#top armored car companies

[barcadlyservices]

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[edaworks]

Wasteland Survival Guide: The Institute, Fusion Reactors, and M.I.T.'s Actual Basement

It's that time again. Periodically I make unreasonable longposts about Fallout-related topics (it's a good way to keep track of fic research). Today I'm tackling nuclear fusion, the Institute, and the real-world Massachusetts Institute of Technology's basement.

Yeah, Yeah, M.I.T. is the Institute, We've All Seen - Wait, What Do You Mean, "The Vault Laboratory?"

M.I.T. - the Massachusetts Institute of Technology - is a highly exclusive research university with a well-deserved reputation for hosting brilliant minds.

It also got its serial numbers filed off in order to host the in-game Institute. Why? Probably because of all the very real research into robotics, artificial intelligence, and power armor (no really). And because M.I.T. is actually doing now what the Institute tries to do in-game with nuclear fusion.

And, of course, because of the vaults in the basement.

You know what? I'll just start at the top...Read on below.

I'll be focusing on fusion-related research in this post, and comparing in-game Institute work on fusion to what's actually happening over at M.I.T. (We'll get to the Media Laboratory and robotics and AI and the, uhm, power armor stuff in a separate post. Or three.)

all actual M.I.T. researchers/faculty/students and/or nuclear physicists have my sincere apologies, I don't know shit about shit but I'm doing my best

I Didn't Sign Up for a Physics Class, but Okay

Here's the thing about nuclear fusion generators - y'know...the ones powering nearly** the entirety of pre-war in-game America?

Including self-contained, miniaturized reactors (fusion cores, fusion cells, microfusion cells, Corvega engines, assaultron and robobrain power supplies, recharger weapons, G.E.C.K.s, etc.) and full-scale reactors (powering vaults, the Lucky 38, the Prydwen (and Rivet City before Maxson Happened), missile silos, etc.)...?

We don't have them yet.

Of course we have nuclear power generation, what are you talking about?

Yes - but nuclear power plants currently operating use fission reactors! Fusion reactors, though? Well...

For the pre-war in-game universe, even more than for us, that fuel-to-energy ratio would have been absurdly important. Companies rushed to implement fusion for damn near every possible use, but waited until the Resource Wars left them no other choice. "No more (viable) oil reserves? Well, shit. Fusion it is."

Because of this, by October 23, 2077, pre-war Western markets were still somewhat new to adopting miniaturized nuclear fusion reactors.

For instance, Chryslus' first fusion vehicles - intentionally reminiscent of the absolutely wild Ford Nucleon concept car dreamed up in 1957 - came to market in 2070, less than a decade before the nuclear exchange.

As for the other benefits of nuclear fusion...Atom knows the in-game universe could do with less radioactive contamination:

It is no wonder the Institute wants to get the reactor in their basement up, running, and running better than originally designed.

Real-life M.I.T. is no stranger to running fusion reactors - they've been at it since the late '60s - but as it turns out, they are currently also "building a better mousetrap," and if they succeed they will be achieving all the Institute would hope for in clean energy production - without the moral deficit.

If nuclear fusion is so great, why aren't we using this technology yet IRL?

Because - and I cannot stress this enough - we are attempting to levitate bits of the Sun inside a donut to make really hot things boil water* so steam will turn a fan attached to a dynamo to power light bulbs.

*(there are two other ways to generate power using this heat)

Naturally...this comes with some complications.

We know fusion reactors can be the most energy-efficient form of power generation - we just need better reactors. That's where M.I.T. comes in.

The biggest problem right now is efficiency:

TL;DR - as of April 2024, all fusion reactors as a matter of course still consume more power to run than they are able to produce (meaning they do not reach "breakeven"). Many cutting-edge reactors also require tritium (very rare) as well as deuterium (very common) fuel.

We did not even see a fusion reaction that reached "breakeven" for power production until December of 2022. That reaction occurred at the National Ignition Facility in California, and their results just passed peer review in February of this year (2024).

Several in-progress reactors aim to improve on this, including ITER (the combined work of dozens of nations) in France, and SPARC: the new reactor under development by Mass Fusion Commonwealth Fusion Systems and M.I.T.'s Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC).

Another big problem with this technology is that it involves plasma.

Plasma, as a particular song reminds us, is what the Sun is made of and The Sun Is Hot. That means plasma carries some very real 'we're-losing-structural-integrity, the-warp-core-is-breaching' risks, and we must jump through all kinds of hoops to work with it.

Why are we shoving the Sun inside a donut, again?

The most well-funded, well-researched way of smashing atoms together involves plasma and magnetic confinement fusion.

This shit is beyond cool. It may also look very familiar:

In-game, the Institute is trying to get what appears to be a spherical tokamak reactor up and running.

Bethesda's choice of reactor was no coincidence: M.I.T. operated the Alcator C-Mod, a spherical tokamak, while Fallout 4 was under development - but that reactor could not achieve "breakeven" IRL, and per Shaun's in-game dialogue, the fictional Alcator C-Mod couldn't either. (Weird given the miniaturized fusion devices everywhere in-universe, but okay, Shaun.)

However, M.I.T. stopped operating that reactor in 2016, a year after Fallout 4's release. SPARC, their planned replacement reactor actually has the sort of power potential we see in-game - and they aim to bring fusion power to market in this decade.

M.I.T., right now, in real life, is doing exactly what you're asked to help the Institute do in-game: build a fusion reactor that surpasses "breakeven."

What the hell is a tokamak and why does it look like half of a Star Trek warp core?

Your typical tokamak reactor is a great big donut-shaped vacuum chamber (the torus), traditionally surrounded by AT LEAST three sets of electromagnets (sometimes many more). M.I.T.'s design for the new SPARC reactor is a bit different, but let's start with the basics.

Why so many magnets?

Because plasma, being Literal Sun Matter, cannot come into contact with the torus containment walls or it will instantly burn through. (This happened in France in 1975. Following initial "well, fuck"s and a couple years' repairs, the logical next step was to publish a paper about it.)

The magnetic fields work to heat the plasma and provide current drive (keep electrons moving in a consistent direction through the plasma and around the torus), while also keeping it from touching anything, preventing a "warp core breach." I'll take a stab at explaining it but the Department of Energy probably does it better.

Meet the magnets:

Toroidal field magnets (blue, above): These enormous D-shaped magnets wrap around and through the torus, conducting an electrical current. This creates a magnetic field that keeps plasma from drifting horizontally into the containment walls.

Central solenoid (green, above): Inside the "donut hole" sits a massive, stacked electromagnet that generates enough electromagnetic force to launch two space shuttles at once. This heats the fuel to about one hundred million degrees Celsius so that it reaches plasma state, and helps "drive" the plasma current around the torus. (Radiofrequency or neutral beam injection heating/drive may be used as well for reactor prototypes aiming for power generation, because current drive from just the solenoid isn’t practical for continuous operation.) The central solenoid also creates another magnetic field called the "poloidal field," which "loops" around the plasma like a collar to prevent it from drifting vertically into the walls. The strongest central solenoid in existence was made for the ITER reactor...by General Atomics.

Outer poloidal field magnets (grey, above): A third set of electromagnets "stacks" up the outside of the torus, and helps maintain and adjust the poloidal field.

Together these three sets of magnets force the plasma to "float" inside the torus, shape it, and provide current drive. The stronger the magnetic field, the higher the reactor's power output.

Okay, and then what?

Given sufficient heat and drive/stability, the plasma fuel mixture undergoes fusion.

Neutrons released during fusion have plenty of kinetic energy (the kind of energy a kickball has midair before it hits you in the face), but no electric charge.

Since magnetic fields only affect negatively or positively charged particles, neutrons completely ignore the fields, sailing straight through and slamming into a "blanket" of metal coating the donut's insides. Neutrons passing into the 'blanket" lose their kinetic energy, which is converted to heat and absorbed by the "blanket." (ITER's "blanket" involves a lot of beryllium, which...behaves a bit differently IRL than it does in-game.)

Heat captured by the "blanket" is then used to generate power. For instance, a water cooling system can bleed heat from the "blanket," regulating temperature and creating superheated highly-pressurized steam to run turbine generators.

I notice you described a "typical" tokamak above -what's the atypical option?

Check out SPARC.

Its huge design departure is that it uses new high-temperature superconducing magnets (most existing types have to be cooled to vacuum-of-space temperatures using something like a liquid helium system to achieve superconductivity, which is a huge power drain) to create a monstrous magnetic field - and its size is tiny in comparison to its projected power output.

Neat. So why did you refer to plasma as a problem?

Well...between the heat and the neutrons, the "blanket," the "first wall" and all plasma-facing surfaces inside the torus take one hell of a beating:

"Neutron degradation of wall surfaces-" "Energy is released in the form of the kinetic energy of the reaction products-" In practical terms, that just means countless neutrons are doing THIS:

...but to the containment wall and other surfaces inside the torus, instead of to Batshuayi's face. And so:

Basically, this stuff breaks fast enough - and the only materials that don't break quickly are rare enough - to create a real barrier to commercial use.

And THIS is one of the problems they're working on solving in M.I.T.'s basement.

Now we can talk about the Vault. FINALLY.

M.I.T. is home to the Center for Science and Technology with Accelerators and Radiation (CSTAR). CSTAR's splash page announces:

Linear plasma devices? You mean like -

No, not like plasma rifles. Instead of weapons, we're talking about tools being used to solve the "plasma fucking destroys everything it touches" problem.

How does CSTAR do this? They've got CLASS. ...No, really:

This field is called plasma-surface interaction science, and if you want a really long but very informative read on how CSTAR's work helps move it forward, check this out. It involves the DIONISOS Linear Plasma Device - a "let's shoot it with plasma and see what happens" tool.

CSTAR also works to better undertstand how materials handle radiation damage, and how they behave after becoming irradiated.

And to handle this sort of work, one needs a...

The Vault Laboratory for Nuclear Science "combines high-intensity particle sources, precision particle detection, and a heavily shielded experimental area to create a facility for nuclear research in high-radiation environments." It contains, among other things:

the DT Neutron Generator, which is used in a variety of experiments, including radiation detector development (pretty damned important) and characterization, fast neutron imaging, and material activation (stuff becoming radioactive).

the DANTE Tandem Accelerator, which was "originally designed to produce high neutron yields for use in cancer therapy research."

And that is what's actually going on in M.I.T.'s basement: truth is cooler than fiction.

The takeaways:

Yes, M.I.T. really is building a revolutionary fusion reactor with parts from Mass Fusion Commonwealth Fusion Systems.

Yes, there really is a secure underground facility where incredibly advanced research related to nuclear fusion, radiation detection, irradiated materials, and degradation of materials due to radiation exposure takes place.

Yes, I really would spend eight hours researching nuclear physics instead of doing more dishes. Shoutout to @twosides--samecoin for tolerating my absurd hyperfocus on researching this.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk on what M.I.T. is really doing in its basement.

Tune in next time for M.I.T.'s Media Laboratory, and how it is related to real-world power armor, plus: the relationship between Langley, P.A.M.'s IRL cousin, and Vault 101.

** (Fallout is wildly inconsistent re: how widespread fusion is in-game and when it was developed. I mean we're talking a two-decade spread of inconsistency! And somehow the technology - first available to the military - was then miniaturized and made available to the general public before becoming widespread for commercial power generation? And somehow we both do and don't have impossible cold fusion in game? It's a mess. I reject this reality and replace it with a fish, hence this post. Also, I hate fission batteries. don't talk to me about fission batteries, "fission batteries" are small fission reactors but they are definitely not "battery sized" - the "fission batteries" in-universe are so miniaturized that they are more likely another kind of atomic battery like a radioisotope thermoelectric generator and those are subject to a law of diminishing returns as the fuel decays/not producing a reasonably useful power output after over 200 years due to the isotopes normally used/can be VERY dangerous if the shielding is breached or removed, and - you know what, that's also a whole different post.)

[frangipanilove]

Richonne’s Yellow Car And Why Ethanol Represents A “Cure”

I just wanted to piggyback off of @emsee22 ’s excellent post about the ethanol theme and provide some additional context for how I understand the way this symbolism traditionally has been used in TWDU, I hope you don’t mind @emsee22 .

I’m writing this from an off grid cabin without phone reception and internet. There’s a pine tree near my cabin where there’s one bar of reception when the weather is just right and the tech gods are well fed and content. Fingers crossed this goes through, and I might edit it into a real post with pics, references and links when I return to civilization.

But for now just wanted to briefly add my two cents to the discussion on the ethanol theme, because it’s something that makes me very excited, and it’s something we first saw a long time ago.

Long story short, it’s a metaphor for a cure, as you say. We know this because TPTB explicitly told us so, in an old episode of FTWD. I can’t remember which season off the top of my head, but Martha, the villain of the season had tried to kill Morgan and company by mixing antifreeze into their water. I wrote a post about it after the episode aired, because the themes of methanol = poison and ethanol = the cure were so overwhelming. It was one of those things that, without interpreting it on a deeply symbolical level seemed rather bizarre and random. I wondered when that particular symbolism would return, and now we know it did, in TOWL 1x5 What We.

For starters, this is significant for TD because, like you mentioned, when Beth in Still said “bad moonshine can make you go blind” she was talking about how moonshine, when produced under less than perfect conditions, can end up containing methanol, which can indeed make you blind, That is, if it doesn’t kill you first. Antifreeze, like we saw in FTWD, contains methanol, and Martha’s intention with giving them the antifreeze was to kill them by way of methanol poisoning.

The antidote to methanol is ironically ethanol, which is simply a different word for alcohol. Morgan and company were conveniently driving around in a truck loaded with beer, and were therefore able to counteract the effects of the methanol poisoning by getting drunk on beer. Heavy plot armor here, as we see, which again suggests there’s symbolism at play.

In plain text: when methanol is the poison, ethanol is the literal cure. Therefore, I think it’s fair to say that the ethanol in the back of Michonne and Rick’s yellow escape vehicle is a direct reference to the episode of FTWD where we see ethanol acting as a cure for methanol poisoning, meaning ethanol is a metaphor for a “cure” And we know that TPTB really wanted us to be aware of that. They needed us to know that so badly, they devoted an entire episode of FTWD to it. If I remember correctly, I think it even was the season finale. I think the entire back half of that season revolved around Martha trying to kill them, eventually culminating in the season finale where they ended up drinking beer/ethanol to save their lives.

We also saw a reference to the antifreeze/ methanol poisoning theme in TWD 4x4 when Daryl and Bob came across a gas station where the people staying there had committed suicide by drinking antifreeze. So again, as we see over and over, symbolism on this show stays consistent over time, it literally stays consistent over the span of a decade. And, they’re sufficiently invested in this symbolism to spend the entire back half of a season of FTWD laying the groundwork for establishing a solid ethanol = cure connection for the season finale.

When Rick and Michonne escaped in their yellow car in 5x4 What We, most TD’ers were instinctively drawn to the “yellowness” because we tend to interpret the color yellow to be associated with Beth, due her yellow polo from Still.

