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trendingreportz · 2 months

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Content Delivery Network Market - Forecast(2024 - 2030)

Content Delivery Network Market Overview

Content Delivery Network market is expected to reach $29.2 billion by 2026 at a CAGR of 15.2% during the forecast period 2021-2026. The rising recognition of wealthy media content and the growing demand for online gaming are enhancing the growth of the content delivery network market. Moreover, the rapid transition of media organizations towards digital distribution model and the rising use of internet services are driving the content delivery network (CDN) market. The increasing use of mobile devices such as smartphones, laptops, and so on has propelled the need for live video streaming and OTT services from applications such as Amazon Prime, Netflix, and so on. In conjunction with this, in recent times the COVID-19 lockdown is also highly enhancing several applications growth such as media and entertainment, online gaming and education are further driving the growth of the CDN market during the forecast period 2021-2026.

Report Coverage

The report: “Content Delivery Network Market – Forecast (2021-2026)”, by IndustryARC covers an in-depth analysis of the following segments of the Content Delivery Network market.

By Type: Standard/Non-Video CDN, Video CDN. By Solutions: Web Performance Optimization, Media Delivery, Cloud Security, DRM and Transcoding, Transparent Caching, Monitoring and Analytics, Data Security and Cloud Storage, Others. By Services: Cloud Storage, Analytics & Monitoring, Application Programming Interfaces, CDN Design, Support & Maintenance, Others. By Organization Size: Small and Medium Business, Large Enterprise. By Deployment Type: Cloud, On Premises. By Industry Vertical: Advertising, Media & Entertainment, Online Gaming, E-Commerce, Education, Government, Healthcare, Others. By Geography: North America (U.S, Canada, Mexico), Europe (Germany, France, UK, Italy, Spain, Russia, Netherlands and Others) APAC (China, Japan India, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Others), South America (Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Others), RoW (Middle East and Africa).

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Key Takeaways

North America dominated the market by a market share of more than 37% in 2020, growing dominance of popular social media and OTT platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, encent Video, iQiyi, and Youku and many others has been rising in this region.

Cloud security solutions is growing at a highest CAGR of 18.2% in the forecast period. As this solutions help in protecting data from thefts and loss, along with reducing attacks that can hamper network performance.

Content Delivery Network in Media & Services segment is growing at a CAGR of 14.2% in the forecast period. Owing to Increase in live streamed content, rising adoption of cloud-based video streaming solutions, and upsurge in demand for online videos in developing economies are set to drive the growth of the Media and Entertainment market.

Content Delivery Network top 10 companies include iScaler Ltd., ChinacacheÂ, Akamai Technologies Inc., Wangsu Science & Technology Co Ltd, Amazon Web Services Inc., CenturyLink Technology Singapore Pte. Ltd., MaxCDN, Limelight Networks Inc., Fastly Inc., Alphabet Inc. (Google Inc.),Hibernia Networks, Verizon Communication Inc., CDNetworks Co Ltd, Tata Communications Ltd., Internap Japan Co. Ltd., Cloud flare Inc. among others.

Content Delivery Network Market Segment Analysis -By Solution

Cloud security solutions is growing at a highest CAGR of 18.2% in the forecast period. These solutions help in protecting data from thefts and loss, along with reducing attacks that can hamper network performance. Similarly, with rising online threats, users are demanding a secured online experience as more of personal data as well as business related information have moved online. In addition, Cloud security solution provides a more secured network by absorbing less sophisticated attacks as well simplifying the bandwidth. This also helps in blocking threats as well as limiting abusive bots and crawlers, thus decreasing the hack and spam attacks. Moreover, with the help of cloud security, websites and data centers are able to reduce the downtime risks, DDOS attacks thus improving the standards for data security. These solutions also help in transforming enterprise networks towards accelerating applications and lowering costs. In addition, this cloud security helps in protecting the devices from such harmful sites and also protects data files with optimum efficiency. Hence these benefits are analyzed to drive the market in the forecast period 2021-2026.

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Content Delivery Network Market Segment Analysis -By Industry Vertical

Content Delivery Network in Media & Services segment is growing at a CAGR of 14.2% in the forecast period 2021-2026. Media and Entertainment segment is anticipated to reach Increase in live streamed content, rising adoption of cloud-based video streaming solutions, and upsurge in demand for online videos in developing economies are set to drive the growth of the Media and Entertainment market. The voluminous increase in the amount of data generated by media and entertainment firms has created a need for reliable Content Delivery Network (CDN) solutions. The media and entertainment segment is utilizing full capabilities of CDN solutions to offer secure and best quality viewing experience to its users. Content delivery network solutions help in lowering the delay and optimize the overall content delivery process. Hence, viewers get a high-quality viewing experience, and this, in turn, increases the revenue for the media and entertainment enterprises. As the demand for OTT platforms across the globe is rising, several companies are adopting Content delivery network solutions in order to optimize the performance. Adding to this, the outbreak of Coronavirus has significantly driven the market for media and entertainment services such as Television programs, OTT platform programs and so on. Due to this outbreak, Zee5 India, says the platform has witnessed an 80% increase in subscriptions and over 50% growth in time spent recently. Similarly, services like Amazon Prime and Netflix have seen an 82.63% increase in time spent due to outbreak of these viruses. With the widespread of this virus, Media and Entertainment companies including OTT platforms in the world have been taking several tactical steps to optimize the performance by adopting these services. Similarly, several delivery companies are helping media and entertainment services in providing video and audio content in faster and reliable method. For instance, Content delivery network PicoNets is helping OTT platforms optimise performance during this pandemic situation. Hence these benefits are analysed to drive the market in the forecast period 2021-2026.

Content Delivery Network Market Segment Analysis - By Geography

North America dominated the market by a market share of more than 36% in 2020, growing dominance of popular social media and OTT platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, encent Video, iQiyi, and Youku and many others has been rising in this region. Similarly, Initiatives such as partnerships and collaborations aim to favor content delivery. Akamai China CDN, in collaboration with China Net Center, is designed to simplify the ability to deliver fast, reliable, and safe digital experiences to consumers in Mainland China. In addition, Partnerships with local ISPs, China CDN brings customers closer to digital content in major metropolitan areas as well as in inland regions. The built-in cache optimization maximizes the amount of content offloaded from a server that leads to major improvements in performance. BaishanCloud is a major cloud data services provider in China and around the world. It is one of the fastest growing companies in CDN space, becoming the only service provider based in China to be recognized by Gartner as possessing 'world' network capabilities. Hence these benefits are analysed to drive the market in the forecast period 2021-2026.

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Content Delivery Network Market Drivers

Rising demand for online games

The rise of coronavirus pandemic has resulted in lockdowns in many countries which has caused a spectacular boom to the digital gaming industry, as it records numbers of online server for distraction, entertainment and friendship, and further connecting to the real-world. Moreover, people of all ages are turning towards gaming, and according to an Appannie report, since 17th March, 2020, there has been a high growth in the downloading of mobile games leading to an upsurge in the demand for online gaming. Additionally, the outbreak of covid-19 has made online gaming the most popular option during the quarantine period for people, and has become a popular option for stay at home entertainment. Thus, the ongoing demand for the online gaming has also enhanced the content delivery network market, as companies offering online games rely on CDN to avoid lags in speed and performance. Also, as online gaming continues to become more demanding due to sophisticated graphics and capabilities there will be an increased drive for content delivery network (CDN).

Rising Live Video Streaming

The rising demand for enhanced live video streaming with better picture quality has also enhanced the CDN market. The increasing use of video streaming websites and applications such as Amazon Prime, Netflix and so on has highly fueled the demand for CDN market. As in most countries, people are in quarantine/lockdown, they are significantly relying on live video streaming for entertainment which is leading to the rising demand for video streaming applications. Additionally, video streaming has become one of the most popular and influential mediums for accessing information in today’s digital space. The rising trend of social media is also driving the adoption of video streaming which will further lead to drive the CDN market.

Content Delivery Network Market Challenges

Traffic Barrier while using Mobile Devices

As, people are highly relying on mobile devices for video streaming and online gaming, this increasing use of mobile devices has led to the rise of traffic thus hindering the delivery speed of the content. Additionally, due to the current Covid-19 pandemic majority of the population across the world are relying on mobile devices, which has led to the arise of traffic. Moreover, mobile video traffic is growing with different standards which enables the need for sufficient bandwidth and terminals that can support a broad range of video streaming. In order to manage the traffic and maintain the speed of the content, CDN operators usually face challenges in maintaining the cost barrier for mobile connectivity problem in various countries. Thus, the high cost of CDN and continuous use of mobile devices leading to increase traffic will lead to hamper the growth of the CDN market.

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Content Delivery Network Market Landscape

Technology launches, acquisitions, Partnerships and R&D activities are key strategies adopted by players in the LATAM LMS-Frontline worker training market. In 2020, the market of Content Delivery Network industry outlook has been fragmented by several companies. Content Delivery Network top 10 companies include iScaler Ltd., Chinacache, Akamai Technologies Inc., Wangsu Science & Technology Co Ltd, Amazon Web Services Inc., CenturyLink Technology Singapore Pte. Ltd.,MaxCDN, Limelight Networks Inc.,Fastly Inc.,Alphabet Inc. (Google Inc.),Hibernia Networks, Verizon Communication Inc., CDNetworks Co Ltd, Tata Communications Ltd., Internap Japan Co. Ltd., Cloudflare Inc. among others.

Acquisitions/Technology Launches

In April 2020, Verizon announced definitive agreement to acquire Blue jeans Network, due the growing demand of cloud based video services.

In June 2019, Anevia had announced the launch of a cloud native content delivery network solution to enable easy deployment of CDN by delivering high quality services, even in peak traffic

#Content Delivery Network Market #Content Delivery Network Market Share #Content Delivery Network Market Size #Content Delivery Network Market Forecast #Content Delivery Network Market Report #Content Delivery Network Market Growth

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tasmiyakrish · 3 months

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Revolutionize Your Data Science Workflow: Top Laptop Picks for 2024

In the dynamic world of data science, the right laptop can make all the difference in your productivity, efficiency, and overall success. As we step into 2024, the laptop market has evolved to cater to the unique needs of data professionals, offering a diverse array of high-performance devices designed to accelerate your workflow and empower your data-driven insights. In this comprehensive guide, we'll explore the top laptop picks that can revolutionize your data science journey, ensuring you have the tools to tackle even the most complex challenges with ease.

For individuals aiming to become industry professionals, a reputable Data Science Training in Bangalore, can equip them with the necessary knowledge and abilities to thrive in this dynamic setting.

Powerful Performance for Intensive Tasks 1. Apple MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2023 model) For data scientists seeking a powerhouse device, the latest MacBook Pro delivers unparalleled performance. Equipped with the cutting-edge M2 Max chip, up to 64GB of unified memory, and up to 8TB of lightning-fast SSD storage, this laptop is well-equipped to handle the most data-intensive workloads. The large 16-inch Retina display with True Tone technology provides stunning visual clarity, while the premium aluminum build and impressive battery life ensure your laptop can keep up with your demanding schedule.

2. Dell XPS 17 (2023 model) For data scientists who require a larger canvas for their work, the Dell XPS 17 offers a spacious and versatile solution. Featuring up to a 12th Gen Intel Core i9 processor, up to 64GB of DDR5 RAM, and up to a 2TB SSD, this laptop is a force to be reckoned with, tackling even the most complex data analysis tasks with ease. The expansive 17-inch 4K+ display with a 16:10 aspect ratio offers ample screen real estate for visualizations and coding, while the sleek, modern design and impressive battery life make it a highly portable option.

Reliability and Security for the Data-Driven Professionals 3. Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 4 Data scientists who value reliability, security, and performance will find the Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 4 to be an exceptional choice. This workstation-class laptop boasts up to a 12th Gen Intel Core i9 processor, up to 64GB of DDR5 RAM, and up to a 2TB SSD, ensuring it can handle even the most demanding computational tasks. The 16-inch 4K display with Dolby Vision HDR400 delivers vibrant and accurate color representation, while the robust security features, including a built-in fingerprint reader and webcam shutter, provide the peace of mind needed for sensitive data work.

If you’re looking to truly understand and harness the potential of Data Science, Data Science Online Training is highly suggested. Look for classes that align with your preferred programming language and learning approach.

Visual Accuracy and Color Fidelity 4. ASUS ProArt Studiobook Pro 16 OLED For data scientists who work extensively with visual data and require precise color representation, the ASUS ProArt Studiobook Pro 16 OLED is a standout choice. This laptop boasts a stunning 16-inch 4K OLED display with 100% DCI-P3 color coverage and Pantone Validation, ensuring your data visualizations and projects benefit from exceptional color accuracy. Complementing the display, the laptop is powered by up to a 12th Gen Intel Core i9 processor, up to 64GB of DDR5 RAM, and up to a 4TB SSD, providing the necessary performance to tackle your data science workloads with ease.

Conclusion: In the ever-evolving landscape of data science, the choice of the right laptop can have a profound impact on your productivity, efficiency, and overall success. The laptops highlighted in this guide represent the pinnacle of performance, reliability, and visual accuracy, empowering you to revolutionize your data science workflow and unlock your full potential. Carefully consider your specific needs and preferences to make an informed decision and take your data science endeavors to new heights in 2024.

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nenamatic · 6 months

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AI legal tools are a great way to help law firms run more efficiently, get more done, and save money. But with so many options out there, how do you pick the right one for your practice? We'll take a look at some of the most popular AI legal tools professionals use to improve their law firm operations. Whether you operate alone or as part of a larger law company, you may rely on these Ai legal tools to improve your daily work! Here are 10 best Ai Legal tools! Ai Legal Tools -Benefits and Drawbacks Legal professionals waste a lot of time on administrative chores including filing motions, making phone calls, billing, marketing, and updating papers. It's one of the regions with the most monotonous and time-consuming jobs. A lawyer's time is one of his or her most significant assets, and it is critical that that time be used properly and intelligently. Ai legal tools are assisted by human intelligence and employs machine learning and natural language processing. Artificial intelligence in law, like AI in any other profession, focuses on a variety of aspects. Here are some of the top benefits to consider when selecting your AI legal assistant: Drafting Documents - The advancement of artificial intelligence in writing is well known. Time is consumed in legal domains by repeated tasks such as document drafting. AI tools writes legal documents in minutes, saving time and money while providing essential material that would take hours to investigate. Resources - Automated complicated legal papers, such as standard legislation and regulations, state trial court records, motions, and intellectual property rights claims, should include citations to big reputable collections, libraries, blogs, case studies, and other legal knowledge sources. Carry artificial intelligence in your pocket with a mobile app. AI legal tools may provide its legal services as a mobile application, which Apple and Android devices can download and use the same legal AI capabilities as they would on a laptop or tablet. Customer Service - Contact the developers of this software. Most AI legal tools requires consumers to schedule a demo or conversation with a representative in order to identify the client's needs and how the program may meet those needs. While clients use these AI legal tools, organizations must have people to contact in order to demonstrate accountability and enhance their legal tech solutions. Analytics - View real-time updates on essential legal data analytics. This enhances strategy in legal settings and professions such as law firms, courts, judges, lawyers, and case studies throughout the majority of legal practice disciplines by using data-driven insights. There is no need to wait long periods of time for critical information when employing standard data science methodologies. Legal research can be time-consuming if law firms do not have an expert who specializes in the topic on which they must do legal research. Legal research is required for almost any type of case and is essential for moving the legal process forward most of the time. Lawyers can obtain knowledge in a matter of minutes and be presented with pertinent questions some Ai legal tools. Document Review - Some AI legal tools has document review capabilities, such as a contract review automation system. This eliminates any errors that might go unnoticed by the human eye in papers and strengthens assertions by supplying relevant legal reference. Human Expertise - In order to deliver accurate and believable results, Ai legal tools still requires human participation. AI legal tools that hires legal professionals to enter or refine collected legal data ensures that the outcome is no less than what a human lawyer would have generated. Workflow Integration - Streamline workflow with your legal team or third parties. Streamline work management and cycle management by integrating with the client’s existing technology stack, applications and devices. Streamline workflow by reducing the need for multiple documents and emails.

