Shhhh! Digital Media - Home of Butterfly Dragon, Tales Of The Sanctum: A Lady's Prerogative, The Two Dragons, The Two Butterflies, We Who Stand On Guard, Night Boat, The Legendary of Xarn - All born in the early 1980s, but not published until May of 2012, when Shhhh! Digital Media was born.
Shhhh! Digital Media Headquarters: 200 Sherbourne Street Suite 701, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
From 2 PM EST on Saturday, we'll be continuing the How Convenient Watch Party care of CBC Gems of Kim's Convenience (available for free to watch on CBC Gems), followed by the Shhhh! Let Me Level With You Watch Party of Secret Level episodes one through four.
See you then.
Until then, you might want to catch up on episode 13 of Butterfly Dragon: Two Butterflies to tide you over until Tales Of The Sanctum: A Lady's Prerogative - Unfinished Bee's Wax and Way Of The Warrior return next week on Monday.
Its been a fifty hour week thus far as of Friday. There's still quite a bit more to go as well and I'll be doing some more on Saturday. Whatever you may believe, I hope that have a Happy Valentine's Day.
Brian Joseph Johns
There is nobody named Terence that works for Shhhh! Digital Media by the way, and both fav.inbox@gmail.com and brian.joseph.johns@shhhhdigital.com are owned by me.
And to the phone numbers that recently called me with the last four digits: 8525, 0406 and 2809, I can't respond to phone calls that either hang up before I have time to answer, or don't leave a phone message on my answering service.
And there's no Pinnochio working here either and everything created at Shhhh! Digital Media originates from:
Brian Joseph Johns and this is Shhhh! Digital Media at https://www.shhhhdigital.com or https://www.shhhhdigital.ca in Toronto, Ontario, Canada at 200 Sherbourne Street Suite 701.
FYI: I'm not nor have I ever been incarcerated in jail or prison.
Chapters
Midnight Hour (Finished January 30, 2025)
Eyes Without A Face (Finished January 31, 2025)
Inside Out (Finished January 31, 2025)
Unlikely Allies (Finished February 8, 2025)
Visiting Hours (Finished February 8, 2025)
Secure Hour (Finished February 10, 2025)
An Alarming Find (Finished February 11, 2025)
Rubber People (Finished February 12, 2025)
Saturday Studio C (Finished February 13, 2025)
A Memory For The Taking (Finished February 14, 2025)
This content is produced by the artists indicated on the site, including myself, Brian Joseph Johns.
I, under no circumstance will trade, barter or otherwise swap my own identity for that of another person and I protect the same right for those who've contributed their artwork to the various projects under my management at Shhhh! Digital Media, my own company, no matter the colour symbolism involved. These rights are protected by law under the Charter Of Rights And Freedoms under section 7.
Also, FYI, I don't reverse or alter the polarity or context of my expression (sometimes referred to as "blove" by some people). I say what I mean and mean what I say, and generally only joke or am sarcastic with people I really know very well.
Support Charity
Please support education and information access where you can in addition to these charities:
Sick Kids Foundation Help research that provides cures and support treatment for sick children.
David Suzuki Foundation Through evidence-based research, education and policy analysis, we work to conserve and protect the natural environment, and help create a sustainable Canada. We regularly collaborate with non-profit and community organizations, all levels of government, businesses and individuals.
Donate directly to FireAid today to help us start rebuilding our community. Direct donations will be distributed under the advisement of the Annenberg Foundation and will be distributed for short-term relief efforts and long-term initiatives to prevent future fire disasters throughout Southern California.
Two organizations whose contribution of expertise, human and financial resources and volunteer efforts provide humanitarian solutions to real world problems the entire world over. These charities operate worldwide. The United Nations Fund supports the various programs part of the United Nations' global mandate, as much a foundation as it is a roof around the world.
World Veterans Federation The World Veterans Federation is a humanitarian organisation, a charity and a peace activist movement. The WVF maintains its consultative status with the United Nations since 1951 and was conferred the title of “Peace Messenger” in 1987.
I'd like to point out that it was the incredible Gary Sinese Foundation that brought the issue of Veteran's rights to my attention. I've always had little respect for those who'd forget the great contribution made by those who've risked life and limb to defend those values that so many of us espouse. Perhaps the true measure of one's principles are by that for which they'd risk their life.
"None can speak more eloquently for peace than those who have fought in war."
The Reeve Foundation provides programs for research, uniting Scientists and Specialists from many different fields to find treatments for spinal cord injury translating them into therapies and support programs.
For over 60 years, Heart & Stroke has been dedicated to fighting heart disease and stroke. Our work has saved thousands of lives and improved the lives of millions of others.
