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nobodyfamousposts · 4 years

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Mominette AU: The Superhero Ban

TRIGGER WARNING!

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It was an indisputable fact that Paris had been the first city to institute the infamous “Supers Ban”. The Justice League knew it. Heroes knew it. Villains knew it. The whole world knew it.

What nobody knew was “why”.

Sure, there had been comments in political circles. Some minor news outlets had mentioned Paris as the latest place where the idea was being considered. But nobody had thought they were serious.

Not until it had been made into law and the Mayor of Paris held a press conference to announce it.

Those who didn’t take it seriously certainly did when Superman himself attempted to go to the Mayor to discuss the matter. And was promptly arrested the instant he set foot in the city.

Outrage was immediate. Cries of discrimination rang out across the world and even at the UN. Various politicians decried the act. Many celebrities admonished it. A good number of people threatened to boycott Paris (which turned out to be for the best as far as Andre and most of Paris was concerned, given that a decrease in tourism meant less people for Hawk Moth to target or the heroes to have to pull out of the fray due to gawking).

Yet a year passed and the ban remained. Even the League would not cross it. Eventually, it just became an accepted fact of the world. Everyone knew to stay out of Paris.

And yet it was still unknown as to why.

Well, people suspected, of course. There were other things happening around the time that seemed to be involved.

It possibly started with the 12 hour timeframe where all of Paris had been closed off. Its citizens had been forced to evacuate. All communication lines were down, and no one from outside of the city had been able to contact anyone from within it. It was news stations in nearby cities that picked up on the fighting and tried to report it, but only several hours after it had started and they seemed to play it off as some sort of freak lighting storm.

Afterwards, things had been strange, but also easily overlooked. The Ladyblogger had gone dark for a several day period. Similarly, the regular correspondent for Paris News, Nadja Chamack had taken a leave of absence. Resident hero Chat Noir had suddenly gotten involved in matters with City Hall, resulting in talk of the hero going into a career in politics. “Chat Noir for President” became a short-lived meme.

It all appeared to come down to a specific “incident”. An akuma fight worse than any other before it. But no one would speak of it. And no information about it was available.

Except for one thing.

There were reports of the existence of video footage of the fight. The Ladyblog had supposedly crashed during a livestream of the mess due to the number of people watching it. Plenty of news reports during that time referenced it. It was rumored to have been played before the city council, resulting in unanimous support of the ban. But what was on the video remained a mystery and any remnant of the video itself couldn’t be found.

Which shouldn’t be possible with the internet. Conspiracy theories abound on the matter—some saying there was no footage in the first place and others saying it was so horrible as to have been erased by time traveling aliens.

In truth, it was the work of a hacker. One of considerable skill to wipe out any trace of this video and not be discovered. There were people willing to pay millions just for a segment of the footage. Plenty of hackers across the world had tested their skills to find even a trace of the original video to no avail.

These other hackers were not Robin.

“I got the footage.” He announced as he held up the USB drive.

Superbly started in surprise, staring at the item in the Boy Wonder’s hand. “This is it?”

“Supposedly.” Robin replied with a shrug.

The Holy Grail of hidden data. A hacker’s ultimate prize. Every journalist and tabloid reporter’s wet dream.

“I haven’t watched it myself,” as he felt it wasn’t his right to intrude on this when it was an issue of his friend’s family, “so I don’t know what’s on there. But whatever’s in this, it’s safe to say it isn’t going to be pretty.”

That was putting it lightly. The video had been so deeply hidden that it was its own urban legend at this point. The incident it showed was bad enough to not only warrant it being hidden from the world, but to set off the “Paris Supers Ban” and arrest of Superman.

The death of a hero was always big news. Even if it’s only barely avoided.

The fact that anyone could HIDE it spoke volumes. Both in regards to the original censor’s ability as well as the importance of the data itself.

Conner nodded, resolute.

“I need to know.”

Robin handed over the device. He probably should have taken it to Batman…probably. But this was Conner’s case. His family. It was his right to decide what to do with the information.

Ladybug and Chat Noir were…accepting of Conner to say the least. They allowed him to enter Paris despite the ban. They let him help. They were kind and accommodating and quite frankly everything that Conner needed.

But…they weren’t exactly open. Not about certain things.

This was one of those things, and Conner had been wanting answers about the “Incident” that cut Paris off from the Superhero world. What made them finally say “enough”? He would ask, but nobody knew. The few who did know refused to speak of it.

Conner wanted to know why. What had they experienced that was so horrible?

Maybe it was a way of feeling closer to them?

Maybe it was a way to understand them better?

Maybe it was just wanting to see the harder things they had faced?

“We’ll be right here with you, Conner.” Wally reassured him when his hands started to shake.