How to Choose the Right Ai Legal Tool? When considering incorporating an AI legal tools into your practice, it's critical to choose one that works for you and your firm. Here are some things to think about when choosing AI legal tools for a law practice. Examine Security As a lawyer, you deal with highly confidential and sensitive client information. You should make certain that whichever AI legal tools you choose has strict security protocols. Examine both internal and external security resources, and ensure that any supplier you select adheres to industry-leading security networks and data privacy. Determine Your Company's Special Requirements While seeing a range of new and beneficial AI legal tools for lawyers can be exciting, not every firm needs to deploy every tool—and using too many tools at once without a plan is likely not the most effective method. Instead, examine your organization for the most time-consuming and tiresome regions and processes (such as manual contract review or legal research), and then look for suitable AI-powered solutions that can help you supplement those tasks. Consider the User Interface of Ai Legal Tools Consider the user interface and usability. An AI tool can be really inventive, but keep in mind the end user, who is frequently a non-technical person. If the application is too sophisticated or the interface is too difficult for your firm's legal professionals to navigate and use consistently, it may not be the ideal fit. Does It Include Integrations? Integrations are another feature that can make AI products even more valuable for lawyers. Check the Vendor's Reputation and Customer Service. It's a good idea to analyze the vendor in addition to the capabilities of a given AI product. How long have they been in operation? Do they have an unfavorable reputation? Is there any news about security breaches or data leaks? How is their customer service? Your law practice may lose time and stress as a result of an excellent AI product but lacks proper client assistance. Are These Ai Legal Tools Really Benefit for Your Firm? We recommend looking for solutions that have a simple fundamental notion. It's also worth considering how long they've been in company; are they new to AI or have they been around for a while? Doing research, speaking with sales teams, and asking every question and use case possible can help you develop a strong knowledge of what you stand to gain. CSDisco CSDisco is artificial intelligence (AI) legal software that automates legal procedures and produces better legal outcomes for corporations, law firms, colleges, and other organizations. Clients can explore their careers, enter into investor relations, host pro bono cases, and receive press releases and corporate updates through this legal tech company. Clients can also expedite their legal processes from beginning to end, as well as gain access to legal education resources ranging from videos to white papers. Request - Customers can manage all legal requests through a single document system. Hold - A self-service legal hold answer for today's business. Discovering - Cecilia is a chatbot created by Ediscovery AI. Clients can ask her a case-related question, and she will deliver an evidence-based answer with reference to documents in the DISCO Ediscovery database. Review - AI-powered document review that is guaranteed to be completed on time and within budget. Case Maker - Cloud-based collaborative deposition review Professional Services - A large pool of world-class specialists is accessible on-demand to assist customers with all of their case needs. Partner Program - For e-discovery service providers looking to differentiate their solutions with a cutting-edge technology partner. Lawgeex Lawgeex is artificial intelligence-powered legal software that automates legal work, redlining, and contract examination processes in a more timely and effective manner. Best recognized

for its technology for reviewing and redlining legal documents based on predefined customer policies. Its AI technology employs machine learning to provide a secure algorithm for contract and negotiation processing. Save eighty percent of the time spent reading and authorizing contracts, ninety percent of the cost of manual approaches, and close deals three times quicker. Platform - With greater speed and accuracy, Lawgeex evaluates and redlines contracts in accordance with its client's pre-defined policies. Security - Provides effective data protection security, with a variety of strict safeguards in place to keep sensitive information secure. Analytics - Provides data-driven decisions on the legal policies of customers and streamlines the negotiation process. Artificial Intelligence - Best-in-class AI, its AI attained an accuracy of 94% compared to 84 percent precision from lawyers, saving 90 percent of money and 80 percent of time. Integrations - Simple integration with the client's current technology stack. Customer service is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week by live representatives, email/help desk, chat, and phone. Latch Latch is an AI contracting assistant powered by GPT-4, an OpenAI large language model. Data processed using OpenAI's API is not used to improve services. Contract information from first and third parties is not saved and is only utilized to update playbooks. That ensures the confidentiality of the client's data. Latch assists attorneys by providing redline ideas, amending and analyzing whether clauses are industry standard, and more. Customers can use Latch directly from the Microsoft program as a Microsoft Word Add-In. Generate Suggestion - Receive recommendations for updating counterparty language based on the customer's typical position. Accept and create redline suggestions can be toggled. Clauses can be modified automatically, and consumers can insert them straight into the document. Inquire - Learn more about your agreement. Ask everything from specific, needle-in-a-haystack queries to wide, open-ended ones. Checklists -For each case, create concise, plain-language checklists. Examine agreements for compliance to the checklists. Customers can use sources to jump straight to the relevant section of the agreement. Custom features include performance visualization, tracking models, spinning up learning clusters, deploying to production, and tuning the hyperparameters One Law One Law provides one of the most effective AI legal aides for cutting-edge AI communication. It introduces Amelia, an AI-powered virtual assistant with whom users may communicate about legal matters via voice, text, email, and chat. Amelia is the market's most human and complete AI platform. She dynamically navigates business process flows and works in 40 languages. Clients can get a taste of what it's like to interact with Amelia by visiting One Law AI's website. Ask a bunch of different questions, like legal stuff, HR stuff, IT support stuff, case management stuff, and medical providers' new phone numbers. You can also make outbound calls with Case Manager Voice, which sends you an email with the transcript of the call. Plus, you can use the Client Portal to get real-time info from your CRM system, and you can easily access your cases with the Mobile App. And don't forget the Amelia toolset, which can help you with all kinds of stuff, like collecting info about traffic accidents and weather forecasts. DoNotPay DoNotPay is a legal technology firm that houses the first legal bot attorney, one of the most recognized complex AI lawyers on the market. This AI-powered application can create business and legal paperwork for a wide range of issues, including appealing parking citations in any location and registering trademarks. Customers can use DoNotPay to combat corporations, circumvent bureaucracy, locate hidden money, sue anyone, or immediately end their free trials. Take advantage of dozens of legal items to save time and money.

Draft legal documents to create complicated documents like banking and finance info, contract review info, trial court info, lawyer fees, legal citations, etc. Keep your money safe by staying up to date on burner phones, flight compensation hacks, credit card scams, free trials, insurance claims, warranty claims, and more. Find hidden money by reducing property taxes, college fee waivers, scholarships, and gift card cash back. Fight spam by fighting email and text spam and getting robocall compensation. Beat bureaucracy by contacting government, embassies, consulates, getting compensation for crime victims, notarizing documents, enforcing FOIA, and more. Bigle Legal Bigle Legal is an AI-powered contract management life cycle solution. With no-code technology, you can create amazing free of errors documents, employ electronic signatures, and track and manage everything in one place. This reliable platform prioritizes security and privacy. The ideal document automation solution for clients in the legal business, real estate, corporations, law firms, notaries, and other industries. Get access to Bigle Legal's extensive library of legal resources, including case studies, films, Ebooks, webinars, and the Bigle Academy. Contract Lifecycle Management is all about automating the process of creating legal documents. You can create templates, generate forms, classify metadata, review and share to third parties, negotiate contracts, digitally sign, automatically save on a cloud platform, and manage your dashboard. Document automation makes it super easy to create legal documents quickly and easily. Contract Management helps modern legal teams organize their contracts on one platform, so they don't have to spend as much time managing legal documents. Smart Workflows help you assign roles, set tasks, and manage contracts smartly. Contract Negotiation lets you negotiate contracts remotely without having to leave the platform, and you can create endless email chains and multiple versions of your contract files. Artificial Intelligence helps streamline the contract management process with natural language processing, and gives you the tools you need. Integration helps Bigle Legal integrate with over 10 apps, and clients can add their preferred app. Amto Ai Amto AI is the the globe's initial AI legal Assistant for drafting, driven by the same cutting-edge NLP technology that powers ChatGPT and augmented by human-reinforced learning on public and proprietary legal content. Amto can draft legal documents like contracts, letters, briefs, emails, and blogs up to 5x faster and better than humans. In addition, individualized reminders and greetings, adjustable updates, tailored collections of relevant legal news or updates, summaries of various client interactions, and replies to clients' legal questions are generated. Make your legal documents better! Create new clauses, review and modify them, summarize them, fix missing clauses, and handle negotiations. Share recommendations based on the conventions and styles clients use in the draft agreement. Focus on high-impact issues and spend less time on boring and repetitive tasks. Draft contracts 5x faster with suggestions for a single clause or section, boosting writing productivity by 5x. Avoid risky language by drafting clearer, more secure language that all parties can understand. Revise contracts within minutes with intelligently identifying revisions that could affect other clauses. Quickly get alternative versions of clauses as per the client's instructions. Integrates directly into your clients' favorite apps like MS Word and Outlook. Law Support Law Support was a pioneer in developing AI lawyer assistants for use on mobile devices. Clients can use the Law App on their cellphones to get convenient legal help. There are no servers, no remote desktops, and no software to install. This cloud-based one-app-one approach also includes a web browsing application that includes conversion and onboarding.

It has collaborations with firms including CodeHive, Legal Payroll, Microsoft Azure, and Fox Data. The latest technologies and efficient streamlined process approaches are the future proof of law practice. Document Management is a comprehensive suite of services designed to facilitate the creation, storage, and retrieval of legal documents. Trust Accounting is a fast-track system for legal trust accounting, allowing for the organization and secure management of finances. General Accounts provide a fast and efficient way to manage other legal documents, such as automated legal transactions, cash, and accrual reports, import of bank statements, BAS assistance, and STP compliant legal payroll. Law Firm Billing Software offers a range of value-based billing solutions, such as per unit, time, or per item. This software allows clients to layout legal bills to meet their individual needs. Legal Templates in the Law App provide access to pre-made templates and document automation. Finally, the Legal Matter Management Platform is a superior, built-in, matter-specific system for managing legal matters. Legaly Legaly is a legal technology service offered by 6sense. Legaly enables clients to efficiently manage their legal documents and streamline workflow to other network users. Clients can choose lawyers from in-house legal teams or add seats for their present lawyers to join the platform. Collaborate on cases with ease and have all of the necessary communication tools, document versions, and billing stored in one place. Organizations can automate the production of legal documents by utilizing Artificial Intelligence to analyze legal data, suggest useful revisions and modifications, summarize paragraphs, and detect errors. This technology can also save time by eliminating the need to manually review multiple pages of documents, thus eliminating the risk of accuracy issues. Furthermore, it can be used to sort and categorize large amounts of data, ensuring that no errors or potentially hazardous language and information are left behind. Finally, this technology can be used to manage legal documents, such as creating, reviewing, revising, storing, and distributing them. This integration of workflow allows for easy collaboration with client's legal teams, eliminating the need to create email chains or multiple file copies. Ansarada Ansarada, a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform, is the most user-friendly virtual data room platform in the world. With Ansarada, all of your processes are centralized and compliant. This platform is widely used by organizations, consultants, and governments to securely manage essential information, workflows, and collaboration in complex transactions, risks, compliance, transactions, board management, procurement, and more. Ansarada provides the most secure data room in the world, with more than 110 controls. Users can track changes and limit access to documents outside of the data room. Get the best of both worlds with Virtual Data Room - it's mobile-friendly, has all the security features you need, and is flexible. Plus, it's AI-powered, so you can get the most out of your deals. Security and Compliance Program - you can take control of your client's info and share it securely from a central, secure file repository. Conclusion As the field of law expands, a growing amount of scenarios, court cases, regulations, transactions, and other legal works are introduced every day. Ai legal tools are available to help simplify these tasks and spare your law firm, business legal section, and legal experts a lot of time on the easy ones. We hope that our selection of AI legal tools will assist you in making the most of your knowledge of law. Read my other article- Ai In Law Firms-5 Facts You Should Know

#ARTIFICIALINTELLIGENCE #Blog #BESTAILEGALTOOLS

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govindhtech · 7 months

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Laptops get LLMs: NVIDIA and HP CEOs admire AI PCs

LLMs with NVIDIA Jensen Huang and Enrique Lores spoke about how the newest mobile workstations can speed up and customize generative AI in a fireside discussion. In a fireside talk today, the CEOs of NVIDIA and HP announced new laptops that can create, test, and execute big language models, indicating that 2024 will be the year generative AI goes personal.

At HP Amplify, an event in Las Vegas attended by over 1,500 resellers and distributors, NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang said, “This is a renaissance of the personal computer.” “These new workstations are going to transform the job of artists, designers, and data scientists.”

Prior to the release of what his business advertised as “the industry’s largest portfolio of AI PCs and workstations,” HP’s Enrique Lores said that artificial intelligence (AI) was the greatest development to hit the PC in decades.

Increased Security and Speed

Lores said in a keynote address at the event that the new systems would provide enhanced speed and security while lowering expenses and energy as compared to operating their AI work on the cloud.

A variety of mobile AI workstations powered by NVIDIA RTX Ada Generation GPUs are available with the latest HP Z Books.

When paired with an NVIDIA RTX 500 Ada Generation Laptop GPU, entry-level computers let users to execute generative AI tools and applications on the move.

The RTX 5000 is packed in high-end versions to provide up to 682 TOPS, allowing them to develop and operate local LLMs. They do this by connecting to their information using retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) to produce results that are private and individualized.

Availability of Accelerated Software The new workstations have access to NVIDIA’s full-stack AI platform, which includes tools for accelerating the data science required for generative AI.

The Z by HP AI Studio platform for the systems, created in association with NVIDIA, has ties to NVIDIA NGC, a library of GPU-accelerated AI and data science applications. NVIDIA NeMo, a framework for creating, modifying, and implementing generative AI models, is included with NGC.

Furthermore, HP and NVIDIA said that NVIDIA CUDA-X libraries would be included into the systems to accelerate the data processing and preparation necessary for generative artificial intelligence.

Boosting Data Scientist Efficiency NVIDIA RAPIDS cuDF, which speeds up pandas—software used by over 10 million data scientists—is one of the libraries.

Huang said that they could now analyze data in minutes as opposed to hours or even days in the past.

He went on, “This pandas library is insanely complex,” pointing out that NVIDIA developers spent more than five years rewriting the code to make it GPU-accelerated.

Starting a New Chapter

HP also unveiled a partner training program created in collaboration with NVIDIA in addition to the new systems. It will enable computer suppliers to suggest to clients the best AI goods and services to suit their requirements.

These initiatives prepare the industry for the new age of AI, which allows software to build software.

“We’ve made a whole new computer.” Software writing has been reinvented, and software use also has to be reinvented, according to Huang. “The future lies in large language models integrated with other LLMs to help solve application problems.”

What advantages do these new workstations offer? Quicker handling of generative AI tools and applications. The capacity to build and execute LLMs locally for individualized and private outcomes. Access to NVIDIA’s full-stack AI platform, which includes workflow-accelerating tools for data science. Integration with NVIDIA NGC, a library of GPU-accelerated artificial intelligence and data science applications.

Which are the new HP Z Book workstations’ salient characteristics? Generative AI tools may be executed on-the-go thanks to NVIDIA RTX Ada Generation GPUs. Complex operations such as building and executing LLMs using retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) may be handled by high-end models. The Z by HP AI Studio platform links to NVIDIA NGC to provide access to potent AI applications.

What effect will this have on data scientists? The systems’ integration of NVIDIA CUDA-X libraries will speed up the processing and preparation of data. When compared to conventional approaches, libraries like NVIDIA RAPIDS cuDF will dramatically shorten data processing times.

Read more on Govindhtech.com

#nvidia #hp #aipcs #ai #llm #laptop #generativeai #rtx #technology #technews #govindhtech

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jcmarchi · 10 months

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Vista: A New AI-Focused Supercomputer for the Open Science Community - Technology Org

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/vista-a-new-ai-focused-supercomputer-for-the-open-science-community-technology-org/

Vista: A New AI-Focused Supercomputer for the Open Science Community - Technology Org

Vista, a new artificial intelligence (AI)-centric system, is arriving at the Texas Advanced Computing Center at The University of Texas at Austin in early 2024.

Vista will set the stage for TACC’s Horizon system, the forthcoming Leadership-Class Computing Facility (LCCF) funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), planned for fiscal year 2025. Horizon is expected to provide 10 times the computing capability of Frontera, the top U.S. academic supercomputer and the largest supercomputer in the NSF research cyberinfrastructure.

“Vista will bridge the gap between Frontera and Horizon to ensure the broad science and engineering research and education community has access to the most advanced computing and AI technologies,” said Katie Antypas, director in the NSF Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure. “Vista will also be a critical new resource to support responsible and trustworthy AI research for the benefit of our national welfare.”

Vista will mark a departure from the x86-based architecture used by TACC in Frontera, the Stampede systems, and others to central processing units (CPU) based on the Advanced RISC Machines (Arm) architecture. The new Arm-based NVIDIA GraceCPU Superchip is specifically designed for the rapidly expanding needs of AI and scientific computing.

