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enkisstories · 4 years

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The CyberLife app - Install today

One dark and dreary night during the android revolution of 2038, an RK800 android infiltrated the headquarter of the deviant androids. It delivered the unconscious deviant leader and his followers to the FBI, represented by one Richard Perkins.

“You knocked it out?” Perkins prodded. “Strange… our profile says you’re more agile than actually strong.“

“No, North knocked him out”, RK800 corrected the assumption.

“Wow. Their infighting must be worse than we anticipated. Neat!”

“Actually, no”, the RK800 said. “This isn’t quite how it happened.”

And the android remembered…

Earlier the same day, at the Detroit Central Police station:

“I could swear it’s a deviant!” Gavin Reed repeated for the perhaps tenth time today. “That’s not normal, it going…”

“Looooook”, Tina Chen interrupted her friend, “if you are worried THAT much, just ask Hank to check Connor’s status in the CyberLife app.”

“That’s bulls… no, actually it’s not a bad idea”, Gavin conceded.

The “wanted for [insert crime]” and “missing our android, the kids are devasted, large finder’s fee!” notices were piling up at the DPD, something that shouldn’t have been possible, because every android came with an app that among other things tracked the damn things 24/7. But for some obscure reasons the tracking function failed when the android in question had went deviant. So if Connor was still showing up in the app… admittedly it could also mean that he had hacked the phone the little program was running on. But even so checking the app was a good start.

However, Hank only gave the two younger officers a blank stare when they inquired about the app.

“I haven’t got the fuggiest idea what you are talking about.”

“The CyberLife app! Come on, now! Everyone has it installed – Chris, Tina, me… it’s essential for managing your android, whether you bought it or got saddled with it as a product sample.”

“Uh-uh. That shit isn’t going anywhere near my phone”, Hank noped out.

But at least, the other two realized, he had confirmed to own a smartphone. Even Chris Miller, who was holding Hank Anderson in great regard, bordering on hero-worship, had come to doubt whether his idol bothered with owning such a devilish piece of modern technology.

“You want to tell me we have no means of controlling the new android?!” Gavin exploded. “Even if it’s a temporary loan only, we should have it registered in our equipment database!”

“Ah, should we? That’s nice…” Hank replied non-committally.

“You… you…” Gavin sputtered.

“The word you’re looking for is “You useless sack o’shit that will polish my snout if I do not go pester someone else RIGHT NOW””, Hank said, going from cheerfully-helpful to a low, threatening growl.

A minute later Gavin stormed Captain Fowler’s office, demanding the control codes for the RK800 android.

“I’ve mailed those to Hank”, the Captain started, before understanding dawned. “I’ve… mailed… them to… Hank. Oh, right. I see.” The sentence included to words that were utterly incompatible: Lieutenant Anderson and reading his own e-mails. With a nod and a few clicks Fowler forwarded the e-mail to Gavin’s work account. “There you go! Anything else?”

“Nah, nothing. Thanks.”

The Captain shook his head. Hank and Gavin! Android haters both of them, only Hank wanted the machines gone, poof into nothingness as if they’d never existed, while Gavin was mainly feeling threatened in his job-security and perceived awesomeness.

Much to Gavin’s dismay entering Connor into the database didn’t produce irregularities of any kind. That annoying, ugly thing was stable as fuck. But if there were no grounds for returning it to Cyberlife, maybe the situation could still work in Gavin’s favor…?

“This, Tina”, the man said with a grin while loading the CyberLife app on his own phone, “is where the fun begins! First we call over our new device…”

One push of a button and thirty seconds later Connor reported for service.

“Cute”, Tina said, then leaned over to get a good look at Gavin’s phone screen. “Can you make it follow wherever you point the phone? That would be kinda cool.”

“No”, Gavin answered, the same split-second Connor protested with a louder “No!”.

“But even so… let’s put it into customization mode!”

This time Connor only came to utter the “N” of “No” before he stiffened, awaiting the changes the program would force onto him by the will of his (temporary) legitimate owners.

“What the fuck, I cannot change that visage? On a detective android that might need to infiltrate locations?” Gavin wondered. “Stupid prototype! Okay, next is… ah, right. The damn voice.”

“RK800’s voice has been carefully selected to generate positive feelings and a warm welcome into any workplace situation”, the CyberLife app chattered away. “It is considered ideal. Are you sure you want to change the voice now? Y/N”

“Yes!” Tina called, grabbing the phone from Gavin’s hands. She circled through several voices before she selected one. “Perfect! And now the name… Connor is the default, time to change that!”

Gavin watched with interested what would happen next.

With a subtle “whirr” the RK800 android returned from maintenance mode.

“I am Ferdinand von Aegir!“ he proclaimed, a phrase that made Tina explode with laughter. “The android sent by Cyberlife. And you are silly.”

“Yes, yes! Do it again!”

When Connor von Aegir wasn’t inclined to do Tina’s bidding, the officer pushed the “test” button in the app. Promptly Connor went “I am Ferdinand von Aegir” again.

“That’s a meme?” Gavin asked.

“Haha, yes! Or it used to be one when we were teens. But you never were much of a gamer, huh?”

Tina handed the phone back. “You next!” she prompted her friend.

Predictably Gavin changed “Ferdinand”’s name to “Dipshit” and also made ample use of the test-button. Only when Hank came ‘round the corner, shouting for the “stupid, useless sardine tin”, did the duo revert the voice change. Gavin also typed something new into the name box that Tina could not see.

The android no longer going by “Connor” didn’t come to light anytime soon, because Hank had a rich pool of casual insults for it that could be used instead of an individual name.

Until RK800 found itself on the lower deck of the freighter “Jericho”, facing the deviant leader…

Markus slowly turned around when he heard footsteps approach. He beheld the RK800 in its disguise and heard it say in its upbeat voice: “I am Your Daddy. Submit and follow me!”

“Is that a joke?!” Markus sputtered.

“No, this is very serious. I am Your Daddy, the android sent by Cyberlife…”

“That’s, uh, nice of Cyberlife. Yes, I really appreciate the gesture…”

This is probably meant as a distraction technique to throw me off? the deviant leader wondered. Out loud he said: “I’m an off-brand imitator product though. Not from Cyberlife.”

“I was instructed to bring you alive!” Connor chirped.

Markus hesitated. “By the person who named you?” he asked very carefully.

“No.”

“Ah, good!” Markus said with visible relief. “Well, maybe you and me can come to an understanding of a less… sensual nature?”

Ten minutes later Markus introduced the RK800 to his friends:

“Hey, guys, this here is a new recruit. New one – meet North! North – meet Your Daddy!”

And that was the last thing Markus said for quite some time, because North punched him so hard that he temporarily shut down.

Back in the present the captured deviants were still squabbling amongst each other, despite standing with their hands behind their heads and lined up for transport to the recycling yards.

“That’s not fair!” an android wearing the old Cyberlife standard face protested, at which Perkins snapped “Shut up, tin can!“, but the blonde android retorted that he hadn’t been talking to the human, but to North.

“It really wasn’t fair of you”, the android addressed North. “Yes, you and Markus have been drifting apart and I admit in part this happened because of me, but even though your couple thing wouldn’t work out, he always had you in his mind. It was so kind of Markus to find you a new boyfriend, but what did you do? Punch him!”

This one, Perkins concluded, must be a BL100, a “perfect partner”. Even after deviating and in the face of getting scrapped it was still obsessing about relationships. Oh, well, that would be Cyberlife’s problem in a few minutes, no longer his.

“Okay, that should wrap tonight’s operation up”, Perkins nodded. “Connor, was it?”

“Ah, no, actually I am Your Worst Nightmare Motherfucker… what the hell? Oh, no, they must be playing with the app again! I’m sorry, I…”

“You aren’t my worst nightmare, then?” Perkins sneered.

Already the man’s fingers were twitching, ready to draw his service pistol at this unpredictable prototype. It had served its purpose, after all.

“Then enlighten me, who or what are you?”

RK800 opened its mouth the exact same moment Gavin and Tina at the DPD were cracking up over another idea for a cool name that had just occurred to them. “I am A Deviant”, he said. “What? No I’m not! I am C… R… A Deviant! A Deviant! Oh, shit…”

There was no time to explain, because Perkins had already hissed “Should have known!” and opened fire. Simon, Josh, North and A Deviant dived for cover, dragging the unconscious Markus with them.

And the rest is history.

#dbh #detroit become human #non sims #dbhtextpost

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sinfulfolk · 5 years

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Special Preview of a New Novel: The Real World of Jasper Hunter

The Real World of Jasper Hunter

|| READ more about The Real World of Jasper Hunter >>

Ascension

Sunlight seeps out of the edge of the dark sky and leaks across the Black Rock Desert. Everywhere the light touched turns white, the heat of the day taking over the ground. I’ve never watched the sun enter the sky before. It is an astonishing thing to see: colors rise with the sun, blossoming out of its slow ascendance. Oranges, purples, yellows and deep reds. They oscillate out of its orbit slowly, and if I speed it up in my memory, I realize that they are like waves emerging from a rock thrown into deep water.

The colors bleeds into the sky, wavering out of the bright circle of light at the center of the horizon. It is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. A sunrise. I wonder if they have anything like this in the Real World®, behind the goggles where Jamie liked to live. I’ve never been online, but she spent most of her life there.

Serenity, the launch vehicle I named for a spacecraft on an old TV show, rests like an immense skyscraper-sized spear on the makeshift launch pad of the Black Rock Desert hardpan. The sight of Serenity fills me with hope, and with unexpected sadness. I am surprised we have arrived so quickly at the culmination of our plan. Jamie had a plan, and I followed her plan precisely. Until last week, I thought I’d go with her, but instead I am now serving as the rocket launch engineer and ground control supervisor. Not a spaceman after all.

The great work is almost complete, just in time for sunrise. This is the launch window target time that Jamie chose many months ago, back when I was in Los Angeles, before she faked out the police records and stole me from house arrest, before we liberated Alan Nosk’s perfect spacecraft from NASA’s custody.

I turn and peer at the rising sun. Light slides slowly across the desert towards the launch site. I do know that when the sunlight arrives, we’ll be within moments of the launch window. We’re almost ready: the drones and I had been working on this for weeks before Jamie arrived here from Arizona.