“Remember, you’ll have full access of the gym and training grounds, but you won’t be allowed to leave the Mountain for 24 hours after this.” Kaldur gently stated. Partly to remind Conner of the agreement, lest he attempt to run off to Paris in anger or fear and risk an akuma. Partly to subtly prompt everyone else to ensure that Conner does not accomplish the former.

Still…the choice was already clear.

Conner put the drive into the computer and pressed play.

The video only lasted a few minutes.

A few minutes was more than enough.

_______________________

“Oh…oh my god.” Came the words of the person recording, her voice as shaky as her hands that held the camera.

The damage was…extensive. Rubble, broken glass, and downed buildings littered the background. There was a sad mix of gray and brown as far as the eye could see. Of the destroyed roads and pavement. Of steel beams littering the ground. Of rock and dirt and what may very well have been ash.

Amidst the ruined landscape, there was one spot of color. A bright red standing out amidst the muted neutral around her. Normally a source of bravery and inspiration, it took a few seconds for the camera to get her properly in focus, and a few more for it to register that there was significantly more red in the scene than there should have been.

Ladybug wasn’t standing so much as she was leaning backwards in a half-upright position. Forced to stay on her legs despite her clear lack of strength. The only thing holding her up were the very things responsible for her current state…three steel spikes that extended from the ground beneath her.

They were exiting her torso. One piercing the upper left part of her body, right close to her shoulder. One through her naval. And the third on the right side, for all purposes appearing to have hit a lung.

She was breathing, though it was clearly labored. She was constantly torn between some variation of taking a gasping breath in and crying it out. Her suit could protect her—it was supposed to protect her from anything, but even this was too much.

It was clear she couldn’t move. She had to remain there, impaled on steel. Both to limit her injuries as much as possible and just due to inability from the sheer pain she was in.

The camera was focused on her, though it was shaky at best. The person recording it could be heard muttering unintelligibly with some mention of a hospital and frequent repetition of “oh god” thrown in. Some noise could be heard in the background of someone sounding quite ill, which was understandable given the sight of their hero impaled and choking on her own blood.

Within a minute of the video starting, the crunching sound of boots running on glass and stones could be heard coming closer. The sound of panting grew louder as Chat Noir cleared a hill and entered into view, rushing and stumbling towards Ladybug while holding something in front of him.

The camera zoomed on him, bringing him into focus as he cleared the last hurdle.

“I’ve got it!” Chat exclaimed, racing back to her side with her yoyo in hand. “I’ve got it! It’s okay. It’s over. It’s over now. It’s finished. He’s done.”

“Sh…Ch…” Her head hung limply and her eyes were barely able to focus on him as he tried to get her to look at him without moving her too much.

“It—It’s okay! It’s going to be okay!” He whispered to her, so softly that the camera barely caught it. He was clearly panicked and trying desperately not to let it show. “We just need the Cure. If you cast the Cure, everything will be better, okay?”

She didn’t appear to be listening, though. And barely seemed aware of anything. “Ch-ck…Chaaa…”

The video zoomed in on them both. Ladybug dazed and bleeding out. Chat crying and trying not to break down completely.

“Please! I just need you to say the words! Say the words and you’ll be okay! Can you do that?”

“Huurrr…s…” She slurred, begging him without words for help.

“I know! I know! But you can fix it. C’mon, M’lady, please!”

“I…I cn…”

“Say the words. Just two words, okay?” He begged desperately, patting her cheek in an attempt to both soothe her and keep her attention on him. “Two words and then you can go to sleep, I promise.”

“Ch…a…”

“Just…just two words, that’s it! I’ll…I’ll even say them with you, okay?”

She winced. “Nn…”

She clearly wasn’t listening, but he was desperate and so started to try. “Miraculous—”

She sobbed.

“No, no. Listen to me, okay? Say it with me!” He ordered, forcing her to look at him. “Mi. Say it with me! Mi!”

“M…mi…”

“Racu!”

“ra…” Her gaze started to waver.

He shook her. “Cu!”

“…cu…lous…”

He gave a weak laugh. Even now she was ahead of him. “Ladybug.”

“La…laa-deee…”

He shook her again. “LADYBUG!”

“……b…u—gahck-ugh—" She was cut off by harsh coughing.

But it was enough.

Thank every god out there it was enough.

The Cure spilled out from the object she was holding, transforming into magical ladybugs that covered everything in their wake. Unfortunately, the casting of the Cure and incoming loveliness caused the person holding the camera to drop it, losing sight of the video and cutting the feed.

_______________________

The ringing of her phone got Marinette’s attention, drawing her away from the movie she was watching with Adrien and the Dolls.

“Hello?”

“Miss Ladybug.” Came the voice on the end. “This is Aqualad.”