The ALS Society Of BC ALS (also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease) is a progressive neuromuscular disease in which nerve cells die and leave voluntary muscles paralyzed. The ALS society provides a variety of programs to combat this disease and help those with it to survive.
Muscular Dystrophy Canada Muscular Dystrophy Canada’s mission is to enhance the lives of those affected by neuromuscular disorders by continually working to provide ongoing support and resources while relentlessly searching for a cure through well-funded research.
Humane Society International The Humane Society protects the health, lives and rights of animals the world over, ensuring that they too have a voice in this world. We are interdependent upon the complex web of life this entire planet over for our mutual survival. This is a world wide charity.
The Global Foodbanking Network Ensuring that people the world over have enough food day to day in order to survive and lead healthy lives. In this challenging day and age services like this are becoming more and more essential. This is a world wide charity.
The Edgar Allan Poe Museum Because Barris told me to put it here. If I didn't, he said he'd walk. Geez. Stardom really gets to some people's heads. Maybe I could kill him and bury his heart beneath the floor boards! Or I could encase him in behind a brick and mortar wall, for shaming my family name of Amantillado!
In all truth, there's a good chance that thanks to the works of Edgar Allan Poe, Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Jonathan Swift, Mary Shelley, Robert Louis Stevenson, Herbert George Wells, Jules Verne, Dr. Seuss, Stephen King, Clive Barker and Pierre Burton (for The Secret World Of Og and his ground breaking interview of Bruce Lee) that all of us are literate. Actually that goes back much farther to the Phoenecians and their first 22 character system of symbols. Literacy is important. Really it is. Literally. It allows us to approach our employer at the end of the week (with a big club) and ask: where my money?!Math important too. It help us count our thirteen fingers and toes.
Wikipedia The model for what may become the Encyclopedia Galactica, a complete reference and record of history, events and knowledge of humanity and its journey beyond. It is the encyclopedia of all that we know, what we surmise that we've known and will learn in the future. Yes, Wikipedia is a charitable organization of great importance. If you enjoy what I am doing here then please take the time to donate to Wikipedia. Surprisingly only 1% of Wikipedia's users donate yet the site serves pages to millions every day.
Humble Bundle A video gaming storefront benefiting a vast variety of different Charities in the United States and United Kingdom (hopefully soon to be expanded to include other areas of the world?). By software their software bundles and choose which Charity your money benefits and how much of your money benefits that Charity. See? Gamers can do their part too.
Multiple Sclerosis is a degenerative disease currently affecting an estimated 2.3 million world wide. By donating you are contributing to effective research in finding a cure and tipping the scales of MS research to change lives forever.
Donate your idle computer time to science! Join the World Community Grid by clicking on one of the links below and follow the instructions for how to participate:
The car was a classic Mustang, from the year 1977. A veritable gas guzzling monster compared to the cars of today, with six cycinders pushing one hundred and two horse power and that was stock. This particular car was customized and tuned to the teeth.
For one, it had been ported and polished, increasing the horsepower by another nine, for a total of one hundred and eleven. The custom air intake brought clean air directly into the fuel-air system allowing for better compression, again adding another five horsepower to the sum.
The exhaust system was a custom header, designed by its driver, drawing exhaust fumes from the combustion cycle and filtering them faster than they could be produced, hence creating an induction effect upon the fuel-air system. When the exhaust outpaced the intake cycle, the exhaust system produced a popping sound that some drivers referred to as popcorn.
The standard transmission was a custom job, favouring high acceleration in the lower gears, and upper limit speed in the high end gears.
On this particular night, at around 11:30 PM on a Friday night, it was cruising the Gardener Expressway eastbount for the Spadina Avenue exit. As it slowed and turned left onto the exit, a nine millimeter handgun slid across the dash beneath the windshield to the other side of the dash. A half-eaten hotdog smothered in relish, ketchup and mustard rolled over onto its side, miraculously remaining on the napkin that contained it.
As the car slowed and came to a stop at Spadina, the driver reached up to the dash and grabbed the hotdog, jamming the remainder of it into his face as he quickly chewed it up and washed it down with the remainder of his gin laced tonic water. He'd have preferred an ice cold can of beer, but that would have been far too easy for other drivers to spot. So he opted for the water bottle camouflage and his second favourite drink.
He then wiped his face with his hand, shortly thereafter, wiping his hand with the napkin, tossing it all into a waste bag in the passenger seating foot area.
"Damn! Gotta put velcro on that thing or somethin'" he said aloud, but mostly to himself as he realized his nine millimeter had sailed to the other side of the dash.