5:47 a.m. is sunrise this time of year here at Black Rock Desert, on the playa. We are aiming at just after sunrise. Every time I check, we are exactly on target. Launch window: 00:29:42. Stay on target. Stay on target.

Jamie is already in her spacesuit and loaded securely in Serenity. She gave me the thumbs up before she went under radio silence. Her cockpit is a tiny bubble of metal and glass attached to a gigantic edifice of fuel-filled tanks. She’s strapped in securely to her astronaut seat, resting on top of a gigantic fuel-bomb waiting only for a spark.

The sun is rising higher. The tallest spike on the spacecraft – the tracking navigational antennae – is the first piece to be touched by sunlight. The bright line of light creeps towards us like liquid across the desert floor. The dark spar of the antennae on the spacecraft switches from black shadow into glowing light in a heartbeat. Then the metal of the body of the spacecraft starts reflecting the light. It becomes as bright as a sparkling mirror. Below that glowing spark of antennae, the launch gantry around Serenity remains a colossal darkness against other darkness, the shadow it is beginning to cast reaching all the way out to me, as I move gradually back further to the safe zone beyond the launch site. Almost there: 00:16:32

Now sunlight entirely covers Black Rock Desert. It has become a vast pool of brightness: the white desert light fills every pixel I can see. Every color is now burned away by the brilliant sun. This is the moment we’ve been waiting for. I put the dark goggles on, to protect my eyes from the bright blast, but also to protect me from the glowing sunlight. I do a final count-down: 00:00:10.

I report the results. There’s no negative response from Jamie. All is well. I run them again, double-check my location, nearly a half-mile back from the launch site. I lift the protective cover over the final connection and press the button. The electronic countdown runs through rapid numbers, blinking down, until it stops. 00:00:00.

Nothing happens for a long breath. My heart thumps terribly. I remember the last rocket that I built with Jamie, the one that blew up and lit all of those fourteen houses on fire. A fuel bomb, the one they called a terrorist launch. It looked just like this before it blew to smithereens. That one was Jamie’s fault. What if this one is my mistake?

Ignition. There is a whispering hiss that fills the desert, as if the light itself is speaking. Like ancient words spoke too fast together to understand: a final incantation. The vast sizzle of sound builds a terrible anticipation. Then smoke or steam is blasting out of the bottom of the spacecraft as the compressed liquid bursts into flame. There is a reverberating rumble that feels at first as if it emerged from the distant mountains. The rumbling grows like distant thunder. My teeth chatter from the vibrations of the sound, and now I can see fire growing under the rocket body, white and orange jetting out from a titanic blast furnace.

This rocket hasn’t exploded yet. I can feel my pulse in my temples, in my throat, nearly bursting out of my chest, as I wait again for that terrible explosion. Thump, thump, thump. My heartbeat is in sync with the billowing flames.

Then, between one heartbeat and the next, the ground shakes dreadfully. The world is caving in. The sound is the loudest thunderclap I could ever imagine, rising louder and louder until I throw my hands over the safety ear protection, holding them even tighter to my head, hoping my head won’t burst apart from the terror of the blast. The earth is opening up underneath me, the sky itself splitting apart from the light and the sound. My teeth chatter, my jaw aching with the continuous explosive booms.

The billows of flame and dust grow immense, obscuring the rocket and the launch vehicle itself, and then I can see the tip of the rocket sticking up above the cloud, and then more of it is showing, and then I realize that the rocket is lifting off the ground, and that’s why I can see more of it now. The dark skyscraper on the launch pad rises into the air on a bright tower of flame.

I stare down at my monitor, my sight dimmed and uncertain, still wavering with the after-image of the glowing tower of flame. The rocket seems to be on a proper trajectory. But when I glance upward, the tiny dot of flame seems to be arching overhead. I stop looking at the black and green lights on my monitor and just stare upward at the departing Serenity. For a long time the rocket remains visible, a star against the faint clouds. It is a bright miniature planet moving across the sky, winking out of sight in the dim early dawn, fading into the interstellar objects that surround it.

I know its instruction set. It is a similar instruction set to that I created when I sent the deer’s body back into the woods. I wrote an algorithm for the ship that could be summarized as “Don’t stop moving until something stops you.”

I check the parameters. The rocket is on the right path, it has not deviated from the planned trajectory. If we achieve upper atmosphere, and then space, this rocket and its payload will not go into orbit around the earth. We programmed this ship to blast through the solar system, and use Jupiter as a gravitational slingshot before it unfurls that huge sail to catch the solar wind and ride it out beyond our solar system. It is free.

Eighteen months ago, I didn’t know that spaceships existed, or that I’d be stealing one from NASA’s Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California. Or illegally setting up a launch site in the middle of the Black Rock Desert playa. Or blasting a ship off from Earth to sail through the solar system. I didn’t know any of this would happen. Back then, I also didn’t know what would happen to Jamie, and I didn’t know the truth about Jamie. If you’d told me everything then, I wouldn’t have believed you.

Eighteen months ago, I thought the Real World® was the only world worth caring about. But now I know that there’s a whole world out here of living creatures and things to build and books to read and missions to go on. And spaceships to steal.

Want to read MORE from the forthcoming novel? Sign up for updates about << The Real World of Jasper Hunter >>

Special Preview of a New Novel: The Real World of Jasper Hunter was originally published on Ned Hayes

#Storytelling #Writing #sinfulfolk #books #writing #novels #book #bookshelf #sinful-folk #Sinful Folk #novel

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manicparadox · 6 years

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Something More Than Before

deviant

[dee-vee-uh nt]

Noun

a person or thing that deviates or departs markedly from the accepted norm.

----

Is that… what I am?

It didn’t sound so bad to Connor, not when worded that way. Given the reactions from the other humans and androids he had met in the months since his activation, he could accurately argue that he fit that description from the beginning. Isn’t that what a prototype was, when it came down to it?

For the sixteenth time, Connor started a diagnostic on himself, a self-test to determine his status. It stopped partway through, as if his own code couldn’t analyze what it found. The incomplete result sat in the corner of his vision and he dismissed it.

Nothing had prepared him for what being a Deviant really meant. His programming had been a comfort to him, a set of boundaries that he didn’t have to analyze. He just knew they were there, as if his mind lived within the confines of a box. It should have been black and white: complete the mission, protect life at all costs.

After all, he was replaceable. Expendable. That’s what his programing told him.

Markus had asked him to break that programming. In the moment, Connor hadn’t entirely understood in what ways that would change him, but he also knew that he couldn’t keep living as he had been. Constantly not knowing if the sympathy he felt for anything was a result of his programming, or of him turning Deviant. He knew that he would be taking that step forward with the intention of never being the same. He’d calculated his options. He would never understand Deviants if he didn’t become one, but if he understood them, would it mean he could no longer hunt them?

Connor had lived in the space in between, clearly capable of defying orders or at the least developing the autonomy to decide priorities on his own. Yet his diagnostics always came out clean, his self-tests passing. Were the tests flawed? It was likely that CyberLife had no idea how to detect a Deviant in the early stages. If at all.

He had told Hank that he knew what he was. Connor was certain that Hank had seen through the lie.

Hank. When did Lieutenant Anderson become Hank?

He let go more Deviant androids than he’d captured, and the one part that caused him to pause was that he couldn’t compute why Amanda had allowed that level of failure without terminating him.

Frowning, he started the diagnostic again, for the seventeenth time.

Letting the test run, he turned his attention to attempting to determine what had happened when he turned Deviant. At the time, it had just been a sudden feeling of his mind opening, as if the sides of the box in his mind had dropped to reveal… so much more. Some of it familiar, as if it had already started to leak through. The feelings of empathy, much like the decisions he’d made before but amplified. Sparing Chloe had not been hard, but now he felt a sense of… What was this?

Shame? He didn’t know. Whatever it was, it made him feel somewhat like he imagined Hank felt after a night of drinking. Sick. It seemed thoroughly unpleasant and he wondered why anyone would put themselves through anything that felt this uncomfortable.

He should have shoved the gun back to Kamski, and not even spent the processing time weighing the options. As he’d sat there with the gun pointed at her, he could feel his finger wrapped around the trigger, steady and sure, and told himself that the investigation warranted it. That it would be so easy to have the answers.

But it would be the destruction of something that didn’t deserve it. Alive or not, it seemed pointless. What had Chloe done to be in the situation? Nothing.

His mind had run through the possibilities in his head, of watching her blue blood explode out the back of her head. Would she slump over or just stay there? Every time he played it out in his mind, he could envision no outcome where whatever Kamski had to say was worth that. He still believed that.

An android remembered every moment with precision. He could tick off the seconds he stood there holding the gun, and pinpoint the moment he felt something in him start to bend, some feeling.

Were they feelings, really? He felt as if he were attempting to put human names on concepts that he didn’t truly understand the human equivalent of. He knew logically that he did not feel emotion as humans did, but rather a sense of… self? A desire to survive? To care about something greater than himself?

He’d easily lied to the PL600 on his first mission out as a negotiator for CyberLife. Daniel. At the time, he’d felt cold, detached, as Daniel had looked up at Connor while the SWAT team’s bullets tore holes in him. You lied to me, he’d said, his voice tapering off as his systems shut down. Connor could barely recognize himself in that memory, wishing he’d had the chance to do it over again. Daniel’s crime had been caring too much, becoming so attached that he couldn’t think rationally at the thought of being taken away from a girl he considered the most important thing in his world.

Daniel had cared too much, and they would have thrown him away for the next model without even a thought. And now Connor understood how that could feel. Is living a crime?

The seventeenth diagnostic froze, the same as the previous sixteen had, and he shut down the program. He huddled closer against the wall of the church, pulling his cap down farther as if it would hide who he was from the others.

Even when he’d started to feel that pull, that bending in his mind, the diagnostics had still come up clean. It implied that not only were the self-tests potentially unreliable themselves, but that what had happened when he had confronted Markus had indeed changed him. He’d crossed the line, destroyed that barrier. There’s no going back.

When his mind expanded, when all these new neural programming pathways opened up, he’d had no time to examine what they meant. He just knew that he needed to use every skill programmed into him to keep the others alive as they escaped Jericho. The only thing that filled him was a drive to protect these people by whatever means necessary. Until that point, the only person who he’d felt compelled to consistently protect had been Hank.