“We’re excited about Vista,” said TACC Executive Director Dan Stanzione. “It’s our first ever system with an Arm-based primary processor. It will add to our capacity, particularly for AI, and help our user base begin porting to future generations of these technologies. With Vista, alongside our new Stampede3 (Intel) system, and the Lonestar6 (AMD) system we added last year, our team and our users will gain experience with and insight into the three major architectural paths we might follow for future systems, including Horizon.”

The NVIDIA GH200 Grace Hopper Superchip will be the processor for a little more than half of Vista’s compute nodes. It combines the Grace CPU with an NVIDIA Hopper architecture-based GPU so that the GPU can seamlessly access CPU memory to enable bigger AI models. The NVIDIA Grace CPU Superchip, which contains two Grace processors in a single module, will fill out the remainder of Vista’s nodes for unaccelerated codes.

Memory is implemented in a new way with the superchips. Instead of traditional DDR DRAM, the Grace uses LPDDR5 technology—like the memory used in laptops but optimized for the needs of the data center. In addition to delivering higher bandwidth, this memory is more power-efficient than traditional DIMMS, offering savings as great as 200 watts per node.

In addition, the NVIDIA Quantum-2 InfiniBandnetworking platform will help advance Vista’s performance with its advanced acceleration engines and in-network computing, propelling it up to 400Gb/s.

“AI has the potential to allow scientific computing to solve some of the most challenging problems facing humanity,” said NVIDIA Director of Accelerated Computing Dion Harris. “NVIDIA’s accelerated computing platform equips leading academic supercomputers, such as TACC’s Vista, with the extreme performance required to unlock this transformative potential.”

On the storage side, TACC has partnered with VAST Data to supply Vista’s file system with all-flash, high-performance storage linked to its Stampede3 supercomputer. The compute nodes will be manufactured by Gigabyte, and Dell Technologies will provide the integration.

Vista allocations will be available primarily through the NSF-funded Frontera project, and will also offer time throughthe Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Ecosystem: Services and Support (ACCESS) project to its broad user community.

Stampede3 to Enter Full Production in Early 2024

In addition to Vista, TACC announced the Stampede3 system in July 2023, a powerful new Dell Technologies and Intel-based supercomputer that will be the high-capability and high-capacity HPC system available to open science research projects in the U.S. when it enters full production in early 2024.Learn more about the system specifications.

Lonestar6: TACC’s Primary System for Texas Researchers

TACC’s Lonestar6 supercomputer went into full production in January 2022 with a boost of new servers and GPUs from Dell Technologies, AMD, and NVIDIA. This is in addition to the three petaflops of pre-existing performance from the AMD CPUs in the system. This system allows Texas researchers to compute and compete at the forefront of science and engineering. Lonestar6 is designed to meet the growing demand for AI and other GPU-accelerated solutions and take advantage of the power efficiency in heterogeneous computing.Learn more about the system specifications.

Source: TACC

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educationtech · 1 year

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How to make Career In Computer Forensics -ACEIT

Though the introduction of technology was solely on the purpose of easing out the lives of mankind, yet there are certain repercussions attached to it. Today, as we continue using mobiles and laptops both on a professional and personal front, it makes us quite vulnerable to online scams, fraud emails and web links, network attacks, debit and credit card hoaxes, etc. To combat such cybercrimes, there is a high demand for Cyber Forensic professionals of top computer science engineering colleges in Jaipur.

Computer forensics is a high-growth field, with huge potential for career advancement. Computer or digital forensics, along with other segments of the information security industry, are anticipated to grow rapidly over the next decade, and offer both significant opportunity for those looking to enter or grow in the field and high median salaries.

What Are Cyber Forensics?

Cyber or Computer Forensics is an emerging field and one of the most pivotal branches of the Cybersecurity Ecosystems. It deals with investigating and extracting important data and information as evidence in various cases in cybercrime. Cyber specialists uncover several hidden or deleted files using their knowledge in encryption decoding software and other recovery programs from databases, network servers, mobiles, laptops, tablets or other digital devices.

To start, it is important for the students of best engineering colleges in Jaipur to get a clear sense of what computer forensics is, and is not. Many people believe that computer forensics and cybersecurity are synonymous; they are, in fact, very different fields (though there is quite a bit of overlap in the work that they do, in terms of protecting the digital assets and intelligence of an organization). While cybersecurity is focused on the prevention of cyber-attacks, computer forensics is about handling the aftermath of an attack. Digital forensics professionals are called into action once a breach occurs, and work to identify the hack, understand the source, and recover any compromised data.

Is Computer Forensics A Good Career?

With opportunities to work with private firms as well as join government bodies, a career in Computer Forensics from private engineering colleges in Jaipur is truly rewarding. Due to the increasing rate of cyber-attack every single year, agencies from across the world are spending a huge amount of money on best talents from Cyber Forensics. Some top job profiles include Security Consultant, Computer Forensic Investigator, Computer Forensic Technician, Forensic Computer Analyst, Information Systems Security Analyst, Malware Analyst, Information Technology Auditor, Digital Forensic Specialist, Forensic Computer Examiner, etc.

Skills Required For Cyber Forensics

Some top skills required by cyber forensics professionals include Technical and Analytical Skills, Familiarity with Networking Concepts, Strong Communication Skills, Command Over Cybersecurity Concepts, Attention to Detail, To Adapt and learn regularly, etc.

Who Can Pursue A Career In Cyber Forensics?

If you re planning to study abroad, you must be aware that every university has its own eligibility requirements for enrolling international students. Some common eligibility conditions that students need to fulfil in order to study courses in Computer Forensics must pass 10+2 education with Computer Science as a compulsory subject from a recognized board of education.

In order to pursue a master’s degree in Cyber Forensics from best computer science engineering colleges or to be certified in Cyber of Information Security, candidates need to have a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or Information Technology like BCA or BSc Computer Science or equivalent from an accredited institution.

What Does A Computer Forensics Degree Entail?

Having an interest in the computer forensics field requires a minimum of a bachelor's degree in the field is necessary for most positions. A computer forensics degree will give you experience in identifying and responding to cybersecurity breaches and network hacks that have already happened. An individual of engineering colleges will learn to do this work across a variety of technologies, from computers to mobile devices. Graduates of a B.S. in computer forensics degree program will have a deep knowledge of (and be able to interpret and apply) laws and procedures associated with identifying, acquiring, examining, and presenting digital evidence.

You will learn to conduct efficient, high-quality digital forensics investigations, through fundamental computer theory, industry trends and best practices, an understanding of white-collar crime methods, and cutting-edge digital forensics tools. Courses will have a dual focus on both law and technology, with classes in criminal law and procedure, criminal investigation, and white-collar crime complementing in-depth, computer-focused classes focusing on forensics of mobile technology, files, malware, and operating systems, and much more.

What Jobs Can You Get With A Computer Forensics Degree?

A computer forensics degree prepares students of BTech colleges Jaipur to work as a specialist in organizations that are particularly susceptible to, or concerned about, network breaches. The majority of these jobs are in law enforcement both state and national agencies - but you may also find positions in mid- to large-sized corporations, crime laboratories, or large municipalities.

Some potential computer forensics job titles might include Computer Forensics Investigator, Computer Forensics Technician, Information Security Analyst, Information Systems Security Analyst, Forensic Computer Analyst, Security Consultant. Your daily responsibilities and activities will vary based on the actual role you obtain and the type of organization you are working in. You might choose a role or organization based on their mission, or the job duties as described in the hiring process.

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rollisci · 2 years

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Vcard editor pc

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If you face any issues or have any questions, please comment below.

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Hope this guide helps you to enjoy vCard Editor on your Windows PC or Mac Laptop. edit virtual business card files (VCF files).

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Double-click the app icon to open and use the vCard Editor in your favorite Windows PC or Mac. Vcard Editor Windows 8 downloads - freeload Windows 8 Vcard Editor - Windows 8 Downloads. Once the installation is over, you will find the vCard Editor app under the "Apps" menu of Memuplay.Always make sure you download the official app only by verifying the developer's name. Now you can search Google Play store for vCard Editor app using the search bar at the top. You can also save modified data as a new Excel document, which turns the app into a spread sheet editor in its own right.On the home screen, double-click the Playstore icon to open it. Memuplay also comes with Google play store pre-installed.Just be patient until it completely loads and available. It may take some time to load for the first time. Once the installation is complete, open the Memuplay software.Click it and it will start the download based on your OS. Once you open the website, you will find a big "Download" button.Open Memuplay website by clicking this link - Download Memuplay Emulator.VCard Editor Download for PC Windows 7/8/10 – Method 2: Double-click the app icon to open and use the vCard Editor in your favorite Windows PC or Mac. Once the installation is over, you will find the vCard Editor app under the "Apps" menu of BlueStacks.Click "Install" to get it installed. Always make sure you download the official app only by verifying the developer's name. Now you can search Google Play store for vCard Editor app using the search bar at the top.BlueStacks comes with Google play store pre-installed.You will see the home screen of Bluestacks. Once the installation is complete, open the BlueStacks software.Installation is as simple and easy as any other software installation.

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Morales, Alejandro, Xinyou Yin, Jeremy Harbinson, Steven M.

In silico analysis of the regulation of the photosynthetic electron transport chain in C3 plants.

A review.Īgronomy for Sustainable Development 37: 39, pp.

Sustainable intensification in agriculture: the richer shade of green.

Global conservation priorities for crop wild relativesĬastañeda-Álvarez N.P., C.K.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 111 (11): 4001-4006 Khoury, Colin, Anne Bjorkman, Hannes Dempewolf, Julian Ramirez-Villegas, Luigi Guarino, Andy Jarvis, Loren Rieseberg, Paul C.

Increasing homogeneity in global food supplies and the implications for food security.

Currently emphasis is put on the quantum efficiency of different cell types of C4 photosynthesis. Through the ground-breaking work of Xinyou Yin, inspired by the models of Farquhar et al., a large programme - through a combination of experimentation and modelling - on the quantitative analysis of the constraints to the efficiency of both the biophysical and the biochemical aspects of C3 and C4 photosynthesis, under variable conditions, has been developed. vCard Editor is a free program for Microsoft Windows that lets you deliver all of your business card information over the internet in a fun and easy to use way. Step3 : Click on vCard or VCF File to Check Complete Details. Step2 : Browse vCard or VCF Files with Dual selection options. Step1 : Launch Free vCard File Viewver tool on Windows. Niteen Kadam has worked on root development and grain yield – and their plasticity – under different levels of drought stress in rice. Follow the given steps to open and view contacts in vCard (VCF) file. Cesar Ospina Nieto has done association mapping of basic above-ground and below-ground crop physiological traits in potato, including nitrogen use efficiency. For example PhD candidate Junfei Gu has evaluated genetic variation in photosynthesis parameters in rice, has identified major QTLs for these parameters and has scaled up this genetic variation from the leaf level to the canopy level using modelling approaches. Considerable progress has been made in identifying key traits for crop performance, quantifying genetic variation in such traits, identifying quantitative trait loci for these traits and quantifying their relative importance in boosting yields.

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teacupfulofstarshine · 3 years

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LOVELY, DARK, AND DEEP CHAPTER 10

PLEASE HEED THE CONTENT WARNINGS!!! this chapter features Evil Scientist Lady and her Fucked Up WorldView a LOT, and there are also some Major Plot Events that involve Violence. i will put a summary in the end notes if you decide at any point that this particular chapter is too much - that's super valid! i will also mention here that no main characters are going to die in this story and no one dies in this chapter either.

huge huge thanks to @flamingfawkes for beta’ing!

CW: extreme disregard for human life, mentioned human and animal cruelty, toxic workplace environment, violence (both imagined and actual, mildly graphic), gun mention, minor blood, death threats, extremely unethical character, unethical science, stalking

chapter 1 // chapter 2 // chapter 3 // chapter 4 // chapter 5 // chapter 6 // chapter 7 // chapter 8 // chapter 9 // read it on ao3!

“This is the same result we’ve gotten the last twenty times -”

“I don’t care, Steven, run it again!”

Steven sighs, punching at the keyboard to run the statistical analysis sequence again. “This is ridiculous! I’ve run this sequence so many times it feels like my eyes are going to bleed. Why can’t we just turn in the results we have and -”

“Because she’ll behead us,” James snaps, “and then she’ll destroy our reputations and our families and they’ll get no severance. I have three young children at home, Steven, I need this money.” Steven softens a little, fingers running smoothly over the keys as he combs the data again. Next to him, James has a computer screen full of frame-by-frame stills of what little data they recovered from the probe before it was destroyed; Penny across the room is surrounded by ancient texts a mile high and at least three laptops.

“Why is she so interested in this, anyway?”

“It’s beyond me. Since when do we question the whims of what we’re told to do?”

Steven squints at the screen, pushing his chair back and rubbing at his eyes. “If I have to stare at these numbers for one more second, my brain is going to explode. I feel like my eyeballs are going to melt out of my skull. I wanna scream.”

James pulls up another image, staring at the blurry image of the merman before him. Steven pushes away from his own screen and squints at James’s. The merman in the photo looks young, not much older than his kid brother, but they don’t know anything about the lifespan of these creatures. He looks confused, squinting at the camera. As James flicks through the stills, the merman transitions from confused to angry to enraged, and then he attacks.

“He’s not happy about the camera.”

“Would you be happy about someone spying on you and your family?” James says, switching to the next still.

“I wouldn’t be happy if I thought someone was doing anything we do in this lab to me or my family.” James elbows Steven, but luckily no one else seems to have heard.

“This lab isn’t the most ethical place I’ve ever worked, but it pays the bills,” James mutters. “And we’re not even in the experimentation lab. We just do data analysis. We’re removed from the situation.”

Are we? Steven wonders. He sees James reach out and touch the framed picture of his daughters, and keeps his mouth shut. He turns back to his computer, watching the little spinning color wheel of his mouse as the program calculates the same numbers again and again. The results come up identical to the previous ones, and Steven clicks “Run Program” again wordlessly.

They work in silence for a while, the three of them, broken only by James’s muttering and the occasional thud of one of Penny’s books and the clicks of keyboards and mice. If they weren’t so reliant on technology, Steven thinks, there would be an enormous corkboard spanning three of the four walls, covered in pushpins and handwriting and red string connecting images. He debates actually building one, if only to increase the levity in the room, but decides against it.

He’s seen people punished or fired or who-knows-what-else for far less, after all.

Instead, after his program tells him for the twenty-third time that his results are the same (and didn’t someone say insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results?), Steven scrubs at his eyes with the heels of his palms and opens the data entry window. Maybe the problem with the results has to do with the entry of the data; did he input something wrong? It’s possible . . .

Here he goes again, he supposes. He stands up, stretches, and leans back to crack some vertebrae. “I’m gonna grab a coffee, take a short screen break, and go back to the beginning. Maybe there’s something in the input that I missed. You want anything?”

James groans, thunking his head against the desk. “I want something with enough caffeine to kill three elephants, please.” Steven nods, looking over at Penny. She shakes her head, and he heads for the shitty coffee machine a few doors down.

Several floors below, a young woman pulls her lab goggles up to rest on top of her head with her perfectly-pinned protocol-compliant bun. “The latest round of tests is completely done, ma’am. I think you’ll find the efficacy . . . striking.”

She takes the clipboard, glossy perfectly-painted nails pinching the sheets of thin paper and flicking between them. “I’m afraid I don’t do so well with the scientific side of things - Kathleen, was it? Explain this to me, would you?”

“Certainly, ma’am. As you know, the kill time for the most effective neurotoxin currently available, tetrodotoxin, varies from thirty minutes to four hours. Average time for symptoms to manifest is seventeen minutes, and from there the symptoms progress through tingling of the lips and tongue, headache, vomiting, muscle weakness, ataxia, et cetera. Death occurs as a result of respiratory or heart failure, and the poison is nearly undetectable if you do not specifically test for it.”

“The untraceability is a plus, but that is far too wide a range of times, and too slow a time even at its fastest.”

“Of course, ma’am, but as far as naturally-occurring marine poisons go - actually, as far as naturally-occurring poisons go, full stop - it is the most effective. Until now, that is.”

“Oh? What are your findings?”

“Which trials would you like to start with, ma’am?”

“The human trials, Kathleen. The only ones that matter. I hardly intend to go around killing mice and hoping that no one traces their deaths to a novel neurotoxin.” She laughs airily, and Kathleen nods along.

“Certainly, ma’am. The most recent data points indicate an average efficacy time of thirteen minutes for our compound neurotoxin, with a full range between nine and seventeen minutes passing before subject death. Subjects began to show symptoms around five minutes, give or take twenty-five seconds.”

“And those symptoms were?”

Kathleen flips through the document. “Seizures, vital organ failure, blindness, painful muscle spasms, suffocation from the inside out.”