In a post from a few days back I talked about the ways in which the yellow symbolism intersects with symbolism around cars, and how those cars relate to Beth. I focused on Carol’s yellow Jeep Cherokee and the symbolism around the Cherokee Rose, and I will circle back to that now because the ethanol is actually right at the center of it. Carol’s Jeep Cherokee had the same shade of yellow as Beth’s polo and Richonne’s yellow escape vehicle, and there’s a reason for that.

Anybody remember when Daryl in TWD 2x4 placed a Cherokee Rose in a beer bottle before giving it to Carol? Beer is ethanol, remember, it is LITERALLY what saved Morgan and company’s lives in FTWD. In my post about the yellow symbolism and the car symbolism, I argued that the Cherokee Rose is a resurrection symbol, and it’s tied to Beth in a number of ways, but especially through the yellow symbolism, derived from her yellow polo. Remember that TPTB spent an entire episode of FTWD telling us that beer is the cure for methanol poisoning. Beer = cure. The beer bottle with the Cherokee Rose from 2x4 is yet another representation of resurrection symbolism combined with a metaphor for a cure. And it’s all tied to Beth.

(The “beer” symbolism is also tied to the “North” symbolism, but I’ll leave that for a another day)

@emsee22 your post brought up a few new details that I hadn’t considered before, which I can’t wait to start researching once I get back to where I have internet. For starters, a symbolism-heavy episode of FTWD revolved around a funeral home with lots of references to formaldehyde, which I’m now heavily side-eying in a slightly different way. I can’t wait to sink my teeth into that rabbit hole when I get home😄

[number8bciate]

Touch

This is based on the end of season three! I will explain the power I have given the reader, and it's actually the power I gave my oc :) But dw! This is an X Reader

So the power, in simple terms, keeps you from being able to touch things with all five fingers because it will burn :)

You and Five sat at the edge of the world, sipping on a bottle of whiskey as you enjoyed one another's company. "This isn't so bad." Five pointed out, grabbing the bottle and taking yet another sip. "I mean, we finally get to stop running."

You looked over to him. You weren't surprised that this was his response to the entire thing. The boy had been running away and trying to fix the apocalypse since he was mentally and physically 13 years old. You understood, but you didn't agree. "I'm sorry." You said softly, looking over to him, he nodded, not exactly sure what you were saying sorry for.

"What for?"

"That your life sucks so bad that this moment is what you view as.. good."

"My life isn't that bad, I found you because of the apocalypse, so I can't be too upset, right?" He suggests, looking at the Kugelblitz as it ate up the world he had fought so hard to come back to.

The two of you now sat in the lobby of the library, except it wasn't the lobby that you knew. There was some kind of portal that had brought you and the rest of five's family, to an alternate version of the library that was safe from the Kugelblitz, but not the monsters that had inhabited it, large, armored men ran around the library in search of all of you, welding all different kinds of weapons. You were just barely able to fight one with a Katana off before they slashed your stomach. Five had arrived, grabbed you by your hand, and teleported the both of you back to the lobby. You pulled your hand away and made distance between the two of you when you watched him take a look at his hand and furrow his eyebrows at the sight, you had burnt him and he wouldn't mention it.

The siblings, plus you and Lila, minus Luther, stood on top of the collection of stars that covered the floor and felt as the marigold from each of your bodies was pulled violently from them, then, from the floor, you all watched as Allison pressed the button and reset the universe, like Five had warned her not to. The next thing you all knew, you were inside of an elevator. It opened on the roof of the building. You all stepped out, looking around, hearing the cars on the street and seeing past just the hotel. You and Five were just sitting on the edge of the world, and now it was all back again. You turned around, watching as Five attempted to blink away but wasn't able to, straining his body to try and force himself through space, but his body voted against it.

"I don't have my powers anymore." He sighed, looking around at his siblings who attempted to use theirs and failed, then he turned to you, looking down at his hand and seeing that it was no longer burnt and walked over to you. He took hold of the back of your hands and gently guided them towards his face.

"Five, what if I hurt you? What if I kill you?" You ask, pushing your arms away his face but his arms insisted. "Please Five." You hadn't even noticed that what happened to Five had happened to you as well, the skin of your stomach proving it.

"I'm willing to take the chance." You relaxed your arms and let him press the tips of your fingers against the skin of his cheeks, you closed your eyes, not wanting to see what was about to happen to him if you had somehow kept your powers. When you opened your eyes again, you looked at where your hands had rested and how his face was fine beneath them. You kissed him, you didn't know what else to do and you had been wanting to since the moment he had invited you for coffee the day you met. He kissed back, gently moving his hands away from the backs of yours and pulling you closer to him.

"Get a room!" Diego called out from a few feet away, you and five rolled your eyes and looked over to him, pulling away from one another but you slipped your hand down his arm to hold his hand for the first time.

[epic-arc]

Spider Knight 7: Cat Burglar

Jaune was on top of a roof eating a sandwich while looking at the city until his scroll started to vibrate he would pick it up to see who was calling him he would notice it was nora so he answered the call.

Jaune: Hi Nora, is everything okay there in Beacon?

Nora: Ah yes, everything is fine here, I just called you to see if your night shift is going well and if you're okay.

Jaune: Well yuri told me to be careful because there are a lot of cases of thefts but the only thing I see and did was stop a little lady from being robbed and look, she bought me a sandwich!

Nora: Well, if the city is so calm and safe, why not come back here and rest?

Jaune: Eh, maybe you're right…

While jaune answered he would look and see a schnee brand truck being followed by a car with some suspicious figures inside so he would get up and put on his mask threw his webs on a building and followed the truck and the car.

Spider Knight: So nora I'm going to have to hang up it looks like the ''interesting thing'' is happening.

Nora: Hm ok but if the situation gets complicated you call me and I'll be there as soon as possible to help you!

Spider Knight would answer nora and disconnect the call and follow the two vehicles until they arrived at the vale docks. Spider knight hid in one of the buildings he had nearby and saw the strange car hiding in an alley while the truck entered the docks and went to a shed that had the symbol of the schnee family.

Spider Knight (Mind): Maybe it's members of the white fang or roman's gang who are following that schnee company truck but why are they following them?

Spider knight is looking around until he saw a figure getting out of the car a woman with long black hair who was wearing a mask that hid her eyes along with a tactical black outfit. Spider knight would be curious about such a figure until he notices her coming out of the alley and sneaking into the docks.

Spider Knight (Mind):My night is only getting weirder and more curious…

Jaune would disengage from the building that was supported and would enter the docks stealthily and see the mysterious figure on top of the shed's skylight and he would hide to prevent the figure from seeing him; Blaze cat would pull from his belt a device that would turn off all the electrical devices on the docks, thus turning off the robot guards and the fence gate, being able to let the mysterious car enter the docks; The car would enter and stop right in front of the shed and 3 figures with Xiong Family emblem would get out of the car and go to the shed gate, opening it and seeing that inside the shed there were several crates with the symbol of the schnee family.

Xiong Thug 1: So today is the day that that merchandise that Junior talked about would arrive?

Xiong Thug 2: Yes that's what he said and also the weapon we're looking for is in the biggest crate so look for it!

Xiong Thug 3: And the Girl who helped us what do we do with her?

The leader of that squadron would look at the two members of the Xiong Family and then at the black cat who was on the roof looking at them with a half sadistic smile, she would wave at the three.

Xiong Thug 2: Look, She helped us because of the payment Junior made to that guy Roman, We'll get the weapon and at the right time we'll finish off the human and say she died because of the police, okay?

The other 2 members of the Xiong Family agree with their leader's idea and go looking for the weapon until one of them finds a giant crate and it would open showing an armor reminiscent of a rhinoceros; While one of the members was connecting the armor, the other two were on guard and spider knight noticing that he saw the opportunity and approached until he was pulled by a rope and turned upside down and saw the mysterious figure in front of him.

Blaze Cat: Meow looks like I captured the great vale spider~

Spider Knight: Calm down cat lady I don't fight I'm just protecting private product.

Blaze Cat: The name is blaze cat and cats don't fight spiders~

Spider Knight activates the sword of his gauntlet, freeing himself from the straps and leaning on the wall, noticing that he would give a mortal being on the roof of the shed and spider knight followed the same, staying on top of the roof of the shed.

Blaze Cat: Wow spider, don't you remember the saying that playing with a cat always gets scratched~

Spider Knight: Hey, sorry miss, I'm more of a fan of dogs.

Blaze cat activates claws on his fingertips and goes up to spider knight trying to scratch him but he dodges and one of the dodges he throws his web trapping one of her hands but she breaks free tearing the web with the other claw and would look at him with a smile on her face.

Blaze Cat: I hope you don't get your goo in my hair~

Spider Knight: Don't worry, it comes off with ice or warm water.

He was dodging her blows until she caught one of his punches and brought her face closer to his with a malicious smile.

Blaze Cat: You know spider you have skills that nobody else has why not join me? we can make good money~

Spider Knight: Hmm and interesting but I might lose my superhero discount so no.

She let go of him giving a kick in his belly making him break the skylight and falling into the shed and Blaze fell together but carefully with the debris falling on top of the guard taking off that he was in the armor; Spider knight would look at the armor being turned on and she aimed the two cannons she had on her shoulders at blaze cat and spider knight and would start taking them out and the two dodged and used some crates as a defense.

Spider Knight: I thought these guys were your friends!

Blaze Cat: Well they're more like helpers but it looks like that one over there rebelled.

Spider knight's spider sense make him jump on top of blaze cat making the two get out of the way of rhino who left destroying everything in the shed with the armor.

Rhino: Sorry cat but your payment won't happen I already got what my boss needed haha!

Blaze Cat: Hey spider what do you think quick teamwork you can have the armor and the bad guy I'll just take my money.

Spider knight agreed with the idea of ​​blaze cat and the two go on top of rino dodging his shots; Spider knight would launch his webs on some pieces of wood and throw it hard at rino making him focus on the spider; Blaze cat, seeing the opportunity, would grab some sand from his belt and use his semblance to make a glass bow with 3 heated arrows and shoot it at the armor's legs, causing the metal to melt, hindering his ability to move. Rino would shoot missiles that were attracted by heat and he would go in the direction of spider knight and blaze cat; Spider knight would look at arrows from blaze cat, note the heated tips, ask her to shoot one at him and she would shoot in the direction of spider knight who caught it making the missile focus on the arrow; Spider knight swings towards rino and throws the arrow and blaze cat will do the same. rino saw that laugh but noticed the two missiles hitting the armor in full making him fall in the street calling the attention of the police; A time would pass and rino was arrested and the armor taken to the laboratory of the city and spider knight was on top of a roof with blaze cat.

Spider Knight: You know you did a great heroin job. Why don't you drop those types of people and join the good guys?

Blaze cat heard that and would chuckle and approach spider knight and lift his mask a little and she would kiss his cheek making him blush and she would start running but before jumping to another building she would look at him smiling.

Blaze cat: I'm excited for our next date~

After she said that she would go jumping from building to building. Spider knight would just put his mask back on and go swinging towards the beacon.

Spider Knight (Mind): If I don't tell her what happened to me today, Nora is going to kill me.

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

Post Credit

Blaze cat arrived at a shed where mercury emerald neo and roman were planning something she took off her mask showing that she was cinder and leaned on a table showing a group a tablet with a symbol of altas behind.

Cinder Fall: Well colleagues looks tall there are some interesting items that are being sent here because of the vytal tournament and one of them is a possible friend for us.

She would zoom in on a capsule codenamed ''V-635''

[jinxedyaart]

A little too Similar. Part 3

A/N There might be a bit of Cole being a flirt as well to the insert. Not a whole harem is happening but Cole trying to shoot his shot and rizz up insert with playful flirting from both sides.

They finished up with cleaning up the party outside the building, taking a few more hours then expected. Valen assisting Leo and their family with the heavy lifting. Taking the grill back into a storage room not far off from the off deck.  Saying goodbye to some people from around the block as they swept the back yard. Everyone headed their own ways, getting ready for bed expect for Valen and Leo. Kissing their mother and brother goodbye, watching their small van leave the front garage. Valen stayed right next to them waving to the pair goodbye as well. The two turned back into the building once the mini van left their view since they needed their facility to be at upmost care for the arrival of Overwatch. Traveling back inside with the ornaments and trash from the party, putting it in a green square trash box just outside the true operations building. Hidden further down and back of the underground part of the facility. Tossing the garbage right in, stretching themself afterwards from the action. Leo dusted off their hands as Valen continued down the hall to open the black double doors. Swinging their arms out of boredom. The omnic kept a side open for them, staring as they came closer. Nodding their head down as a small thank you to the omnic as they stepped into the large room. Similar to the other company, they too had jets being fixed from various scratches along the sides. Armored cars and trucks were being prepared, ammo was being reloaded into certain machine guns at the top of certain ones. Smaller golf carts were being driven around by omnics and humans alike with spare metal in the trunk of some. As Leo scanned the room, every so often a rough metal cutting sound vibrated throughout the giant room, bouncing around the walls distracting them. Taking in a deep breath to calm their nerves, standing still just in front of the doors that Valen kicks closed.  Some people were walking past the two of them, pausing their conversations briefly to acknowledge their captain's arrival. Leo waved back with a small soft smile before changing their expression quickly to a more serious one.

     "ALRIGHT EVERYONE, LISTEN UP!"

All that heard their Captain's announcement in the room turned to face them. Some froze up completely, others turned their body to them but continued their work quietly.

   "Overwatch has finally anwsered us and made a scheduled visit to this facility. I need everyone to be on their best behavior and this place has to impress whoever they decide to bring as representation of their leadership. Anything that would make them question my authority has to be gone right now. I refuse to let them walk away with doubt about our strength and abilities. I want them to come back with a list of all the things they need from us. If they need Fire arms we give it to them, they need arms, we've got loads. Do I make myself clear team?"

   All turned to Leo with a straight face, body still, their right arm up over their faces. Saluting right at their captain, affirming to their question. Yelling back "YES SIR!". It seemed a hundred voices yelled back with nervousness in their tones. Their captain happily smiled to them all. Proud of what they molded. Everyone knew this preparation meant a lot to their captain. A once shared dream to take this organization world wide. A dream they adopted into their own. A lost sibling's dream to protect any and all who needed it. To share the memories of those before them. The original dream to protect the streets we live on... they were sure Overwatch had a similar dream in the beginning.

       At last the awaited day finally came. The overwatch group started to make their way to the carrier plane. With Winston taking the lead with his selected coworkers just behind him. He opens the side door to the jet, Lena already was situated in the pilot seat, smiling in the cock pit. Helmet and headphones covered her ears as she waited for the others. Looking at Winston as he began to speak out to the others. Awaiting her further orders from the large mammal.

    "Today is the day which we may make a new alliance with a small organization whose chose to offer up aid. We are going to a location In Massachusetts which will be holding this meeting. It will take a few hours to get there so please be patient."

   Everyone nodded their head in agreement as they boarded the jet. Street lights turning on from the movement. Angela and Mei go in first, taking their assigned seats on the plane. Cole flicks away his cigar on the ground, smashing the tip to stop the lit end from catching fire once more. Boarding as he confirmed it to be off. Genji looked down then at Angela as he boarded, grabbing onto one side of the door pushing himself in to his seat next to the doctor. Lucio enters after the cyborg, hoisting himself into the jet with a small hmpf leaving his lips from the momentum. Winston looks back to make sure everything is secure before finally stepping last to his designated seat. Closing the door behind him, giving Lena a thumbs up and subtle nod as a confirmation to start up the journey.