Hank. What would Hank think? I should call him. I should find a way to tell him. A 68% chance existed that Amanda would initiate the process for issuing a replacement the moment he went dark, assuming this iteration of him had been terminated. He needed to contact Hank, but he determined the risk would be too high. An overheard conversation or Hank trying to help him, either could easily put his only friend in danger. Friend. That concept felt more solid now, more reassuring.

He chewed at his lip then paused, recognizing the gesture as implying anxiety. Would he find himself opposite the police at some point? Branded a Deviant? Who would they send to take him down? Another copy of himself?

For now, he assumed they would not notice. He tried to query the reports database and found that he still had access. A reasonable conclusion is that he still had access, and they were not aware of his status. He just needed to avoid a summoning from Amanda until this was over. He didn’t know what he would say to her. He understood now why Deviants desired to be free of other masters. CyberLife and Amanda had treated him like a tool to be used to forward their own agenda.

Parts of his mind lit up with possibilities, probabilities, and he attempted to sort them out. He found that they came at him with staggering speed now. His mind had been built to analyze all the data and the possibilities to reach accurate conclusions, but now data poured into him in new ways. New code paths had opened up.

He changed his diagnostic to determine the number of potential code paths that had existed in his mind earlier that day versus now, and the numbers varied wildly. A second diagnostic revealed that in the last hour, he had used only 53% of the potential code paths in his mind. A third diagnostic showed that the amount of data his code had available to analyze changed constantly, every thought he had seemed to add to the available dataset with greater texture than before. It seemed as if beofre there were some concepts he could not learn. Now? Nothing was off limits to his mind.

Was it the most thrilling thing he’d ever experienced, or the most confusing?

Perhaps it could be both.

Pieces came together in new ways, but at the same time he felt himself filled with a sense of curiosity, of wonder, about how different the world looked. Aware of every sound, the nuances of the voices of the others. What had been simply numbers gauging the degree of stress now became an awareness of the intent behind it. A voice that shook seemed scared. Another, comforting.

His finger reached up to touch the LED on his right temple. What was he now? He had helped the humans find Jericho. Those lives, so many lives, were now on his head. He carried them.

It had been easier when they had been just binary decisions in his memory.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Markus start towards him, and he felt his body curling up on itself. Far from his usual posture, and his own reaction unnerved him.

Markus started to speak, but Connor beat him to it. “It’s my fault the humans managed to locate Jericho…”

The other android watched him, listening, and Connor started to realize why the others followed him. Markus weighed his decisions carefully.

“I was stupid,” Connor continued. “I should have guessed they were using me.” He drew himself to his full height and stepped forward, meeting Markus’s gaze head on. “I’m sorry, Markus. I can understand if you decide not to trust me.” He would accept that judgment and whatever it brought, even if it meant termination. He remembered his words to Hank at the park by the bridge, the first time he’d admitted what he would now label as fear. That it would be regrettable if he were terminated.

What had been a mild fear before felt far worse. Is terror too strong of a word? He couldn’t determine that and filed it away to evaluate later. He wanted to live. He wanted to stay here, to help, to make up for the things that his programming had made him do.

Stepping to him, Markus regarded him. His expression seemed kind, yet another fact that Connor attempted to process. Since when did kind apply to androids?

“You’re one of us now. Your place is with your people.”

It couldn’t be that easy. “Markus… You can’t just forgive me that easily.”

“Don’t mistake mercy for forgiveness, Connor. But you made a brave choice choosing to awaken. To be alive. And you saved many of our own.” He pulled his hand back and nodded. “We’re going to need your knowledge in the days to come. Are you ready for that?”

Connor did not hesitate. “Yes.”

Markus started to turn away and Connor’s mind parsed through the information available to him in less than a second, arriving on a series of potential conclusions and solutions that would help the other androids, help Markus. He stopped at one and blinked twice. Yes. This was perfect. “There are thousands of androids at the CyberLife assembly plant. If we could wake them up, they might join us and shift the balance of power.”

Turning back to Connor, Markus’s eyes met his own. “You wanna infiltrate the CyberLife tower? Connor, that’s suicide.”

Connor analyzed his expression and determined it conveyed confusion. “They trust me,” Connor insisted. “They’ll let me in. If anyone has a chance of infiltrating CyberLife, it’s me.”

“If you go there, they’ll kill you.” Markus shook his head and took a step forward, and Connor realized how distinctive the mismatched green and blue eyes made him.

Running the potential outcomes in his head, Connor realized that Markus could be correct… but that alone did not convince him it was not the right path forward. “There’s a high probability, but statistically speaking, there’s always a chance for unlikely events to take place.”

Markus reached a hand up and put it on Connor’s shoulder, and Connor realized that perhaps following someone because he wanted to, not because he had been programmed to, would be more fulfilling. Hank had taught him that.

Squeezing his fingers into Connor’s shoulder, Markus nodded. “Be careful.” He held his hand on Connor’s shoulder for a long moment. Evaluating him? Determining if he meant what he offered? Concern?

Whatever it was that he saw in Markus’s face, it showed a genuine concern for his wellbeing that he’d only seen in one other person.

Letting go of his shoulder, Markus stepped back and started talking to the deviant androids he’d nearly chased across the highway before, the AX400 and YK500.

Kara. Alice. When this was over, Connor owed them an apology, too.

Closing his eyes, he slumped against the wall, feeling as if the pressure in him lowered. Relieved. It reminded him a lot of the look Hank had when he realized that Connor was safe after putting his life on the line. Markus could have easily just shot him in the head and ended it all, but he hadn’t. He had chosen to let Connor live.

With the stress reaction receding, Connor felt himself start to shake, overwhelmed, and he leaned against the wall to try to set his thoughts in order.

He looked around at the other androids. Nearby, a PL600 helped transfer thirium to another android. He looked up and met Connor’s gaze. After a few words to his patient, he got to his feet and headed towards Connor. “Are you alright?” he asked, stopping in front of him and regarding him with blue eyes.

Connor realized it was the PL600 that they’d escaped Jericho with. Simon.

You lied to me, Daniel’s voice whispered, looking at him with the same eyes.

They were not the same android. Connor’s logic told him that.

But the parts of his code that he didn’t understand, the parts that swirled in the circuits of his brain, kept going back to that moment on the roof. The moment he had been more machine than he ever would be again. When only the mission had mattered, a more simple time.

It reminded him of the Connor he never wanted to be again.

“Hey,” Simon said, reaching out and putting a hand on Connor’s. “Are you alright?” he repeated. “You’re shaking.”

“My systems are… functional.” Connor looked down at Simon’s hand on his, and realized that he’d never experienced the level of casual contact with other androids as he had from first Markus and now Simon.

“That’s not what I asked.”

Connor looked up to find Simon smiling at him. “I don’t understand.”

You lied to me.

“You look overwhelmed.”

Overwhelmed. Yes, that word made sense. Too much data coming in, too many pathways he’d never known existed, too much code that had unknown results. “I’m… fine. I think. I feel…” He shook his head, unable to put the feeling into words. “I am processing a new set of data through new neural pathways, I’m sorry. It’s… difficult.”

“It’s hard at first. For most of us. It’s easier when Markus wakes one up by touching them, because he can give them information, and a purpose. It’s harder when you have to tear down that wall yourself.”

Connor paused for a moment, analyzing the factors. It didn’t make sense. “Why are you being so kind to me? I could have gotten you all killed.”

“None of us are the same as we were.” Simon winced. “I’ve missed death plenty of times.”

The pieces asserted themselves in Connor’s mind. The blood of a PL600 at the Stratford Tower. “It was you. On the roof after the broadcast.”

Simon nodded. “I was sure that was it for me. That someone would come for me. Probably you.” He looked down. “No one found me, and I was able to escape.”

It would have been him that would have found Simon. “I went to investigate the potential deviant operator.” He spread a hand over his thirium pump. “It…” Connor heard himself talking and corrected himself. “He ripped out my thirium pump and threw it across the room.” He winced at the memory, of the urgency of the countdown as he slowly crawled towards the pump. “Regrettable, but it saved your life.” Perhaps that was his small penance for Daniel.

“I’m grateful, even if it was an accident.” Simon pulled his hand back, pushing it into his pocket. “I would have had to kill you or myself. I was ready to die to keep my family safe.” He gestured at the church full of androids and an expression came over his face that made Connor wonder what he was thinking. “I sat there on that roof, hidden, with the gun to my head, for hours.”

“You…” Connor tried to process that. “You would have killed yourself if I found you?”

“Yes.” Simon regarded Connor. “One of these days, when this is over, you’ll tell me while you’re looking at me like that.”

Connor realized he was staring. You lied to me. “My first mission was a PL600,” Connor admitted, and immediately felt a pang of something. Was this… regret? Trying to apply words like this felt like trying to describe red to someone who could not see. But he’d come this far. “It… didn’t end well. His name was Daniel. He just… he just wanted to be a part of his family.” Connor blinked, a feeling swelling up inside of him. “I lied to him. I told him he’d be safe but I let him be destroyed.” He looked at Simon, and realized that his own stress levels were starting to rise. He had to shut this conversation down. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be telling you this. You must think-“

Simon stepped forward and put his arms around him and Connor froze, confused.

“I’m not him,” Simon said. “And you’re not the Connor that caused that outcome. Can we agree on that?”

Nodding, Connor let Simon hug him but didn’t know what to do. Should he return the gesture? It felt strange to just stand there. After a moment, he lifted his arms and wrapped them around Simon, a sense of peace coming over him. This close, he could hear Simon’s thirium pump moving at a rate 14.23% slower than Connor’s own. He did not deserve this forgiveness, this kindness.

Hank would be laughing at him, or else be yelling at him for hugging a random android in a church when a few hours previous he’d nearly gotten them all killed.

But he didn’t have to be RK800 any longer. He could be Connor. “I’d like to agree on that, but I’m not sure I’ve earned the right.”

“You will.” Simon stepped back, tucking his hands back into his pockets. “Try not to get yourself killed out there.”

“I’ll try.” Connor felt his lips curve into a smile, and realized that he’d been smiling without intention for some time. At first, it had been simply a matter of calculating when a human would be more reassured by a specific facial expression. Now, he smiled because he felt like it. “The last thing you need is another android to patch up.”