She blinked in surprise. “Aqualad? Is everything okay?”

“Yes…just…” The sound of angry whispers could be heard on the other end. “Would you be able to come speak with Conner today?”

Marinette frowned at that. While she certainly enjoyed seeing Conner, that…didn’t sound like a good thing. If anything, it sounded like a plea. And the voices that sounded like an argument in the background only made it sound worse.

“Is everything okay?”

Adrien seemed to notice the concern in her voice as he had stopped paying attention to the movie to focus on her. In turn, Chaton was peeking over the couch at her, curious as to what was going on.

“No. We found a recording of something…personal to you. Conner saw it and now he’s rather upset. We think it might help if you were here.”

“WHAT?!” She exclaimed. This definitely got the attention of the other dolls, all of whom had abandoned the movie in favor of checking on their Mama.

Her eyes narrowed. Suddenly full Mom mode was on.

“Aqualad. Tell me right now what happened.”

And Kaldur caved immediately with only a small sigh.

“Robin found the video of the akumatized hero who attacked you and instigated the events leading to the Paris Ban.” He explained. “I apologize. We should have checked with you first, but at Conner’s request, we all watched it.”

Marinette sighed. “I thought that was buried.”

“We’re rather good at digging.” Robin’s voice could be heard on the other side of the line.

“Hang on. I’ll be right over.” She told them before hanging up.

“Marinette? What happened?” She turned to see Adrien standing before her, looking rather concerned. Picking up on her tension, he had stopped the movie. And sure enough, four little dolls stared up at her in worry.

She sighed. There was nothing else for it.

“Who wants to go on a trip?”

The Dolls perked up at that.

Adrien, however, noticed how tense she was.

“Mari?”

“They saw the tape.”

His eyes widened. “Oh.” He reached out to her, and without even thinking, she moved into his arms. He clutched her tightly, soothing her and himself. It was…not a pleasant thing to have to relive. That so-called “hero” had caused more damage than just that one day. And more than any of them had truly recovered from.

The dolls seemed to catch on to the atmosphere, because their excitement died down.

“It’ll be okay, Mari. Let’s just be there for him. And I’ll be here for you.”

She held him back just as tight.

“Together then?”

“Always.”

#ml fic #mominette #superhero ban #ml crossover #dc crossover #conner kent #robin #Young Justice #marinette dupain cheng #ladybug #adrien agreste #chat noir #dolls au #trigger warning

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flauntpage · 5 years

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Review: Institutional Garbage

It’s December. The time of year when all the ‘Best Ofs’ and just-in-time-for-Christmas reviews spill out from the internet, beckoning you to consider your engagement with the year just passed. In January of this year, I was invited to “write something” about Institutional Garbage, a book published by The Green Lantern Press and edited by Lara Schoorl in conjunction with an exhibition of the same title. Like the residue that is the content in the book itself, my review got buried in the rubble of other demands. So as I (finally) sit down to write, three things are at the top of my mind:

Critical reviews of books usually serve two functions: to lure readers to read or buy the book in question, or to bolster the significance of the book or its contents.

Book reviews are derived from the books they review, which in turn are derived from their subjects. This means both are traces, at least once or twice removed from their sources. In other words, they are debris – the garbage leftover from experiences.

Reviews of books produced outside of a timeline deemed relevant to their release date are even more garbage-like.

This, of course, is subjective. But in this case of this review, given that Institutional Garbage the exhibition took place in 2016, that Institutional Garbage the book was published in 2018, and that my review of it takes place in the final dregs of 2019, I think it’s safe to say we’re in the garbage zone. Thus, I posit this a sort of ‘anti-review review’: one so late as to hardly be useful, and which is more a reflection on the possibility (or impossibility) of the book’s content, rather than a review of ‘come hither’ promotional value. Another trace.

So, what was (or is) Institutional Garbage?

According to those in charge of describing it, it (is/was) an experimental publication that endeavors to grasp the memory, feeling, and trace of an online (and physical) exhibition that took place in the fall of 2016 through Sector 2337. The (no longer extant) gallery’s website states that it is “the administrative residue of imaginary public institutions produced by artists, writers, and curators. Contracts, email correspondences, documented unproductivity, syllabi, scanned objects, obstacle courses, and other fragments were collected to illustrate the backend activities of imaginary bureaucracies, to trace the private life of institutional endeavors.”

But what (is/was) it really?

Having been to the physical space that was Sector 2337 three years ago during the time of the original exhibition, I have some impression. There were details about the exhibition printed on paper towels in the gallery’s bathroom by artist David Hall, which viewers wiped their hands on and promptly tossed (I kept mine, to add to my ironic consumable-art collection – ever more ironic in the face of Maurizio Cattelan’s recent exploits). There were physical performances, and a website I was encouraged to (and, my apologies) did not really engage with. Probably there were other things. Then came this book.