   "Aaalllrighty everyone! This is your pilot Lena speaking. We will now begin the route to El Cielo, Massachusetts. Please put on all seatbelts as we take off. Sit back and enjoy flying with Lena airlines hehe."

  The plane's jet wings start to lift the vehicle up into the air. Clear dark skies welcomed them. Finally taking off to start their journey. Genji looked over at Angela, who softly smiled at him. Knowing he needed a bit of reassurance. He turned to her, making small chit chat with the doctor as some mimic the action. Making their own small conversation with others to pass the time.

   Awaiting them was Leo in a set of army cargo shorts just below the knee with several pockets on the side and front. Shoes a tan timberland slightly high inched boots with a brown rim. Hair up in a tight bun with two white braids to frame the face nicely. Fixing their sharp barbell septum with their top lip, a small nervous tick they have. Just above their nostrills was a small gold chain running the top of their nose, held in by two different nostril piercing on either side. Their shirt was a slightly tight tan short sleeved shirt with a v neckline. A small white seashell necklace around the base of the neck with the PR flag painted in, covered in resin to protect the design. Another necklace was also adorned, a simple black dog tag going into the valley between their chest. The American flag engraved into the front of it. Valen stood right behind them with his arms crossed behind him in similar attire minus some jewelry choices and heeled boots. He could tell the little one infront was pretending to be fierce in their stance. Their legs twitching out of nerves.

  Noticing their arms crossed over their chest as they both awaited the arrival of the jet. Leo pushed up their glasses as they looked up into the sky, hearing the blades of the jet finally come into ear shot. Turning over to their second in command making sure they looked both tough yet welcoming. Quickly fully turning to the doors behind them in a panic.

   "Valen, do I look good? Did I do too much or too little? This is appropriate for this meeting right?"

  They frantically shifted side to side, arms like a t-rex next to their chest shaking equally as frantic, their face full of worry and anxiousness. Tone fully laced with the same emotions, rapid firing questions at him. Black eyes darted around the poor omnics face plate for an answer. Only to get two metal hands on their shoulders, twirling them to face the jet before stooping his face down to answer back.

   "You look fine Capt. Just breathe ok? I'm right here wit ya nervous as all hell too."

  They took in a big breath, slowly exhaling as the jet came down to the ground a few feet infront of the odd pair. Slowly the whirling blades came to a stop as the side door pushes open. Inside was Winston preparing a small speech to the group as he opened the door, pausing after hearing Lena laugh softly in the cock pit of the carrier plane.

   "Poor little thing. They're nervous."

  She turns to Winston while unbuckaling herself from her seat. Turning off the engine and flicking on some lights for the others to see better in the dark. Motioning her head towards her window. She saw how anxious Leo's body was, looking down at their twitching legs.

  Winston grins a bit, thinking to himself.

'If they are as nervous as we are then truly this is a good idea!' He opens the side door slowly, turning back to his team.

   "I'll get out first, then everyone else can get off after that alright?"

They nod their heads in affirmation. Everyone started to unbuckle their seat belts, standing up in a line behind Winston. Waiting patiently until the large mammel got off. Cole was the first to truly noticed Leo's outwardly appearance first. Confused as to why there was yet another young lady in a place of war.

  Stepping out, finally touching some relatively soft grass under his hands. Some heat waves flew over his hair and fur, making him groan a bit. Winston fixed his glasses on his face before looking up at the pair with a smile. Slowly walking over to them as he began an introduction.

 

   "Hello!"

He reached out his hand to the omnic assuming that's the new leader. Only to find the omnic hesitant to take his hand. Backing up, pushing forward his little captain who was a little upset by the action.

   "This is our Captain. Their name is Leo, I am merely second in command, Valen."

  Winston turns his attention to the one the omnic pushed towards him, whose been staring at him since the interaction started. Their void like eyes staring at him, wide eyed with an expression mimicking a doll. Cold and dead..He backed up nervously, a little creeped out from their expression. Messing his glasses with hesitation, he tries again, this time he's talking to the right person.

  Noting this, Leo sees Winston back up slowly from them, quickly changing their face to one with a nervous yet warm smile. Taking his large rough hand into their soft ones, shaking it twice before deciding to letting go. Coughing a bit to clear their throat, whispering a soft 'apologizes' to him.

  "I know who you are Winston. My family has heard of you as well.. I hope the trip wasn't too demanding of you all. I have some drinks and food ready if you'd like. "

  He can tell that they were trying their best to be as warm as possible to excuse the mishap of facial expressions they showed. As if he was visiting a family friend whom he hasn't seen in years. Reconnecting after years of lost messages and being invited over for brunch at their house to chat for hours. They rushed their answer that it took him a moment to really understand what they said to him. A bit taken aback from their manners, he responds with a laugh. Forgetting the slight mishap.

  "Ahaha, Thank you Leo. I'm sure if the group needs some drinks or are a bit peakish, they would ask in the moment."

  Behind him comes the others in a small group. Coming up to where Winston is but just far enough to still be able to hear his conversation with the odd pair. Hearing Valen snicker softly, the group turn their attention to him briefly.

  "Ah then you would know the rest of my group."

Winston shifts slightly so the pair could better see the small group behind him. Switching his attention between Leo and the others awaiting some recognition on their face.

  "Ah yes. Of course there's Lena the pilot and Mei as well. Two people who are always seen with you. Mercy or well Angela the well accomplished doctor."

  Leo chuckles softly, nodding down a bit after saying the three ladies names. Continuing their roll call in a way. Looking over to Cole, who was already staring at them. Clear confusion over his eyes as he continued his eye contact, tipping his hat forward as usual before saying a small 'm'lady'.

  "Then Cole Cassidy, a cowboy gunslinger. Lucio an underground celebrity of music from Brazil..."

  Lucio responds with a charming smile saying 'hello hello!'. Leo smiled a bit with a chuckle before turning their full attention to the cyborg ninja right behind the blond doctor. Softening their expression before ending the roll call with him.

  "And finally the lovely Genji shimada."

Their eyes panned his body very subtly but he caught onto it. Although most of his body was covered by Angela's. He was a little surprised over it, not being able to distinguish if it was meant to be flirtatious or just curiosity over his body. A heat creeped onto his face as he kept eye contact with them. Trying to pry his caramel eyes off of an almost void-like gaze. Their eyes blacker than anything he's seen in his life, trying to entrap his attention. They finally cut off the wanted trance they made first. Moving their attention back to Winston with a warm smile. Their body starts to shift closer to the doors, leading the group inside. Holding it open for everyone else to go in first, clearly wanting to be nice.

  Genji's attention started to wonder around for some comfort before falling to Angela's blue eyes instead, who was already looking at him. A small warm smile on her face as well. A welcoming warmth fills him once more. Feeling a bit safer in this trance than Leo's. Her ocean eyes cut off as she motions him closer as she follows the others inside the cooler building. Being the last one inside, the group turn to Leo once again who was trying to close the glass door delicately as to not damage it.

  "So um please follow me. I'll give you a small tour of my building. If you ever need something or have questions do ask at any time."

They close the door, motioning around the group. Genji felt a soft graze on his lower back, moving away from the sensation but tried to find what exactly touched him. Motioning his arm up and over the small captain's head. Both whispering a soft sorry to one another. They averted the gaze of the man, instead looking at the floor to not step on anyone else. Arriving to the front once more to lead the group down the halls. Their collective attention started to turn every which way at all the things around them as they walked down the halls. All having their gazes follow a pattern with the hangings on the walls. Pictures and paintings they've never seen before at the briefing a few days ago.

  "These are all the memorabilia of my family and i's younger years. Some having everyone others are more solo."

The leader commented as they checked their new company behind them. Their heads all facing different hangings.

 

   Cole was the first to ask something, catching their attention as they briefly stopped moving to motion themselves to face him. Slowly restarting their momentum again as he spoke.

   "How long has this business been in the family for? If ya don't mind me askin.."

  They open their mouth to speak, looking down at their hands. Stretching out their fingers, clearly trying to count the years.

  "Well my eldest brother started this organization when I was around 10 or 11. Watching gangs and cartels go at eachother's throats in the streets. So he wanted to make  safe streets to better watch my future in the cities. So I would say around 16 or so years. Fairly recent it came under my leadership. So i apologize if i'm a bit on edge or so.."

  Cole nods seemingly accepting this answer. Leo continues to lead them down the hall, coming face to face with the long awaited statue. Genji slowed down a bit after hearing that statement. Gaze turning to the back of the little one's head. Seeing their posture close off so subtly before hearing cole clear his throat, preparing to ask yet another question only to instead say.

    "I'm sorry for your loss.."

  Genji's gaze slowly goes to Leo before drifting past them to see the statue of the past leader. The tone slightly shifted in the building as the group now knew this meant something to the little one and was clearly a bit of a personal subject for them. Now Genji starts to think of what to say or well to first fix his thoughts about this.

'Her brother started this to clean up the streets for her sake.. I truly was wrong about this place..how old even is this place. It looks fairly new to be in use for the past 16 years..'

His face although covered behind a mask, grew kinda envious of this relationship between siblings he wished he had at their age. But softened as he sympathized them, understanding the past of this place more.

[spidermilkshake]

Until September

More RE fanfics--more mutants, more corporate shenanigans. There is fluff! Also a rival company commando is blitzed by a Tyrant, but, uh, this is Resident Evil. Even the nicest scenes are bookended by scary.

Rating: Teen (TW for suggestive language, human experimentation, dehumanization, medical/lab settings and stuff, plus also human adults cuss like human adults, some obvious child neglect and endangerment, alcohol abuse, implied animal abuse)

Mr. X's long first assignment--to be upper-level Tyrant Project researcher Dr. Julian Ramirez's personal bodyguard as he spends his summer at his fancy house bought with his evil corporation money. Having a test mission prototype Tyrant on your property to help flatten any intruders or rival company agents that sneak in is apparently a common perk if the company's board likes your work. Ramirez, uh, has an interesting home life, and T-00 is smart enough to detect some of that despite this being its first experience of humans not poking it in a lab or putting it through combat training in a top-secret facility...

5: Until September

            From that point, after a short cargo helicopter ride and another in the back of a large civilian armored car, T-00… “Mr. X”… experienced the brief life of Dr. Ramirez’s at-home lab.

            Situated in a cozy, deep-red corner of northern California, the man had the benefit of the rural landscape for all manner of reasons. One being his bunker laboratory which he fiddled around with variants of common viral and bacterial elements within, as well as examining various domesticated animal species’ genomes to try and discover another, more advantageous quirk that could be added to the Tyrant project. Some of the sources of these genomes could be found on the small attached ranch property in the form of a somewhat decrepit horse and several large, semi-feral cattle. A highly-pampered golden retriever mix also bounced its way around the property, but it could hardly be lumped in with the farm animals considering how loving and attentive Dr. Ramirez seemed to become on sight of the canine. This animal was about as untrained as the cows—though it balked at any close quarters with the Tyrant, probably smelling something was off about the inoffensive but intimidating newcomer.

            The Tyrant was ushered swiftly into a portion of the swanky abode which bordered the laundry and a small guest room on the first day. Between these two locations, the doctor had prepared a simple rest area for the bioweapon to reside in while it was not to be seen—roughly the size of the small laundry though without the obstructing machines, T-00 noted the heavily-built twin bedframe and the fitting mattress, which it assumed it was meant to rest on. It… was not bad, now that it had a few minutes to contemplate it.

            Okay, it was more than “not bad”. Mattresses were invented for a reason, and the insufficient nature of those holding chamber benches became richly obvious to the beast that had never experienced proper back support before. It had slept a solid nine hours the first night, until summoned by a cheerful call of its nickname—the longest stint of sleep it had ever known.

            Otherwise, the Tyrant which Dr. Ramirez called “Mr. X” stayed a moment, or a meter or two, behind him (depending on what the man requested, and what the Tyrant’s highly-tuned senses for danger dictated). The man spent a lot of time in the small bunker lab, checking fuse banks before booting up huge computers to run an equally massive hypermicroscope device in order to manipulate pieces of dead SARS and Hepatitis delta-virus, picking out segments of RNA and comparing them to Umbrella’s sample slides of base genes. He often made spunky commentary, knowing it was only the so-far nonverbal Tyrant hearing him, but based on his specific, jovial responses it knew he could only be speaking only to it.

            Despite the doctor’s fancy and frequent social life, he was very lonely. After dark fell, no other human occupied the languidly-spread and draftily large house in the hills. The man still chatted happily—sometimes too happily—with his newly-won bioweapon attendant.

            The bioweapon had once or twice also stepped out with him, and a very flinchy, nervous man whom the doctor’d called a “trainer”, to see the old horse and the half-dozen cows. T-00 eyed the dusty, vacantly-staring creatures staying well back from the bioweapon. They behaved much like B.O.W.s with none or very rusty training. The lone horse would come right to the gate for Dr. Ramirez’s trainer, even with the towering creature feet away, though the whites of its eyes flared plainly as it stood, ears pinning and legs shaking for the trainer to check its hooves and teeth.

            T-00 focused instead on the cows, not wishing to interfere unintentionally on the equine check-over. It locked eyes with a large, rusty-brown beast that had very small, stubby horns. The animal stamped its rear legs softly, nostrils flaring. Strange. The creature was fairly small compared to the others in the group, though it placed itself front and center regardless—a “leader” of sorts, making all of the protective motions towards the others that the position entailed. A much larger steer of a mostly black color hid ineffectually behind her—sharing many features with this cow.

            “Come on! We’re done Mr. X,” the doctor called from the gate, the first indication it had quietly shuffled a step inside the paddock area to watch the animals more closely. With an instinctual start, it turned and tromped off after its current objective.

            It wished the animals and its master’s use of the Tyrant as a social interaction stand-in had been the most predictable parts of its mission. No—that honor would go to the once-monthly incident of rival agents attempting to gain access to Ramirez’s nuclear-shielded bunker. Irritated out of its comfortable rest, the Tyrant followed the clinking and ticking of attempts to bypass the lock code and the other measures to find a body-armored individual in front of the small cellar entrance, like a sitting duck as they focused on the loud—annoying—puzzle portion. It wasn’t clear if they ever realized an eight-foot mutant weapon was creeping up on them before it happened. Regardless, Ramirez would have one of the informed Umbrella staff bag up the body and tote it off the next morning as the household came awake.

--------

            It was one week during the hellishly dry heat of summer than Mr. X encountered a true challenge to its adaptable wits—and it began more or less during one of the more predictable, boring parts of its duties. The bioweapon lurked a few meters behind the doctor in his home office, blocking the large window with its even larger back while Ramirez was distracted on the phone.

            The Tyrant could only guess at some of this, but it did recognize the codenames and designations used for various B.O.W.s:

            “So the train was just…? All of them?” Julian Ramirez scrubbed at his patchy stubble, “Jesus… Well, do you know how it happened? …Uh huh, I’m sure it came back inconclusive. There’s never any hypercompetitive, jealous pricks trying to off each other at Umbrella labs, huh.”