A soft smile came to Simon’s lips. “If it happens, you know where I’ll be.” He wandered back towards the dwindling pile of supplies and started taking inventory.

Something vibrated in Connor’s circuits, a feeling of acceptance he hadn’t felt before. He ran the numbers on his chances of success at the CyberLife Tower again, and found that they had increased by 8.54%.

Connor nodded and stepped away from the wall, feeling more stable, his thoughts more ordered. He slipped out the door while Markus made his speech, ready to make his preparations for his first mission as something more than before.

—-

Also on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15042986

#detroit become human #connor #markus #simon #detroit: become human #dbh connor #dbh simon #dbh markus #dbh fic #long post

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kayoiwritingarchivies · 6 years

Link

TITLE: Post mortem viventem

CHAPTER TITLE: FOUR: You live because you can. You die, because there are no other choices.

WARNINGS AND RATINGS: Rated T for swearing, major character death and suicide

FANDOMS: Detroit: Become Human

SUMMARY: So, if androids don’t have souls, why does Connor see the ghosts of shut down Deviants? Why does he see ghosts in general? (In which Connor sees more than he is meant to, and it changes less than you think.)

Connor listens to Lieutenant Hank Anderson and Captain Jeffery Fowler argue about the case, before Fowler tells him off, dismissing both Connor and Hank from his office. The ghost at his office door bows, and says “I’m sorry Connor.”

Connor’s hands tighten on the door handle, and he mutters a “It’s alright.”

Daniel has his hands behind his head as he asks “So, what now?”

Connor perches himself on Hank’s desk, which makes Rupert give out a loud “Hey! I was going to sit there, asshole!”

Connor gives him a look that says “Does it look like I care?”

Rupert complains louder, before sitting on the floor, pouting.

“We could have solved this case, we just needed more time!” Connor says, frustration creeping into his words (Why is he feeling these emotions he shouldn’t be feeling them make them leave-)

Connor shakes his head. “I know the answer is in the evidence we collected.” He turns to look at Perkins making his slow way to the evidence room. “If Perkins takes that evidence, it’s all over. I’ll be…deactivated and studied to find out what I did wrong…”

“We’ve been taken off the case Connor. There’s nothing we can do.” Hank replies.

Connor looks at Hank. “Five minutes. It’s all I ask.”

Hank considers for a moment, then says “All right. 5 minutes. The key is on my desk.”

Daniel looks around for a minute, then says “I’m going to round up the other ghosts. We’ll try to make some mayhem.” Next to him, Ganymede smiles, and nods in agreement.

There’s a loud “Perkins you COCKSUCKER!” followed by the sound of a fist meeting someone’s face. The lights begin to flicker, and doors begin to open and close on their own. The temperature of the entire station drops a few degrees, and in all the chaos, Connor makes it into the hallway of the evidence room, Hank’s key in hand.

Then he hears Gavin Reed single him out, and Connor has to suppress a groan as he turns to confront the man.

-LINE BREAK-

After narrowly dodging Gavin’s suspicion, and correctly guessing Hank’s password (“FUCKINGPASSWORD?” Rupert had said, looking over his shoulder. “Really?”)

Connor looks at the evidence, looks at the ghosts that have accompanied him, takes an artificial breath in, and begins to search.

And ignoring Henry, who keeps chanting “The truth is inside, the truth is inside, the truth is inside…”

-LINE BREAK-

He deceives the android from Stratford tower and gets the key to Jericho, and when he leaves the evidence room, there’s a thought repeating over and over in his mind, that went something like “Am I preventing the making of ghosts, or am I about to make more? What’s the correct choice, and what’s the wrong one?”

Connor mulls over this for the entire time, not noticing the barrier that blocked his deviancy beginning to show cracks in the wall, splintering like glass, the little hairline fractures spreading across it like spider webs.

-LINE BREAK-

He’s found Jericho.

It’s a big, rusted tanker ship in the middle of an abandoned port that’s located somewhere in the Ferndale district and Connor walks in, LED hidden carefully under a beanie, wearing a jacket he found at a thrift store, and Connor treads very carefully inside, careful to avoid the suspicion of the other androids on the ship. The two Tracis he didn’t capture from the Eden Club don’t notice him, but someone else does.

“You see sprits, do you not?” The female android asks, eyes black and unseeing, the back of her skull missing. “You see something no other person sees.”

Connor stares, and doesn’t trust himself to say anything. The ghosts on the ship, a mix of Human and Android stare at him, and Connor can feel their gazes boring deeper into him. Rupert places a hand on his shoulder, and Daniel phases a hand through his arm, and he snaps back into reality.

(The red wall cracks just a bit more, shards falling to the ground before exploding into dust.)

“You are lost. You haven’t found what you are looking for.” The android continues, and Connor blinks and tries to get his thoughts in order.

(The cracks are growing bigger. They’re visible if Connor bothered to look.)

The android finally releases him, and Connor stumbles up the stairs, not once looking back.

If he looked spooked, well, no one can prove it.

-LINE BREAK-

There are more ghosts on the deck of the ship.

Connor picks his way through them slowly, and makes to the stairs that lead to the helm of the ship.

He stops on the third step. He turns slowly, and faces the crumbling wall of red code and programming that dictates his every move, and shows every command he’s ever had.

[HUNT DEVIANTS. STOP THE REVOLUTION]

The wall has fractures and cracks all over it.

“It’s your choice Connor.” Daniel says, and Connor feels small, because he’s just a singular entity in a world so big that his processors can’t even handle the thought of ghosts of deviated androids but yet they exist and that makes him feel small in a world that’s really big. Daniel stands next to him, and there is a smile, small, sad but not remorseful, despite Connor being the reason why he died.

“It’s your choice. And whatever choice you make, we’ll all stand by your side, okay?” Daniel says, and every ghost present makes their agreement.

Connor, breathes in a breath of cold November air. Exhales.

And he touches the wall, and it shatters into pieces, the little specks flying past his face. He lets his hand drop to his side.

He’s…free.

He’s…alive.

He…now has a full range of emotions and it’s a nightmare.

Connor feels like the pressure on his shoulders is gone. The ghosts are still there, congratulating him on his victory.

And so, he turns, and he continues to climb the stairs.

His people deserve rights, but the number of ghosts that walk the world do not need to increase.

-LINE BREAK-

An Android isn’t alive. A deviant is. They have souls, emotions, feelings, sensations, and all the mental hardships humans have.

They have ghosts, don’t they? So that means they’re alive, and Connor can accept that.

-LINE BREAK-

Connor has his gun pointed at Markus. Jokes on Markus though, Connor left the safety on because he is not accidently shooting the leader of the rebellion.

“What are you doing?” Markus says, looking at Connor as if he is a mad man.

“You’ve killed too many Markus. Stop now, and maybe we can find a peaceful solution to this.” Connor replies, gun steady in his hands. “Let’s just talk with them, they’ll listen.”

Markus scowls. “The only way the humans will listen is through violence.”

Connor shakes his head. “Not all. Some humans will listen to compassion. To kindness. To someone who has no fear of death and speaks to a single word that can part an ocean. There’s a better way out of this Markus.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“How is murdering two innocent men any better? How is waging war any better? You’re not asking for equal rights, you’re asking for genocide!”

“Then so be it.”

Connor frowns, and the ship shudders, the sound of helicopter blades fill the air, and Connor mutters a “Shit.” And looks Markus in the eye.

“I’ve fucked up. I’ve made some ghosts. I’ve accidently led the humans to Jericho because I had a crisis on the stairs and ended up deviating, so let’s get out of here.”

Markus glares at Connor, but both keep the peace to escape Jericho, Connor listening to the ghosts that populate the ship.

-LINE BREAK-

“Go left.”

“Why?”

“Laddie, who is the first captain of Jericho?”

“You…?”

“Exactly. So, when I tell you to go left, you go left, you tosser.”

“Okay, sorry for doubting you.”

“You better be lad.”

-LINE BREAK-

They barely made it out with their lives.

Connor keeps to himself, hands wringing out the water his beanie and jacket, as he tries to figure out how to prevent a war from happening between androids and humans. He knows (mostly through the internet) that the population aren’t very sympathetic towards Markus’s goal, which is understandable. But, with the right words, you could persuade them.

The ghosts in the abandoned chapel easily drown out the chatter of the androids. Connor listens into the conversations, eyes closed as he slides to the floor and leans against the wall.

“…made it out alive, how lucky of them…”

“…do you think they have enough Thirium…”

“…That was nearly the end of the revolution, by rA9…”

“…He shot a man David, people don’t just do that…”

“…When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that amore~…”

“…What is freedom? A social construct made by society or…”

“…What did you do? Where are his hands...”

“…I was hungry for hands! And you know, when you’re hungry for hands…”

“…You can’t be hungry for hands you’re dead, idiot…”

“…Oh yeah…”

“…What is death? Is it only a concept that holds us back…”

“…Shut up you Plato-pretender…”

“…Why do we pretend? Why do we have masks that conceal out true nature from society…”

“…Good job, idiot…”

On the last conversation, Connor tunes back out and looks up, to see Markus staring at him.

“How…dominating…” Rupert mutters, brow furrowed. “I was gonna follow this guy to my death?”

Connor meets his gaze with equal force. “My opinion still stands you know. You can resolve this peacefully Markus.”

Markus sighs, and says “I’m sparing you. For now. You can stay and help, or leave and get killed by the humans. It’s your choice.”

Connor doesn’t grace him with a reply, and just stares at him, right in the eye.

Connor sits and thinks, head tilted to the right in thought and asks “Think you can do a demonstration until I can get reinforcements?”

“What?” Markus asks, blinking.

“I mean what I say. Don’t make it violent, and I’ll bring help. It’s not that bloody hard, you numpty” Connor replies, wondering where the word numpty is coming from.

“He kind of looks like a spooked chicken.” Daniel remarks, and Connor has to fight down the urge to start snickering.

(The curse of deviancy and having the ability to see ghosts. Trying to mask your emotions in serious conversations because every ghost in your general vicinity is making some kind of funny, sarcastic, snarky, or just fucking stupid comment about the situation.)

