.

“Fuck your sources” I swear, driving my fist into his stomach as hard as I can, but he’s a big man and well armoured, and doesn’t fold like I want him to. Damn. This could be bad.

“Bitch” he growls, left hand snatching out and grabbing my hair. I should have seen that coming, but I’m not Sidestep now, I’m Yasmin. I can’t see what people will do; I am no longer three steps ahead. I am caught, and he has longer reach and is stronger than me. I am fucked. He knows it. I know it. His knee catches me in the stomach and I fold, gasping for air. “You will pay for that” he snaps, and I don’t doubt his word.

“Wait” I manage to get out before his next kick drives what air remains from my lungs. I curl up on the ground, trying to protect my face. But he leans in and traps me against the ground with a knee, slaps my face a few times hard enough to make my ears ring. He doesn’t even take fighting me seriously, and the shame of that makes my cheeks burn from embarrassment as much as pain. I feel more helpless than I’ve felt since the farm, and I want to run and hide, withdraw and leave an empty doll for him to play with. But if I do, I can’t be sure if I would find my way back to her. I would have to give up two years of plans so very close to fruition. I need her, I need my Yasmin.

“Did you have anything to say to me?” He has me pinned down now, captured beneath his weight. I don’t need my telepathy to see that he is enjoying this. That he is enjoying my swollen lip and tearful eyes. He has me now, and he knows it, his gloved left hand caressing my bruised cheek.

“I’m telling the truth” I sob, deciding to play up the fear if I can’t escape it. “I don’t have it. But I can find out. People tell me things…” it is my final gamble, to play the girl to the end. To not be important, to be pretty and smart, but never dangerous. I was not the threat; I was a norm, a tool, like his gun. A sexy girl employed by somebody, just like he was. I did not know now, but I could find out.

“I’m sorry hon, that just ain’t good enough.” He backhands me again, and I taste blood and metal as bright spots distort my vision. “Can’t take the chance of you running off to Dr Mortus for help. I don’t care what the pair of you is cooking up together, but my instructions were clear.” He reaches down and grabs my dress, my breasts spilling out as the fabric rips in his hand. The sight distracts him momentarily, and I know I won’t get another shot at this.

I yelp and move up an arm to shield my nakedness, but the moment he reaches out to grab my wrist I lash out with my other arm and jab a piece of broken bottle into the side of his thigh. It doesn’t penetrate deeply through the coveralls, but it makes him shift his weight enough for me to crawl away as he struggles to pull it out. I crawl fast, on knees and elbows with the tattered remains of my Ungaro around my waist. I don’t get far before I feel his hand around my ankle, pulling me back. I didn’t get far, but I got far enough and oh God how I enjoy the look of terrified surprise on his face when I roll over on my back and shove the gun he dropped back in his mouth. I know I should say something witty in the line of ‘suck on this’ if I want to have a future in this profession, but my hands are shaking with rage so I simply pull the trigger and nearly deafen myself at the roar the gun makes in the narrow alley. Idiot. He didn’t even have a silencer.

I lay there on the ground, his bleeding corpse draped over me, ruptured head leaking brains over the remains of my dress. I should reach for my phone and call the police; I am clearly the victim here. But that would mean more exposure than I would like. Instead I swallow my pride and calls Dr Mortus. Let the man earn his keep and damn my dignity.

2: Yasmin and Ortega at the bar (Might happen in book two)

The bar is filled with the muted hum of drunken conversation, unrecognizable through the rockabilly blare of the speakers. The green velvet seats in the booth are greasy from decades of the unwashed and uncaring, and the light that filters down, does so through a haze of cigarette smoke. In a corner two men in purple suits are having a pantomime argument, while the hunched bear of a man at the bar hides his gang colors under an oversized trench coat. I don’t even want to know what else he has under there.

I shouldn’t throw stones.

We must be quite a sight where we sit in our booth. A bedraggled young woman in ill-fitting lab clothes and messy hair, and a middle-aged hispanic man in blue coveralls and stolen wellingtons. Honestly, it’s a miracle that we’re sitting here at all; I didn’t expect to escape from Dr. Mortus lab this easily. Granted, Liz had told me that he was gone for a few days, but in the back of my mind I expected him to pop up behind us with a plasma cannon just as we were getting out of there. He probably didn’t think I would try to escape. Maybe I was wrong about him. Maybe he trusted me. Maybe he really wanted to help. Or maybe we were lucky. Maybe it doesn’t matter. Ortega keeps staring at me in silence, and I keep the gun aimed at him under the table.