The authors of Institutional Garbage encourage you to go through it in any direction or order, which I promptly ignored in favour of a classic cover-to-cover engagement. The book, after all, does nothing to break convention. It is artfully designed in a way that I can only describe as contemporarily Dutch, like many of its contributors. (I get off saying this because I’ve lived in The Netherlands for the last two years, and trust me – any poster in any city for any purpose is done with near identical visual cadence and designerly minimalism, down to the Helvetica Neue and Knif Mono typefaces). In the midst of this perhaps atopical slickness, reading this book is a bit like an act of rummaging. I will categorize and highlight a few “finds” here:

Teasers: Daniel Borzutzky’s “Data Bodies (excerpt),” which came in the form fragments of poetry and text that left me wanting more, such as the rife-with-implications correspondences between Chelsea Manning and an unknown other in which she describes listening and lip-synching “to Lady Gaga’s Telephone while exfiltratrating possibly the largest data spillage in american history”

(Grimly Familiar) Traces: Jane Lewty’s “Dear Committee [To be Read Alongside CV],” which painfully engages institutional biases around gender and mental health

Gratifying/Formally Succinct Works: Lise Haller Baggesen’s “The Archive,” a series of science-fiction emails to be read from the first to the last (in other words, backward) that chronicle the interaction between two women around female genius in the year 2033, rife with productive feminist metaphor, and ending in a baby swap…

Negating/Formally Succinct Works: David Hall’s “The Lid on Garbage Can,” which does well not to appease in the robotic ‘spamming’ of its own text (a coded program that renders a fragment of barely sensible legalese completely incomprehensible)

Bird’s Eye View: Jill Magi’s “Thirteen Thoughts Contextualizing “Institutional Garbage”,” that describes garbage as an expression of middle-class consciousness/good citizenship, and waste management as theatre for an institution’s ecopolitical stance

Garbage: The overblown academic-speak of Rowland Saifi’s “Statement for a Configured Curriculum,” which exhibits a flagrant wastefulness of language: “A hermeneutic condition of Open Chronotope Objects is conducted in the state of Deep Interlocking Ambiguity and, therefore is in a state of multiplicity. This creates the condition of an Architecture of De-puzzlement.” Like most writing of this kind, one has to do backflips to get anything from it, even in context, and I won’t.

In the end, what struck me about Institutional Garbage was how my experience reading it was so very unlike the process of sifting through trash (a task that I have, in varying states of poverty and privilege, done a great deal of). The book does self-consciously attempt to complicate itself in some ways, as with the curatorial section largely blanked out with white ‘paint’ (then promptly ‘explained’ by descriptions of the actual events curated for Sector 2337), with images of these performances Ben Day dotted to near oblivion, and with mixtures of fact and fiction. But the strong curatorial vision and inherent desire to preserve the integrity and relevance of its contributors is staunchly maintained.

Perhaps the only clear thwart I found was buried deep in Institutional Garbage, in Jill Magi’s “Curious, Fugitive, and Unedited (The Art Labor Archive of Teaching Days).” In this writing, Magi re-presents “the detritus of in-class writing exercises” by her students as part of her own work titled “The Labor Archive.” It is unclear whether or not she obtained permission for this, but her “dangerous citational practices” are precisely where the rubber meets the road. As any homeless person in the United States could tell you, trash becomes public property once it leaves private grounds. This is what makes dumpster diving possible, and why some businesses have resorted to compacting or, even more heinous, to poisoning food waste to keep humans out of it. In some ways, I almost wish the creators of this publication hadn’t curated or commissioned anything at all, but rather had taken what they wanted from what institutional garbage they could access. What would the ramifications have been for a publication which picked through digital trash, and braved negotiating the line between digital garbage and digital property?

In their emails to one another, Caroline Picard and Lara Schoorl speculate on the impossibility of a perfect, imaginary, “alternative, ideal, utopic institution” might look like. As a reader, the more pressing questions at hand seem to be these: are curating and garbage-making polar opposites? And what does it mean for curators to ‘make garbage’ (render slightly less clear, slightly less complete, and in some cases, slightly less contextual) the practices of art-adjacent people? I’m reminded of Marcel Duchamp’s “sixteen miles of string,” which in order to achieve its overarching vision intentionally paved over and inhibited viewing other work in the exhibition. Contemporarily, of course, it’s a dating faux pas to view curation in this light. In Institutional Garbage, Tricia Van Eck produces a hand-written letter called “Alchemy and Curation,” stating that “[…] it’s important for curators and artists in group shows (and even in solo shows) to share the oxygen in the space for all artworks to breathe.” Trash is stifling – it erases meaning through its surplus of meaning and scarcity of space. Aesthetically, this book has a lot of breathing room.