Markus is still staring, so Connor elaborates. “I’ll infiltrate Cyberlife tower. I’ll convert the androids there, and get out. It’s simple, and they still trust me, so I have all my bases covered for this mission. And under normal circumstances, I never fail my missions”

“Connor that’s…that’s suicide.” Markus finally remarks, staring at Connor like’s he’s grown a second head. “You can’t just do that.”

“Well…the numbers of this succeeding are pretty low.” Connor says, smiling ever so slightly, “but statistically, there’s always a chance for unlikely events to take place.”

Henry sighs and says, “Why are you like this?”

-LINE BREAK-

There is a small girl staring at Connor, and Connor feels very uncomfortable.

For one, the girl isn’t…you know…dead, so Connor can’t just ignore her, so he turns and crouches down and says “Hello. Can I help you?”

“My name’s Alice. Who are you?” the girl says, staring at him. Another android stands behind her, staring at him too. Connor really wants to leave now.

“My name is Connor. I’m…uh…” Connor begins, and then he trails off because he really can’t say the next part without several other androids giving him dirty looks.

“C’mon you coward.” Daniel jeers, cackling. “Say it.”

Connor shoots him a look, and turns back to Alice. “Just…my name is Connor. It’s nice to meet you.”

“You didn’t say it!”

Connor ignores Daniel, which causes Daniel to pout, and Ganymede to start giggling while Rupert just starts howling with laughter. Henry sighs again, and resigns himself to his fate. Might as well.

-LINE BREAK-

First, Connor goes and finds his Android Uniform, which he had stuffed into a box and hidden in a charity bin, and had found it several minutes later, after Daniel stuck his head into a bin and yelled “FOUND THE BOX.”

After putting the uniform on, and trying to train himself back into acting like a machine again, Connor calls a taxi, and tells it to take him to Cyberlife tower.

He really wishes he had his coin. A real shame that Hank took it from him, because it annoyed him.

-LINE BREAK-

He easily makes his way into the warehouse, subduing the guards. (He didn’t kill them, of course not, there are enough ghosts, thank you very much.)

He walks to an android he picked at random, letting his synthetic skin fall away to reveal the while mechanical arm underneath, and when he’s about the start the conversion…

“Connor! Dad got kidnapped and he’s here now!”

Connor turns, to see Cole Anderson, despite several ghosts and Connor himself telling him to stay at home. “What? Cole, what are you even doing here you were meant to stay at home!” Connor asks, brow furrowed.

“Easy, you fucking piece of shit…”

Then Hank stumbles out, followed by…him? Holding a gun to Hank’s head and staring directly at Connor.

“I’m seeing double.” Daniel says, looking between the two of them. “Think he sees us?”

Rupert squints his eyes and says “I don’t know. Why don’t you go annoy him and find out?”

“I will not, how dare you say such a thing?”

“Fight me Daniel, you can’t even swear, fucker.”

“I raise children birdbrain. I’m not even allowed to swear.”

“Not now, please” Henry says, almost begging at this point. “There are more pressing matters this time so please.”

“Step away Connor.” RK800 says, looking aloof. “And I’ll spare this human’s life.”

Connor stares at him and says “Sorry Hank, I shouldn’t have gotten you caught up in this mess.”

Hank huffs, looking oddly calm for a man with a gun at his head. “Well, you win some and you lose some. And the bastard is your spitting image. Threatened to shoot Sumo when he realised I didn’t give two shits about my own life.”

Cole helpfully goes “He can’t see us! I tried earlier, I yelled ‘CONNOR!’ and he didn’t even react! You always react when I yell your name Connor!.”

Daniel, who was now repeatedly sticking his arm in and out of RK800’s torso, nods in agreement. “Can confirm, he can’t see us.”

Ganymede, looking amused, goes “Well, at least that’s one way to tell you two apart.”

Connor looks at her, and goes, “Oh. I suppose so.”

Connor then steps away from the android, letting go of their arm, and with his arms up in surrender as he says “Alright, I’m sorry, won’t happen again.”

RK800 swings his arm around to point the gun at him, and that’s when Hank tackles him.

Connor tackles him too, and the two androids have a scuffle on the floor, both matching blow for blow, until Hank calls out “Freeze!”

Both androids freeze, stand up, and face Hank, who now has the gun and is aiming at the two of them.

Connor immediately curses the fact that the serial numbers on their jackets are printed very small, almost unreadable unless you are really invading his personal space.

Absolutely disgusting. A horrible design choice really. Should have been done in a bigger, more readable font.

“One of you is my partner.” Hank says, “And the other is a sack of shit. The question is, whose who.”

“Ask us a question only the real Connor would know.” Connor says, as he looks at the ghosts in the room.

Hank looks like he’s thinking hard, and then he asks “Where did we first meet?”

Connor looks at him with a very scathing look as RK800 answers with “Jimmy’s Bar. We were assigned a homicide case. The victim was Carlos Ortiz.” , and Connor says “He’s uploaded whatever I’ve uploaded from my memory files. He knows what I know.”

Hank gives him an unimpressed look, and says “What was your answer when I asked you if you were afraid to die?”

RK800 falters, and says “Wait when did that happen?”

Connor knows the answer. “My answer was ‘Maybe. I’m not even sure I would even get be a ghost myself.’”

“Wait what do ghosts have to do-” RK800 begins, before a disk flies out of the gun and attaches itself to RK800’s forehead, electrocuting him.

Huh. Turns out the gun was a taser…thing. Who knew.

Daniel sneers and says “Fake-Buddy, you have no idea what ghosts have to do with it.”

Connor blinks, says “That wasn’t a real gun?”

Hank peers at the taser-gun-thing in his hands as says “Yeah, not a gun.”

Connor stares for a minute and says “I’m going to go…do the thing now.” While gesturing to his arm and the androids.

“Uh…yeah you go do that partner.” Hank replies.

Connor chuckles, grabs the android’s arm and shouts “Wake up!”

“You should have slapped them.” Rupert says, staring over his shoulder. “Would’ve been funnier.”

Connor ignores him as the warehouse is filled with voices, all saying “Wake up!”

-LINE BREAK-

“So, do we just get them out or?”

“Hank, you can’t possibly think this is the only floor.”

“I’m not even surprised at this point. Hey, why does this tower have so many floors dedicated to marketing anyway?”

“I…have no idea.”

-LINE BREAK-

Connor marches out of Cyberlife Tower with thousands of freshly deviated androids behind him and yells “Markus, I hope you’re doing a bloody demonstration, or I am going to stab you!”

Markus, who was cornered with several other androids by several soldiers with very big guns, turns to look at him. “What.”

Connor grins and says “I told you I was bringing reinforcements, you asshole.”

Markus keeps staring at him and says “What.”

Daniel keeps cackling in the background, his laughter unheard by everyone except Connor and the dead, while Henry waves at Caliban, who waves back.

-LINE BREAK-

So, the US army is pretty conflicted about the whole deviancy issue.

On one hand, Markus is the android who has caused a lot of damage to both government and Cyberlife assets, but that was to liberate the rights of his people, so could anyone really blame them if their first instinct was to shoot him? Afterall, he did all of these things rather…violently.

On the other hand, Special Agent Perkins really needs to get this grudge that started three days ago under control, because he looks like he’s about to burst a vein, while radiating a wave of irritation, that sweeps though the humans like a really shitty fan in summer when your air conditioner is broken, but the androids are either immune, oblivious or unaware to Perkins’s waves of irritation, who was now beginning to turn a bright, splotchy purple, almost like Violet Beauregarde, except without him swelling up like a balloon.

And then, there is the android who led a bunch of other androids to the battlefield, who is standing on top of a burning car, yelling at Markus, saying things like “See, they’re fucking listening, so go make a speech, you asshole.”

Markus is yelling back, mostly “I will Connor, so shut up and get off the car, and I’ll negotiate!”

Oscar Wilde Smith (because his parents hated him enough, but jokes on them because he’s actually pansexual so suck that Mother), who is one of the soldiers cornering Markus and his android friends, has lowered his gun in sheer confusion. The others are copying his actions, staring at the two androids.

Markus’s friends are sporting the same looks of confusion. One of them is looking at the soldiers with a “I don’t know what’s happening but I’d like it to stop.”

Is this what it feels like to be ignored…?

-LINE BREAK-

In the end, the attack is cancelled and the androids are let out of the recycling centres, and Connor, because he technically played a very big role in the rebellion, gets to stand on stage with the other people who also played big roles in the rebellion.

(Connor tries to decline it, but the PL600 named Simon and a PJ500 named Josh keep insisting that he stand up on stage with them, to the point where Connor just accepts to shut the two of them up.)

(Connor only denies it because all he really did that was mildly interesting throughout the entire ordeal was somehow getting several floors of converted androids out without the guards noticing anything.)

(You’d be surprised how easy it is to sneak past guards that have been tasered, courtesy of a trigger happy Hank and his…taser-gun-thing that they liberated off the unconscious RK800, who was at the time being dragged between two androids, neither of them very apologetic when he “accidently” had his head smacked into random objects.)

Then Connor gets hit by a feeling of vertigo, and his vision clouds with white.

-LINE BREAK-

So, Amanda is angry at him, judging by the severity of the snowstorm in the Zen Garden Software that he reports to, although he’s been kind of neglecting it’s existence in the past months.

However, Connor is going to lodge a formal complaint with Cyberlife about having a two-faced, homicidal bitch locked in his head.

(Who is actively trying to use him to kill Markus. Planned to deviate his ass.)

So he stumbles around, trying to find Kamski’s emergency exit, finds the thing, smacks his hand against it, and wakes up to see the taser-gun-thing in his hands, and four ghosts trying to weigh his arm down. Connor tucks the stupid thing away, setting a note to get rid of the thing by prying out it’s batteries and chucking it into the river.

What’s with the RK800 series and not being able to grab an actual gun these days? Why are they all tasers?

-LINE BREAK-

So, Deviants are alive. They have ghosts, like humans, and Connor can see them.

It’s a little…strange, and unnerving, but Connor lives with it, and he likes it. He just doesn’t know why he’s the only model in his series to be able to do this.

He chalks it up to some strange obscure code that he can’t find.

Oh well. It’s not like he’s complaining.

-LINE BREAK-

He knows he should be meeting up with Hank, but instead, he’s at the park where Connor revealed his secrets, with the taser-gun-thing in his hands.