She hums, tapping a manicured finger against the report. “Well, Kathleen, that is certainly impressive, especially for a preliminary human subject trial. These results . . . I must say, they are not nearly as disappointing as I anticipated when I came down here.”

“Ma’am?”

“How long have you worked for this company, Kathleen?”

“Almost five years, ma’am, but I’ve always been an assistant. This is my first time as lead researcher and biochemist on a project, ever since you . . . laid off the previous lead researcher.”

“Kathleen, let me be frank. These results are not what I hoped for. The efficacy time and symptom onset times are both far too long for my liking, and the range of efficacy time is too broad. By all accounts, I should consider this a failure.” Kathleen swallows, but remains poised. “However, you’ve managed to shave off a considerable amount of time from the tetrodotoxin readings. The range of symptom onset time is an acceptable breadth, and your results are far beyond anything your predecessor ever accomplished for me. This is truly impressive, all things considered.”

“Thank you, ma’am. How should I proceed?”

“I want the efficacy doubled - tripled - I want it upped by anywhere between four and five hundred percent. I want the pain increased, too. Feel free to increase your requests for test subjects, but get me the results I want. You said the original tetrodotoxin was untraceable?”

“That’s correct, ma’am.”

“Can you keep that feature intact?”

“As of right now, it is intact, ma’am. I will endeavor to keep it so in future experiments.”

“That’s what I like to hear. Welcome to your new position as head of this research division. Don’t let me down.” She holds out a slender hand, and Kathleen takes it, trying not to seem too eager.

“I won’t, ma’am.”

“How soon can you start this experiment up again?”

“The cleaners should be finished by tomorrow morning, ma’am, and I can tweak chemical formulas until then.”

“Excellent.” Her watch beeps, and she lifts it, pursing her bright lips as she examines the message she’s just received. “If you’ll excuse me, I have another matter to attend to. Someone will drop off your master access key for Lab Three within the hour.”

She steps into the elevator and lifts her watch up to her face, swiping through the messages from her secretary. One finger reaches out to press the button for the digital analysis labs floor, and the other taps away at her watch.

When she steps off the elevator, her secretary is waiting. “Ma’am.”

“What do they have for me?”

“Unclear. They said it was something they wanted to report directly to you and you alone, but it seems to be something big.”

“Hopefully it’s a big step in the right direction, or they’ll be taking a big step out of a job.” She relishes in the way the employees she passes all unfailingly flinch and then snap to perfect attention when they hear the sharp echo of her heels against the floor. She lifts her head and walks faster, striking the tiles with her heels like a gavel, sharp and precise against a judge’s desk.

The computer labs are disorganized when she enters, but there is a string of promising-looking numbers on the main display monitor. There is a woman surrounded by books and a man pulling up photos on his computer, and there is a third man standing in front of her like a toy soldier. She focuses on that one.

“I hear you have news for me? Make it swift, and make it good.”

He swallows, hard, and her eyes idly trace the line of his throat. If he disappoints her, perhaps she will drive her heel through it, to make an example of him. That would be far too messy; perhaps his dominant hand will do.

“I have narrowed down the location of the missing net, ma’am. I believe it to have washed up somewhere around these general GPS coordinates.” He fiddles with a remote in his hand, and the image on the screen changes. It shows an aerial satellite view of a secluded strip of beach, framed by rocky cliffs with larger rocks studded out into the open water. “It should have washed up somewhere in this one-point-three-seven-mile strip of beach. The whole area is property of one Doctor Thomas Sanders.”

She snarls. “That man. He won’t let us on that beach willingly until hell freezes over.”

The other man, the one scanning through photo stills and video footage, jumps up, knocking his chair backwards. “I found something!”

She turns towards him, and his excitement freezes and sputters into something much more controlled and terrified. “Show me.” He clicks something and pulls up video footage from one of their surveillance drones, zooming in on a particular patch of ocean along the stretch of Sanders’ beach. Her eyes widen when she sees what he’d noticed - a hump of red-and-white tail arcing above the waves before a pattern of ripples streaks off towards the cliff. He pauses the footage, rewinds it, uses a laser pointer to show an opening concealed in the cliff face.

“There’s some kind of grotto in there, hidden by the cliff. It’s on Sanders’ property, he has to know it’s there. And it looks like the merman from the destroyed drone knows it’s there too. Which means -”

“That must be where he’s keeping them.” Something burns in her chest, brilliant and terrifying and all-encapsulating, like wildfire. “We’ve found them, at long last.”

“What would you have me do?” her secretary asks. “I can arrange for a recovery squad at your earliest possible convenience, ma’am.”

“Assemble the squad, but do not have them move out. They will wait for my orders. When they go, you are to go with them.” Her secretary nods, once, sharp and sure. “Dispatch a crew to Lab One and clear it out. I want it prepped for containment, vivisection, chemical tests - the works. Get at least three tanks set up and one strap-down human table.”

“A human table, ma’am?”

“Yes. We have to deal with Sanders once and for all to ensure that he does not ruin any future experiments.”

“Will we be taking him as well?”

She hums thoughtfully. “No. Pull up the file we have on his known associate?”

A few swift clicks and flicks and a photo appears on the large screen: a young man with brown-and-purple hair, sleeves rolled up, carefully lowering a perfectly viable specimen into the ocean and letting it go, like some kind of fool. “His doctoral student, ma’am. The longest one he’s ever kept - this one has been with him a few years.”

“Excellent. When you raid the lab, take him.”

“Should we kill Sanders?”

“No. Rough him up a little, but leave him alive. Taking his protégé and leaving him alone, helpless to rescue him, will be the highest form of torture for such an insufferable person. The agony will eat him alive until his dying day.”

Her secretary nods, taking the notes down dutifully. The other employees look vaguely horrified, but she pays them no mind. No sacrifice is too great to be made in the name of progress, and anyone who thinks otherwise is a weakling who will never get anywhere in life.

She refuses to be one of those weaklings.

*~*~*~*~*

Logan wakes up confused.

He’s warm, warmer than he thinks he’s ever been in his whole life. When he stirs, he moves farther than he meant to - he must not be underwater. That’s enough to send a jolt of concern through his sleep-addled brain. Why isn’t he underwater? Why was he sleeping if he was above the surface? There’s no way his dad is here, and Roman hates surfacing, where are they? Where is he? But he’s so comfortable . . .

Someone shifts beside him, an arm draping across his waist, and Logan forces his eyes open. He shifts his lower half, confused when two things move instead of one, and there are layers upon layers of thin, flat, soft things wrapping around him. What is happening?

Slowly, slowly, his mind clears, and he remembers the events of last night. He grew legs - he was a human, once, before he was mer - he couldn’t sleep underwater with Dad and Roman - Virgil was teaching him to walk - Virgil put “clothes” on him - Virgil was embarrassed that he didn’t have those “clothes” on him - Virgil took him out of the lab to sleep - Virgil agreed to cuddle him since his pod couldn’t -

Logan feels the strange burning in his face again as he shifts. He can’t see well in this new human form, but when things are close enough to his face they’re relatively clear. And Virgil, still sleeping, is close enough that Logan can smell him - he smells like salt water mixed with something sharp and something sweet and something else that Logan can’t quite identify but finds addicting nonetheless. Sunlight streams in and pools around Virgil’s face, illuminating the tangled mess of hair spread around him and flopping into his face, the small puddle of water leaking out from his open mouth onto the soft thing he’s resting his head on, the way his chest moves slowly with every breath. His arm is wrapped around Logan, pulling him close. Logan thinks he might explode if he focuses on this any more, so he rolls from his side to his back as carefully as he can, not wanting to wake Virgil. Virgil tightens his arm around Logan and mutters something indecipherable in his sleep, but he doesn’t wake.

Rather than focusing on his very confusing feelings for the very pretty man next to him, Logan focuses on what he can see of the room around him. He makes a list in his mind of things that he plans to ask Virgil about later today, including:

1: There are many draws attached to the small, smooth cliffs surrounding them. How do they stay there?

2: There are lots of “clothes” scattered all around the floor, and there were several on the bed, too. Is that normal for humans?

3: Last night, Virgil did something that made the room light up with trapped sunlight! How did he do that?

4: How did Virgil get ice to stay in those big frozen sheets in such a warm place to let the sunlight in?

5: How did Virgil make ice into that weird shape that he filled with water and drank last night?

6: How did Virgil get the water to come into this place?

7: Do all humans have a specific area set aside for sleeping? Logan and his pod usually just sleep wherever they can, but Virgil seems to have this soft slab set aside with all of these soft things to be comfortable and sleep in every night. Is this a Human Thing or strictly a Virgil Thing?

Logan looks out through the sheet of ice that protects Virgil’s area from the outside and gasps. He can’t see well, but there’s a glittering expanse of blue that shifts and moves and oh, is that the ocean?

He’s spent his whole life (well, his whole remembered life, anyways) in the ocean, and he’s seen some truly wondrous things. He travels around the world with his pod, he knows the ocean is big, but seeing it spread out like this is . . . awe-inspiring. Logan has never seen the ocean like this, and now that he has he doesn’t think he can ever not see it like this again. It’s like a perfect sheet of sea-glass, rippling and unbroken but dynamic in a way that he never really gets a sense of when he’s beneath it.

He knows that there are waves, of course. There are smaller swells out on the open ocean, and larger ones when the Second Goddess dips her fingers down from the Upper Ocean and swirls the storms to a thundering burst. There are waves along the shoreline, ones that he frolics in with Roman and batter him against the shoreline. There are waves created when he or his pod members surface. But watching the movement of the ocean from up here is . . .

Even with his imperfect vision, he is completely at a loss for words as he stares at the ocean.

Eventually, Virgil stirs next to him, and Logan turns away from the ocean to stare at him. Virgil is close to him, arms wrapped tightly around him, face pressed against him. Logan’s eyesight is not great, but Virgil is close enough that he can pick out little details of his face. There are brown face scales scattered all over him, but they seem to cluster on his nose and his cheeks. Logan has wanted to touch them for a substantial amount of time, and he can’t stop himself from gently settling the tips of his fingers over Virgil’s cheek.

His face doesn’t feel like Logan was expecting. The scales don’t give texture to his face the way that Logan’s do; the skin is smooth and flat. There are little bumps all over, but the brown scales aren’t raised off the skin like Logan expected. He lets his fingers trail along Virgil’s face. His bone structure seems to be exceedingly similar to Logan’s, at least in regards to his head. Logan’s finger rests gently on the curve of bone under Virgil’s eye, and Virgil exhales warm breath onto his palm.

Logan wonders what it would be like to have this for longer than just his recovery period. He wonders what it would be like to wake up next to Virgil all the time, to get to run his hands over Virgil’s face and arms and chest and examine the differences between their anatomy. He wonders what it would be like to learn to walk without falling over, and he feels a sharp, unexpected twinge in his chest as he realizes that getting better at walking means no more closeness to Virgil.

His chest feels strange, like there’s a school of small fish swarming around and tickling his insides and making him feel all foamy, like the froth churned up by a windswept sea. He feels like he does when he’s underwater - free, weightless, mobile, limited by nothing except his own imagination. He feels unstoppable.

Virgil makes a sudden, sharp inhale, blinking his eyes open slowly. Logan thinks that, perhaps, he might not appreciate being studied unknowingly - he hadn’t appreciated Virgil doing it, before he understood what was happening, when all he knew was the loss of his pod aching like a scraped-out seashell. As Virgil wakes up, Logan shifts, turning his gaze to the rest of the room.

Virgil makes a sleepy grumbling noise, opening one eye. Logan chances another quick glance at him, and when his eye slides open Logan is struck by its beauty. He doesn’t get much of a chance to admire it, however, before Virgil is jolting backwards like Logan’s struck him with lightning. Logan is confused, reaching out and gently touching his shoulder. “Virgil?”

“Wassat?! Wait . . . L’gan?”

“It is me,” Logan says softly. “Are - are you upset with me?”

Virgil yawns, jaw dropping to his chest, revealing a flash of teeth and a soft pink tongue. (Logan wants to lick it. Why does Logan want to lick it? Why is Logan thinking about Virgil’s tongue licking his tongue - why is Logan thinking about Virgil - what in the Seven Oceans is happening to him.) “Wh - no, no, ‘m okay, I just - woke up, forgot I had you with me, got confused about another person in my bed.” Before Logan can start to feel bad, Virgil adds, “S’okay if it’s you, though,” and the foamy, floaty feeling is back.

“Did you sleep well?”

Virgil laughs, low and rumbling, and Logan can feel it in his fingers where he touches Virgil’s skin. “I never sleep well.” He sits up, and the fabric of his pajamas shifts to let Logan see stretches of soft, supple skin that he usually doesn’t. Logan wants to touch it. He very determinedly keeps his hand on Virgil’s shoulder. “Gotta admit, though, last night was . . . better than usual.”

This appears to be the point where Virgil first notices their position - pressed together, arm slung over Logan, basically cuddling the way that Logan normally would with his pod. (No tangle with his pod has ever felt this . . . electric, this charged, this important to Logan before.) His face flares a brilliant red, and he shifts like he wants to move away but -

“I’m sorry,” Virgil says. “Am I making you uncomfortable?”

“No!” Logan blurts out. Virgil blinks at him a little, and maybe he was a little overly enthusiastic, but - “I sleep in a tangle with Dad and Roman all the time. I have extreme difficulty sleeping without contact with someone else. It . . . helped me greatly.”

“Oh,” Virgil says, face turning redder still, smiling shyly. “That - makes me feel better. Thanks, Lo.”

Logan smiles, and Virgil smiles too, reaching up to gently move a piece of hair away from his face. Logan thinks that, as far as deaths go, his chest exploding (which seems to be getting more and more likely every fifteen seconds he spends in Virgil’s presence, only accelerated by all this skin-on-skin contact they’re having right now) seems to be the most pleasurable.

Virgil opens his mouth to say something, but whatever it was is interrupted by a Ping! noise from across the room. “What is that?” Logan asks. Virgil, sadly, untangles himself from Logan and the blankets, sliding out of bed and heading over to one of the other structures in the room (what did he call it last night? Dex?) and picking up a flat glowing rectangle.

“Is everything alright?”

“What? Yeah, yeah, I - Thomas sent me a text, it’s a little weird.”

“What is a text?”

“It’s a kind of human messaging system, it allows us to communicate when we’re far away from each other.”

“Like a pod call?” “Kind of? I’ll explain more later, I promise, I just - I gotta go down to the lab real quick.”

“I’ll come with -”

“No!” Virgil snaps. Logan flinches, and Virgil softens, crossing the room and gently touching his shoulder. “Hey, no, Logan, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you. I just - this message, there’s something off. I think something might be wrong, and I don’t want to put you in any unnecessary danger. Just - wait here, okay? Wait in my room, where it’s safe. It’s probably nothing, he’s probably fine, but on the off chance that he’s not, I want you to stay hidden safely up here.”

Logan isn’t sure why this makes his face heat up slightly, but it does. “Okay. I accept your apology, and I . . . trust you.”

Virgil smiles, soft and heartwarming, and Logan is beginning to give more credence to his “chest explosion is fine, actually” theory. “Wait for me here, okay? I’ll be right back. I promise.”

He leaves, shutting the door firmly behind him, and the foamy feeling in Logan’s chest dissipates a little. He can’t quite put his finger on it, but there’s something . . . off. If Logan didn’t know better, he’d think that he was sensing a predator approaching.

But that can’t be right, he isn’t underwater. His danger senses are likely just overreacting to his disappointment at Virgil’s absence.

. . . Right?

*~*~*~*~*

Thomas is beginning to regret letting Roman and Patton (specifically, Roman) out of the large tank before finishing his first coffee of the morning.

“I want some!” Roman complains.

“Do you even know what it is?” Thomas says. Roman pouts sulkily at him.

“. . . No,” he mutters, rolling his eyes. Thomas gives him the deadpan, no-nonsense, I-am-your-direct-superior-take-the-damn-samples-Virgil stare that he has perfected over the past few years. Roman wilts a little more, and Thomas feels slightly bad.

“It’s called coffee,” he says. “It’s a hot drink that lots of people have in the morning. Some people drink it plain, and some people add things to it to change the way it tastes. It helps me wake up more and get focused to start my day, and sometimes I drink it late at night to help keep me awake.”

Roman looks less like a kicked puppy and more like Logan, eyes wide and curious. “I want some!”

Thomas, taking a sip of his own two-seconds-of-cream-five-cubes-of-sugar coffee, nearly spits it out. He looks at Roman, eyes the very sharp, very detachable, very toxic spines covering his body, and says, “No.”