Of course, proclamations of impossibility and desirable failure such as those in the correspondences between Schoorl and Picard are like get-out-of-jail-free cards that anticipate any potential wrongdoings. But I think the real key to Institutional Garbage lies in Fulla Abdul-Jabbar’s essay, “Always,” at the book’s end:

“What we really want from our time with this book is that which is not this.

I don’t think you mean to sound that way.

Do you mean to say it like this?

Perhaps you can rephrase this.

Can you expand on this?”

To which we respond, of course, always. But not now.

Epilogue:

On a small shelf in my house a sun-baked candy from Félix González-Torres “Untitled (Portrait of Ross in L.A.)” oozed and leaked in dangerous proximity to my Ai Weiwei “Sunflower Seeds.” So I took David Hall’s paper towel program and wiped it up. I’m not sure, but I think this has something to do with art.

Thank You, Kathryn.

Shit is REAL

Will I Space Close from Lack of Funds?

Top 5 Weekend Picks! (6/28-6/30)

Top 5 Weekend Picks! (2/18 & 2/19)

Review: Institutional Garbage published first on https://footballhighlightseurope.tumblr.com/

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bffhreprise · 7 years

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Entry 164

I stared up at James’ enormous mansion. This place felt like home, and the notion struck me as odd. Despite having just left the grandiose hotel, the mansion’s grandeur remained undiminished. Was I really that accustomed to being here already? Multiple houses could fit inside this one with plenty of room to spare. Ai and Mai’s wing alone was easily over twice the size of my parents’ house, and that’s not counting any secret passages I didn’t know about. There probably were some.

I always liked the idea of hidden passages in walls, secret ways to get from room to room, but I never thought I’d actually see as many as I already had. There was a hidden theater, secret storeroom, and rooms with purposes which I could only guess at. The place was amazing… Even the garage was larger underground than on the surface.

Just walking inside, you had to pass two sets of double doors. I could easily imagine James standing on the balcony which overlooked the foyer and greeting us. That wasn’t his style at all, but he would look right there. This was the most incredible home I ever heard about, and my best friend owned it.

The technology inside still amazed me. I followed the others into the ballroom where little Aaliyah was already typing away with her secretary glasses firmly planted on her nose. She didn’t need glasses at all, but they were cute. To think someone so cute designed this tech-heavy room was amazing. There were eight, very large mirrors creating the walls. Each mirror could swing outwards, revealing either a passage or storage. The mirrors also served as giant screens.

I was certain Aaliyah had designed the chairs as well. The eight chairs, designed for luxury as much as gaming, seamlessly hid beneath the floor when the ballroom was to be used for something else. They could be controlled by a digitally displayed system far more advanced than any others I had seen. The speakers built into the chairs had excellent sound quality, but were virtually silent from even a foot away.

Aaliyah was far, far beyond me in so many ways. If she had only designed Ancient Tribes of Earth, I’d still have believed it. The game’s size, customization, and in-depth story were vastly superior to anything else I tried, but the game ran smoothly on every system I had seen, including those of clients with relatively old systems ― A surprising number of our clients played. Had James noticed?

The little girl’s choice not to engage in battle was amusing to me, knowing that her knowledge of combat was superior to my own as well. Every last move we used in the game had been coded by her, but she was also my teacher in real life. She taught me how to move when fighting but also how to think. I knew James didn’t entirely approve of it. He never wanted to hurt anyone, but breaking an arm or leg to end a fight quickly was sometimes for the best. We already lost one friend. I didn’t want to lose anyone else.

“I think I’ll go tell Marco that we’re back.” stated James as he took a step toward the door.

“Oh, master, Marco has known when you would be arriving for days now. The Princess is very organized. I can’t believe that you’d doubt her.” teased Mila through the room’s speakers.

“Must she really call you ‘master’ in that fashion, James? I don’t feel it’s appropriate.” insisted Alma, from her favorite of the room’s chairs.

“Thank you, Mila.” stated James. Then he faced Alma’s reflection and said, “She has a mind of her own, and I’ve found what I say has little bearing on what she does and doesn’t decide to do.”

I half-expected Mila to make some snappy quip, but she apparently didn’t feel the need. Which was harder between designing Mila and Ancient Tribes of Earth? I wasn’t certain. The game was massive and had fully interactive NPCs who would vocally respond to anyone addressing them, but I doubted any of them were actually conscious like Mila. Her mind was impressive to say the least, and her knowledge was as vast as the internet. I couldn’t have made the progress I did in my own designs without her input, at least not as quickly.