            “Speaking of, do you have any idea what they’re gonna do about Birkin?” There was a long pause before a tinny squeak of the other voice picked up, “Oh come on. They practically know it was him. Who else has been sabotaging projects involving T for months? …It was T on that train, right? …Okay, they even know it’s that strain—so who else has access to the Arklay lab who would?”

            There was an even longer silence this time before the other line began to speak again; and once it did Ramirez’s grip on the phone tightened, his dark complexion going sweaty and almost impossibly pale. The change was so extreme that T-00’s senses honed in and it watched its master with mounting concern, convinced the doctor was about to collapse out of some kind of medical distress.

            “… Since when? …Really, that recent?” He finally dredged up his voice again, wiping furiously at his brows and mustache, staring down at his own shaking hand in bafflement as if wondering who put all of that sweat there, “So where was Willy in all this?”

            “…Ah.”

            “So… they’re sure it wasn’t him… Well. I’ll see about giving Teifer a call soon if she’s got questions for me.”

            After Ramirez hung up, he glanced over his shoulder at his house-Tyrant with an indecipherable expression, which had Mr. X straightening up to full attention. Then, with a heavy sigh he turned in his chair towards the squat glass bottle of Pilár dark rum that he kept on one side of the desk and unscrewed the cap in a ritual which usually—T-00 had observed—took place later in the day. The powerful alcohol swirled into a coffee mug and shortly after was slammed into the man’s mouth, eliciting a rough grunt as he fought the burn of the unhealthily-large shot.

            Mr. X relaxed somewhat as Ramirez returned to the phone. The next conversation had more that the bioweapon recognized, but was even more confusing:

            “Hey, Teifer! It’s Ramirez,” he sounded as peppy as always, despite the haggard look in his eyes and the rum flooding into his bloodstream, “Yeah, he told me you needed to hear from me… eh? Ah, he did mention what happened up at the Arklay lab…”

            He leaned back, hooded eyes inspecting his propped-up shoes as he took in his colleague’s words. He rolled them upon a certain part of her story:

            “Hey, hey—you’re getting too stressed. Listen: I get the risk. But Cerberus specimens physically can’t spread the virus. That shouldn’t be your main concern.

            “Those dogs don’t have T in them anymore—they’re kinda like the modern Tyrants, alright? We enhance the genome, we infect—with the delta strain for the Cerberus—and let the mutation take its course, okay? Then when they’re fully baked, we quarantine the specimens, give them a T-virus vaccination, and a course of anti-retrovirals just to be sure before those guys go to training. Which, by the way, you should be able to get a hold of someone at N.E.S.T. with experience training animal B.O.W.s. They’ve got lots of new Hunters coming out of there, they can help you wrangle those dogs when the time comes…”

            “Hm? …Ah… Yeah, see, that one is a problem,” Ramirez’s shoulders finally slouched more naturally, and he got a level, if slightly slushy, tone of voice back, “Rabies is very real and a good explanation for any ‘public eye’ stuff… If the bear story is true you’ll want to get a squad with heavy weapons and track down every rabid animal claim in a five-mile radius, then be sure to bag and burn everything they shoot.”

            “..? Teifer, you know that’s even easier. Quarantine and trace identity, burn the premises, then let the weaponized-virals R&D team see the data.”

            “…What journalist?” At this new turn in the conversation Ramirez shot upright in his chair, “… You don’t have a name? …Uh-huh. … Hm. Well, if he knows too much he probably already knows he’s dead.”

            “Right. See you in fall. Bye now.”

            After Ramirez hung up, he sat for a long while, head in hands. Mr. X let a good ten minutes pass before the alarm bells started to go off, and the huge mutant huffed as it took a careful step forward. At the creak of the floors, Dr. Ramirez raised his head again.

            “Eh?” He twisted around, “What is it, Mr. X?”

            The bioweapon had a number of words that it might have wanted to put out—“Are you well?”, “What was that about?”, “Do you need help?”, or even “What the fuck?”—but it had no idea how to move its throat, or tongue, or lips to do such a thing. He did the next best thing: Mr. X grunted, managing to make the trailing end of the noise rise up in pitch with wordless questions, as humans did in such a situation.

            “Smart fella,” Ramirez gave a soft laugh. “One of these days I’ll have to get you practice in saying a few words. I’m fine. Can you just… turn and check out the window for a while? I have to call my ex,” he added the last part quickly, which while confusing did not hold up the Tyrant very long in turning around and scanning the exterior of the house for potential threats.

            The phone rang several times, with Ramirez left waiting. Mr. X’s pinprick pupils hovered over the entrance gate, then the edge of the pinyon treeline, then over to where the dog was laid out in a patch of dirt by one of the front garden walls. Finally, someone answered the doctor:

            “Linda… hey. No don’t—” there was an insistent buzz of muffled vocals from the speaker, “It’s about the weekend, Linda—look, you want me to just not warn you? Huh?”

            “Okay okay. Look, I just need you to know I have to be out a few hours Saturday to work with someone. Don’t worry—” he interrupted the agonized screech from the speaker, “—I have someone to watch her until I get back. Don’t worry. I wouldn’t walk back on this, mi amor.”

            “… Okay, Jesus, I won’t do it again. Just… noon Saturday, right? I’ll be there.”

            The phone slammed on the receiver. Mr. X peeked back over his lapels in anticipation of a command. There was only so much time in the office, however decorated and airy, that Ramirez could stand and Mr. X tended to agree with this habit. It was in the loft area of the house, and the ceilings were a foot too low for the Tyrant’s comfort.

            “Right. Mr. X?” The bioweapon swiveled around in reply, “I’m going to fetch some things from the basement. Take up a guard downstairs, yeah?”

            Mr. X nodded with eagerness, letting the somewhat tipsy human lead the way out the door and down the stairs. This was an ideal task for both of them, considering the ninety-plus temperatures outside, and once the man had vanished down the too-narrow steps to the musty, refreshingly cool basement level the Tyrant posted himself in a comfortable nook within sight of the open basement door, the front door, and the downstairs hall towards the kitchen area. It watched. Nothing much reached its eyes or ears—except for a distant snort of a horse or cow, a wasp bouncing against the nearest window in a frenzy to find food or shade, and a clatter followed by a Spanish-language curse from the cluttered sublevel. Business as usual.

-------

            On Saturday, the omen which Mr. X innocently overheard came to the doorstep.

            In the morning, with Ramirez nursing a pickle-juice-based hangover cocktail and holding a hardboiled egg like it was a sergeant’s switch from bygone days, Mr. X was confronted with a series of warnings which it knew right away were serious, very serious, and urgent… but that he didn’t entirely grasp right away.

            “Mr. X! Listen—listen,” the man pressed his eggless hand into the lapel of his tame mutant’s trenchcoat, “Today is going to be a bit different. I need you to be… uh… well… different.”

            T-00 stared down at the man pressing himself as close to its face as possible, and gave a low grunt as he tilted his head.

            “Well, I mean…” Ramirez let up on the contact, as aware as they came that pushing the living weapons too hard or confusing them with contradictory orders could come with serious consequences, “Mr. X, you are going to meet my daughter today. She’s visiting over the weekend and will be here until roughly 11 a.m. on Monday.”

            Ramirez waited, as if to hear an acknowledgement from the creature staring him down with wide, perplexed, but still willing eyes. The man sighed, leaning into his hands which had settled on the Tyrant’s chest, “While she’s here, I want you to put your protective orders over me as secondary. While she’s here, you protect her, is that understood?”

            Daughter. Mr. X had not heard anything of Ramirez’s family before, but it had an intuitive sense of what the word “DAUGHTER” meant. The creature took a deep, sharp inhale, then gave a rough, affirmative growl at the same time it bobbed its head.

            “Good… good…” Ramirez reached up and patted the Tyrant on the shoulder, grin of relief almost palpable without flashing it within sight. Mr. X reflexively swelled with the praise.

            “She’ll be here at noon, and you must watch over her very closely until about four. If she needs water, get her a cup and fill it from the fridge. If she gets hungry, take her to the bottom left cabinet and she’ll pick what she wants. Otherwise just make sure no one and nothing hurts her. I’ll introduce you—”

            —and then, the kitchen phone rang, and the pager on the doctor’s hip bleeped with an annoying tone. The man rounded and went to answer, while the biomutant stood silently processing the future orders. Daughter… did that mean juvenile or adult daughter? Probably… juvenile. It would not need to be providing water on demand to an adult, or show an adult to the bottom left cabinet. There was also no reason to limit an adult to that particular cabinet, which only contained the sacks of undiluted nutrient gel for its own fluid intake along with boxes of crackers, jars of peanut butter, and a few bags of veggie chips and other “health snacks” as the doctor had called them. It was… not exactly designed for the task of childcare, and it shuffled anxiously in place as it dawned on him that it would have to figure it out with no more instruction. It could… learn this… right?

            Humans seemed to be fairly unbothered by the duty to watch over their offspring—so it must not be that difficult.

------

            Mr. X had been ordered to stand still inside the gates of the garden in an area half-concealed with shade when the large sedan pulled into the gravel circle at the end of the rural mountain road and crunched to a stop. Its keen vision spotted the small figure step out of the passenger side and quickly have an arm snatched up in a control grip by the small woman who had emerged from the driver’s side. There was a bitter argument between all three, which quelled after a minute or two while the sedan’s engine puttered impatiently. The woman released the little one, who did not run to either parent and instead stepped towards the gate, keeping her large brown eyes on both of them, as if wary of them following her.

            After a minute the car’s engine revved up as it returned down the uneven paving, disappearing in a few seconds around a bend. Ramirez was left wearily standing by where it had once parked, a small bag dangling from one hand (presumably the belongings of his child, packed into a tiny, colorful package).

            Mr. X glanced down at a small sound and was suddenly locking eyes with the absolute tiniest human he had ever seen. Dark hair and cut short, dark skin with a few freckles, and those huge brown eyes which widened further upon noticing the massive, trenchcoat-clad form skulking just inside the property line.

            “Papá!” The shrill voice was at such decibels and pitch that the Tyrant was forced to stagger back. Such a tiny body was so, so loud! The bioweapon resisted the urge to raise up its hands to cup over its ears, but its knees did bend and buckle before the doctor rushed up and grabbed the girl around the shoulders:

            “What’s wrong, m’ija?”

            “M-monstruo!” She pointed straight to the half-subdued, heavily-stressed visage of the startled Tyrant.

            “Oh,” Ramirez hugged his daughter closer and chuckled, as if there was some clear, and obvious, and worse trivial confusion at play. He knelt to where he was halfway between his child and his personal Bio-Organic Weapon.

            “It’s okay, m’ija—this is my bodyguard. I promise, he’s nice, okay?”

            The child peeked over the shabby fabric of Ramirez’s polo shirt, meeting the obviously inhuman pupils of the giant form that had frightened her. Without telepathy, it was unknown if she found a lack of evil within, but she did relent and sniffle up the start of her tears.

            “Bodyguard?”

            “Sí, for work,” Ramirez gave a strained smile, “It’s okay, he won’t hurt you. Look, see? He didn’t mean to scare you.”

            The doctor had slightly pressed the girl further around his shoulder, closer to the colossal form. Mr. X sensed the girl’s resistance to this and took a step slightly back—almost mirroring her trying to push herself back away from it. Its hearts thudded stronger in a sympathetic feedback loop upon seeing the feeble struggle she was putting up against her own father. He was forcing her towards a powerful monster, knowing full well what it could do. What then could it do, a being built for combat?

            It did what only its inbuilt reflexes urged it to do—and bowed its head until it lost eye contact with either of them. Mr. X had assumed Dr. Ramirez’s child would know what a T-103 was. It was now clear that she did not know at all what he was; she might think it was a human. But a big human staring hard at a tiny child was… threatening.

            “You’re okay. C’mon let me introduce you!” Ramirez’s voice chimed out as if no terror or stress was in evidence, “This fella is Mr. X. Don’t ask his real name—it’s secret. He’ll keep you safe so long as you’re here.

            “Mr. X! Eyes up.”

            T-00 reluctantly obeyed, and the first thing its eyes met was the petrified face of the girl still trying to cling onto her father’s shoulder after he’d pushed her to be well within the bioweapon’s reach. Its back twitched before it forced itself to stay completely still, the only other movement he made the uneasy blinking, and the gaze flicking back and forth—from the man, to the girl, to the man.

            “Mr. X, this is my daughter, Mariposa.” He smiled, “You remember I was talking about her yesterday, yeah? Be nice to her. She’s only—how old are you, Mari?”

            Was it… normal for humans to lose track of how old their offspring were? Mr. X felt his brows twitch, and somehow this microscopic expression which went in opposition of her father’s constant push was what Mariposa needed to see to give a quick swallow of nerves and relax a fraction:

            “Ten.”

            “That’s my girl! C’mon now, let’s get your stuff inside,” Ramirez stood up, all but shrugging his little girl off of himself like an annoying weight and picking up the backpack from where he’d set it down beside him. Apparently only Mr. X heard the soft whimper she let out as she stumbled and scurried to put her father back between herself and the menacing giant; T-00 took the opportunity to also do away with this forced close-quarters and took a much larger step back. It hesitated to follow the two into the front door for a few moments, especially as it spied the child sneaking worried glances over her hardly-evident shoulders at the creature.

            “Mr. X! Come on you, get out of the heat!” Its eye twitched a bit at the impatient tone of the order, but ducked his head low to negotiate the entryway and squeezed into the welcome air conditioning. Ramirez had been rushing around the open concept downstairs, dropping off Mariposa’s belongings onto one of the kitchen chairs before scoping around for his own briefcase, wallet, and the keys to his armored truck. The girl meanwhile had posted herself up behind the kitchen island, staring over bewildered and clearly scared at her parent preparing to leave her alone with a monster.

            “Right… that should be it. M’ija, come give a kiss ‘bye for now—Papá’s got to go into town for some last-minute business.”

            “You can’t leave me with—”

            “Shh! Don’t be rude. Mr. X is a big teddy bear, really—relax!”

            The Tyrant itself shot the doctor a dubious look; bear was maybe an accurate comparison at least in terms of size and weight, but… teddy? That was soft and harmless—and Mr. X knew by now it was very much not harmless, and… probably not soft.

            “Papá, please—”

            “No no, you listen. I’ve got to do this and it’s not a choice. You stay here and if you need anything just ask him. I won’t be gone for more than a few hours.”

            With that, Ramirez brushed past the Tyrant and swept out the door. The sound of the latch setting again ushered in a new, heavy silence. The bioweapon could feel the girl’s stare boring into the side of his head—watching him for any sudden moves with the same alertness that a Tyrant might train onto a potential threat. Understanding somewhat, Mr. X held completely still and listened for any indication that the tiny figure was moving out from her cover.

            The click and whirr of the fridge fan cutting on startled them both—Mariposa shrieked, the Tyrant jolted upright so hard the flooring shuddered, and it turned to see that the child had ducked further down and was only barely peeking over the island countertop at it. Briefly grumbling with embarrassment that it had reacted so strongly to so little, Mr. X eyed the floor as it reached up and scratched at the deformed grooves on its jaw. Being scared of something new was one thing… being scared of the box that kept the treats from spoiling was another entirely…

            “Um… Mr. X..?”