Roman’s demeanor changes entirely, switching from “curious toddler” to “toddler about to throw a temper tantrum” in a heartbeat. “Why not?!”

“Because when people drink coffee without being used to it, sometimes it makes them a little crazy.”

“I’m not crazy!”

“Do I need to recount to you how many times you’ve threatened me and my assistant since we met you?” Thomas says, raising an eyebrow. “I’m not giving you coffee until I know I can trust you not to stab me with your poisonous spines that cover your entire body and can be fired at people.”

Roman pouts more, dropping under the water and letting out a gratingly harmonious string of mer that Thomas is pretty sure translates to Roman bitching about the coffee situation to his dad. Based on the pattern of Patton’s response, he’s pretty sure Patton is laughing at Roman.

More sulky chalkboard-violin music, and then Roman resurfaces grumpily. “Dad agrees with you and says no consuming strange human foods.”

“Did he laugh at you?”

Roman squints suspiciously at him. “You can’t speak our language.”

“Yeah, but I know what it sounds like when a dad laughs at his kid.” Roman, continuing to pout, sinks back into the tank, presumably to sulk some more. Thomas takes another very long sip of coffee that is definitely too hot for his mouth and turns back to his desk.

Virgil should definitely be awake and in the lab at this point. The samples he’s supposed to be analyzing are sitting in their little tubes, each neatly labelled with locations and dates and times and what, specifically, Virgil is supposed to be looking for. Thomas considers going upstairs and waking up Virgil, who’s almost never been late for work in this way, but he decides against it. Virgil is upstairs with Logan, and Thomas knows that there’s something building between them. He’s not sure how advisable that something is, but he trusts Virgil to make his own decisions.

Besides, he could probably use some practice. His water sample analysis skills are pretty rusty, he’s had Virgil doing them for years. “Virgil, you owe me big time for what I’m doing for you.” He carefully shifts the samples over to his own desk, slides his earbuds in, picks up a pipette, and gets to work analyzing the bacterial and algal concentrations for any abnormalities.

Thomas accomplishes about forty-five minutes’ worth of work before Roman interrupts him by flicking water at him and soaking the back of his neck. “Hey!”

“I tried your name, but your little ear bug things were keeping you from hearing me,” Roman says smugly. Thomas, not for the first time, considers retreating to the closet and throwing beakers until he feels better.

“Can I help you?”

“Dad wants to go hunting and bring back breakfast, but we can’t leave without you.”

“Are you not going hunting?”

“I’m going to stay here and observe you,” Roman says.

Thomas blinks. “Do I . . . need observing?”

“How do I know you won’t sell us out to your little human friends the second you get a chance? If I’m here, I can stop you. Plus, what if you do something to Logan while we’re not here to protect him? No, no, I’m staying right where I am and you can’t make me leave.” His spines ripple; Thomas steps closer to a whiteboard in case he needs to duck.

“I’m not going to do that, and I don’t want you to stab me.”

“Still! I’m staying here! Also, Dad’s bigger than me, and he’s a better hunter cause he’s faster and he’s been hunting longer.

“Does he need something to help him carry all those fish?” Thomas asks. Roman opens his mouth like he’s going to say something snarky, pauses, and stops.

“I . . . usually we just eat what we catch when we catch it. We make a pile of prey and take turns guarding it while the other two hunt. Then we make a sacrifice to the Seven Mother Goddesses and eat what’s left.”

After some debate, Thomas is able to fashion a sling of sorts from some waterproof tarps and leftover anchor rope to tie around Patton’s body. “You can put the fish in this pouch and carry them back here. Will you be able to navigate your way back to the grotto?”

“He will,” Roman says. “Dad knows more about the ocean than any human possibly could.” Another discordant song from the tank, chastising, and Roman huffs. “Dad wants me to reassure you that he’ll be fine.”

Patton settles into the mobile tank easily, and Thomas gets him down to the grotto leading towards the sea. “When you come back, let out one of your pod calls and Virgil or I will come and collect you and your catch. Take as much time as you need, okay?”

Patton reaches up and gently pats Thomas’s arm with one large, damp hand, and Thomas takes that to mean an agreement. “Alright, off you go.” There’s a whoosh and a rush of water as it flows from the tank into the grotto in a clean arc, carrying Patton with it. Thomas waits for a moment, letting Patton disappear into the open ocean, before returning to the laboratory.

Roman, for the most part, ignores Thomas. He asks the occasional question, which Thomas tries to answer in a way that he’ll understand, and leans over the edge of his touch tank, eyes guarded. Every time Thomas sneaks a glance, when he thinks Roman isn’t looking, his expression is wide-eyed and wondrous, like Logan’s usually are, but the moment he realizes Thomas is watching him his entire face closes up like a clamshell.

Thomas wonders what it’ll take to get Roman to trust him, trust Virgil, trust any human. Granted, he doesn’t know Roman’s history with humans, but he and Patton are both fairly scarred, and Thomas might not know the whole story but he’d bet a not-insignificant amount of his monthly income that the giant starburst scar taking up the majority of Patton’s chest isn’t the result of a clash with a marine creature.

He works quietly, fielding the occasional question, keeping one ear on the grotto tunnel for Patton’s return. He’s not sure how long he expected Patton to be gone, but he hears movement in the grotto tunnel far sooner than he’d expected.

“Thomas, what’s -”

“Shhhh,” Thomas says. He stands up, pushing away from his desk, but before he can say anything else, there’s a flood of movement coming from the tunnel. Bodies pour into the lab, swift and strong and carrying weapons that they immediately train on Thomas and Roman.

“What is this?” Roman snaps, bristling. He sounds betrayed, like he thinks Thomas is behind this. Thomas picks up a heavy glass beaker, fully prepared to shatter it upside someone’s skull if necessary, but something heavy and hard strikes the back of his skull and he feels his knees crumple. Roman cries out, and Thomas struggles to push himself up. A hand fists itself in his hair and yanks him upright, sharply. Thomas exhales sharply through his teeth, but before he can start struggling, something cool and round rests against the back of his neck, shutting him up and shutting his brain down.

Roman is puffed up like a hedgehog, apparently fully prepared to defend Thomas despite his strong and inherent mistrust. Before he can begin to attack, Thomas hears the click-click-click of shoes on the hard stone floor. Whoever’s holding his head yanks him back again, and he is forced to watch as a woman walks into his laboratory.

(It sounds like the beginning of a bad joke - a sick, horrible, twisted joke.)

She has black heels, black tights, a black pencil skirt, a black blazer, and a blood-red blouse. Her hair is scraped back into a tight bun, pulled so taut it must hurt, and is held in place with a pitch black stick. She carries a - clipboard? tablet? Unclear - held against her chest, and there’s a sleek silver weapon in her right hand.

“The one from the video?” she asks.

“Affirmative, ma’am,” says the person holding Thomas’s head. The woman nods, lifting her weapon, and fires at Roman. Thomas tries to scream a warning, earning himself another painful yank from his captor, but the projectile lodges itself in Roman’s shoulder anyway.

It isn’t a bullet, but something that looks like a small syringe. Roman swats it out of his shoulder, swaying a little, but it doesn’t stop him from swiping at the - mercenary, they must be - who tries to grab him with his elbow spines. The woman frowns, lifts the weapon - some kind of tranquilizer gun? - and fires again.

Roman screams, inhuman and animal, and tears the newest dart from his arm, throwing himself out of his tank and clinging to the nearest mercenary. His teeth tear into the man’s shoulder, spines piercing through his camouflage clothing and flooding him with neurotoxin. The man collapses against the concrete, alive but unconscious, and Roman snarls at the next man as though daring him to approach. He sways, weakened but awake, and bares his teeth.

“Of course,” the woman says, tapping something on her tablet. “His naturally produced neurotoxin must be providing him with some level of natural resistance. Unexpected, but not a limitation.”

It takes three more tranquilizer darts before Roman finally slumps down into his tank, unconscious. The mercenaries look hesitant to approach him, but the woman reaches for her tablet and they scramble to action at once.

“No - no, stop, let him go, he’s not an animal for you to cart off to your lab -” Thomas starts. The man holding him knees him sharply in the back and he cries out, coughing.

They wrap Roman in thick leather bands, roughly shoving his spines flat and binding them against his skin so that he can’t attack them again. The woman nods, once, short and sharp, and they drag Roman away, letting his head bang mercilessly on the ground. Thomas catches a glimpse of a logo - emblazoned on the back of the jackets, on the back of the woman’s tablet, on the side of her tranquilizer gun - and commits it to memory. He’s going to need it, if he gets out of here alive.

“- your phone,” the woman says, and oh, when did she get in front of him.

“My what?”

His mouth runs dry as she places the tranquilizer gun under his chin, barrel pressing against his throat, and tips his chin up. “I said, give me your phone.”

Thomas blinks. “My - the desk. It’s on the desk.”

She sets her tablet down, picks up his phone, and shoves it in his face. “Open it.”

“I - wh -”

“Unlock your phone, Dr. Sanders. Must I repeat myself a third time?” She rolls her eyes. “Doctorates are wasted on people like you.”

Thomas numbly punches in his passcode, and she swipes through to his messages app, frowning before turning the screen towards his face to reveal a message thread with Virgil. “Is this your assistant?”

Thomas glares at her, he’s not going to give her what she wants, he’s not going to just give her Virgil but then the - gun, it must be a gun, what else would they be holding against his neck like this - pushes into him harder, and it’s probably bruising, and he can’t get himself killed here because then he definitely won’t be able to take care of Virgil and -

“Yes,” Thomas says, hating himself for giving in so easily. “What do you -”

She turns away from him, nails clicking against his phone screen as she sends a text message - to Virgil, presumably, and that makes his heart sink like a stone - before dropping it on the floor and stepping on it to shatter it. “I have a message for you.”

“A - what?”

“Did they really hit you that hard, or were you this stupid before we came here?” she says coldly, picking up the tablet again and tapping at the screen. Thomas groans as the man yanks him to his feet, shoving him onto his chair and pulling a roll of duct tape out of one of his multiple pants pockets. He tapes Thomas’s wrists and ankles to the chair, keeping his weapon trained on Thomas’s temple at all times, before pressing it roughly against his head and gripping his hair again.

The woman sets the tablet on his lab table, and the screen flickers to life, and then there’s a woman in front of a dark black backdrop, smiling at him like a cat who’s caught a canary. “Thomas Sanders. How long I’ve waited for this day.”

Thomas recognizes her. He knows he recognizes her. She used to be his classmate, before . . .

His head hurts, so badly that he can barely keep his eyes open, and the memory slips away. “You . . . why are you doing this?”

“Why? Because I am a real scientist, unlike you. You refuse to do what is necessary, what must be done for the progression of the species. The sacrifice of some worthless animals is necessary for humanity to reach its zenith. You would really hinder the entire human race for the preservation of lower life forms?”

“Wh - I -”

“You think that ‘preserving the ecosystem’ and ‘keeping animals alive’ makes you a good scientist, but it makes you weak. You are weak, Thomas Sanders, and if the world was left in the hands of people like you, the human race as we know it would die out in a few centuries. Fortunately, there are people like me, who understand what must be done.”

“Caring about other people and things - it doesn’t - it doesn’t make you weak,” Thomas says, chest heaving, and the woman just laughs.

“One of many logical fallacies to which you subscribe, Thomas. They really gave you a doctorate? Of course caring makes you weak. All emotions make you weak. They corrupt your data and make your experiments worthless. You must be ruthless. You must be willing to do whatever it takes to pursue your goals and achieve the height of success. But no.” She rolls her eyes, face hardening, twirling a pen in her fingers. “You insist on ethics and principles and letting emotions cloud your judgement, and that makes you a failure as a scientist. It makes you weak. Your attachments will be your downfall.”

Thomas’s eyes slide shut, head pounding, and the man behind him yanks at his hair so sharply that he knows some has been ripped out. He forces his eyes open in time to see a smile slide across the woman’s face like a knife, teeth gleaming white as sun-bleached bone.

“You won’t - get away with this,” Thomas manages. He grinds his teeth together and curls his hands into fists, digging his nails into his palms to keep himself awake. “If you leave me alive -” Thomas, stop talking, why are you reminding her that she has the option to fucking kill you “- I will not rest until I find you. I’ll - you can’t -”

“You’ll what, Thomas? If you call the police, you’ll expose those creatures you’re so intent on protecting to the world. Are you really willing to take that chance?” Before Thomas can even begin formulating a response, she steamrolls him. “It doesn’t matter. Even if you were, I’m going to take some . . . insurance, shall we say.”

“Why not just kill me?” Thomas spits. Excellent idea, Doc, poke the murderous lady with a stick like a god damn hornet’s nest, the tiny Virgil in his brain hisses. Her smile, somehow, only widens, and that’s . . . that can’t be good, can it? Smiles are supposed to be good! They’re supposed to make you happy, but all Thomas feels is creeping dread and pain, so much pain, and -

Yeah. He’s . . . pretty sure he has a concussion.

“Because if I kill you, you get to take the easy way out. Your suffering will end. But unlike you, I don’t put limits on my science. I know how to cause you the maximum amount of pain.”

Thomas eyes the toxin gun, but the on-screen woman just laughs. “Not yet, Thomas. We need something from you, first.”

“You already took Roman,” Thomas says. “What more can you possibly take from me?”

“You named it? You’re even weaker than I thought.”

“He told me his name, he’s not an it, he’s not a thing for you to play with and - and I -”

There’s a strange sinking feeling in Thomas’s chest as the woman onscreen laughs. “I knew you were emotional, Thomas, but I can’t believe this! It looks like I’ll have more hanging over your head than you thought.”

“You -”

“Say, Tommy-boy, have you heard from your precious little assistant recently?”

Thomas’s entire body flushes ice-cold and then white-hot, immediately struggling against his duct tape bindings despite the man tearing at his hair and shoving the gun into his neck and snapping at him to shut up, shut up, shut the fuck up before I do something we’re both gonna regret -

“Don’t you touch him!” Thomas snaps. “If you hurt him, I swear to God -”

“You’re not in a position to be making demands, and if you don’t calm down, I’ll paint your boring little lab bright red.” Thomas freezes, holding his entire body tensed like electricity is running through his blood.

There are footsteps on the stairs. “Doc? I got your text, what’s -”

“Virgil, run!” Thomas chokes. Virgil comes around the corner, holding his phone, staring at the screen in confusion. He looks up, eyes widening in horror as he takes in the scene.

“You know what to do,” the woman onscreen says. The other woman lifts her tranquilizer gun, and Thomas is sure that he’s screaming, his mouth is open and sound is coming out but his blood is rushing through his ears and his heart is pounding like waves against a boat in rough sea and he can’t - he can’t -

Virgil turns to run, but the tranquilizer dart hits in him the back of the neck and he collapses like a sack of bricks. The woman lowers her gun and jerks her head at the two remaining conscious, unoccupied mercenaries, who step forward and grab Virgil.

“Let him go!” Thomas screams, and his throat feels raw and his chest feels raw and his wrists are rubbed raw and his soul feels hollow and raw, like he’s been scraped out with a jagged piece of metal and only an empty shell remains. Virgil’s head lolls against his chest as they drag him down the grotto tunnel, and Thomas struggles and screams and stares after them until Virgil is out of sight.

His face is damp, and his eyes are burning, and he isn’t sure if it’s blood from his head wound or tears or some strange, morbid mixture of both.

“The greatest torture of which I can conceive,” the woman onscreen says, and it takes him a moment to realize that oh, she’s talking to me, “is to leave you alive, knowing that your precious little protégé is with me, and that there is nothing you can do about it.” She leans forward, and any trace of a smile is gone. “If you try to come after me, I will kill him. If you call the authorities, I will kill him. I already found you, Thomas. Don’t think I’m not watching. If I catch so much as a whiff of you planning something, his blood will be on your hands. Do you understand me?”

Thomas, numb and shocked, can’t even respond. “Knock him out and bring the specimens back to me,” the woman onscreen says.

“Yes, ma’am.”

He doesn’t even feel the tranquilizer dart hit his neck, but he welcomes the sweeping darkness.

(Summary: Evil Scientist Lady has been spying on Thomas and she finds the entrance to the grotto where our mer friends have been hiding. She sends her assistant and several armed thugs to invade the lab, they drug Roman with tranquilizers and kidnap him. Thomas gets knocked around a lot and is mocked for being an ethical scientist and caring about people by Evil Scientist Lady and she gloats at him through Evil Facetime before kidnapping Virgil in the same way they did Roman, knocking Thomas unconscious, and leaving him tied to his lab chair. During this whole scene, Patton is out in the open ocean hunting and Logan is safely hidden in Virgil's room.)