I took a seat to play Ancient Tribes of Earth with the others. Even after an entire convention where we had focused on this game, I was ready for more. Only a tiny fraction of the world had actually been explored, and the game was immersive enough to make you feel this was a second life. My friends in the game were every bit as real to me as those around me. I knew their quirks and capabilities in the game. We had talked enough that I knew significant amounts of their out-of-game lives as well. Even if the game somehow grew boring, I couldn’t imagine quitting because I’d miss them.

I was talking about the convention with them, since none of my lieutenant generals were able to make it in person. Something seemed off though, not with them, but… Maxine. Brandon had told me about meeting a cute girl who turned out to be some sort of criminal. She was trying to hack the game, but Brandon said she was blind. She couldn’t be…

“Sorry, guys, but I need to log already.” I told them.

“What? Come on…” complained Lake.

“It’s too early, and you haven’t even been on very long.” whined Jesse.

“I’m going to get some chicken wings.” stated Alec.

Typical Alec. I said, “Mmm… I haven’t had wings for a while. Catch everyone later!”, and logged off. James glanced back looking surprised as I made my way to the door. Partway to the garage, I asked “Mila, you were listening when James met a girl named Maxine, right?”

“Of course. I must always be prepared to help the master.” she replied, making “master” sound flirtatious as ever.

“What was her full name?” I asked.

“Maxine Marveille Montgomery.” she stated.

“Mind digging up everything you can on her?” I requested.

“Oh, I already started digging when the master met her. Want to see what I have or wait until I’ve finished investigating?” she asked.

“Wow. Over a day, and you’re not finished?” I questioned, surprised by the idea that Mila wouldn’t have someone’s whole life story in that time.

“She actually has very impressive security measures guarding her personal servers, and I wasn’t too focused on breaking into them. She was also very thorough in erasing all digital data regarding her parents and brother. I actually had to make some calls for inquiries and am still waiting on responses.” she informed me.

“I wish I could say I’m surprised.” I told her before breaking into a run.

“Is something troubling you?” asked Mila when I entered the garage.

“Have you compared the IP addresses between the Maxine from the convention and the one with whom I’ve been corresponding?” I asked.

“No. For your correspondence, I only went so far as to see that they were rerouted through several machines each time. I never bothered with a full trace, but I do see why you’re concerned. I believe you’re correct as well. The servers I’ve been casually poking are at her primary home address. I had checked the ISPs in the area to see which she used and retrieved her IP address from there. Given the scope of Maxine’s public holdings, she probably has access to numerous servers throughout the world and plenty of processing power to run all sorts of interesting software. Want me to shut her down?” she offered.

The idea was tempting, but I wanted to do a little more research first. Shaking my head, I said, “No, but thank you. She probably doesn’t have the data I’d want networked. Destroying the servers you’ve been ‘poking’ would only get her attention. I’m sure she could replace them easily enough, and I don’t want her calling in favors from her friends in Ai and Mai’s family. Mind opening the attachment on the email Maxine sent earlier today?”

“Here you are. She seemed most impressed with your actuators and sent you schematics for those servos you had discussed.” she replied.

Great. I’ve impressed an evil genius. After looking over the schematics, I started fiddling with my tablet. All of this was the result of a game of sorts Aaliyah had given me with the tablet. Would Aaliyah have helped me so much if she knew I’d inadvertently help a criminal mastermind? Being blind, I didn’t imagine Maxine would be doing much of the actual legwork herself, assuming there was legwork, but there had to be, otherwise she wouldn’t need the suit. Would she actually trust someone else using it? How could she use it if she were blind? Sensors? Even with a good audiofeed, reflexes would be slowed, but I already had a number of ideas for pulling it off. She’s been at this a while, so she surely had refined plenty of ideas.

All thoughts of Maxine left my mind as the next part in the game unlocked. There were detailed schematics of Dr. Conway’s work. His work wasn’t for an exoskeleton though. He had intended to replace bones, even organs, with machinery he had designed. The designs were brilliant, incredibly brilliant, but having them implanted would be dangerous and very painful, assuming you didn’t lose sensation entirely. I became lost for a time, puzzling over how the connections to the brain worked. I needed to study more biology, but I had the resources.

I started listening to Conway’s audio diary while reading. He actually did this procedure several years ago? These measurements though…

“Mila, mind displaying these pieces fitted together as a skeleton?” I asked.

Conway droned on as tears came to my eyes. He didn’t… He couldn’t have… Estimated height of the subject was just under thirty-five inches. What sort of monster would do this to a child? As I listened from the cold floor, Conway described the child and the procedure. He really was a monster. I needed to talk to James. He had to be told.

“Where’s James?” I asked.

“In his bedroom.” somberly stated Mila.