            He froze mid-itch at the trepidatious voice; the Tyrant turned to find that Mariposa had crept around the side of the kitchen. While still keeping a chair between herself and the hulking brute, she had cut the space between them by half, maybe more. Without the insufferable pressure of her unobservant (or uncaring) father forcing either of their hands, she seemed to calm down to the idea that this monster was “housebroken”—at least in the sense that it wouldn’t break the house. Not without orders to.

            Mariposa’s nose appeared to wrinkle up in contemplation as the Tyrant continued to watch her, making no move or noise but the normal bassy rush of its breathing.

            “…You don’t say much, do you.”

            Mr. X gave a sluggish blink; it could try to speak a word of two, but it wouldn’t have the slightest idea how the attempt would turn out—and it feared it may turn out like the ugly bellows and groans other Tyrants could more easily produce, so T-00 simply gave a creaky shake of its head.

            “So, you don’t talk?” Another shake, and Mariposa bit her lip as she processed what this meant for their hours stuck unattended together. “But… you listen?”

            It made sure it gave an emphatic nod to this, and then tilted its head as if alertly waiting to listen to her at this very second.

            “Okay…” She stepped out with care and no small degree of lingering trembles from the chair, peeking over her shoulder towards the back garden door, “May I… go outside? I wanna see Benji…”

            Benji. Dog’s name. The Tyrant recalled. The back garden of the house was a forty foot by fifteen foot rectangle with no known toxic or thorny plants, and it was northeasterly. Getting more and more shade soon. It should be safe; it would not be blinded by the California sunshine, and both sunburn and heatstroke would be less able to get at either of them. Mr. X gave a soft grunt that he hoped sounded affirmative and nodded.

            “You have to come with me, huh?” Another nod. “Okay… um… I’m going now.” The Tyrant watched as the small human very warily made her way to the back door, shooting looks its way every few steps as if to brace for the moment the massive form would start pursuing. Waiting until she had her hand to the door’s handle, T-00 started to follow with the lightest shuffling steps it could manage.

            The two of them kept about ten feet apart at minimum—keeping close tabs on each other but not being so jumpy or anxious now. This got even easier in the open space of the garden, especially as the golden-furred canine came loping around the side of the dry clumps of Pampas grass and wagged his whole body on sight of the little girl. T-00 planted its back to the house wall close by so it had the widest field of view and the most sun protection, and for a while it was almost as if the parental badgering, the uncomfortable introduction, and the sheer aura of child-endangerment which permeated the whole situation was no factor. The oblivious and overjoyed dog was a big help with that, and Mariposa bounded around with it as they gave the oversized tennis ball chewtoy a new coat of slobber and montane dust before both flopping down on the patio pavers and engaging in the kind of lazy cuddling that Mr. X could only give a curious stare. It had no context for this kind of contact; it sometimes bordered on violent the way she scratched at the domestic canine, but… Benji seemed to like it, and the dog rolling onto her lap and nuzzling her wet nose into her face was even drawing a few giggles. How… uncoordinated. How… how… something that he couldn’t connect the word for, but knew in its bones the concept of.

            Shit, damn… something. Other-expletive. It was on the tip of its… tongue? Brain? Subconscious linguistic knowledge? It knew what the “good uncoordinated not-serious companionship stress-relief good thing” was. It knew it. But a good word that summed the idea up had somehow not been something it had been exposed to in the growth chamber, it supposed.

            After more than an hour both dog and child were worn out, and their Tyrant chaperone had relaxed more, eyes half-hooded and drowsy. The sound of shoes scuffing nearby had it snapping back to alertness, and on looking down it found a surprise in the form of the little girl craning her neck up expectantly, hand just short of tugging at one of the gigantic hands. Benji padded up close by, wagging away as usual.

            “Mr. X, I’m gonna go in now. Can I take Benji with me?”

            T-00 remembered the dog being allowed inside before—especially when it was as hot as it had been today, so as he unstuck his back from the pebble-stucco of the wall he gave her a slight bob of the head. Benji led the way with tongue wagging in time with his tail.

            In the artificially-cooled interior, Mr. X let out a low huff. His mass was such that it was difficult for him to regulate his temperature once it got much hotter than 25 degrees Celsius. Staying in line of sight of the happy dog and the small child as they curled onto the floor by the couch, tired and joyous, it tried to focus otherwise on letting its system cool off back to normal. But after a moment, Mariposa asked a question, which took the Tyrant a moment to register from its unexpectedness:

            “Mr. X? Are you okay?”

            The Tyrant gave a forceful nod, which perhaps had the opposite effect as the large droplet of its sweat dived from the tip of its nose to the floor at the movement. Mariposa fixed it with an expression that it felt was familiar—maybe it had tried to aim that one at its own trainers, weeks and months ago…

            “Mr. X, do you know where dad keeps the ice cream?”

            T-00 truthfully did not, though the swift flicker of its pupils towards the freezer—where anything “ice” would logically go—betrayed something to the small girl. She stood and joined the hulking bioweapon in the kitchen area of the downstairs, pointing to the freezer section of the fridge.

            “Can you check if it’s in there? I can’t reach…”

            T-00 narrowed its eyes slightly, even as it took two ginger steps closer and reached to open the upper section of the refrigerator. There was a blast of refreshingly chilly vapor as it did so, and after that had passed it blinked rapidly and studied the slim pickings of the contents. There was, however, something which claimed to be “ice cream” within—and in a short motion it plucked the small box from its confines and let the freezer door swing shut and seal while it turned the container about. Not sure what to make of it, Mr. X lowered the package to where Mariposa could read the labels on its side.

            “Ooh…” At the way her eyes lit up, the Tyrant had a panicky feeling that it had just disobeyed Ramirez’s orders for this short guardianship period. But then… with how hot it was, and the man’s daughter had just been outside for so long…

            “…Are you allowed to have one?” Mariposa hesitated at reaching into the box, still lowered to where she could access it. Mr. X didn’t really have an answer. It assumed “no”, since it had never been given one of these “ice cream” things or even informed of their storage area. Almost as soon as it had managed a short shake of its head, Mariposa had pulled out two of the oblong objects and pushed one into the Tyrant’s free hand.

            “I’ll give you one, if you don’t say nothing to papá,” Mariposa smirked. Mr. X lifted up the comparatively tiny frozen treat as it returned the rest of the box to its normal position, and met the child’s gaze again.

            He nodded. Whatever the damn thing was, he was starting to smell it even through the foil wrapping, and whatever it was caused unrelenting rivulets of drool to keep forming at the edges of its tightly-sealed lips. Whatever it was was the good stuff, by the nutrient-hungry standards of a Tyrant. And it was cold as ice, still remaining so after more than a minute in the grip of an overheated bioweapon. Why would Ramirez not let his daughter have one of these, if they seemed so good?

            Oh.

            Oh!

            “Ice cream”, as it turned out, was indefinite proof that the universe was fundamentally good. After what by any numerical measure was only a few minutes, the Tyrant felt like it had experienced an hour of sugary and creamy wonder, all from the three-inch chunk of what Mariposa had specified was an “ice cream sandwich”—the brick of vanilla-flavored goodness wedged between chocolate cookies. T-00 barely knew what these specifications meant but committed them to memory anyways. At least, once it had become able to focus on any other incoming stimuli after the intense deliciousness had faded into the past. It let out an animalistic groan of pleasure before it considered how it may sound frightening to its nearby charge; it needn’t have worried, since Mariposa was licking the melted remnants from her fingers with similar noise and fervor though at a higher pitch and smoother, human vocal tones. Mr. X scooped up the foil pieces where they’d each left them and deposited them in the garbage bin. Mariposa had now settled on the rug in front of the television, petting Benji where he lay half-asleep and scanning through stations in search of something she liked. Mr. X eyed the temptingly large, luxurious couch which he generally was not given much chance to occupy; it was close to where his protective target now was, and he would have good peripherals on each side from there… why… not? But perhaps the most important reason was Mariposa:

            At the heavy creak of the wood flooring under the rugs behind her, the young girl paused in her channel surfing and caught the bioweapon red-handed halfway to the couch.

            “Is the couch, ah… strong enough?”

            Mr. X nodded. Somehow, the couch always held. Of course, it was designed to hold at least four humans weighing over two hundred pounds each, so a single Tyrant weighing almost that much by itself would still be within its design limits. Though, it could still be a fluke. It had only sat here twice before now, so it was still possible… Thankfully, even though it did creak and groan very tellingly, the couch did hold well enough that the Tyrant was able to relax. Mariposa started watching something which showed a number of strange animals—they were larger than humans, though by the way they moved slightly lighter than most Tyrants. Or at least more graceful. The camera zoomed and focused, and T-00 realized these were horses—fully-fleshed, healthy-looking horses, much unlike the half-lamed and raggedy one it had seen in person.

            “The horse only arrived in the American Southwest by chance… Most experts agree that the wild horses we see here are all descendants of domesticated horses brought to the southern part of the continent by the Spanish as early as the 1400s…” The Tyrant almost managed a frown out of pure confusion; despite what the voiceover said, the visuals of the program showed clearly labelled petrogylphs from the area in question from several thousand years prior to the “1400s” which had horses pointed out by convenient labels.

            “Nowadays, amongst the dry chaparral hills and the prairie plains, wild horse herds roam under the protection of a conservation branch of the US government—allowing for a certain number of wild mustang horses to be corralled, auctioned off, and trained to become domestic horses once more so that the many thousands of their wild cousins can continue to run free…”

            Why these apparently thousands of creatures could not do so without something of this sort occurring every year did not make particular sense—but thankfully the program moved on swiftly to another animal from the same region:

            “The Harris Hawk is another wondrous creature found in the American Southwest—one which boasts the title of the only bird of prey in the world which will hunt in packs.” T-00’s eyes flashed at the swift movement on the screen as several handsome-looking birds swept into view, and then looped joyfully into a thermal which took them high over a desert landscape. “Working together in the harsh arid environment, the Harris Hawks can between a group of three catch more than ten times the number of small rodents and reptiles as their closest relatives could on their own, making the cooperative arrangement entirely worth it. Falconers have begun capturing and taming these magnificent birds, bending their amazing talents and social habits to their own purposes…”

            … There seemed to be a pattern here. Animal was found useful—animal got caught and used for human interests. It almost seemed like all of the fanciful camera shots of wild things running and flying and the long-winded narration was just introduction to this idea. Mariposa apparently found this as dry and bizarre as they Tyrant did, and switched the channels again until she landed on one that cycled through daytime gameshows.

            “Alright, Karen—tell me something that frequently gets replaced on a car!”

            “Ummm… the mirrors?”

            This did not appear to be a very smart answer, and yet somehow the answer appeared among the top five of some kind of overall results. The most obvious explanation was that everyone shown was so terrible at operating motor vehicles they had to replace their broken-off mirrors often. Maybe that was the appeal of this game—to watch teams of perhaps the most foolish and ignorant specimens of humanity put these attributes on display to amuse the audience.

            It felt its head bob lower and awoke with a start—panic shooting through it as it realized it had started to drowse mid-watch. But there was… something wrong? No, not wrong; different. There was a slight warmth and pressure up against its side, and the arm on that side was propped up on a low, soft object.

            Mr. X started to move the arm to try and find the flat surface of the couch again, but froze as his palm bumped instead on the frail shoulders of the small girl. It craned its neck down fraction by fraction, trying not to move any other muscles; Mariposa had, beneath its notice, crawled up onto the open section of couch beside the bioweapon, wedging her tiny frame under its limp forearm and nestling her head into the crease and folds of its Limiter coat where its waist met its lap. As if the monstrosity’s leg was a comfy pillow. T-00 blinked as its bleary thoughts woke up further in order to race to the logical conclusion: It had clearly not just “started” to doze off… a sting of unease lit up in its chest and its hackles rose at the thought it had lapsed in this duty. It was supposed to protect her—if she had left the house again—or if that was the moment a rival company sent their agent—or if by pure accident she had gotten injured or threatened—

            Ramirez’s daughter suddenly shifted in her sleep, more onto her back, and as she did so her slender arms grasped up and ended up around the Tyrant’s arm. She was utterly dwarfed by the limb alone, and even the tight hug she had around it was barely making it through his tough sleeve and even tougher skin. Regardless, Mr. X could feel it, and the change had jarred him out of the panic spiral. The Tyrant’s heavily-wrinkled face softened up, and it studied its charge for a moment to ensure she was safe and well. It settled down once more, noting the low angle of the orange-gold sunlight streaking in through the kitchen windows; it estimated the time to be well over an hour later than Dr. Ramirez had said he would return. Its eyes flicked over to the child’s backpack hanging over the backrest of the chair, then to the wind rustling through the Pampas grass outside the window, and then the color and light of the vapid programming still on in the background.

            Ramirez did not return until it was almost dark, and aside from the façade of a bright and attentive reunion with Mariposa that he’d plastered over his clearly exhausted and aggravated inner feelings, the man did not linger on the surprise long absence and instead started throwing together something he’d called “mac and cheese”. Mariposa did not seem enthused, but she tolerated her father’s lazy cooking—especially since she had secretly pilfered the ice cream earlier. The doctor snappishly ordered Mr. X to take up a sentry position outside and leave them to their family time; the Tyrant grudgingly obeyed, shooting a pointed glance down at the lower cabinet where the nutrient gel base was stored but its yearning being ignored. It supposed it would have to wait another few hours. Very unfair, considering it had pulled so much additional weight that day. The bioweapon snorted once it was prowling its usual route in the dark. It was hungry, not starving. There was no danger in waiting a little longer. Mr. X would abide.

[ljones41]

“TOMORROW NEVER DIES” (1997) Review

"TOMORROW NEVER DIES" (1997) Review Recently, I had watched "TOMORROW NEVER DIES", Pierce Brosnan’s second outing as James Bond. Roger Spottiswoode directed the 1997 Bond movie. It co-starred Michelle Yeoh, Jonathan Pryce and Teri Hatcher.