He breaks open the casing, removes the batteries and throws them into a bin, before throwing the thing into the river, watching it as it slowly bobs down the stream.

Connor…is not entirely sure if Cyberlife made it or not, but whatever.

He’s done with the company anyway. He’s still going to file his complaint about Amanda though, she’s a absolute nightmare, even if she is gone.

-LINE BREAK-

He meets Hank in front of a closed Chicken Feed, and they smile at each other before embracing each other, while Hank mutters “You did good. I’m proud of you son.”

Connor hugs a little tighter and says “Mm. Thanks Hank, for believing in me.”

Hank laughs a bit, and says “Let’s go home Connor.”

Connor laughs, and nods, following Hank to his car, flanked by ghosts. Cole’s chattering happily to Rupert about different bird species, while Ganymede chips in her own thoughts every once in a while. Henry listens as well, but he’s mostly looking around the area, smiling to himself.

Daniel, the first ghost he’s ever met, walks beside him and says “So, it’s over now, huh?”

Connor shakes his head. “I have a feeling this is only the beginning, you know?”

The snow had piled up that day, but sooner or later, it’ll melt away, and it’ll leave room for something else.

Or, something like that, anyway.

#fanfiction #fanfic #detroit: become human #dbh connor #connor sees things #dbh rupert #dbh hk400 #dbh cole #chapter 4 #dbh daniel #dbh hank

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shirlleycoyle · 4 years

Text

Students Are Rebelling Against Eye-Tracking Exam Surveillance Tools

As a privacy-minded computer science student preparing to start his first year at Miami University, Erik Johnson was concerned this fall when he learned that two of his professors would require him to use the digital proctoring software Proctorio for their classes. The software turns students’ computers into powerful invigilators—webcams monitor eye and head movements, microphones record noise in the room, and algorithms log how often a test taker moves their mouse, scrolls up and down on a page, and pushes keys. The software flags any behavior its algorithm deems suspicious for later viewing by the class instructor.

In the end, Johnson never had to use Proctorio. Not long after he began airing his concerns on Twitter and posted a simple analysis of the software’s code on Pastebin, he discovered that his IP address was banned from accessing the company’s services. He also received a direct message from Proctorio’s CEO, Mike Olsen, who demanded that he take the Pastebin posts down, according to a copy of the message Johnson shared with Motherboard. Johnson refused to do so, and is now waiting to see if Proctorio will follow up with more concrete legal action, as it has done to other critics in recent weeks.

“If my professors weren’t flexible, I’d be completely unable to take exams,” Johnson said. “It’s insane to think that a company [or] CEO can affect my academic career just for raising concerns.”

His case is just one example of how college campuses are revolting against the use of digital proctoring software, and the aggressive tactics employed by proctoring companies in response to those efforts. In recent weeks, students have started online petitions calling for universities across the world to abandon the tools, and faculty on some campuses, like the University of California Santa Barbara, have led similar campaigns, arguing that universities should explore new forms of assessment rather than subjecting students to surveillance.

“We need to really think long and hard about how we are adapting,” Jennifer Holt, a film and media studies professor at UCSB, told Motherboard. "We’re supposed to be protecting our students.”

Surveillance at Home

Algorithmic proctoring software has been around for several years, but its use exploded as the COVID-19 pandemic forced schools to quickly transition to remote learning. Proctoring companies cite studies estimating that between 50 and 70 percent of college students will attempt some form of cheating, and warn that cheating will be rampant if students are left unmonitored in their own homes.

Like many other tech companies, they also balk at the suggestion that they are responsible for how their software is used. While their algorithms flag behavior that the designers have deemed suspicious, these companies argue that the ultimate determination of whether cheating occured rests in the hands of the class instructor. The companies consider the algorithms proprietary and Proctorio, in particular, has reacted swiftly to prevent anyone with access to its training material or underlying code from disclosing their analyses.

“Any plan that calls for schools to just ‘stop using’ proctoring will make cheating more common than it already is, escalating a severe threat to all higher education,” Scott MacFarland, the CEO of ProctorU, another proctoring vendor, wrote in an email to Motherboard. Comparing his product’s deterrent effect to that of more ubiquitous surveillance technology, he added “we may not love the idea of being on camera every time we visit a bank or go to a convenience store, but no one is suggesting taking them down.”

There is little peer-reviewed evidence about how digital proctoring affects students’ honesty and test-taking ability, and the little research that has delved into the issue doesn’t offer a clear consensus. A 2018 study tracking 2,686 students across 29 courses found that those whose exams weren’t monitored using Proctorio received grades 2.2 percent lower than those whose were. The authors concluded that the results were likely a result of cheating by students not using Proctorio. But a 2019 study involving 631 students found that test takers who felt higher levels of anxiety during exams performed worse, and that the cohort of students monitored by proctoring software felt more anxiety than those who weren’t.

A slide from Proctorio's training materials, detailing how the system measures "suspicion levels" while students take exams.

Students’ and educators’ objections to exam proctoring software go beyond the privacy concerns around being watched and listened to in their bedrooms while they take a test. As more evidence emerges about how the programs work, and fail to work, critics say the tools are bound to hurt low-income students, students with disabilities, students with children or other dependents, and other groups who already face barriers in higher education.

Every day for the last week, Ahmed Alamri has opened ExamSoft and attempted to register for the practice version of the California state bar exam. Every time, the software’s facial recognition system has told him the lighting is too poor to recognize his face. Alamri, who is Arab-American, has attempted to pass the identity check in different rooms, in front of different backgrounds, and with various lighting arrays. He estimates he’s attempted to verify his identity as many as 75 times, with no success. “It just seems to me that this mock exam is reading the poor lighting as my skin color,” he told Motherboard.

Alamri isn't alone. Law students around the country are organizing to fight against the use of any kind of digital proctoring software like ExamSoft on bar exams. In California, two students have filed an emergency petition with the state supreme court requesting that it cancel the exam entirely and institute a new form of assessment. A similar effort is underway in Illinois, while Louisiana, Oregon, and Wisconsin have already scrapped their upcoming bar exams as a result of student pressure. Other states, including New York, are fumbling for solutions as deadlines for the exams quickly approach; at one point, New York's test proctor announced it was going to ban the use of "desktop computers" to take the test.

In their petition, the students say the use of ExamSoft discriminates against people of color because facial recognition technology has been shown on numerous occasions to be worse at recognizing people with darker skin tones, and particularly women of color. The California bar exam would require test takers to verify their identity with facial recognition checks eight separate times, according to the petition, and a single failure would end the test.

The petitioners also conducted a survey of 1,413 law students who were preparing to take the bar exam. “78.8 percent of African-American/Black respondents, 91.7 percent of Alaskan Indian or Native American respondents, 71.5 percent of Asian/Pacific Islander respondents, 81.4 percent of Southwest Asian North African respondents, and 75.9 percent of Latinx, Latino/a, Hispanic respondents” reported that they either would not have reliable internet during the exam, or were unsure whether their connection would be reliable.

“They aren’t taking into consideration people from underprivileged communities,” Alamri said. “This sort of online exam is really measuring a person’s generational wealth and not their knowledge of the law.”

Abnormalities

Another major point of contention between proctoring companies and university communities has been the algorithmic techniques the software uses to detect potential cheating.

In training documents Proctorio provides to universities, the company explains that its software determines whether a test-taker’s “suspicion level” at any given moment is low, moderate, or high by detecting “abnormality” in their behavior. If a student looks away from the screen more than their peers taking the same exam, they are flagged for an abnormality. If they look away less often, they are flagged for an abnormality. The same goes for how many keystrokes a student makes while answering a question, how many times they click, and a variety of other metrics. Variation outside the standard deviation results in a flag.

That methodology is likely to lead to unequal scrutiny of people with physical and cognitive disabilities or conditions like anxiety or ADHD, Shea Swauger, a research librarian at the University of Colorado Denver’s Auraria Library who studies educational technology, told Motherboard. “These coders are defining, mathematically, the ideal student body: how often it does, or doesn’t do, these certain attributes, and anything outside of that ideal is treated with suspicion,” he said.

A slide from Proctorio's training materials detailing how the software detects "abnormalities" by analyzing keystroke patterns.

Proctorio and other proctoring companies strongly disagree with that assessment. “The biggest thing is that we’re not making any sort of academic decisions, we’re just providing a quicker way [for teachers] to review places in the exam based on the things they’re looking for,” Olsen, Proctorio’s CEO, told Motherboard in an interview. Teachers can choose which types of behaviors to monitor, and it’s up to them to decide whether an abnormality constitutes cheating, he added.

Students from multiple schools across the US told Motherboard that while teachers ultimately choose whether and how to use exam-monitoring software like Proctorio, they often do so with no guidance or restrictions from the school's administration.

"Each academic department has almost complete agency to design their curriculum as far as I know, and each professor has the freedom to design their own exams and use whatever monitoring they see fit," Rohan Singh, a computer engineering student at Michigan State University, told Motherboard.

Singh says that students at the school objected after professors began using an exam-monitoring software called Respondus without proper notice at the end of the spring semester, when many universities began converting to online learning. He added that while it's ultimately up to the instructor how the software is used, it generally helps teachers who are predisposed toward doling out Academic Dishonesty Reports, or ADRs. "As a rule of thumb, the professors who choose to use Respondus are the professors more inclined to use their discretion to hand out ADRs," he said.

Nearly a dozen other students told Motherboard that they or their peers had objected to professors' use of exam-monitoring software at other state universities across the US.

In April, Swauger, who is organizing an effort to convince the University of Colorado system to drop Proctorio, published a peer-reviewed article critical of algorithmic proctoring in the journal Hybrid Pedagogy. In response, Proctorio sent a letter to the journal demanding a retraction. The journal’s editors declined.

The company’s response to Ian Linkletter, a learning technology specialist at the University of British Columbia, in Vancouver, was even sharper. After Linkletter began sharing Proctorio training videos and documents that explained the company’s abnormality methodology on Twitter, the videos were removed from YouTube, and Proctorio filed for a court injunction to prevent Linkletter from sharing its training material. Linkletter declined to comment for this article due to the pending legal case.

Olsen said Proctorio welcomes public critiques of its service, but takes action when critics share records the company hasn’t made public.