I left the garage, trying to compose myself as the lift carried me up. If anyone was awake, I didn’t want to bother them. I needed to talk with James first. How could a little girl do so very much with her day? She wasn’t human. She should have been. She should have grown. As I made my way up the stairs, I started running. I meant to knock gently, but I was pounding at the door from the start.

James was dressed for bed, staring at me in shock.

“We’ve gotta talk now. This is crazy. This is so, so crazy.” I told him.

He put his finger to his lips and waved for me to step inside. I did. Who would hear us on the third floor? Oh. Alma. She might. I started pacing, but James pulled a chair out, obviously wanting me to sit down. Could I sit still right now? No. I kept pacing. James sat on his bed and stared at me. He looked worried.

I opened my mouth to tell him what I just learned, but I felt like I might cry again. I stopped myself and decided to tell him the lesser bad news first.

“This is some heavy, heavy shit. First off, I screwed up, man. I think I really screwed up.” I admitted.

James raised his hand to get my attention and asked “What happened? Start from the beginning?”

I nodded, took a sec to reorganize my thoughts, and said, “Yeah-yeah. Okay, so Brandon was telling me about this cute girl you two met who went by Maxine. Well, I didn’t think anything of it at first, but as we were playing downstairs, some pieces started clicking together. You remember that tablet I got from Aaliyah for my birthday?”

He nodded.

“Well, there was a sort of game on there. The thing is that the game was actually instructions, walking me through the life’s work of some guy who was trying to make robotic parts to strengthen humans back in the sixties.” I explained.

“Sounds like an impressive guy if he made any progress, but I don’t see what the problem is.” replied James.

What? Oh, right. I needed to explain more. I told him “Just hear me out. To unlock the next part of the instructions, I had to answer questions about the workings of what I had seen so far. Some of that got pretty tough rather fast, since I don’t have the background to understand all of it. Well, I didn’t want to ask Aaliyah, because that seemed like cheating, since I felt she gave me the program to challenge me. I started browsing forums and talking with people about specific aspects of what I read. There was this one girl, Maxine, who was super knowledgeable. She was great to talk with, since she really seemed to understand me. We started talking through direct messages rather than on the forums where the others made stupid comments. No offense intended, but they did. Some of the stuff she said just seemed weird to me, like ‘imagine trying to design a servo blindfolded.’ That’d be crazy, right? Except that putting her comments together with you meeting a blind, intelligent girl named Maxine makes me believe that she did do it blindfolded.”

“Wait. Why are you assuming that the Maxine I met was that intelligent? We hardly talked, really. ‘Maxine’ can’t be that uncommon of a name.” argued James.

I stared at him a moment, trying to tell if he was being serious. He was? Feeling slightly exasperated, I said, “Really, dude? This blind girl’s attempting to hack Ancient Tribes of Earth according to Aaliyah. Then she’s working with part of Alma’s family. We’ve met the twins and Alma so far, and all three are very intelligent. How useful to them could Maxine be if she wasn’t bright?”

James seemed to consider it a moment before nodding and asking “Okay, so how did you goof?”

“She helped me with problems. I helped her with some. If she’s a criminal like Brandon made her sound, I just assisted a criminal in a robotics project. I really doubt she’s going to use whatever she’s working on for world peace.” I explained

“Look, you had no way of knowing that you were helping a possible criminal. You just have to be a bit more careful in the future.” he assured me.

I shook my head, knowing I needed to tell him about Aaliyah. I started by saying, “Yeah, I know. Just bothers me. That’s actually the lesser of what’s bothering me at the moment. As I was trying to figure out what harm she could do, I was reading through that program some more. Then something else clicked for me.” Then I looked him in the eye and said, “I think Aaliyah’s a cyborg.”

A dark cloud passed over James’ face. He looked worried, upset… Not surprised.

“Jarod, don’t say anything until I get a response. Not one word.” he ordered.

I did as I was told, feeling shocked. What was happening? He didn’t question me at all, just got upset. What was with him? Texting now of all things? He seemed to get a reply instantly, and I could see the tension leave his body.

“Dude, what was that about?” I demanded.

An eerie smile came to his face as he said, “You just stumbled across something dangerous to know. You can’t let anyone else find out that Aaliyah’s a cyborg. Ai, Mai, and Alma know as well. If you mention it around them, they’ll have you in a sealed room in a second.”

“You knew? Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked, feeling really confused now.

The smile was gone in an instant. James looked at me that way he does when he seemed to see straight through me. Then he said, “Aaliyah’s the assassin, Jarod, as in the only assassin. The twins explained to me that if you reveal her secret, whomever you tell dies. You die. Your family dies. Aaliyah apparently doesn’t make exceptions for friends. At least, I think she considers Ai and Mai her friends.”

Was he messing with me? “How could you know she’s the only assassin or an assassin at all for that matter?” I asked.