  When I first saw "TOMORROW NEVER DIES" many years ago, I had a low opinion of it. I wish I could say that my opinion of the movie has improved over the years after this latest viewing . . . but I would be lying. TOMORROW NEVER DIES had some highlights, but unfortunately, it possessed more negative traits than positive ones. I think it would be best if I list both the good and the bad about this movie: Positive: *What else can I say? Michelle Yeoh. *I found Bond’s romantic scene with a Danish linguist rather sexy. *The film's foreign locations – Hamburg and Thailand (as Vietnam) - looked more lovely, thanks to Robert Elswit's cinematography. *Bond and Wai-Lin’s escape from Caver building in Vietnam proved to be one of the better stunts I have seen in the entire Bond franchise. *Thanks to Roger Spottiswoode's direction and Michel Arcand's editing, I thought the Saigon motorcycle chase was handled very well. *Pierce Brosnan gave a very natural performance, especially during his scenes with Yeoh. *Oddly enough, I rather liked Vincent Shirerpelli as Dr. Hamburg. He proved to be a more interesting henchman than Mr. Stamper. And his death proved to be even more interesting. *Mr. Gupta seemed like a pretty sharp and cool guy. *The movie's main theme song, performed by Sheryl Crow - what can I say? I realize it is not regarded as one of the best theme songs from the Bond franchise. But I have always had a soft spot for it, thanks to Crow's vocals and the lyrics she co-wrote with Mitchell Froom. I mean . . . the song did earn a Golden Globe nomination. Negative: *Brosnan's angsty scenes with Teri Hatcher seemed stiff and unnatural. And his voice sounded odd in scenes featuring Bond's attempt to suppress his emotions. *Why did the director Roger Spottiswode, have Brosnan shooting two machine guns at once during the final confrontation on Carver’s boat? The actor looked like a walking action movie cliché. *I thought Jonathan Pryce had portrayed one of the most overbearing and annoying villains in the Bond franchise. Only Sophie Marceau in the latter half of "THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH" may have surpassed him. *Is it just me or is the plot of this Bond movie seemed like an extended rip-off of a "LOIS & CLARK" episode from its first season? Perhaps the discovery of Teri Hatcher’s casting must have given screenwriter Bruce Feirstein an idea. *Why is it that nearly every sentence directed by Ms. Moneypenny to Bond came off as a sly, sexual joke? Their dialogue grew very annoying. *Spottiswoode managed to transform Bond and Q’s Meeting in Hamburg into a hammy production number. Q was simply in Hamburg to hand over an armored company car to Bond. What a bore and a waste of time! *Carver's top minion, Mr. Stamper, struck me as a second-rate version of Red Grant from "RUSSIA WITH LOVE". Where was Robert Shaw or Andreas Wisnewski when you need them? *The entire car chase sequence inside a Hamburg parking structure featured Bond using a remote control . . . ah, never mind! The entire sequence struck me as a bore. Even worse, it happened after the marvelous Bond/Kaufman scene. What a waste of my time. *Despite all of the gunfire exchanged and the other action during the final confrontation sequence aboard Carver’s boat, I thought it was too long . . . and boring. *Joe Don Baker seemed wasted in this film as C.I.A. liaison Jack Wade. *Bond’s Cover as a Banker – I am beginning to suspect that Bond makes a lousy undercover agent. By opening his mouth and hinting at Carver’s boat, he ended up exposing himself. What an idiot! *Teri Hatcher seemed wasted in this film. And her angsty scenes with Brosnan seemed forced - almost unnatural. TOMORROW NEVER DIES did managed to produce a few favorite lines of mine: Favorite Lines: "Believe me, Mr. Bond. I can shoot you from Stugartt and still create the proper effect." – Dr. Kaufman to Bond BOND: "You were pretty good with that hook." WAI-LIN: "That’s from growing up in a rough neighborhood. You were pretty good on the bike." BOND: "Well, that comes from not growing up at all." "No more absurd than starting a war for ratings." – Bond to Carver KAUFMAN: "Wait! I am just a professional doing a job!" BOND: "So am I." (Then kills Kaufman) Despite some virtues, "TOMORROW NEVER DIES" is not a favorite movie of mine. In fact, it is my least favorite James Bond movie featuring Pierce Brosnan. Unfortunately, director Roger Spottiswoode seemed unable to elevate Bruce Firstein's generic screenplay marred by an unoriginal plot and one of the hammiest villains in the franchise's history. Hmmm . . . too bad.

[kittymaine]

Two Weeks Notice Ch.3

// Summary: There’s an alien invasion and Damian and Jason are the unlikely team that are going to stop it. //

When an alien invasion force made landfall off the coast of Delaware, nobody had been expecting it. Jason sure hadn’t been. He had been sleeping off a brutal fight with a literal vampire the night before when his phone woke him up with a laundry list of emergency alerts from Babs.

Most of that day was a blur to Jason. He remembered suiting up in his room before he left, pulling tactical armor over top of aching bruises and blood spotted gauze pads. He remembered speeding through midday traffic out of Gotham, following Babs’ direction to avoid the roadblocks and reach the rendezvous point she directed him to.

The rendezvous point was just an intersection of streets in a small Delaware town, the streets empty and quiet due to lockdown. When he got there, he was met with Steph, Cass, Damian and Blue Beetle. He barely had a chance to greet the girls before Black Canary was striding up to them and giving their marching orders.

Steph and Cass were teamed together and sent to one location, and he and Damian to another. Blue Beetle was teamed with Black Canary to head to another point to reconvene with some other Justice League members to form a strike team. The bats were being asked to hold some strategic points along the beach, but otherwise weren’t being asked to do anything too exciting. Since none of them except Duke were metahumans, their skill set wasn’t considered to be very valuable in the fight.

Regardless, Jason was on edge as he drove toward the coast, Damian riding his own bike by his side. He was extremely aware that Damian was only fourteen (fifteen, maybe?) and that made him the adult in their little team up. If anything happened to Damian, it would surely be his ass that the whole family would roast alive for it. He hated to admit it to himself, but he had just started to enjoy the company of Babs and her Batgirls, and he really didn’t want to fuck it up.

Damian was tense and quiet the whole ride there. It was the first time Damian had seen Jason since the meeting, but he barely acknowledged him.

It was barely a week before Halloween, so there weren’t any tourists on the beach when the aliens had landed. Even so, the beach looked like a bloodbath. Sprays of blood and bodies were dotted here and there on the cold beige sand. On the street facing the beach, cars were turned over and smashed, some still smoking quietly into an overcast gray sky.

The invasion was very literal, with a few small ships landed at different points along the beach where squads of aliens explored into human towns and villages. On top of that, the bug like aliens were taking no chances and shooting at basically anything that moved. The beach was a tough place to try and hold them back, considering how open and flat it was.

Jason motioned Damian into an abandoned car before trying to engage the enemy, and drove over the dunes and up onto the beach before flipping the car and using it as cover to try and halt the aliens’ advancement up into the town. Unfortunately, that meant they were pretty effectively pinned down as they traded shots with the aliens.

What followed was a terrifying and exhausting battle of inches.

Jason had brought a duffle bag full of ammo and a few supplemental weapons in case of a jam, but Damian only had the batarangs he could hold in his belt and ran out within minutes. Jason had handed some back up pistols to Damian and ignored the surprised expression on the kid’s face. He was League trained, just like Jason. He knew that Talia would have trained Damian on every conceivable weapon, including firearms. Damian didn’t disappoint, either. It took him a second to adjust to the rubber bullets, but once he did, he was almost as good a shot as Jason.

Unfortunately, rubber bullets didn’t do much when the other team were firing lasers that could turn sand into glass.

“We are going to die, if we stay here,” Damian grunted as he ducked just a bare second before a blue flash of light cut through where his head just was.

“If we fall back, we risk some of them splitting off and heading into town,” Jason grunted as he shot blindly over the edge of the car to try and push the three aliens advancing on their position back.

“They must have some short distance warp technology in their spaceship,” Damian said as he peeked out around the edge of their cover to take a quick look at the ship he was talking about. It was shaped sort of like a minivan with rockets attached to where you might expect the back tires to be, and had an almost clown car quality as alien after alien piled out of it as they took out the ones that ventured into their line of sight.

“If we can destroy their ship or whatever is inside the ship that is allowing them to teleport to our planet, we could free ourselves up to help elsewhere,” Damian continued.

“Leaving cover is risky,” Jason said doubtfully, peeking out himself over the top to see that the three aliens had dived behind a bank of sand and were scrabbling at each other like they were trying to dare each other to advance first.

“I’m sure you have something in that bag of yours that can help sew a little chaos,” Damian suggested with a cocky smirk.

It was the first expression Jason had seen on the kid that wasn’t just blank professionalism or a grimace of effort. It was hard to say no to such a mischievous look from such a serious kid.

Jason snorted and ducked down to dig through a side pocket on his bag. “Yeah, I guess I do,” he sighed, holding up a handful of flash bangs. He armed them and took another look over the car to see if the aliens had moved, and almost ate a laser to the face for it. “Just close your eyes and ears, but still be ready. It’s hard to anticipate how these things will affect extraterrestrials,” Jason explained as he deftly chucked three flash bangs in a strategic line between them and the aliens.

Damian already had his earplugs in, so Jason shoved his own in his ears quickly and held up his fingers to count down to detonation.

Even behind cover and with earplugs in, the sound of all three flash bangs detonating so close together was nearly deafening and everything in their sight was cast into sharp contrast for a few seconds, their eyes no longer able to differentiate any nuance between light and shadow. Jason could barely hear the painful screech of inhuman voices screaming in pain over the faint ringing in his ears.

As soon as color began to seep back into his vision, Jason gave the hand signal to move out. Both Jason and Damian dodged around the car they had been using for cover and charged across the sand toward the spaceship. Jason took a moment to glance over at the small dune the aliens had been using for cover and saw sprays of blue that looked like maybe the flash bangs had maybe done more damage than he was expecting. But, he wasn’t about to pause and check. He’d much rather that than their enemies being okay and getting shot full of holes as a result.

They reached the ship after a few seconds of running painfully slowly, the sand pulling at their feet with every step. When they finally clambered onto the craft, it was mercifully empty. In fact, the inside of the ship was completely empty, with no seats or levers or anything sticking out of the walls. Instead, the walls, floors and ceilings were covered in markings, symbols, lines and shapes.

“Ugh, aliens,” Jason grunted, looking around the ship for anything that looked like a ‘DON’T TOUCH SELF DETONATION SEQUENCE HERE’ sign.

“We must find a way of turning off their warp point or, failing that, we must destroy the ship,” Damian bit out, scanning across the iconography littering the walls just as frantically as Jason.

“Easier said than done,” Jason muttered, not looking up from the series of symbols he was inspecting.

Suddenly, a wash of blue light spilled across the walls of the ship. Jason’s head snapped up just in time to see Damian snatch his hand away from a set of glowing symbols, a large circle under his feet shining in eerie blue light and steadily bathing him in strange dancing blue particles.

“Damian!” Jason shouted, crossing the ship in a few short steps and taking him by the upper arms.

He meant to yank Damian back out of the circle, but the second he touched him, it felt like his whole body both froze up and went immaterial. He could feel himself, everything that composed him, shaking apart like atoms in an ion storm. Everything that made him who he was scattering, disconnecting, freeing itself from the creature that called itself Jason Todd. He could only look mutely at Damian’s stricken expression and reflect that in the laundry list of all his fuck-ups, this had to be the hands down all time worst one. Not only did he let Bruce’s son disintegrate himself in an alien spaceship, but he was being disintegrated too.

He felt himself stretch. He could still feel his feet in his steel toed boots on strange alien metal, but he could also feel the sterile coldness of space on his collar bones, the wetness of clouds on his left elbow, the brush of feathers against his right hip. Jason also felt Damian, really felt him in a way he had never felt anyone before. He felt his child soft skin, and the pull of old scars on his back, and the ache of a broken bone in his leg that didn’t set right. He felt it all from the inside, Damian’s feelings mixed up with his own. Jason felt Damian’s emotions, the way fear sat familiar in his chest alongside a well-worn resignation to death. That cut Jason terribly deep. Jason knew intellectually that he had probably seen more death in his short life than thirty normal people combined. But, Damian was still a child, and the way that he so quickly gave up and resigned himself to death filled Jason equally with rage and despair.

And then they were coalescing, pulled back together, atoms stretched across miles like a rubber band that refused to break, finally snapping back. Jason had a panicked second to fear that they would come back together, a terrible accident that would result in a body with too many limbs and too many faces and too many thoughts. But, it was only a flash of a thought and then his body was back together just as it always had been and he and Damian were crashing to the floor in an unfamiliar place.

Jason still had his hand wrapped around Damian’s upper arm and used it to tuck him into the protection of his chest before they hit the ground. The chattering of panicked aliens immediately sounded out around them, and Jason sat up with his guns already hot.

Jason only saw the room they were in with his peripheral vision, but he got the impression that they were in a huge hangar like room with steps like bleachers all covered in the same circles that Damian and Jason had just appeared in. They were surrounded by the same bug aliens they had been fighting on the beach, little knots of them gathered here and there near the various circles.

In close quarters, fighting the aliens was a lot easier, but also more dangerous. Luckily, they had the element of surprise on their side, causing the aliens to panic and fire wildly. Jason and Damian were both skilled, but things were tilted greatly out of their favor. They fought out of the big room that they had found themselves in and down hallways randomly until they could get to a room that seemed empty and hidden where they could catch their breath.

“Fuck, where are we?” Jason gasped, trying to catch his breath while also keeping an eye on the hallway they had just exited.

“We must be on the mothership,” Damian responded. He sounded tense, but at least he wasn’t out of breath. “The ship must have only been able to let them travel back and forth to the mothership.”

“Makes sense,” Jason said as he took a moment to eject the magazine on his handguns and check what he had left. There was practically nothing, so he snapped them shut and stuck them back into their holsters. He would be better off with his hands free. “So, now we just need to figure out how to get the hell off this thing.”

“Perhaps not,” Damian said. He pinned Jason with an irritated look when Jason snorted in disagreement. “Father’s team will be trying to infiltrate the mothership to disable the invasion at the source. But, we are already here. We can end the attack now and avoid any further bloodshed.”

“Damian,” Jason snapped, not quite able to fathom how much of a bad idea that was. “We are alone, with no backup, no one knows we’re up here, and I’m out of bullets! How the hell do you propose we even do such a thing?”

“Simple, of course,” Damian sniffed, tilting his head up in a move that would have communicated superiority if his hands weren’t clutching his katana in a white knuckled grip. “We find the bridge and take control of it.”

“Jesus, kid,” Jason sighed, running a weary hand over his face. Not only was that plan reckless, it was dangerous. They weren’t metahumans like everyone else involved in the fight against the invading force. They were highly trained, yes, but both he and Damian were ultimately just normal people. It would only take one lucky shot for one of them to be killed or injured so badly they could no longer escape. Damian was only fourteen, so maybe this made sense to him, but Jason had to be the adult in this situation. “There is no way that we are doing that. We catch our breath, then we’re heading right back to that teleporter room and catching a ride back to Earth. That’s it.”

“If you are too cowardly to take advantage of this opportunity, then I will do it myself,” Damian snapped, his chin tilting even higher. The leather of his gloves creaked, he was holding onto the hilt of his sword so tight.

“There is no fucking world where you go running around an alien spaceship with only a shitty ninja sword, just like there’s no world where I make that run with you,” Jason growled, feigning an anger he could barely summon up. It had been hours since he had arrived at the rendezvous point. He was exhausted and the adrenaline from the teleportation had worn off, leaving him shaky and tense.

Damian narrowed his eyes and loosened his stance, shaking his arms out from their tense grip.

“Good, now let’s-” Jason didn’t get to finish what he was saying, because Damian knocked his legs out from under him with a vicious kick and took off down the hallway in the opposite direction of the room they had just come from.

Jason squawked indignantly as he fell back into the wall, taken completely off guard and flailing as he tried to recover his balance. “You little shit!” Jason shouted once he gained his feet and took off after Damian, his anger reigniting like a familiar lighter in his hand, spurring him forward through his exhaustion, his heavy boots ringing out loudly on the unusual metal of the alien deck.