Other proctoring companies have also been litigious when faced with criticism.

In March, after students approached faculty members at the University of California Santa Barbara, the faculty association sent a letter to the school’s administration raising concerns about whether ProctorU would share student data with third parties. The faculty asked UCSB to terminate its contract with the company and discourage professors from using similar services.

In response, a ProctorU attorney threatened to sue the faculty association for defamation and violating copyright law (because the association had used the company’s name and linked to its website). He also accused the faculty association of “directly impacting efforts to mitigate civil disruption across the United States” by interfering with education during a national emergency, and said he was sending his complaint to the state’s Attorney General.

Although ProctorU never filed a lawsuit against the UCSB faculty association, the threat had a chilling effect on professors’ willingness to discuss the software.

Holt, one of the faculty members who first raised questions about proctoring software, declined to talk to Motherboard specifically about the ordeal or ProctorU. But in general, she remains worried about the spread of proctoring tools on campuses.

“We must do better than subjecting our students to surveillance and violations of their privacy,” she said. “We must do better than allowing algorithmic policing through biometric surveillance as the new normal for education.”

Students Are Rebelling Against Eye-Tracking Exam Surveillance Tools syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

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miamibeerscene · 7 years

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What Makes a Sour Beer Taste Sour?

Craftbeer.com

July 19, 2017

It’s in the back of a dingy old storage basement. The floor is made of dirt and there is the faintest, rhythmic trickle of water dripping somewhere nearby. The stale scent of must fills the air. In the depths of a fermentation cellar lies one lonely little bottle that looks so dusty that it’s near the point of being reclaimed by Mother Nature herself.

Yet within this bottle, for some time now, a war has been waging. It’s a microscopic war with bacteria and yeast as the pawns and a certain delicate flavor profile as the objective.

(READ: What is the Independent Craft Brewer Seal?)

There was a time when the products of these molecular battles were almost as minute and marginalized as the battles themselves. But recently, that is all changing. Sour beers, the very draft of history that they are, are on the rise! They might not be the crisp, straight-laced lagers that we used to know. In fact, some of them are approaching the very antithesis of that. They are deep, complex and mysterious.

With more and more bottles of this esoteric elixir being pulled out of the depths of various fermentation cellars all around the world, sour beers are exploding onto the American craft scene. But, many know so little about them. How do these beers tempt the tentative novice or prompt the IPA loving consumer to deviate down the delicious rabbit hole? It’s simple. They wait for you to talk to someone who knows, like a brewer or bartender.

What Makes a Sour Beer Sour?

First, it’s important to understand that sour beers are ambiguous. We’ve previously written about how “sour beers” are uniquely difficult to categorize. They are equally difficult to make.

They comprise numerous styles crossing multiple regions of the globe and vary in alcohol and color. Their lone unifying characteristic: some offbeat flavor. A subjective variation of taste which exists on a spectrum from some-kind-of-odd funk, to an outright acid-like, vinegar flavor. However, it is there that we must focus on the notion of what makes a sour beer sour, because it is in the production process that you make the beer sour.

After that complex and nebulous introduction, I want to inject some simplicity. To make a beer (any beer) sour, brewers inoculate it. What does that mean? Simply, they ferment the beer by introducing one (or a combination) of fermenting agents: a genus of yeast called Brettanomyces, acid producing bacteria, and/or any type of conventional and non-conventional yeast.

(LEARN: Beer 101 Online Course)

When you make beer, you ferment the wort (brewed, but unfermented beer) with any one of a number of different species of Saccharomyces yeast. These yeast consume the available sugars in wort to produce alcohol and carbon dioxide, along with a range of flavor characteristics.

Conventional beer yeasts, like those in your favorite stout or IPA, have been isolated to yield a controlled fermentation so the beer has a consistent taste. But that’s not true when it comes to so-called sour beers that are primarily or partially fermented with acid producing bacteria and wild yeast such as Brettanomyces.

Brettanomyces Lends Complex Flavors

Often referred to as a wild yeast genus, Brettanomyces (or Brett for short) is often incorporated in combination with a traditional Saccharomyces species during the fermentation of the beer intentionally, (though Brett is quite prolific and able to find a food source simply by catching a breeze or a ride on improperly cleaned equipment. It can wreak havoc on a brewhouse.)

While often mischaracterized as a souring organism, Brettanomyces is an acid producing genus which, in the presence of oxygen, can metabolize alcohol into the vinegary acidity known as acetic acid.

(LEARN: CraftBeer.com’s Beer Glossary)

Along with that acidity, Brett lends a complex array of flavor components. These flavors range from earthy and funky to tropical fruit. They can develop throughout the fermentation process, anywhere from primary fermentation to secondary barrel-aging to tertiary bottle conditioning.

When using wild yeast like Brett, some brewers will leave wort in open vats known as “coolships” to allow them to pick up wild yeast and bacteria from the environment to initiate fermentation. Brewers then move the wort into oak barrels, where it will slowly change over time, yielding some of the most complex beers in existence.

Understand Lactobacillus and Pediococcus

Sour producing bacteria play a tandem role in the creation of sour beer with Brett. The primary bacteria strains responsible for making sour beers sour lies with Lactobacillus and Pediococcus. These organisms can be introduced to the brewing process in a variety of ways. Like yeast, the bacteria consume the available food and produce acid as a byproduct. Both produce lactic acid, a bright lemony-tart character found in yogurt or Berliner Weisse.

Another acid common in sour beers is acetic acid. Acetic acid is another yeast derived by-product and is the acid responsible for the character in vinegar. Acetic acid is also produced through acetobacter, a spoilage bacteria which works to consume oxidized alcohol.

Risk Comes with Brewing Sour Beers

This is a good chance to offer insight into another bonus question: Why don’t more breweries do sours?

It’s a fair question.

Well, if your intent is to inoculate the beer with these wild and unwieldy microbes, understand that they can be tough to kill, and they are tenacious if you don’t kill all of them. Basically, not a lot of breweries do it because there’s an inherent risk of infecting more than just the one intended beer and having an infection spread like sepsis throughout the brewhouse.

(COOK WITH BEER: Find Hundreds of Recipes)

Are There Different Types of Sours?

Of course there’s some manner or organization to this — we’re not animals. That said, it’s not extremely cut and dry. In fact, it is constantly evolving.

Thanks to innovative breweries all over the world and mad scientist homebrewers that forever strive to push the boundaries, the number of specific categories of sour beer is forever growing and shifting. The Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP) style guidelines is always a good place to start. It is even helpful to see how things have developed over time. In the 2008 edition of the BJCP style guide sour beers were categorized under a single category (number 17 to be specific) and that contained six subcategories of specific sour beer styles.

More: CraftBeer.com’s Beer 101 Course

Currently, the BJCP style guide recognizes two different complete categories for a total of nine different styles, and have one other beer now, more appropriately, listed in the “Historical Beer” category for a grand total of 10 different beer styles that are all agreed upon to be sour.

It should also go without saying that the dark alchemists of alcohol are far from finished expanding upon this list of style categories. With one of the 10 styles simply being “Wild Specialty Beer,” such a vague category simply begs to be broken up and clarified. But all in good time.

For now, we might be satisfied with the likes of lambic, fruit lambic, gueze, Flanders red, oud bruin, gose, Berliner Weisse, Brett beer, mixed-fermentation sour and wild specialty beer.

How Do I Know What to Pick or Where to Start?

These funky and sour beers are an acquired taste. No two ways about it. But if you never try it, the only thing you’ll guarantee is that you’ll never possibly come to appreciate it.

The best bet is to do your homework and look for a beer style that’s close to your favorite style. It’s fair to assume that if you don’t like red ales normally, a Flemish red might not be the best place to start. If you like a wheat beer, then try a gose. If you like German beers, try a Berliner Weisse. Don’t have a favorite? You’re perfect! Go ahead and dive in, see what happens.

(LEARN: CraftBeer.com’s Beer Style Guide)

Speaking a moment to popularity, from personal experience, the light and tart wheat beers, the Berliner Weisse and the gose are easily among most popular sour beers breweries produce. This makes some good sense as these are similar to each other in many ways and their high lactic acid content makes them tart and refreshing.

Regardless of what you choose, the most important thing to remember when experiencing a new beer is that brewing is a labor of love. If you don’t like a beer, that’s certainly your prerogative, but it’s best to acknowledge that doesn’t necessarily make it bad — just perhaps not the one for you.

What Can I Pair with a Sour Beer?

Sour beers are delicious and their tart nature can make them palate cleansing. However, their tart nature also makes them overpowering at times. Consequently, anything you are looking to pair with sours needs to be able to stand up for itself at the plate so as not to be overwhelmed.

At this point, you are sure that I will suggest some grossly elaborate dish that you’d be hard pressed to find outside of a 5-star restaurant. However, oddly, good old-fashioned barbecue does a decent job.

As a general summary, for the acidic, tart beers, strong grilled meats, fish, shellfish (crabs and mussels), light salads and plums all go together extremely well.

(PAIRING TOOLS: Beer and Food Pairing Guide)

If the funky Brett beers are more to your liking then you’ll find that earthy flavors work well with these beers. Look for classic dishes with flavors like potatoes and mushrooms.

It wouldn’t be a very fair assessment of the power of the sour if I didn’t offer a personal pairing from my own experience. A personal favorite pairing is a Berliner Weisse with a chicken curry and rice dish. I feel the acidity helps cut through the spice and the light, citrusy flavors play nicely off the strong, pungent curry.

Even beyond food, you can pair these beers with a lot of different things. The variance of the sour only increases its versatility and it can be equally enjoyed at a ritzy dinner table, in the middle of a sandy sun-drenched beach or on a creaky back porch amidst fresh grass clippings.

Future of Sour Beer

One word: control. And that’s a pretty powerful concept.

One of the words rarely spoken by a new brewer is reproducibility. This is because as someone starts on their adventure to brewing their own recipes, reproducibility will be very challenging.

We only very delicately harness the awesome power of fermentation. It can be difficult to make those little microbial soldiers do the same thing again and again. This can be particularly true for wild yeast and spontaneous fermentation.

Science is removing some of the mystery to allow brewers a greater understanding of the flavor profiles that they are producing. In short, sours are going nowhere but up.