In front of us, both our beers remain untouched.

Not that anybody cares to take a closer look at us. That is the reason I dragged Ortega here at gunpoint. It is one of the many villain bars I combed through before settling on Joe’s as my favored haunt. This one, aptly named Garage Sale, always felt too low-brow. The people I wanted to meet didn’t go here; this is a place for the down and out, for the upwardly mobile henchmen and supervillains on the skids. In here, nobody cares and nobody smiles. Neither do we.

“All I have to do is make one phone call and you’ll be safe.” Ortega does his best to sound calm and convincing, but he just doesn’t look he part right now. His age has caught up to him and weights heavy on his brow, black rings shadow his eyes and he’s mottled with bruises where he had been hooked up to Dr. Mortus generator. That is the only reason I’m able to threaten him at all, his powers still hadn’t recharged, and for the moment he’s just as ordinary as I am.

But I have the gun.

“I won’t go back to jail,” I reply, my voice as cold as my face. I have no idea what I am supposed to do now, my brain has locked itself into a death spiral, and I don’t know how to get out of it. The crash seems inevitable, and the ground is painted with prison bars. That’s why we ended up in this bar; I needed someplace safe and neutral, somewhere where nobody would care or ask questions. And Cyrus would never come here. At least I hope that whoever stole his body still has an interest in keeping up the charade that he is a good guy. It’s too valuable to waste. I hope.

“It was a hospital, not a jail,” Ortega tries, raising the beer to his lips for the first time since we got here. As he moves he makes me tense up and I clench the gun harder, which makes him tense up, and the beer shivers a moment before he puts it down again. Very gently.

“It would have been. Once I’d recovered and given up whatever information I had. I’m not stupid, I know how this works.”

“Why do you still protect him? You said it yourself, the Annihilist threatened you, and you had no choice.” I almost feel sorry for Ortega, it is obvious that he wants to believe that so badly.

“It’s… complicated,” I sigh, the gun heavy in my hand. Part of me wants to let it go, wants to just confess and ask for help. I think I need it. But I know it’s never that easy. If I told Ortega about Cyrus, about who I am and what I did, would he believe me? Even if he did, he would be disgusted. I am not a victim, I’m a villain, and my acts are conscious choices. Nobody holds a gun to my head.

“Life is complicated,” Ortega finally admits, looking into my eyes. “I don’t believe you are an evil woman. You didn’t have to rescue me; you could just as easily have left me there.”

I could just as easily have killed him too. That would have simplified things. The thought nauseates me, so I distract myself with words. “It’s just that…” I have lowered the gun now, but he doesn’t know that. “It’s not loyalty, but you’re asking me to give up my life and my freedom. You can’t stop him, I’ll either end up in jail for what I’ve done, or I’ll end up dead. I don’t think he’d let me live through a plea bargain.”

“And what if you go back to him? Do you think he would ever trust you again?” His words hit too close to home, even if it is for the wrong reasons. I hope it doesn’t show. Because he is right, I can never return to what I was. Not without a means to get my body back. And to pull that off I need contacts and friends. I just crossed Dr. Mortus of the rapidly shrinking list. Ortega is about the only one left. The one bridge I’m finding it hard to burn.

“I can’t go back, but I can’t go to jail either,” I repeat, as if words would somehow fix the world. The situation is rapidly turning into one of those nightmares where it’s just too hard to continue to struggle. It’s much easier to just go limp, roll over, pretend to be unconscious and accept what is coming to you. But in this nightmare, I am the one holding the gun. I am still in control.

Things change so quickly.

“Hey, isn’t that Charge?” Words strike like a lightning bolt from a clear sky, and suddenly all eyes are on us.

“I always said you were an idiot for not wearing a mask,” I snap without thinking. Cyrus’ words from Yasmin’s lips, but there is no time for more than a confused look on Ortega’s face. I’m on my feet with the gun pointed at the men that spotted us, but a well aimed bottle from the bar knocks it out of my hand.

All hell breaks loose.

Ortega is on his feet and we’re back to back against the surging bar. It’s late enough for most of the patrons to be desperately drunk, trying to escape from the drudgery of their existence. But they are many, and I’m just happy that Ortega holds his own, because giving up is not an option. I knee a CerberUS henchman in the groin, slipping sideways as he crumbles. Ortega matches my step; moving into the spot that I left. I had forgotten how good it felt to have someone watch your back.

Someone you trust.