It took a few minutes before he caught up with Damian. The kid was fast as shit. It almost made Jason miss the days when he was five foot nothing and barely a hundred pounds. But, Damian eventually got snagged up in a narrow hallway with a bunch of panicking aliens that wouldn’t stop laying down suppressing fire. Damian was pinned down behind a column, unable to move forward or retreat without risking taking fire.

“Hey, assholes!” Jason shouted before lobbing a grenade down the hallway and rolling toward’s Damian’s hiding spot. He tucked a stunned Damian against his chest and covered his ears with his hands, a few seconds before a huge concussive blast rocked the hallway, sending them both to the floor.

“You had a grenade this whole time?” Damian groaned, weakly pushing Jason off him as he tried to climb to his feet. Even with his helmet protecting his ears, Damian’s words were muffled, so it took a few seconds for Jason to determine what he said.

“They’re not exactly a non-lethal option, but I think we’re past that now,” Jason grimaced, hoping that this wouldn’t get back to Bruce. Hopefully invasive alien species weren’t included in his no kill rules. Jason really didn’t want to get run out of town again.

Damian struggled to his feet. He looked distinctly unsteady, the first visible sign of weakness Jason had seen since this whole thing started. “They were guarding something important here. We need to press forward and determine what.”

“No,” Jason said, over enunciating the word. “We need to retreat and get back to the transporter room. This is a fucking suicide mission.”

“We are uniquely positioned to end this invasion before anyone else is hurt,” Damian said fiercely, even as Jason watched his small fingers tremble around his katana. “No one else can get through their shielding. We have the element of surprise on our side, as well. But, the longer we dither here, the more we lose the upper hand.”

“Damian,” Jason choked out, struggling to his feet with a hand on the wall to help him keep his balance. “You are a child,” he bit out. “And I am responsible for your safety while we’re on this mission-”

“I AM NEVER SAFE!” Damian screeched, his chin wobbling dangerously, his shrill voice bouncing off the wall and making him sound even louder. Damian breathed heavily through his nose, his chest heaving with the effort to take in air. “My life and my safety have never been guaranteed,” he gasped. “There is only honor and the mission. So don’t try to treat me like a civilian,” he sneered, a thin facade of disgust pasted over his still trembling mouth.

Jason was frozen in the wake of Damian’s words. He thought vaguely that his heart might be broken, but the pain felt far away. His ears were still ringing, but he didn’t think it was from the grenade anymore.

Putting a pacifying hand up, Jason swallowed a few times before saying, “That … is really fucked up,” through a tight throat. “And, we are going to talk about that shit later.”

Damian sucked his teeth, but seemed to settle at Jason’s response. He wondered briefly what kind of response he had been expecting, but had to shove the thought away lest he start to cry right there on an alien mothership, probably minutes from his own death.

Jason sighed heavily, trying to think around the imploding star that used to be the heart in his chest and the ringing headache from being so near the grenade when it went off and the cramping of his own exhausted muscles.

“This is such a fucked plan,” Jason muttered, realizing he really had no choice. He couldn’t fight Damian and the aliens at the same time. Not without dooming himself or Damian to a certain death.

Damian, sensing the folding of his nerve, stood up straighter, hope spreading across his face.

“We can do it, Todd! I am confident in our ability,” Damian snapped out, standing at perfect attention and with a little furrow in his brow that just made Jason’s heart hurt more.

“Okay, okay. Whatever. I get it. I want to go on record again to say I think this is a bad idea, but I probably couldn’t find the way back to the teleporter room anyway. So, whatever, bridge it is.”

Damian nodded decisively, his pleasure practically beaming from him. “Then we should move swiftly to take advantage of the opening you have provided,” he said and without a backward look stormed down the hall now stained with char and splattered with alien blood.

Jason sighed heavily, but followed. What choice did he have?

Damian was right that the aliens Jason had blown up had been guarding something, because of course he was. As they continued to push forward, they ran into more resistance. Luckily for them, the further they progressed, the more panicked and disorganized the aliens were. Damian was an extremely skilled and well-trained fighter, but firefights were Jason’s specialty. With the two of them working together, they were able to push through two more blockades before they reached a big door, wider than the others.

“There’s something important here,” Damian muttered, examining every seam and panel beside the door.

“Definitely. But how do we get in?” Jason grumbled, using the alien rifle he had stolen to sight down the hallways and make sure they weren’t going to be shot at while they stood out in the open.

Damian tried poking and caressing all the little symbols carved along the edge of the big door. While some of them lit up, none of them opened the door. Jason kept his eye on the corridor behind them, anxiously watching for more reinforcements.

“Ah!” Damian exclaimed after a few minutes. He pointed excitedly at a glowing outline on the wall. “I think this is a hand scanner. Help me pull one of them up here,” he said, running for the nearest unconscious (or maybe dead, not that Jason was really paying attention anymore) alien and grabbing them under their armpits. Jason ran over and pulled the alien out of Damian’s grip, dragging him over to the wall. Damian slapped its hand against the silhouette of the three fingered appendage.

The alien hand outline flashed red for a second, but then nothing happened. Damian and Jason looked at each other in doubt for a second. But, before either of them could say anything, a loud clang sounded from the door and steadily the two sides began to pull apart with a heavy rumble of machinery.

Jason dropped the alien unceremoniously to the ground, it’s body making a dull thump noise as it hit the floor. “That’ll work,” he said with a grin. He raised his rifle and carefully peeked around the doorway and into the next room.

What he found inside was not the bridge, but it was quickly apparent why the aliens had been so desperate to protect it.

Though it looked like no engine Jason had ever seen before, there was no other way to interpret it. In the center of the huge vaulted room is a glowing blue cylinder so big that there’s only room for a few catwalks around the sides. A clear case encloses the cylinder on all sides and on the right side of the room are a number of smaller clear walled rooms that looked suspiciously like blast walls.

“Well, shit,” Jason breathed as he took it all in.

“What?” Damian snapped, appearing at his elbow and taking a moment to scan over what Jason was seeing. “Hmph. Well, we can still stop the ship from here.”

“Yeah, but probably not without blowing ourselves up as well,” Jason grumbled, stepping further into the room.

“Do you have any more of those grenades?” Damian asked with a raised eyebrow.

Jason looked over at him with an exasperated expression, but he did produce one more grenade from inside his jacket. “I’m going to regret this, aren’t I?”

♥♦♣♠

When Jason swam back to consciousness, he was no longer in a strange alien spaceship surrounded by strange metal and glowing runes. Instead, he was pretty sure he was looking at the roof of a tent flapping gently above him in undulating waves. Jason took a deep breath and tried to take stock of himself. He remembered finding the engine room and then concocting some kind of crazy plan with Damian to chuck his last grenade at the engine and then try to hide in one of those little side rooms. But, anything after throwing the grenade was just a big blank.

He knew he should be hurting, but he couldn’t really feel anything. Jason could distantly feel pain all over, but it was distant, as if it was happening in the next room over or something. This compared with the rough sheet he could feel tucked around his chest made it pretty clear that he must be in a field hospital or something like it.

He tried to sit up, but quickly fell back to the cot he was laying on when the room spun in dizzy circles as he tried.

“Jason,” a husky familiar voice said. A steadying hand came down on his shoulder. “Hey, don’t try to move. You’ll just make yourself throw up.”

Jason squinted through eyes that felt like they were full of sand and made out the blurry silhouette of Dick standing over him. He couldn’t make out his expression through the domino mask, but his voice sounded exhausted.

“Where-” is Damian? Jason tried to ask, but his throat constricted painfully, sending him into a coughing fit.

Dick pressed a straw to his lips once he caught his breath. The lukewarm water tasted heavenly on his parched throat.

“Damian is okay,” Dick answered Jason’s unfinished question. “He made it out with only a few cuts and bruises. The Batgirls are taking him back to Gotham.”

Jason relaxed fully into the bed at that. Damian had lived. He was safe. He was heading home with Steph and Cass, two very capable people that he liked and trusted. Babs would take care of the rest.

“Jason, what were you thinking?” Dick asked, sounding wrecked. “You could have got him killed! Hell, it’s a miracle you both didn’t die.”

“Wasn’t thinking,” Jason mumbled. “Was thinking I was almost out of bullets. Was thinking it was taking too long. Was thinking I couldn’t let the kid run on ahead without me.”

There was shuffling from the side of the bed, but Jason didn’t open his eyes to see what Dick was doing.

“Dammit, Jason,” he mumbled, and his voice sounded distinctly wet in the quiet hubbub of the hospital. “I can’t lose anyone else. I really can’t.”

“Dick,” Jason sighed. Whatever meds they gave him must have been fading, because his head started pounding. 

“I mean it,” Dick cried, the tears clear in his voice. “Tim left, Damian left. Damian is back, but I can tell that he already has one foot out the door. He’s looking for any excuse to leave us all behind. And, you’re just the same. I know that any day you’ll leave with the other outlaws and never come back,” Dick sobbed. Jason squeezed his eyes against his own throbbing headache. “And it will just be me. Alone. Alone with Bruce and that huge empty house full of ghosts. I can’t take it, Jason!”

Jason reached out blindly with his right hand until he felt Dick’s hair under his calloused fingers. He followed the curve of his head to his shoulder and felt it shaking in his grip. “Don’t cry,” Jason gritted out. He was embarrassed to realize his own voice was thick with emotion. He pulled on Dick’s shoulder until he tilted forward and Jason felt Dick’s face press into his ribs.

They stayed like that for a while, Dick shaking into Jason’s side even if he didn’t make a sound, and Jason trying to let the tension bleed out of his body. Slowly, the pain in his head started to ebb, and he was able to breathe a little easier. It was quiet and slow for a few minutes at least.

Until someone yanked the curtain separating Jason from the rest of the field hospital back with a loud jangle of metal rings. Dick leaped back from Jason like he had been caught doing something he would get in trouble for later. Jason’s eyes shot open to the vision of Batman in all his terrifying glory, backlit by the clean white light of the hospital. His suit was scratched and singed and splattered with blue alien blood, and his jaw was clenched so hard it looked like it was chiseled from marble.

“B?” Dick choked out, his voice still showing a significant amount of emotion for a bat. Bruce acted like he didn’t hear him and held himself so still he was practically vibrating.

Bruce took one step closer to Jason’s bed and pulled the curtain back behind him with another loud jangle that set Jason’s headache screaming.

“Dick,” Bruce gritted out between teeth so clenched he could barely move his jaw. “Leave.”

“B, this isn’t the time,” Dick said, his voice calm and pacifying, all indication of his previous emotions gone just like that. Dick slowly stood and put his hands out in a gesture of surrender, even as he put himself between Jason and Bruce. “Jason has a very severe concussion. He’s not in any shape-”

Even though Jason was watching, he didn’t really see what happened next. Bruce moved that fast. One second, Dick was talking to Bruce as gently and carefully as he would a jumper. The next second, the curtain was torn off it’s metal hooks and Dick was laying spread eagle on the ground and Bruce was hauling Jason out of the bed by his throat.

Jason could hear people yelling from all around him, but he couldn’t spare any thought for them as he focused what little attention he could scrape together on the threat in front of him. To consider Bruce anything other than a dire threat at that moment would have been the height of idiocy.

He was still fully suited up as the Bat fully equipped with all his armor and preferred weapons, while Jason felt fairly sure that he was completely nude underneath the thin hospital gown he was wearing. Hell, he was pretty sure he had a catheter and IV still connected to him. And Bruce’s face, what he could see of it, was twisted in rage, every one of his clean white teeth on display as he snarled in Jason’s face.

“If I EVER,” Bruce was yelling, his voice incredibly loud in what was previously a quiet tent, spittle flying from his mouth onto Jason’s face, “so much as LOOK AT Damian again-”

“B, stop!” Dick had gotten up and was trying to physically pry Bruce off of Jason, but Jason knew that it would be practically impossible to do so. Not without hurting Jason in the process, anyway. “You’re out of control! You-”

Like swatting a fly, Bruce flung out one hand and smacked Dick down hard. If Dick had been expecting the hit, it never would have landed. But, he hadn’t. Even in this rage, Dick must have trusted Bruce. Maybe that made him naive, but Jason suspected that was what made Dick so good, even while it hurt him.

“I will put you in a hole so deep and so dark that no one will ever find you,” Bruce was still talking, still threatening Jason, but he could feel himself going away. The pain in his head was incredible, the fear pounding in his chest was almost worse, and he was rapidly losing the struggle to keep breathing against Bruce’s tightening fingers. This was too much, so close to losing Damian and so soon after seeing Dick break down for the first time ever, this was too much too fast for Jason, and he could feel himself checking out.

Jason was quickly leaving the building, Bruce’s voice fading into so much roaring water against the rocks, his body growing numb and far away and inconsequential. For a little while, he could pretend that this was happening to someone else.

Jason wasn’t sure how long the shouting went on for, but he suspected it wasn’t very long, before a flash of red flickered past his eyes and Bruce disappeared. Jason dropped like a bag of bricks and probably would have cracked his head on the frame of his cot if Superman wasn’t suddenly there to catch his fall.

He looked just the same as Jason remembered him from his childhood. His hair still had that silly little curl in the front and his arms still felt like marble even though they handled him like spun sugar. His handsome features were twisted with sorrow and pain. Jason remembered that expression too. He would make some offhand comment about what it was like living on the streets or with his mom when she was really doing bad, and that face would come out. It used to make teenage Jason so mad. Like, why look so hurt over it? It wasn’t like Clark could have done anything about his situation. And, if he could, then maybe he deserved to be hurt over it.

Clark was saying something to Jason, but he still couldn’t hear anything going on around him. It was just ‘wah wah wah’ like the adults in Peanuts. That was pretty funny, so he started to laugh. But that must have been the wrong response, because that made Clark look really scared.

Then, Clark was gone and Dick was there instead. Dick’s voice came in a little better. He wrapped something around Jason and rubbed at his arms, and Jason leaned into him. What he really wanted was Bizarro. Bizarro would be kind and sit with Jason and tell him funny stories until Jason came back. Jason didn’t really know Dick and didn’t really want to know Dick, but between him and Clark, Dick was definitely the preferable option.

Steadily, Jason came back to his body. Dick knew what he was doing, and luckily his presence didn’t fuck with Jason too bad, so he was able to do all the right things to bring Jason back.

When Jason’s hearing finally came all the way back, Dick was talking about canned herring for some reason. Jason must have made some noise of exasperation, because Dick cut off his story and immediately focused back in on Jason.

“Hey, can you hear me? Jason?” Dick asked, his fingers digging into Jason’s shoulder.

He shrugged his hand off. “Can hear you fine,” Jason mumbled, his lips still feeling numb and his words slurred.

“Dr. Skadi needs to scan your head again, after all that,” he explained evenly. Jason stared into the blank white lenses of Dick’s domino and hated that stupid mask viscerally. It was hard to tell what expression he was making from just the set of his mouth. “I’m just going to get you into the wheelchair and-”

“He hit,” Jason stumbled, the words feeling like they were shuffled around in his head and he couldn’t find the one he needed. He took hold of Dick’s arm and tried again, “He hit?” the last word still wouldn’t come.

The expression on Dick’s face was definitely sorrow, Jason could tell even with the domino mask.