#starshinewrites #lovely dark and deep #romantic analogical #sanders sides #platonic TLAMP

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tundrainafrica · 4 years

Text

Title: A Tale of Two Slaves (13/17)

Summary: “Soulmates don’t exist. Fate doesn’t exist. Everything is a choice.” At that moment, Levi could only watch as she made the choice for him.“

Reincarnation AU. Levi remembers everything from their past life. Hange doesn’t.

Other Chapters: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Link to cross-postings: AO3

Every year, for a few weeks at a time, life had a tendency of stopping.

And it had been following that same pattern for the past few years.

For Levi, the first signs of the freeze came when the last few red leaves fell to the ground, revealing the branches underneath. The trees were bare, the wind chill was cruel and the sky was constantly grey.

But the freeze was only a prelude that accompanied something much more daunting.That period of time in particular manifested as some sort of a limbo. That painful limbo where every student was suddenly reminded that maybe taking five classes at once was a bad idea.That limbo were suddenly all students ever had to think about were those five classes they were taking. Yet for some reason, everyone still found a reason to be stressed.

No training. No club activities.

Just deadline after deadline. Group work after group work. Exam after exam.

Of course it would be stressful. Since for many people, those last few submissions leading up to the holidays were always the most decisive. Making that deadline, making something of quality in that deadline always spelled the difference between honors and mediocre, a C for a degree or a failing F. Especially since for the first few months of school anyway, the urgency never hit.

Levi never had been one of those students gunning for honors. The regular tournaments and the twice a day training and the human need for some rest afterwards always meant that Levi was only barely passing most classes while every now and then scoring a B in one.

He was one of those people who thought of the final few weeks of school as some sort of a messiah, some last chance to pull a D to a C or if he were lucky a B. And those periods in limbo blurred so easily into hazy memories of sleepless nights, irrationally strong hate over some particularly shitty groupmate and those few hour long exams where Levi could have sworn his heart hadn’t even been beating.

He hadn’t expected his senior year to be any different. But on the days leading up to finals week, he started to realize he had fewer exams, a little more papers than usual. A side effect of being a senior in a non science course.

It could have been the luck of the draw maybe but his teachers had been kind and had requested he just send everything over.

Two requirements and One thesis. And Levi could always do it from the comfort of the study hall in the dorm.

The study hall was a medium sized building, most frequented by dormers.

One of its most notable characteristics was the window wide enough that anyone studying would be almost incapable of ignoring the scenery just outside. And in winter, the grey sky, the bare trees and the glass of the window that would fog up at the lightest caress were the main constants of the scenery. And even if it was impossible to ignore for most students, Levi didn’t think too much of it that winter in particular. Since the days leading up to deadlines, Hange had been right next to him.

There were those few moments in between studying when he would allow himself some reprieve. Picking what to focus on had never been a challenge. The dreary early winter scenery felt chilly even from the comfort of the heated study hall yet without even trying and Hange emitted a warmth that had resonated more powerfully than any feelings and preconceived notions rooted in his four years in a bubble. Her hums, her thoughtless mutters even her unfocused brown eyes the few times she looked up to give herself a quick rest, without even trying, they had felt warm and welcoming.

Maybe because just those small actions had been more than enough for Levi to feel very much connected to someone. For the first winter in his college life, Levi wasn’t alone

Although with the long hours studying, they never went too far beyond exchanging some few words, engaging some small talk. When their brains were completely fried, there wasn’t much else they could discuss anyway.

But they didn’t need to talk. Levi already felt it --- as he allowed the scratching of pen and paper and the familiar clack of the keyboard to keep him company in the stark silence of the study hall--- she had done her part to make that early a winter warmer than it usually was. She had done her part as well to make that limbo, that harsh in-between classes and holidays, almost enjoyable, a significant improvement from that limbo he had always braced himself to power through, every single year.

As he became a little more aware of her constant company, sometimes he could imagine the limbo had never been there, and it had all been a faint memory, a faint illusion of his life before.

And all Hange had to do was be there. Even when she was silent, highlighting line after line, cross checking journals and study guides, Hange managed to find a way to still be present.

When it came to studies, Hange’s case was a stark contrast to his, more urgent and more demanding, almost admirable. She had a full load and although Levi never did memorize her schedule, he figured it out soon enough having spent the days leading up to the exams cooped up with her in the study hall.

Exam after exam after exam.

And Hange was never without her laptop, her printed out study guides and her ebook reader. And she had been that way, all the way until the last day of exams, when the lobby of the dorm had emptied out, the hallways to his room a lot less busy and when Levi was particularly less self conscious about the awkward way he pulled his injured self up the stairs to his dorm room every night.

Everyone had gone home for the holidays already. And soon enough, it wasn’t such an odd sight to see just her familiar shape alone in the study hall.

The first day she didn’t have study guides felt like a big change.

He picked her out so easily, especially when there was nobody else hunched over their own notes. And Levi who had sat with her every single day in the study hall couldn't help but celebrate such a tiny development. “You’re done with exams?” He asked as he settled on the chair in front of her.

“One final paper,” Hange said, not looking up from her laptop.

“And then winter break?”

“And then I can finally work on my thesis.”

“Any ideas?”

“Yeah, some.”

“So you’ll probably be working during the break huh?”

Hange sat back on the chair and crossed her arms. “You know, I’m lucky enough the department is still allowing me to make a thesis even without a proposal presentation."

"At least you get to graduate on time."

"I know. This is just a weird place to be when at the start of the year, I was gunning for some best thesis award. Now I’m the only student in my block who’s disqualified. And on top of that, I’m starting from scratch again.”

“You could have continued from the last one.”

Hange closed her laptop and rested her chin on her hand. “I didn’t pick that topic because I wanted to. I just felt it was the most practical option. And when I consulted my parents, they said that was the best option to save time.”

“And it was.”

“But it felt weird. I couldn't bring myself to ask you the right questions or check your knee everyday. You were constantly in pain, sad, for a while you might even have been depressed…” Hange trailed off. She looked outside at the scenery on the other side of the window.

Levi could almost see the grey reflected on her eyes.

Hange continued. “I thought back to how you fucked up your knee and I realized I was reckless. When you scraped your knee I was there, then I pushed you to jump for my thesis and when I fucked up your life… and you never felt it even a little weird or annoying that I would be getting something out of it?" She looked at him as if expecting him to say something.

"I made the decision to push myself. Not you."

“Levi, please be honest. did I pressure you?” That was the moment, Hange chose to meet his gaze. She had a pleading look in her eyes that only made it difficult for Levi to reach within him for him some sort of a response.

He had the answer and it was so easily within reach. Yes, she did pressure him. But was that something he would have wanted to admit?

And when he started to ask more questions, he soon started to ask another more important question, was it Hange who had pushed him to do it? Or was it this image of Hange he was projecting onto her?

“You didn’t pressure me,” Levi said.

“Then why were you working so hard? Why did you push yourself?”

“Because… I felt pressured.”

“If not me, then by what? What pressured you?”

“Myself?” And by extension, everything else maybe? Captain Levi? Commander Hange Zoe? He added to himself. But he wasn’t crazy enough to say it.

“But here’s the thing, I could have sworn you were much calmer than that during the competitions. Actual competitions. But then since we met, ever since you scraped your knee, you were pushing yourself more than usual, you were much more tense. What were you working so hard for?”

“I pressured myself.”

“For what?” Hange’s eyes were boring holes into him. “I’m not your coach. Hell, I’m not an arbiter. I’m not an Olympic team scout. All I needed was your data for a thesis nobody was probably going to read anyway.”

“Don’t you have a paper to finish?”

“The final deadline is next week and I’m more than halfway done already. I have more than enough time to talk,” Hange said. Her face morphed into something a little more desperate. “Levi, I wanna know, what did I do wrong?”

At that moment, Levi froze. His eyes were completely fixed on hers, and he could only watch the way she started to study him, as if searching for an answer in the way he sat, the way he leaned back on the chair, the way he gripped the corner of the table. At once, Levi had become aware of all of his nervous ticks.

The tension in the room was thick enough at least for Levi to tell, that he wasn’t the only one feeling the discomfort. He willed himself to lean back further, get a wider view of her and he noticed the subtle signs, her hands were shaking, her lips were letting out a hint of a tremble.

Hange seemed to be in a similar state, self conscious and nervous. Maybe even ready to repent for whatever she had believed she had done wrong. As if she almost wanted to hear insults, criticisms and she even seemed ready to take a punch in the face.

But Levi’s thoughts were far from that.

The day they met, she had introduced herself and had approached him like they were close friends already.

The night they met, she had hid in the dark, watching silently while he trained. That night, she had stitched up his knee.

And in that process, she made him remember things.

You made me remember things.

And those things were what had pushed him to ‘tense up,’ to ‘work hard’ and to impress her.

But really was it anything wrong? “You didn’t do anything wrong,” Levi said. “I told you, I made the decision to push myself on my own.”

“But what did I do to push you?”

“Do you have to be doing something to push me? What if I just met you? And I thought, I wanna help her write her thesis then things happened, then overtime I realized I’m enjoying this.”

Hange shrugged. “You pitied your biggest fan enough to give her a freebie huh?”

“I said ‘I’d gladly stay by your side.’” I don’t think people give promises like that as freebies.”

“But you just met me.”

“You haven’t even met me and you were already keeping pictures of me like some sort of stalker.”

Hange only smiled at such an accusation. Within the few months, they had gotten used to a little banter after all. “Are you just humoring me?”

“No. I’m not. I’m happy to have met you and I said it then, I’ll say it again. If you want me to, I’ll stay by your side.”

“It’s just weird, okay. You have a lot more fans than you think you do. And you get friendly with me, some frumpy nerdy fan who followed your tournaments like crazy….”

“What other explanation would you like for this? Soulmates? Fate?”

“I don’t believe in any of those,” Hange said. “I don’t wanna believe in it. I like to think that I just made the decision to reach out to you. And I just got lucky you decided to reciprocate.”

“Then I got lucky you reached out too, Hange. This goes both ways.”

“I guess it does.” Hange closed her laptop and looked up at the ceiling. “Sorry if this came out of nowhere. With my last exam over, this was the only time I got to think about it again. But you know, thanks for staying here with me even if I was ignoring you half the time.”

“I knew you had a lot to make up for and besides, I’m fine just quietly sitting by.”

Hange’s features softened into a warm smile. “Me too. I’ll make this up to you. If I get this paper written by Friday. I’ll submit then. After that, you wanna go somewhere? Just the two of us?”

“Didn’t you say you wanted to work on your thesis?”

“Your birthday is on the 25th right? But I wanna do something for Christmas so I’m thinking... what if we have an early birthday celebration and we do something else for Christmas?

“You know that’s my birthday Hange, I get to decide how I wanna spend it.”

“But what if it’s my treat?”

“It’s still my birthday.”

Hange gave him a long look. “Okay, what about this? I’m hoping to use your stories for references to my thesis. And I wanna make it up to you… I’ll treat you out on Saturday for that then after, you decide what you wanna do on your birthday.”

“I never said we couldn’t do that for my birthday.”

“Well if you were just more direct with things we wouldn't have to bounce off ideas like this back and forth. Are we celebrating your birthday early or not?”

“And besides I never even said anything about you using my stories for your thesis.”

“Just answer the questions one at a time Levi,” Hange pressed. She checked her watch. “And...I’m meeting someone in a few minutes.”

“Before I answer, what’s your thesis about?”

Hange looked ready to pull her hair out in frustration. “I don’t know yet but I might use it. Anyway, if you’re not gonna answer me, then we treat this Saturday as my celebration for your birthday. Deal?”

“Yes to the thesis. Yes to the early birthday. Are you happy?”

Hange let out a loud sigh of exasperation. “There. Why did that take so long to get out of you?”

Levi ignored that question. “So when are you going to tell me what your new thesis is about?”

“Maybe during your actual birthday? If you bestow on me the privilege of celebrating such an important occasion with you?“ Hange suggested. She quickly gathered her things and dumped it into her canvas bag. Her movements were wilder, messier than usual. So messy Levi found himself cringing at such a sight. He was fairly certain Hange had done that on purpose.

He only confirmed it a second later, as Hange bolted towards the door and gave him the most smug face.

Levi was sure, if he wasn’t so injured, he probably would have bolted right after her. And he was certain he would have caught up to her.

***

“Nice hoodie. The color green really suits you,” Hange called in a way of greeting.

There were no hi’s or hello’s and she hadn’t given one in a while. Yet for some reason, such an unconventional greeting still had Levi raising eyebrows. “Is this your way of making up for a few days ago?”

Hange shrugged. “What if I just wanted to compliment your new hoodie?”

“For one, this is not a new hoodie,” Levi said. “Besides we didn’t separate on the best of terms last Wednesday and you didn’t even reply to my messages after.”

“Well, I finished my paper and I started my thesis… And hey... I did leave you some messages.”

Levi was sure he didn’t receive any messages. He did not receive any notifications for sure. On top of that, he had taken the liberty as well to check back to his inbox every hour or so. Just to make sure his notifications were actually working

But still just in case he was mistaken, he checked his phone under her confused yet watchful gaze only to find that in fact he was right, she didn’t send any messages. He opened up to their untouched chat box and showed it to her.

“Did you check your document?”

“My document?”

“The one with the soldier and titan stories.”

“Why the hell would you leave messages there?”

“I was catching up to it okay.” Hange’s lips curled up into a smile as she spoke. “And I really enjoyed it. A lot. I left so many comments there. I thought you’d reply.”

Levi looked away guiltily. He turned off the notifications on the document a few weeks back. He liked to blame finals week for the inactivity. Yet with all his final papers completed and submitted, he was still making a conscious effort to ignore that document.

But did he want to tell her that? For a while maybe he did consider telling her he had no intention of touching it again.

But Hange continued talking. “When Commander Hange told Captain Levi to live with him in the woods… Wow you know you described it pretty well, I could almost imagine what was happening. Actually, now that I think about it, I think I managed to dream up something like that. But why did you have to end like that?” Hange twisted her face into a little too serious of an expression. “Shoot or listen it’s up to you.” Hange repeated, an attempt at mimicking Captain Levi for sure, but it was too comical given the context of the tirade.

Shoot or listen it’s up to you.

What if Captain Levi got shot? Before Levi could speak up though, Hange pressed on.

“Now that exams are over… are you gonna write more?”

Levi didn’t reply. Or at least, he couldn’t bring himself to verbalize a reply. Maybe he had brought his head up then down, in the form of some small nod. Maybe it could have been just him looking up to see the crowds making their way to the train station.

The train station closest to their university was one of the busiest ones in town. Even a little past eight on a Saturday morning, there were still crowds large enough that navigating through them still required some effort.

And whether Hange had seen that nod, or whether she had been too distracted by the buying of tickets and the navigating of crowds, Levi never thought too much about it. He brushed the thought aside as soon as she herself abandoned that topic of conversation and the question she asked only a second ago.

And she didn’t push that topic of conversation any longer. Even after they arrived at the platform, even after they boarded the train.

Train rides were always quiet. No one really ever started conversation in trains, instead passing the times with their phones on silent mode, save for a few children who still weren’t completely familiar yet with that unwritten rule

At that moment though, Levi was thankful. Hange was silent. He was silent. And he had a little more mind space to decide how to navigate the topic of his story.

Just in case she did ask again.

***

“Question, so is that the type of green that you imagined for the survey corps cloak?” Hange asked, pinching the sleeve of his hoodie.

Levi looked down at his hoodie. The hoodie was of a dark green color, and he only had to take a glance to put two and two together. “Yes it is.”

“I thought it would be. You know this is the same green I’m imagining.”

Levi smiled. He met Hange’s gaze and even when Hange had looked away, making her way to the park entrance, he made an effort to follow her gaze.

“You thought this far huh?” Levi asked, as she stopped at the turnstile and inserted her ticket then his ticket in.

Hange grabbed a flyer on the way out and looked back at him. “It was a good read. I really felt like I was in the story. And you know, it might sound weird but I kinda really saw myself in her. You know that passion she felt, with the titans and all… I think I’ve felt something similar back when I was still winning competitions when I was younger. I did loads of research back in high school.”

Levi only had to look back at the long hours he had spent stalking her on article after article to confirm that she was telling the truth.

Hange’s rambles about her research in high school though soon faded into some good background noise. He remembered some points, he forgot some. Then, his main focus though had been the green scenery that welcomed him as soon as they exited the train station. The station exit had opened up to a park, a large park with no end in sight. Only flowers and shrubs that lead up to trees with the mountains and horizons at the back of it all.