I am no longer a telepath, but apparently my reflexes are not gone. A movement in the corner of my eye makes me turn; reaching up to grab the descending arm before I even register what happened. His lack of balance makes it easy to turn his punch into a throw that sends him flying over a table. Bottles crash like firework.

I had forgotten how much I missed this.

I break into a smile as I break someone’s nose, the bottle splintering in my hand. People back away from my broken bottle, and I laugh in their faces, bolstered by the feeling of Ortega behind me, his back against mine. Then a sense of fearsome urgency hits me.

I’m not sure what it is that makes me push back hard enough to topple us both, but we hit the floor a moment before the blast hits the spot we just left. Suddenly the booth is on fire, the air aglow in freakish colors and I’m crawling for my life beneath the tables. The gloves have come off and the powers brought out, and if you shouldn’t drive drunk you probably shouldn’t wield biogenic flame or solid light constructs while wasted either. People are screaming, someone is on fire, the fight is escalating and it’s everyone against everyone.

At least until someone remembers that this wasn’t just about venting their frustrations, it’s about kicking a hero when he’s down and they can reach him. I watch Ortega disappear under a pile of has-beens wishing for a starring role in the story of Charge’s defeat. I don’t think I screamed his name out loud, and even if I did, nobody heard me amidst the chaos. I scramble free from the broken table I’d been hiding under just in time to dodge and shield my eyes as every single light in the bar explodes in a shower of sparks and glass. The mob around Ortega falls away, twitching and screaming as if they’d just pissed on the third rail. I am probably imagining the ozone, there’s no way that could ever overpower the stench of cheap alcohol, unwashed bodies and voided bowels.

Ortega untangles himself, pale blue lightning arcing between his body and the now empty sockets. The room is dark, but his eyes are throwing sparks. He’s shed the guise that he belonged here, another has-been slumming with the losers. Suddenly nobody seems eager to continue the fight.

“I think we will be leaving now,” he says, gesturing in my direction. Nobody protests. I straighten my back and walks out with Ortega, my hair alive with static electricity. My skin tingles from his aura, but I don’t bat an eyelash until we’re well outside the door.

And gone.

Two blocks of frantic running later we’re both out of breath, and Ortega looks less than imposing as he leans against a dumpster.

“Would you please accept my invitation and stay in my apartment at least? I’ve had enough excitement for one night,” he gasps.

“Not one night. Weeks. Technically you’ve been a captive for a couple of weeks,” I say, because I realized he had probably no idea how much time that had passed. My hair is tangled and sticking to my face so I wipe it back with a look of disgust.

“Weeks. Right. That’s good to know.” Ortega takes a step back from the dumpster; the smell coming from it is not pleasant now that he had regained his breath.

“Your powers. How long has it been since they recharged?” I’m through resisting the inevitable, but I need to know.

“On the way to the bar. I borrowed a jolt from a badly insulated lamppost.” Ortega looks sheepish, as if he was a bit ashamed of his subterfuge.

“So you could have taken the gun from me at any point?”

“You… looked like you needed it. I didn’t want to push you into doing something rash.”

I nod, defeated. “That was probably very smart. I meant what I said; I won’t go back to jail.”

“It won’t be jail. It’s just my apartment. You can leave at any time, but I really wish you wouldn’t. You’re too interesting to end up just another statistic.”

“Thanks. I think. Just don’t tell anybody I’m there.” It sounds more like begging than an order, even though the ‘please’ remains unsaid, sticking in my throat. “I need time to think. Time to make my own choices.”

“I won’t tell anybody. I promise. I respect that you need time. Do we have a deal then?” He holds out his hand, battered and bleeding from the fight.

The sad thing is, I believe him. I know how this works, the sympathetic ear, the understanding friend. You catch more flies with honey and all that. But it doesn’t matter. I’ve let him save me enough time in the past that one more time won’t make a difference. It’s the least painful of my choices, so I sigh “deal,” then grabs his hand and shakes it.

Probably a little too manly again, because he gives me another look.

This won’t end well.

[modius-labs]

The official trailer for the new season of the Dr. Modius Show!

[drmodius]

Show time :)

[wayward-roonaaa]

Neurovalens launch head-set designed to improve <b>sleep</b>

Belfast-founded health tech company Neurovalens has launched a new ... Modius Sleep was developedby neuroscientist Dr Jason McKeown, ... from Google Alert - sleeping health https://ift.tt/2KhrpeP

[scifiseries]

Radio Retrofuture #52 - Conquering Youtube with Dr. Penelope Modius

[radiobelle]

The lovely assistant to Dr. Modius, Nitches.