“What B did was wrong, Jason,” he said quietly, mournfully. “Nobody is going to side with him on this one. He won’t get near you again. The League will watch him, and I’ll watch him if I have too.”

“No,” Jason grunted, shaking his head for a second before the spiking pain in his head reminded him that his brains were currently barely congealed pudding and shaking the bowl around was just going to scramble it more.

Dick grimaced and held his head still with both hands, while Jason grimaced through the pain.

“No,” Jason gritted out. “He hit you,” he emphasized.

Dick was silent, but his hands shook where they still held Jason’s head on either side.

“He,” Jason struggled. The pain was subsiding, but his words weren’t being any more obedient than they’d been before. “How many. Times?” he asked, stumbling through a different way to phrase what he wanted to know.

The shaking got worse, and Jason has to gently move Dick’s hands off his face, so he wouldn’t shake up his head more than it already had been. Dick’s mouth, still the only way he could gauge his expression, was trembling. Trying not to think about it too much, Jason reached out and pulled Dick’s head to rest on his shoulder.

Dick cried and even if it was quiet, Jason could still hear him. He could feel the tears once they wore through the adhesive on the bottom of his mask drip onto his bare shoulder. He could feel how desperately Dick’s fingers pressed into his back.

Jason thought about how this was his big brother, crying because his foster father had hit him, crying because his foster father might have hit him a lot. He thought about Bruce punching him in that interrogation room and tagging him in the throat with a batarang and any number of other times he had put him down in the name of fighting the good fight. He thought about Tim walking dazed and gaunt through a field of bare trees in Pennsylvania. Jason thought about Damian sitting at that meeting in his pajamas and not looking at anyone while his father raged and broke things in the other room.

He thought to himself that this was still too much. It was too big. And his brain was basically spaghetti. He would give himself a break and not think about it too much for right now.

Because, he had enough on his plate just then. He had to get up and get into a wheelchair with Dick’s help and get pushed into what looked like a cleared out gift shop so that he could get another brain scan in a high-tech and expensive looking machine and then wait through having his IV reattached and the popped stitches on his back redone. Through it all, Dick stayed with him, even if he was tired and even if he was still leaking tears every few minutes, and that wasn’t nothing. It meant a lot more than take out left at his door and stalking over rooftops.

[pinturas-sgm-tanques]

1944 07 SdKfz 234-3 mit 7,5cm KwK Dragon

The Sd.Kfz 234 series of 8 wheel armored cars was an improvement on the previous sd.kfz 232 series of 8 wheel heavy reconnaissance cars that had been used in the invasion of Poland and France. Ordered in 1940, they began to appear in 1943, first armed with a 5cm gun in an enclosed turret. With the war situation rapidly changing, two new variants of the armored car were ordered, the first, 234/1, armed with a 2cm Kwk 30 cannon and MG34 in an open topped turret, and the second, 234/3, armed with the 7,5cm K51 L24 in similar fashion to that seen on the sd.kfz 233, installed on the forward hull top in a fixed position. This provided fairly heavy firepower-enough to hit hard if the vehicle found trouble or provided limited fire support, but by June of 1944, when the vehicle was introduced, Germany was in desperate need of guns that could knock out allied tanks. The 234/3 remained in limited production until December of 1944, with 88 vehicles produced. They were sent to stabskompanie (staff company) in allocations of 3 234/3 and accompanied by 234/1 in deliveries, to be used for support of reconnaissance units, and likely employed in every conceivable fashion by the retreating German armies. In December 1944 the 234/4, armed with the 7,5cm pak 40 L/48 went into production.

[deadletterpoets]

Hey, how you don't mind anonymous asks! What are your thoughts on the new dlc for cyberpunk?

I loved the game but I didn't get too far in, but seeing the trailer it looks really cool. What did they change and what do you like about it?

Hey!

First off I absolutely love anonymous asks, I wish ppl would send me them more often cause I have lots of thoughts on stuff but no idea if anyone cares.

But to your main question, I haven't gotten to far into the DLC itself so I still have much to experience, but I'll try to give a quick rundown of what I understand to have changed/been added with Phantom Liberty and with patch 2.0. This will get long so I put it under the jump to not annoy my followers that don't care.

So let me just start by linking you to the patch 2.0 notes. There's definitely a lot there, more than I'm gonna get across here, so if you have the time check it out. I'm just gonna hit the highlights that I've noticed.

For the patch the biggest thing I've noticed is the big thing they kinda want you to notice and that's the new progression/perk system. Lvling up is a lot faster now (and if you have Phantom Liberty the lvl cap has increased from 50 to 60) and the perks have completely. At first glance I wasn't sure I was a fan of it, but having played through it now the changes to perks is great. It truly makes V feel more dynamic in combat with new skills and makes the builds for V (if you're into that) feel more powerful than before. At the same time the enemies have also gotten their AI revamped and they use more grenades and netrunning skills now. It makes combat overall just more fun and rewarding. The loot is more meaningful as well as they don't just drop things for the sake of dropping something.

Speaking of loot though armor is no longer tied to clothes, but to cyberware. Which is smart cause honestly I didn't care about cyberware at all before 2.0 and now I'm all about it. Plus cyberware has this "attuned" feature where it can help boost your attribute stats as well so cyberware can not only help armor, but the attribute if you attune it well. And there's perks to make your cyberware even more powerful. Still no cyberpsychosis, but they have a fury mode which is apparently like cyberpsychosis lite lol

Anyway there's way more with 2.0, but you were asking about Phantom Liberty. Like I said I am a bit into Phantom Liberty so I haven't experienced a ton yet, mostly just the main story. As far as I can tell though PL doesn't bring too many changes, the changes are mostly in the 2.0 patch. PL brings more additions to the game.

Within minutes of getting to Dogtown I found many new weapons and clothes just to start and I believe there's new cars and cyberware as well. They promoted it all as 100+ new items so there's plenty new to see for sure.

I know there's some new gigs, I forget how many. There's also a new ongoing endless type mission called an "airdrop mission" where basically some supply drop happens and then you rush to the supply drop, kill some ppl, and get the supply drop which will have unique and powerful stuff (weapons or cyberware it seems).

That's about all I can really think off the top of my head, there's plenty of youtube and articles that go more in depth than I have. In terms of what I like about it again barely scratching the surface of the story so far, but the main story is meant to be a take on spy thriller type stories and they are absolutely nailing that vibe for sure. I have fought one boss so far and while the boss style itself isn't unique to video games, it is unique to Cyberpunk 2077 and it was a ton of fun to fight.

I know many ppl still don't trust CDPR to do Cyberpunk 2077 justice, and it still isn't what we initially promised in many ways, but at this point it is a better game than when it launched so I applaud CDPR for not just taking the money and running (as some companies do). Hopefully the sequel can build better for a launch a game like this deserves and bring in some of the ideas and ambitions they have for this world.

For now though? If you like open world action RPG games, I can't recommend Cyberpunk 2077 enough.

[amp-phrog]

In our latest session of Cyberpunk Red we had the party chase down a Biotechnica vehicle in a car-chase.

//CW: mentions of blood, death and dismemberment//

The party rode together in a ground car supplied by the company our Netrunner works for. The encounter started out with the driver getting close enough to the Biotechnica armored car where the netrunner was able to board it and start taking stabs at its passengers with his sword. One of the mooks climbed on top of the car and the two of them has a lengthy sword duel on this moving vehicle.

Meanwhile the Medtech is blasting the whole enemy car with his shotgun while the Netrunner attempts to bullet dodge all of those aoe spread shots.

An enemy motorbike pulls up on the car chase from behind so the Rockerboy manages to make the 8 meter leap from the party’s car to the motor cycle, successfully grapples the guy driving it, and then drops him onto the pavement at well over whatever the speed limit might’ve been. Then he deftly commandeers the motor cycle, rides up to the drivers side of Biotechnica ground car and starts taking shots at the driver with his pistol.

Eventually the party takes out the driver and cleans up all but one of the mooks. The Netrunner offers to spare the mook his life if he willing let’s the party cuff him. The mook, hopelessly out numbered, agrees. Netrunner cuffs his hands to his legs. The very anti-corpo Rockerboy is upset by this as he wanted to “shoot some Biotechnica goons.”

“Go ahead,” says the Netrunner, who clearly never intended to leave this poor guy alive. Grinning the rocker boy puts a bullet in his chest but the mook manages to survive the shot. The Netrunner decides to finish the job with his katana, swiftly decapitating the man. The Medtech watches from the background and takes notes on things to address when he inevitably has to see these two in therapy.

[prophbuilds]

ASW-G-08 Gundam Barbatos Lupus Rex Royal - A Retrospective

In 2020, my friend got me something I had been looking at but never honestly thought to get for myself - A Master Grade Barbatos kit.

Now, I'd been looking into some of the neat things folks had been doing with them since the kit dropped. Stuff like adding in metal parts for the joints, doing fantastic aging/battle damage mods and the like. I'm not down for the battle damage or the aging and adding so much metal, although I guess it stiffens up some of the looser joint considerably so it can hold more extreme poses longer, I'm not really worried about that.

No... I just wanted to paint it.

Not wanting to test paints on the actual kit, I went and found myself a decent analog.

I went and picked myself up an SDCS Barbatos Lupus Rex.

Like I said before the break, this started out as a paint test.

Not just any paint test, though...

This was a base for me to actually test some paints on as well as see if my paint scheme would pan out. See... I've been watching folks who customize and restore toy cars (Hot Wheels, Matchbox... those sized cars) and many of them run acrylics when they're not trying to match the paints used on the older toys. This got me thinking that, if I could find the right stuff, I could simply buy some of the thicker paints I've reliably used on other plastics in the past and thin it out to flow like the Testor enamels I've been using for decades.

My search lead me to a paint maker based in CT - Createx Colors - and their acrylic reducers in particular. I didn't expect to get the quality you'd see in their own product lines mixing my own brews using other company's paints. What I got was still an exceptionally stable and durable finish that didn't mess with the other company's paints that terribly. The metallics will fall out of suspension faster but the gloss was still there.

To recap:

I had a plan.

I had the paints.

I... still didn't have the Lupus Rex kit to test on.

At this point, the SDCS Barbatos Lupus Rex kit could've been mistaken for a myth. I don't know if it was because it was a popular kit or the Human Malware that hit or maybe some weird Bandai thing with doing a low run but the Lupus Rex was out of stock everywhere. Nobody had it but eBay and I'm not willing to pay nearly retail price for the MG this was standing in for on an SD kit. Not even an exceptionally neat one.

After a good nine months, one finally came back in stock at one of the online shops I buy from and the plan was a go. The following are progress shots from the build.

As you can see, my plan was very simple. I took the reds and blues and brought them down to my fave dark metallic blue and a nearly crimson red. These darker colors pop off the white far more than expected but in a good way. The classic Gundam Yellow is replaced by my antique gold mix. The idea is to give this version of the Barbatos an almost Pre-Calamity War regal feel. The one thing I couldn't test on the smaller kit is running a metallic (almost pearlecent) white for the white armor pieces.

To take things to that clean "Trailer Queen" level you see in show cars, I did touches of straight metallics on the exposed hydraulics. Shiny silver pistons are held in by copper, gold and brass equipment. This is absolutely a holdover from my looking into the metal replacement parts. = )

All in all, this was a fun build. A simple paint job that did more than I had hoped. When I build the MG Barbatos, I have this little guy as visual reference. At the time of this writing, the thinned paints are holding up against the minor scuffs and scratches it takes as I pose it from time to time. I need to get around to top coating it and my other kits but I'm glad to see my long shot idea has worked out well.

Best thing about this is I get quite possibly the most unique yet cleanest Lupus Rex around. It may not be in line with many folks idea of the Post-Calamity look of the suits and equipment the Tekkadan Crew normally rolls in but I'm sure even Mikazuki would give an indifferent "Okay" to.

[inkasarmored]

Stay Safe on the Roads: Buy Your Armored Vehicle in Cameroon Today

In today's world, personal safety has become more important than ever, especially in regions where road safety and security can be a concern. One of the most effective ways to protect yourself and your loved ones while traveling is by investing in an armored vehicle. Whether you're a high-profile individual, business owner, or simply someone who values safety, armored vehicles offer an unparalleled level of protection against various threats. If you're considering enhancing your security on the roads, it's time to buy a Cameroon armored vehicle.

Why Choose an Armored Vehicle?

Armored vehicles are designed to provide maximum safety in unpredictable situations. These vehicles are reinforced with bulletproof glass, armored plating, and enhanced suspension systems, ensuring protection from attacks, accidents, or road hazards. Unlike standard vehicles, armored cars are meticulously crafted to withstand ballistic threats, explosions, and other dangerous situations.

For those living in or traveling across Cameroon, where road safety can sometimes be unpredictable, owning an armored vehicle is a significant investment in your peace of mind.

Benefits of Owning an Armored Vehicle in Cameroon

Enhanced Security Armored vehicles offer the highest level of protection, whether you're facing dangerous road conditions or potential criminal threats. With reinforced windows, steel plates, and run-flat tires, these vehicles are equipped to handle various dangers, ensuring you and your passengers stay safe.

Protection Against Civil Unrest In regions where civil unrest or political tensions may flare up, armored vehicles provide an extra layer of security. They allow you to travel safely even in challenging circumstances, knowing you're protected from physical harm.

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Safety on Dangerous Roads Cameroon's diverse landscapes include some challenging roads that can be dangerous, especially in remote areas. With an armored vehicle, you can confidently navigate these terrains, knowing your car is equipped to handle any obstacles that may arise.

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Who Should Buy a Cameroon Armored Vehicle?

Owning an armored vehicle is a smart choice for various individuals and organizations in Cameroon, including:

High-profile Executives and Politicians: Individuals who are often in the public eye or carry out sensitive tasks benefit greatly from the added security provided by armored vehicles.

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Security Firms: Private security companies that provide protection services for high-profile clients can ensure maximum safety with armored vehicles.

Families Concerned About Safety: Families living in regions where road safety is a concern can feel more at ease knowing they are protected by an armored vehicle.

How to Buy a Cameroon Armored Vehicle

When looking to buy a Cameroon armored vehicle, there are several factors to keep in mind. It’s important to choose a reliable dealer with a track record of producing high-quality, durable armored vehicles. Look for vehicles that meet international safety standards and can be customized according to your specific needs.

Additionally, understanding your security requirements is crucial. Do you need protection against bullets, explosions, or even gas attacks? Depending on your requirements, you can select from a range of features, such as:

Ballistic resistance levels

Armored undercarriages

Reinforced windows and doors

Run-flat tires

Conclusion

Your safety and the safety of your passengers should always be a top priority, especially when traveling through regions where road conditions or security concerns can be unpredictable. By choosing to buy a Cameroon armored vehicle, you’re investing in peace of mind, protection, and unmatched security. Whether you're navigating the busy streets of Douala or traveling to remote areas, an armored vehicle ensures that you stay safe on the roads at all times.

So, if you're ready to take the next step in enhancing your personal safety, don’t hesitate to buy a Cameroon armored vehicle today. With an armored vehicle, you can confidently face whatever challenges come your way, knowing you have the ultimate protection at your disposal.