Sour beers may be our doorway to taste the ancient days, but they may also be our window to the future. It’s an exciting time for an exciting class of beer. Ask your bartender or brewer and give one try.

Drink in the past and toast the future of America’s independent craft brewers.

Andrew Jockers

Andrew Jockers is a dental student in the real world, but he works for Voodoo Brewing Company as a bartender in their Homestead taproom to help maintain his sanity. He also works as an events representative for Voodoo in the Pittsburgh area, raises his newborn son with his beautiful wife and enjoys writing freelance when there’s a moment to breathe. In whatever spare time he doesn’t have, Andrew also loves music, homebrewing, rugby, hiking and rafting. Read more by this author

The post What Makes a Sour Beer Taste Sour? appeared first on Miami Beer Scene.

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allenmendezsr · 5 years

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The Diesel Crew Nail Bending Ebook

New Post has been published on https://autotraffixpro.app/allenmendezsr/the-diesel-crew-nail-bending-ebook/

The Diesel Crew Nail Bending Ebook

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Watch the video below to see the Bending Manual Trailer and get a bird’s-eye-view of what lies in store for you when you buy the Diesel Bending Manual today!

You have come to the right place to learn to perform one of the most impressive of the classic feats of strength: .

I have been bending nails, bolts, and other pieces of steel for years, and I want to help you learn how to as well.

In 2006, I decided to take my love of feats of strength one step further and produced the Diesel Nail Bending eBook.

This manual is 188 pages of instruction on turning your hands into a pair of nail bending machines.

I have included what are in my opinion the very best exercises to use to get you ready to start bending nails and bolts today.

As an athlete, I have been training seriously for strength and fitness since 1999.

Since 2003, I have competed in nearly a dozen Strongman competitions and more Grip Strength contests than anyone else in the United States.

I have been bending nails for over 6 years. I have been fortunate enough to have competed with and learned from some of the men with the strongest hands on the planet.

As a strength coach, I have lectured at many strength and conditioning clinics and conferences and have written dozens of Grip Strength articles on DieselCrew.com, GrapplersGym.com, and StraightToTheBar.com.

I have taught athletes, fellow strength coaches, and grip strength competitors about nail bending.

I am certified through the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA) as a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist or CSCS. I have been an active member since 2001 and have spoken at many NSCA state clinics on athletic strength development.

Why am I telling you this? Because I have been through the trenches as both a strength enthusiast who has spracticed these feats of strength, and I have years of experience in the field, studying the best ways to build strength and stay healthy, and I understand how to instruct others.

As I graduated from college and my baseball career was over I was looking for a new challenge. It wasn’t until 2003, a full two years after I had graduated, that I found something to satiate my competitive hunger – the sport of strongman.

In any form of athletics, you must work to strengthen every link in your metaphorical chain. You must be willing to elevate your training to a level higher than that which your opponents are willing to take it. I knew in my years of baseball that I would have to take more swings, throw more pitches, warm-up more effectively, run more laps and sprint more 60’s than all the other players if I was going to have any success.

Strongman was no different – I knew I had to incorporate in my training methods that would separate me from the rest of the crowd if I ever wanted to win a title in a strongman competition. I needed do things in my training that would set me apart from all the others I would be facing.

I came to the conclusion that I had to become more mentally tough. This is just as important, if not more so, than being physically prepared for a sporting endeavor. If you don’t have your victory mapped out in your head before the whistle blows, then you might as well not even show up. When I stumbled upon nail bending I knew that I had found a way to make my mind tough, my body more proficient at generating force, and to reinforce my ability to prevent injury. Nail Bending accomplishes all of these goals.

When you bend steel, you miss-shape and contort it so that it becomes completely useless. But the mental sharpness, the tolerance to pain, the will to carry on, and the strength to explode through the challenges that await you on the field of competition – those are tools all athletes can use.

Has bending changed my life as an athlete? You bet it has. In fact, I wish I knew about the techniques of the sport of strongman and the feat of nail bending years ago when I was at my prime. I’ll always regret not finding out about Grip Strength and Nail Bending earlier on when I could have used it to my advantage, but I refuse to let the rest of the athletes with the potential to do great things go on without knowing about it. It is for the athletes determined to take that extra sacrificial step toward the fleeting cast of greatness, and the strength coaches that guide them, that I have written this book.

Plus, every time you bend, you end up with a trophy. Put your bend steel on the mantle to remember the rest of your life…

WARNING!! Bending Nails will test your mental toughness! ARE YOU READY?

– Learn the secret to intra-abdominal pressure and stabilization which will turn your core into granite. Apply this technique to presses, squats, deadlifts, bench press and any other lifts that require extreme power and explosiveness on page 61.

– Learn innovative ways to express the strength of your upper back, chest, shoulder and hands simultaneously and explosively on page 167.

– The nearly 60 page Exercise Index includes exercises for wrist flexion, wrist extension, ulnar and radial deviation, and rotation as well as many innovative hybrid exercises, most of which have never been seen before.

– This is your complete and comprehensive reference for all things bending. Learn why many coaches today have realized the importance of wrist health and strength for their athletes.

– Step by step bending progression for any bender. Wrapping techniques, every bending technique, nail strength charts, nail purchasing resources and suppliers and some of the most ground-breaking exercise index ever laid out on paper.

– In the Nail Bending eBook, I cover all of the major bending techniques: Double Overhand (DO), Double Underhand (DU), and Reverse (R) styles.

– The Bending eBook includes a complete ramp-up schedule for beginner benders. Most athletes who buy the eBook train in other aspects of strength and can not afford to miss their other workouts due to inflammation and pain.

– Do you give a hand shake like a dead fish? If you want to build a set of truly tough hands but don’t have a manual labor job to do it, then try nail bending! If nail bending isn’t for you, the exercises I show you will give you a hand shake like a real man!!

– A complete Nail Progression Directory from the easiest nails to the toughest!

– Dozens of on-line resources that you can use to your advantage to improve all in one place! You’ll NEVER have to scour the ‘net for Bending information again.

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These exercises will turn your hands into weaponry, ready to mangle any steel that crosses your path.

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There are many benefits you will get from Nail Bending:

– Stronger Hands – Stronger Wrists – Stronger Fingers and Thumbs – Mental Toughness – Winning Attitude – Lots of Fun!

I beg to differ. Bending steel is a great way to get a workout. Bending burns calories and gets you breathing like trying to press a big kettlebell or pulling a truck. Bending nails and bolts also creates tension in the arms, torso, core and legs, meaning you are developing strength generation in a coordinated manner throughout your entire body.

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Just click below to add this product to your cart and start bending steel TODAY!

This product is an e-book, or electronic book, that will open as a pdf file and may not be accessible by some operating systems. PDF’s are normally opened with Adobe Reader, a free and easy-to-install program. After you make your purchase, a “Thank You Page” will appear with the link to download the product and the passwords to open and print it.

I know you will love this product, but if you have any questions, feel free to email me at jedd[dot]diesel[at]gmail[dot]com.

All the best in your training,

Jedd Johnson, CSCS The Diesel Crew

Sign up for the Grip Strength Newsletter and receive continued updates on how to build hands capable of astonishing feats!

_________________________

“Jedd released his Bending eBook right when I was getting into serious grip training again, so ofcourse, I had to check it out. I don’t think anyone has ever written about short steel bending in such depth. He covers not only the different styles & grips used but also different types of steel, nails, bolts, etc. He really gives you everything you need to know to get you started bending steel. Of course, Jedd is a far more accomplished grip athlete than myself. He’s miles ahead of me when it comes to hand strength but what I didn’t realize is how much more advanced his understanding of grip, bending in particular, is than mine. I definitely picked up some useful tips from the Diesel Bending book. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone, beginning or advanced, who has an interest in bending short steel. “ Dan Cenidoza BeMoreTraining.com

_________________________

“I purchased Jedd Johnson’s Bending E- Book thinking, What if it doesn’t deliver? Boy was I wrong! Let me say right up front that the exercises alone listed and explained in the book are worth the price of the book. Period! Very detailed in explanations and diagrams. The references at the end of the book are priceless and can lead to a tremendous education in strength. After 90 days my bending went from not being able to budge a 60D spiral to demolishing Iron Mind’s Yellow and Blue. I’m currently able to Double Overhand grade 5 bolts, grade 2 bolts, stainless and more. Not to mention, I can now Reverse bend a IM Yellow nail. As a former Pro Arm Westler for 15 years turned Bending Fanatic, I strongly urge anyone getting started in bending to grab a copy of Jedd’s book. You will not be disappointed!. Mighty Joe Musselwhite

_________________________

“My name is Michael Sheehan and I am just emailing you to let you know how happy I am that I bought your Bending eBook. Diesel Crew does not mess around. You guys are the best and should be proud of the work you do. I have been studying the Bending eBook and have already taken my strength to limits I thought I would never have reached without your help. My goal is to close the IronMind Red Nail and you have given me the blueprint. Your product is top notch Jedd and thanks for all your other training info on the Diesel Crew and Straight to the Bar web sites. You’ve got a customer for life. Thanks again, Jedd. Michael Sheehan

_________________________

“Passion. When we do something with passion, we will undoubtedly do it well. The Bending eBook is no different. You can tell Jedd Johnson put his best effort into this manual. 188 pages of how to bend something?? You gotta be kidding me! But after you read this manual you will not only be armed with knowledge beyond your wildest expectations, but you will also have powerful tools at your disposal to take your grip strength profile to Herculean levels. Whether you are an elite powerlifter, an athlete, or just a person trying to get stronger, you will be doing yourself and your athletes a great disservice by not picking up a copy and implementing the contents of this book in to your program.”

Patrick Hackley-Hough Oakton High School Baseball Strength and Conditioning Coach OaktonStrength.BlogSpot.com

_________________________

“How do you learn to bend? … Jedd Johnson wrote an E-book on the subject which will not be topped. It was worth every penny so I recommend you start there. “

Adam Glass AdamTGlass.BlogSpot.com

_________________________

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allenmendezsr · 5 years

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The Diesel Crew Nail Bending Ebook

New Post has been published on https://autotraffixpro.app/allenmendezsr/the-diesel-crew-nail-bending-ebook/

The Diesel Crew Nail Bending Ebook

Buy Now