“When I was reading your story, they talked about what lay beyond the walls… For some reason, I imagined this park. I saw it on a documentary a few years back, streams that seem like they stretch out for eternity, miles and miles of mountains and forests. They said, when you step out of the station, it would feel like another world. And when I thought about what to do for your birthday...” Hange trailed off as she stepped forward into the main path. “I thought… why not show you the scenery I imagined? Maybe I could contribute to your story, help inspire you to write. I hope this view didn’t disappoint.”

It doesn’t. It’s beautiful.

Thinking about it, of course there had been a little more people exiting the train at that station. Of course the station would be much larger and a little more exquisite than other stations.

The view proved to be very much worth the three hour travel and the struggle of changing trains.

They had taken a regional train, then had switched to a few local ones. And looking out the window of the train then, Levi had appreciated how the landscape quickly changed almost blending across one another, the bare trees which almost had a grey tint to them, had gradually shifted to dull bare rice fields. Somewhere in between, the evergreen trees made their entrance, slowly then all at once, in some strange sort of way that Levi was never able to pick out the exact moment that he was sure, the evergreen trees were there to stay for good.

The snow had yet to fall there, and with the evergreen trees and the moss and lichens that littered the paths, Levi could at least pretend it wasn’t winter yet.

Green after all, was a very warm color.

Hange opened her map and leaned a little closer towards Levi so he could get a good look. The map was all green, decorated with markers, mini mountains, rest houses, water refill areas, toilets and picnic sites. There were flower symbols, marked by season. And skirting the circumference of the map were three circles: a large green one, inside it a red one, inside it a yellow one, a very small circle that covered two picnic areas and one flower area occupied the center and next to it a bright red arrow marker ‘You are here.’

“So, I know you wouldn’t be able to handle too much of a walk yet, so we could stick to something short? Just skirt around this area…” She traced the smallest circle along the park and turned to him expectantly.

“What do you wanna see?” Levi asked.

“Anything really. I’m just happy to be able to visit a park like this.”

“No, really Hange. What do you wanna see?” Levi pressed. He planted his bum leg on the ground and stepped forward with it with a little more finesse as if to prove a point. I can walk at least. “If I wasn’t injured right now, where would you have pulled me to go?”

There was some progress at least. He was surprised to see that he could put some extra weight on his knee without so much as a wobble. The stiff brace was probably doing all the work then but Levi was confident he could get a good number of steps across before tiring out his body.

“I’m sure we both don’t want another hospital visit.,” Hange warned.

“I’m fine. I’ve had enough physical therapy lessons and I managed to put some weight on my knee already. Even without the brace..”

For a second, there was a glimmer of hope in Hange’s eyes. She blinked it back before Levi could be sure. “I’m fine with the shortest path,” she said. “This blue one.”

“Are you sure? All we’re gonna see if we follow this path are two picnic sites, a mini forest and one portapotty. You’ll be disappointed.”

“But Levi, what if you get injured again?”

“Didn’t you say this was my birthday treat?”

“We can always go again---”

“In the summer? After you finish your thesis?” Levi raised one eyebrow at her in accusation. “We endured a three hour train ride for this. Let’s make the most of it.”

“Then… which path do you wanna follow?” Hange asked.

Levi gently placed one finger on the green one and traced it. He had only gone half way before Hange pulled the map away.

“No way. That’s at least a five kilometer hike,” Hange said.

Levi pulled the map back gently and pointed at the markers. “Come on, the landscape here seems pretty flat and there’s a forest here and a river. And if we walk ahead here... I’m guessing you wanna see the mountain? They built an observatory there,” Levi said. “Didn’t you say you wanted to know how it feels like to fly?”

Hange’s face turned a little red, her eyes looking a little unfocused as she followed the map with her eyes and looked ahead at the scenery. When Levi squinted, he could tell the peak which stood out from the rest, the small lump that stuck out on one of the hills, a little higher than the rest.

“You didn’t get to do this a lot when you were a kid huh?” Levi asked. He didn’t intend it to be a provocation at first. But when Hange folded her map and took a deep breath, he was grateful for those last few words that popped into his head then.

“My parents didn’t really like taking vacations in the countryside,” Hange admitted.

“One round around there, maybe we’ll go all the way up to the observatory and back,” Levi said. “And if my knee starts hurting, I promise, I’ll tell you.”

Hange’s lips curled up into a playful smile. “If I need to, I’ll carry you back.” She walked ahead, gesturing for him to follow. Levi was almost tempted not to follow. That little playful of an offer and the uncertainty that came with Levi wondering a little too hard about whether she was kidding or nothing, had him entertaining the idea of turning his back on her for a second.

Just to mess with her.

The view had been much stronger then, the way the sun shone on Hange and reflected on her glasses had been too beautiful of a view. It had been a while since he’d seen that much green.

And it wouldn’t be that way for the next three months at least.

As he followed her to the path that followed that large green sign, Levi started to think, maybe that experience might just be worth the embarrassment of a piggy back ride on the way back.

***

Man down!

Hey! Are you alive?

“So the river must be pretty near here huh...” Hange said, not looking up from the map.

Levi had heard the sound of the rushing water stream before she had mentioned it. Whether it had been a river or a stream, he didn’t bother trifling with such detail. The trees that lined the main path, and the sound of rushing water had brought him somewhere else, to another time.

“Wanna see the river?” Hange grabbed his hand, and pulled him towards a smaller path that had been unnoticeable from his peripherals.

As Levi looked to the right, to the shrubs that opened up into an empty space, he noticed the remnants of a path almost completely concealed by shrubs.

“Why would you wanna see the river?”

Hange shrugged. “We don’t get to see this much nature often right? If we follow it…. Maybe we can see a waterfall at the end?”

Levi narrowed his eyes. Now that he thought about it, he hadn’t seen that much nature since he had gone home for a visit more than a few years ago. Maybe that was why the greens and the landscapes had been oddly fascinating.

And Hange. Hange was a lot more entranced than he was. He could have sworn he had lost her a few times to the trees that lined the path.

“We take a look,” Levi said. “Then we go back on the path. I don’t want us getting lost here.”

Hange was too engrossed in her surroundings and then, her eyes had looked a little too wild. But the moment Levi had mentioned that last part, Hange twisted her face into a pout, a pout of defeat at least. “You’re right. Let’s just check out the river here and go back the way we came.” She clutched his hand, gripping a little tighter than usual. “Your knee is still okay right?”

Levi nodded. There could have been some lie to the reaction but it was still too small of a lie for him to need to justify anything. His knee ached for sure. It was an ache dull enough though for Levi to clock it to the tightness of his brace.

To his relief, the river was only less than a two minute walk away. It had seemed farther due to the dense forest that lined the main path. But the density could have been an illusion as well. It opened up to a treeless plain, just a good few meters of grass and beyond that was a river that harbored such a violent flow of water.

Both violent and peaceful, Levi soon realized. As if it was the river’s business to just run hurriedly towards its destination while at the same time crashing towards the shore.

“The river I imagined was a lot like this,” Hange spoke up.

“What river?”

“The one in your story.” Hange answered matter-of-factly. Her eyes were wide with surprise.

Levi wondered if his face showed any sign of that little charade. He had recognized it after all, long before Hange had even mentioned it. It turned out, only the rushing sound of water was enough for him to recall it so vividly.

The view in front of him only added salt to the wounds he just recently realized he had.

Phantom wounds. Even the word phantom couldn’t really justify how it felt then. Back he had written it, he could empathize for sure. Then and there, the view in front of him, had him touching his right eye, just to make sure it was still there and soon after, he wiggled his two fingers just to make sure they were still attached.

“Commander Hange found him in a river like this right? Did you imagine this kind of river too?”

“Maybe,” Levi muttered. He didn’t think too far as to the width of the river or the shape of the blades of grass below. The rushing of the river, the tone of Hange’s voice were enough at least to make him realize that could have very much been the river banks she had found him on. “Commander Hange would now.” Levi added a second later.

Hange cleared her throat. “Well then, I’ll make you imagine it. Call me commander Hange Zoe,” Hange said. “So after the river, where did we go next, Captain Levi?”

“You read it right?”

“They jumped into the river together,” Hange said.

Levi’s eyes widened. “They did?” Levi had dreamt of splashes, the cold water slapping at his face and the numbness that followed. Of course that would have meant them jumping into the river. But why had it taken him so long to put two and two together? “Yeah you’re right. They did.”

Hange chuckled. “Weren’t you the one who wrote it?” She looked back at the dense foliage behind them and back at him. “Let’s go back?”

“Yeah… Sure…” Levi turned on his heel, making his way back to the path only stopping when Hange grabbed at his arm and put it around her shoulder.

“You’re walking much slower now you know,” she said. “Should we go back?”

Levi shook his head. “No, keep going.” His weight on her shoulders was a familiar sensation, almost nostalgic. And the green around him, the breeze and the peaceful rustle of leaves only helped to comfort him further.

There may have been some others along the trail, but Levi wasn’t looking at anyone else. Along the way on the path, the small support had evolved to a piggy back ride.

Surprisingly, Levi wasn’t at all self conscious.

“You’re much lighter than I thought you would be.”

“I honestly feel like I’ve lost weight since the injury. I probably had a lot more muscle back in the summer.” Levi let his head hang back as he stared up at the blue sky above him. The two stopped for a rest in one of the forest clearings a good few meters away from the path.

The ground beneath him was dirty for sure and he felt the leaves and stones through his thick joggers. For some reason though, he wasn’t at all in a hurry to get up.

Hange squeezed his leg. “I’d think physical therapy would have done something about that.”

“Hange, can anyone actually gain muscle learning how to walk again?”

“I’m pretty sure you do other stuff in therapy.”

“Yeah, but it’s far from the training I used to do for high jumps,” Levi said. “Even if my knee magically heals now, who knows if I’ll even be able to manage a two meter jump again.”

Hange closed her eyes and hummed, seeming deep in thought for a second. “Captain Levi was humanity’s strongest,” she said. “Then he got injured in some explosion and ended up half dead on the banks of the river.”

Levi could only watch silently as Hange pulled her legs a little closer to herself and pressed one finger to her left eye and before he knew it, Levi found himself mirroring that slight movement, the phantom pains returned for a split second.

“But I can’t imagine the story ended there. Humanity’s strongest soldier wouldn’t go out of commission over an injury like that. After that, he had to continue fighting right?” Hange continued.

Maybe we should just live here together. Right Levi?

If we keep running and hiding, what will that get us.

The rustle of the leaves, the clear sky above him and the way Hange had rested her elbow on her knees, touching her hand to her left eye. Those were more than enough crumbs for Levi to almost hear the conversation in the silence.

Shoot or Listen. It’s up to you.

“He continued fighting,” Levi said. He let out a cough. “No--- They continued fighting. Captain Levi and Commander Hange Zoe did.”

***

“Maybe I should have built a cart,” Hange said as she rested on the bench. She heaved a breath so strong Levi could have believed she had held her breath the whole way to the rest house.

“You didn’t have to support me here. I could have walked it.”

“Believe me Levi, this isn’t much. It’s like just another day in the gym,” Hange said.

“If we were doing this months ago I could have done five rounds of this trail with you on my back.”

Hange grinned. “Is that a challenge?”

“I said five months ago. Not now.”

Levi stretched his arms out, noting how heavy it was then, particularly when compared to months ago. Back then, it had been his arms carrying him over the bar, then and there stretched out in front of him, those same arms felt like dead weight. And the dead weight stretched out to all parts of his body, all the way until his legs, settling particularly on his braced knee.

And for a second, it hurt. Enough for Levi to instinctively put his hand on top of it, an attempt to pacify it before it got unbearable.

A second later, another propped her hand on top of his and Levi followed it all the way up until Hange.

Her face was hopeful, her eyes wide with what could have been curiosity and soon enough, maybe plans and ideas. “When your knee heals, let’s do this again,” she said.

The path wouldn’t change. It would pass by the same glades, the same rivers and through the halfway point that was the rest house.

The seasons would change the scenery for sure, each would bring its own flavor to the paths. But Levi was sure that wasn’t what Hange was thinking about then as she looked elsewhere, first scanning her surroundings then settling somewhere above.

Levi didn’t have to follow her gaze to know it. It had been the main attraction since they had gotten past the forest and into the clearing.

Of course, that was what Hange would have liked to see.

There was a reason the rest house had been placed so conveniently there at that halfway point. In front of the rest house, the mountain path broke into a fork, one with the green sign which would loop back to the entrance, the other snaked up the mountain, so steeply Levi was sure in his current state, he would only injure himself further if he attempted to climb to the top.

And what lay above there, was the observatory, the one lump he had remembered seeing from the entrance of the station.

We walked that far? Levi thought to himself then. He looked to Hange who was still very much focused on the view of the observatory from their place on the bench.

You’re still looking at it? “You really wanna check it out?” Levi asked.

“The what?” Hange looked back at him, her eyes wide with surprise.

“The observatory, on the peak, up there.”

“Maybe next time.” She shrugged, “Even if you insist, I’m not making you climb that.”

The trail was steep enough at least that Levi was sure they’d have to be on all fours for a good majority of that difficult hike.

“You wanna get something to eat?” Hange asked as she held a hand out to help him up.

“Sure.”

The resthouse only offered the bare minimum, rice balls and sandwiches as if they were doing their part to prevent anybody else from overeating mid hike. Those amenities, the indoor benches and the indoor heating was more than enough though for an already exhausted Levi.

It was as if his body realized that it was time to rest, and chose that moment to complain, putting emphasis in particular to the aches and pains on his knee. Even holding on to Hange who had supported him the rest of the way, had brought with it a few more unwelcome pains and even Levi’s shoulders that had not done much but tense up as he held on to Hange, were starting to hurt.

“You tired?” She asked in between bites of her riceball.

“I’m having fun.”

“That wasn’t the question,” Hange retorted.

“Aren’t you supposed to be tired, you were pretty much supporting me the whole time.”

Hange rolled her shoulders. “I still workout in between studies. Besides I told you, you’re light.” she said.

But Levi did notice in her flushed face and the way she had paused a few times in between sentences, she was tired. Tired but still very much enjoying it. Tired but still very much unsatisfied.

And he saw it in the way she would sneak glances out the window as if…

“You really wanna climb the hill, don’t you?”

Hange bit her lip, quickly crumpling the empty wrapper of the rice ball. As if that could have been enough to stave whatever conflicted feelings seemed to be boiling inside her.

“It’s fine, okay. You can leave me here first.”

“But… I wanna see that view with you.” Hange said. “We could wait until the summer, when your leg is fully healed. Maybe we could ask Erwin about it…”

“Summer is a long time from now and before that, you’re gonna have to finish your thesis, then you’re gonna have to defend it. Who knows how quickly things will change by then,”

Hange avoided his gaze, instead focusing on the crumpled plastic wrapper in front of her and she held it in her hands like it was the most interesting thing in the world.

“Hange, I can wait here you know.” Levi pressed. “I’ve flown more than enough times to be satisfied for a lifetime. You don’t have to wait for me. Just show me the way next summer.”

Hange required more prodding after that. But Levi had figured out the secret to it already. All he had to do was subtly lead her to the spot where the path quickly bent upwards, to the steep incline, so steep that Levi couldn’t completely get a view of what lay beyond, even with his head bent back it hurt.

Hange’s face though was a little more flushed and there was a sparkle in her eyes. She was almost there.

Levi just had to push her a little closer. “It might get cold up there.” He removed his hoodie and handed it to her. “I’ll be waiting inside the resthouse so I’ll keep warm there. Just come back there after you’re satisfied.”

Hange gave him a look of surprise which quickly softened into something that resembled more a puppy that was given their first treat. “Levi….” She quickly put the hoodie on and for a good few seconds, Levi was struggling to find the next words to say.

‘That shade of green… it looks good on you too,” Levi managed to say.

“This is the survey corps green after all right?” Hange said, giving him the most cheeky expression.

“Yes. And it looks good on you, Commander Hange Zoe.” It could have been instinct or it could have been something else. But maybe along the way, he had just gotten used to pushing and prodding at her, the way she had done to him many times before.

He found himself pressing his left fist into her heart, focusing then on the way the fingers on his left hand curled clumsily into a fist. He was right handed, yet it was his left hand that fought for ground on her chest.

“Climb to your heart’s content.”

Dedicate your heart.

As Hange looked up at the steep hill above her, the afternoon sun chose that moment to shine on her, and Levi made out the sweat in her brow.

“To your heart’s content? That’s a pretty cheesy line Levi.”

That’s the first time I’ve ever heard you say that.

And before Levi could even say a last goodbye, beg her to come back, she turned her back to him.