“I found out after she let me see her kill two people, though I can’t say I actually saw her even move. She told me afterward that she had killed off all other assassins years ago.” he claimed.

He wasn’t bluffing. James was dead serious. Aaliyah killed off every assassin!? I knew she could fight. She had been teaching me to do things I hadn’t thought possible, like breaking an egg inside a glass without touching it. I could actually do that now despite my lack of magic. Stopping a person’s heart would be easy. The speed James had claimed didn’t add up though. The numbers weren’t working in my head. Conway’s voice was playing through my head again. I couldn’t push it out.

“Okay, so I can see how she would be deadly given what was done to her. I don’t understand how she could be that fast though. It’s too much from what I saw.” I insisted. Conway’s description continued replaying as I said, I really feel sorry for her. It had to hurt so, so much. No one should have to go through that, much less a kid.”

“Go through what?” asked James, looking confused.

“The operation, James.” I told him.

He still looked confused.

“‘The subject was brought in with injuries all over her body, internal bleeding, and broken bones throughout both arms and legs. Her skull was fractured. I commenced with the operation, replacing her bones with those of my own design.’” I told him, regurgitating the words in my head. “‘The subject’s remarkable healing ability kept her alive, but her body burned through the anesthetic rapidly. The surgery was a success.’ is a somewhat rough summary of her doctor’s notes on the surgery.”

The poor, poor girl. Knowing Aaliyah was the test subject, I couldn’t keep the image of her crying out from my mind. That little girl should be smiling, always smiling… not tortured.

I forced myself to continue, saying, “She woke up countless times during the surgery, James. Her body healed rapidly, but she was in pain for at least a couple weeks while she recovered. I don’t know what they did to save her, but her body was outgrowing the implants after nearly a year, causing her constant pain. Aaliyah was a military test subject. The descriptions led me to believe it was her. The blonde hair and blue eyes. The dimensions of the implants given would put the test subject at around thirty-five inches tall.”

The tears were coming again. I couldn’t stop them. I couldn’t stop thinking about her being forced to go through that operation… There was no way the doctor just happened to have synthetic bones made for her lying around. All those injuries were done to her as an excuse to perform the surgery. The man was a monster!

The door opened and a blur was there and gone faster than I fully registered. Aaliyah was there on my lap, hugging me. She really was fast, incredibly fast. I couldn’t understand her speed.

“I’m so sorry, Aaliyah.” I told her, trying to hold back the tears. I didn’t want her to see me crying. The girl had enough tears of her own.

“Don’t cry, Jarod.” she insisted. “I’m fine now. Honest.”

She handed me something. A phone. My phone. I hadn’t even seen her pull it from my pocket. It was ringing. I answered it and put it to my ear.

“I have telepathy!” she exclaimed through the device without even moving her lips.

I laughed a little and said, “Yeah, I suppose that is like telepathy.” I hugged her again and told her “Still, I’m sorry that you went through that.”

“Just don’t tell, especially not my daddy.” she insisted.

I nodded and said, “I promise.”

I talked with her for a while, trying to make sense of the world. Aaliyah didn’t mind sharing some of her stories as an assassin with me, since some of the contracts were no longer valid. Most of her contracts included a “certain level of discretion”. As we talked, I thought again of how much I had been missing before Emma told us about magic. How much more was I still missing? Emma had only told us about magic as part of Alma’s grand plan. Was there a larger plan at work? I could imagine Aaliyah having one. The tiny girl was too incredible for belief.

#Best Friend For Hire Reprise #Best #Friend #For #Hire #Reprise #Jovial Times #Jovial #Times #Fantasy #Fiction #Story #Aaliyah #Jarod

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flauntpage · 5 years

Text

Review: Institutional Garbage

Critical reviews of books usually serve two functions: to lure readers to read or buy the book in question, or to bolster the significance of the book or its contents.

Reviews of books produced outside of a timeline deemed relevant to their release date are even more garbage-like.

So, what was (or is) Institutional Garbage?

But what (is/was) it really?

(Grimly Familiar) Traces: Jane Lewty’s “Dear Committee [To be Read Alongside CV],” which painfully engages institutional biases around gender and mental health

“What we really want from our time with this book is that which is not this.

I don’t think you mean to sound that way.

Do you mean to say it like this?

Perhaps you can rephrase this.

Can you expand on this?”

To which we respond, of course, always. But not now.

Epilogue:

Make Up the Breakdown: Music as Self-Contained Instruction in 140

TOP V. WEEKEND PICKS (5/10-5/16)

Property Values and the Public Eye

In Conversation: Community Glue Workshop and Fixers Collective

Twit Twat Twut, The Art of Twitter

Review: Institutional Garbage published first on https://footballhighlightseurope.tumblr.com/

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