He could have called out to her, he was sure of it. But then, as he watched her climb, he could only stand frozen.

At first, he wanted to attribute it to the chill. He was only wearing one thin sweater, one layer, in almost sub zero temperatures. But the biting cold was the last thing on his mind.

Why didn’t you run after her?

The phantom pains came back. And that time, they weren’t pale in comparison to the rest of the sensations. They took over, as if the view in front of him then had breathed new life into those wounds.

Why couldn’t I run after her?

His whole body ached. His legs were bruised, his stomach was eating him inside out. HIs fingers burned and his face stung of wounds.

And he forced himself to look above him as Hange continued to climb. The sun was streaming right into his face, and even as his eyes burned at such a sight, Levi couldn’t look away.

It was as if the afternoon sun was eating her up, every color in her, the shadows consumed her. And soon, the only thing he could see was a black silhouette, that only got smaller and smaller the longer he looked.

See you later, Hange.

“And then what happened?” Levi muttered to himself, as if saying it out loud would make the dreams and the memories come at him faster.

They weren’t feeling obedient at all that day though.

“What happened to Hange?” He pressed, his voice a little louder than a second ago.

Levi forced himself to look back up as if searching for some sort of an answer in the view in front of him then. The memories and dreams after all had a tendency of washing over him after he fixates on the subject a little longer than necessary.

It never came though and soon enough, her silhouette was small enough to be fully covered by his pinky finger as he reached his hand out and raised his hand over his face.

And he was starting to get a little more desperate. If he couldn’t call out to those memories, he could call out to her, right?

“Hange!” Can you hear me? The memories couldn’t have ended there.

The last view of her was a silhouette, a black silhouette, much farther and much smaller than the one in front of him then. But at that moment, she felt far, completely out of reach.

Levi’s throat burned, his vision blurred as if trying to get rid of even that remnant of view.

Around that time, time stopped. Everything started to dissolve into conglomerations of sights and sounds. He was starting to even have trouble processing the rustling of the leaves and even the voices in the background.

And as he tried to take control of his body then, with the smaller motions, Levi soon started to realize he wasn’t even in control of his fingers, his hands or his legs. He moved the goalposts, attempting to at least take control of breaths, the rhythm as he swallowed that lump in his throat.

His body though was a spiteful thing. As soon as he became aware of those small motions though, it deprived him of those comforts as well.

And Levi soon found himself struggling to breathe, struggling to swallow.

Soon, he was struggling to do anything to remind himself that his body was still his to control.

“Hey, sir are you okay?”

What…

“Hey Levi… Look at me?”

Hange… When did you get here?

Hange’s eyes were fixed on his. And she narrowed her eyes and furrowed her brows as if deep in thought. And in her eyes he saw a glimmer of something else. Concern?

Soon enough, a shadow went over his right eye and before Levi could recoil, it was gone. But the shadow left the cool feeling of something wet under his eyes.

Wet...Tears?

Hange spoke up only confirming it. “Levi… Why are you crying?”

#levihan #levihan fanfiction #fanfic

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fazzams · 4 years

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Kenapa Saya Kembali Menekuni IT (Software Developer)

“Kamu salah milih jurusan, zam, nyasar.” kata teman kuliah ku dulu.

“Lho, kok ini prestasimu malah banyak di bidang IT,” Kata seorang dosen wali ketika melihat CV ku.

“Sarjana Ekonomi Islam kok profesinya web publisher?” Kata seorang admin melihat formulir pengajuan KTA salah satu ormas Islam yang iseng-iseng ku submit.

Pertanyaannya justru kenapa saya ngambil S1 Ekonomi Syariah dan bahkan berlanjut hingga S2. Padahal sejak kelas 1 SD memang passionate sama IT.

Well, ceritanya panjang dan agak absurd. Dan takkan kuceritakan kali ini. Di semester awal pernah bahkan benar-benar menyesal dan mempertanyakan diri sendiri, walau pada akhirnya lulus dan sedikit menyesal. Tetapi sekarang sudah tidak lagi, karena semuanya seperti mulai make sense.

Beberapa bulan ke depan saya ikut sebuah bootcamp (training), untuk kembali belajar skilset yang merupakan bagian dari IT, khususnya software engineering. Saya belajar web development, wordpress development, python, beberapa front-end language seperti HTML, CSS dan Javascript, some PHP, SQL, data analytics, hingga data science.

Ngapain masih ngejar IT? Banting Setir?

0. Seperti yang saya sudah bilang, saya memang punya passion IT sejak kecil.

1. Sebenarnya saya sudah memegang web design 13-14 tahun lalu, sejak SMP, yang kala itu masih langka sekali. Software yang dipakai waktu itu adalah Microsoft Frontpage dan Macromedia Dreamweaver, yang kemudian diakuisisi oleh Adobe. Dua kali ikut lomba pas SMP, satu kali menang. Salah satu anggota tim sekarang beneran jadi programmer, satu lagi wafat, satu lagi nyasar ke ekonomi syariah.

2. Waktu SMA udah narget ingin ikut Olimpiade IT. Orang tua saya membelikan laptop (kala itu masih jarang banget siswa pakai laptop). Langganan Majalah Komputer. Tapi, ternyata, saya tidak lolos seleksi masuk tim SMA, karena kemampuan Matematika saya kurang. Benar-benar pukulan keras kala itu. Sejak itulah saya agak minder, tak lagi bermimpi macam-macam. Bahkan berpikir untuk kuliah di jurusan IT di PTN top saja sudah kurang yakin. Meski begitu masih sempat juga membawa SMA juara cerdas cermat IT di tingkat kota.

3. Ketika S1 saya belum sepenuhnya melupakan minat tersebut, meski tidak pernah lagi mempelajarinya secara mendalam. Pada tahun 2015 saya mengikuti lomba blog ekonomi Syariah dan membuat artikel tentang Platform Crowdfunding Syariah (dulu masih jarang), itupun juga berhubungan dengan IT. Saya mengerjakan tugas akhir juga memakai metode machine learning, itupun juga IT. Bahkan sempat pengen lanjut S2 di bidang IT.

4. Memang, tentu saja saya tidak lanjut S2 IT. Pengennya tetap lanjut ekonomi syariah karena pengan jadi Dosen. Karena passion lainku adalah mengajar. Meski begitu saya juga tidak jadi. Saya malah milih belajar Digital Marketing di sebuah pesantren di tengah kampung di kabupaten yang saya tak pernah datangi, yaitu Sintesa, Magetan. Selama setahun. Lagi-lagi temanku mempertanyakan pilihan anehku.

5. Mulai dari sana sampai lulus tahun 2017, lalu sampai tahun 2018, saya fokus berprofesi sebagai digital marketer. Di tahun tersebut jugalah lahir muamala.net, website media ekonomi syariah. Hal tersebut tidak ringan, karena menjadi digital marketer itu naik turun juga.

6. Pada tahun 2019 saya akhirnya bisa menjalani mimpi saya, yaitu lanjut S2 di UGM, meski awalnya ingin lanjut di luar negeri. Dan meski banyak mengorbankan hal lainnya termasuk pekerjaan.

Udah gitu ngapain belajar skillset di atas lagi? Coding? Web development? Ga nyambung.

1. Memang sekilas ngga nyambung. Tapi kl saya ngga ada skill di sana (meski sekarang pas2an) dan skill SEO, mungkin ngga ada web muamala.net, yang terhitung saat ini telah dibaca oleh 3 juta pengunjung.

2. Web muamala.net dan proyek digital marketing lagi turun baik karena efek algoritma ataupun covid. Dan karena kesibukan kuliah, masalah hati & kesehatan mental, saya tak bisa terlalu banyak mengurusinya. Belum lagi digital marketing itu butuh waktu dan modal, tetapi hasilnya sebagai bisnis pada umumnya, yaitu tidak pasti.

3. Waktu S2 ku tak lama lagi, dan saya tidak bisa berharap kepada yang belum pasti, oleh karena itu saya berusaha menciptakan kepastian dengan ikut coding bootcamp.

4. Yang saya kejar adalah agar bisa remote work keluar negeri, karena potensi pendapatannya cukup besar. Anda hidup di Indonesia dengan biaya Indonesia, tetapi digaji dengan standar upah dollar.

5. Berkerja di bidang ini tak mengharuskan Anda lulusan IT, punya koneksi, atau bahkan pengalaman kerja. Kuncinya cuma satu: portofolio.

Apakah ga nyambung?

Memang, sebenarnya saya awalnya juga berpikir begitu. Merasa melakukan hal yang berbeda dunia. Yang akhirnya tidak ada yang maksimal. Tetapi kini saya seperti menemukan titik temunya, entah disebut irisan atau titik yang bersambung. Menjadi hal baru yang unik.

1. Web development jelas akan menunjang web muamala ku ke depannya.

2. Jasa web development juga akan mengasah skill bisnisku.

3. Berkerja remote keluar negeri juga mengasah pengalaman paparan internasionalku (penting jika jadi akademisi ke depan)

4. Belajar coding bahasa seperti python sangat bermanfaat buat ilmu ekonomi, keuangan atau manajemen, karena bahasa tersebut saat ini lumrah digunakan untuk penelitian, baik data analytics ataupun data science.

5. Pendapatan dari remotework tersebut juga bisa digunakan untuk lanjut S3 suatu saat, jika tidak mendapat beasiswa. Bahkan, karena remote bisa berkerja sambil lanjut kuliah.

Dan mencampur adukkan beberapa bidang keilmuan ini menjadi tren di dunia kerja dan bisnis sekarang. Untuk lebih jelasnya Anda bisa searching “Generalist Vs Specialist karya David Epstein”.

Lha, katanya pengen jadi dosen?

Ya memang, tapi:

1. Bagiku menjadi dosen bukanlah untuk profesi atau mencari rezeki, tapi mengajar, bagiku adalah passion. Apalagi mengajar ekonomi syariah, sekalian dakwah, yakan. Untuk mencari cuan saya mencari di luar itu.

2. Kesempatan menjadi dosen bukanlah hal yang bisa dipilh kapan saja dan di mana saja. Untung-untungan. Padahal saya tidak mempertimbangkan menjadi dosen kecuali di 3 kota yaitu, Balikpapan, Samarinda, Jogja. Tentu lowongan untuk jadi dosen di sana tidak selalu ada.

3. Daripada nunggu yang tidak pasti tentunya kita melakukan hal yang pasti terlebih dahulu.

4. Dengan belajar python for data analytics dan data science saya tetap bisa melakukan penelitian meski, misal, belum jadi akademisi.

5. Pada akhirnya semua mengalami konvergensi, dan menciptakan sesuatu yang baru dan unik.

Begitulah kira-kira alasan saya kembali menekuni dunia IT, khususnya coding. Sebenarnya tulisannya lebih untuk diri saya sendiri, agar saya selalu ingat dan bersemangat. Karena terkadang saya merasa ragu dan sendiri menjalani jalan yang campur-campur ini. Terkadang seperti kehilangan jati diri, apalagi ketika membandingkannya dengan orang-orang sekitar.

Belum lagi 3 bulan di akhir 2020 ini saya juga harus garap tesis, sehingga benar-benar full menghabiskan seluruh waktu dan pikiran saya. Bahkan sudah tidak mikir apa-apa lagi. Kegiatan sosialpun banyak tereduksi (meski covid membuatnya normal).

Sing penting luruskan niat dan bismillah.

*Sekilas biaya bootcamp

Berikut ini adalah beberapa cuplikan biaya dari bootcamp coding yang diadakan oleh gl*nts.id dan h*cktiv8:

Ya agak gila emang. Tetapi setidaknya saya mendapatkan jalur yang lebih ekonomis yang mengeluarkan biaya sekitar 4,5 juta atau hampir 1/5 atau 1/10 biaya di atas. Tapi tentu ada harga ada kualitas, di samping ikut bootcamp saya harus rajin belajar mandiri dari sumber gratisan lainnya.

#petakhidupan #mimpi #cita #profesi

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nenamatic · 7 months

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#ARTIFICIALINTELLIGENCE #Blog #BESTAILEGALTOOLS

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govindhtech · 7 months

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NVIDIA RTX 500 & 1000 Pro Ada Laptop GPUs Spark AI Power

As generative artificial intelligence and hybrid work environments become the new norm, practically every professional, whether they are content creators, researchers, or engineers, need a powerful laptop that is accelerated by AI. This Laptop GPUs should be able to assist users in tackling the most difficult difficulties that their sector presents, even while they are on the go.

The NVIDIA Ada Lovelace architecture-based portfolio, which comprises the RTX 2000, 3000, 3500, 4000, and 5000 Ada Generation Laptop GPUs, will be expanded with the introduction of the new NVIDIA RTX 500 and 1000 Ada Generation Laptop GPUs, which will be made available in new mobile workstations that are very portable.

The rising use of artificial intelligence (AI) to create efficiency across professional design and content production processes as well as daily productivity applications highlights the need of having robust local AI acceleration and appropriate processing capacity in systems.

Along with a neural processing unit (NPU), which is a component of the central processing unit (CPU), the next generation of mobile workstations with Ada Generation graphics processing units (GPUs), which include the RTX 500 and 1000 GPUs, will also have an NVIDIA RTX GPU, which incorporates Tensor Cores for artificial intelligence processing. The neural processing unit (NPU) is responsible for offloading light AI operations, while the graphics processing unit (GPU) offers up to 682 TOPS of extra AI performance for more demanding day-to-day AI jobs.

The GPU is capable of delivering a greater degree of AI acceleration, which is important for addressing a broad variety of AI-based activities. Some examples of these tasks include video conferencing with high-quality AI effects, streaming videos with AI upscaling, and working more quickly with generative AI and content creation apps.

By delivering up to 14 times the generative AI performance for models such as Stable Diffusion, up to 3 times faster photo editing with AI, and up to 10 times the graphics performance for 3D rendering in comparison to a configuration that only utilizes the CPU, the new RTX 500 graphics processing unit (GPU) brings about massive leaps in productivity for both established and emerging workflows.

Improving Professional Workflows Across All Sectors of the Government

For laptop users all across the world, the RTX 500 and 1000 graphics processing units (GPUs) of Laptop GPUs improve processes with artificial intelligence. With the use of artificial intelligence, video editors may simplify tasks such as reducing background noise. By using AI upscaling, graphic designers have the ability to bring hazy pictures to life. It is possible for professionals to work while on the go while using AI to provide video conferencing and streaming experiences of a better quality.

NVIDIA also provides the RTX 2000, 3000, 3500, 4000, and 5000 Ada Generation Laptop GPUs for customers that are interested in using artificial intelligence for applications like as sophisticated rendering, data research, and deep learning processes. Deep learning super sampling (DLSS) and artificial intelligence denoising are two techniques that 3D designers may employ to see photorealistic renderings in real time. Using local large language models, businesses are able to query their internal knowledge base using interfaces that are similar to chatbot functionality. Researchers and scientists also have the opportunity to experiment with data science, the training and tweaking of artificial intelligence models, and development initiatives.

With NVIDIA RTX, there is both performance and portability

Based on the NVIDIA Ada Lovelace architecture, the RTX 500 and 1000 graphics processing units (GPUs) provide the most recent technological developments to thin and light laptops, including the following:

Third-generation RT Cores: Enhanced photorealistic rendering with up to 2x the ray tracking capabilities of the previous generation.

Fourth-generation Tensor Cores: 2x the throughput of the prior generation, boosting deep learning training, inference, and AI-based creative tasks.

Ada Generation CUDA cores: Up to 30% higher single-precision float-point (FP32) throughput than the prior generation for dramatic graphics and computing performance increases.

Dedicated GPU memory: 4GB with the RTX 500 GPU and 6GB with the RTX 1000 GPU lets users run demanding 3D and AI-based apps and handle bigger projects, datasets, and multi-app workflows.

DLSS 3: Advances AI-powered graphics to enhance speed by creating more high-quality frames.

AV1 encoder: The eighth-generation NVIDIA encoder, dubbed NVENC, with AV1 compatibility is up to 40% more productive than H.264, allowing new broadcasting, streaming, and video chatting.

Obtainability of

The new graphics processing units (GPUs) for the NVIDIA RTX 500 and 1000 Ada Generation Laptop GPUs will be made available in mobile workstations this spring by global manufacturing partners like as Dell Technologies, HP, Lenovo, and MSI.

FAQS

What are the advantages for those who work by profession?

Increased productivity: AI acceleration speeds up video editing, noise reduction, and picture upscaling. Enhanced creativity: Real-time graphics rendering, better video calling, and better streaming. Portable: Professionals may use strong tools on thin and light computers.