He reached over and just barely latched onto the trigger guard as the light turned green. After carefully grapping it with his finger, he fit the gun in his belt, tucking it in carefully (safety on of course), and proceeded out and onto Spadina, northbound.
...
A few city blocks away at the New City Hall, a group of teens was seated outside of city council, a circular building itself situated between the two curved towers that made up the city hall infrastructure. Their music, ecclectic house, blared from bluetooth speakers that were connected to one of their iPhones, as they sat around and enjoyed the night. A trio of them rode their skateboards, practicing tricks and showing off to their friends.
The sound of the engine pierced the night, and even these teens could hear it at a distance, echoing through the buildings of the downtown corridor.
"That's gotta be a classic 'stang," one of the teens, a fan of cars said to his friends.
"A header kit too maybe?" asked another one.
"Maybe... Imagine if we had a car like that? We could go up north to Richmond Hill and pickup Derek," one of them suggested.
"Yeah. Too bad he's not here. Had to hang with his chick," one of the others pointed out.
"What? You don't like hanging with your girl?" a response came back, from one of the girls themselves.
"No. I just want to chill where I want to chill..." he stopped when they were all illuminated by the high beams of an oncoming car.
It was the very car they'd heard moments earlier, and now it was making a dash across Nathan Phillips Square directly towards them and without slowing.
They all jumped out of the way, some to the left and others to the right as the car crashed through their vigil and into the city council building, skidding sideways and coming to a stop as glass fell to the pavement, shattering all around them.
A man in a balaclava mask got out of the front seat and drew a hand gun, but by that time the teens that had been sitting there were long gone, all except for one. The one who'd remarked about picking up Derek, and whose name was Andrew.
Andrew watched from behind a cement bench, remaining hidden as he kept watch over the events unfolding.
The man in the balaclava mask then proceeded to the back trunk, and unlocked it, hefting it wide open. He then grabbed something from it, and hoisted it up onto his shoulder, wincing at the weight. He then walked over to one of the doorways leading into city council, and placed his load beside the door.
Andrew took a closer look, quickly pulling his camera from his pocket to take video.
"That's... that's a body!" he kept his voice quiet and muffled his own mouth with his hand as the man returned to the trunk to grab a second body, not having seen Andrew.
The man then placed the second body on the other side of the doorway, and then began laughing a horrible raunchy laugh, as if he'd gotten some kind of sick pleasure from what he was doing.
He then leveled the gun at each of the bodies in turn, firing twice at their head, and once at their heart.
A security guard by that time arrived to confront him and did exactly that despite his better instinct and training.
"Hands up! Police are on their way!" the security guard yelled at the man, leveling a taser at him.
As the man turned to face the security guard, he fired the taser to defend himself.
The shot was perfectly aimed, impacting in the center of that man's upper breastplate between the open lapels of his bomber jacket. The taser discharged into the man, but seemingly without any effect upon him. That's when the security guard noticed that the man was wearing modified cowboy boots, whose spurs were literally touching the ground and making a connection to some grounding wiring the man had rigged to his body, hence tasers were useless against him.
"Sorry bro! I'm grounded. But you know what? Some day, you're going to thank me for this," the man leveled his gun at the security guard's leg, and fired three shots into it, shattering the femur in two places and stripping away a good portion of muscle from his thigh.
He fell screaming to the pavement, though bled little from the wound.
The man in the balaclava mask then turned back to the bodies, and retrieved a pair of signs from within his jacket, affixing one each to the bodies. He then pulled a can of blue spray paint from his jacket and wrote in spray paint a pair of words:
M I D N I G H T H O U R
As the sound of sirens began to fill the air, he turned quickly to his running car and jumped in, still laughing.
In one press of the gas, with the steering wheel turned and the parking brake set, the entire car spun until it was facing the point through which it had entered the building. He dropped the parking brake as the wheels spun and the car shot out from the building and onto Nathan Phillips Square.
Moments later he was back on the Gardener and heading west to his own roost.
...
Heylyn lay curled up on her sofa, falling in and out of sleep with the late show on the large screen television on the wall across from her. She was dreaming of a courtroom, her friend Myung Chung-Ae sat at the stenographer's station busily typing as the proceedings continued.
Her lawyer, Holbrook Mitchell (known to his close friends by the nickname Hoby), was defending her in a case against a plaintiff challenging her right to claim parenthood over her adopted daughter Warai Jeong-Min Tokama. The challenge being made on the grounds of Heylyn being deemed unfit as a mother, and that Warai possessed remarkable talents that implied that she should be in the hands of specialists rather than an adopted mother unfit for parenthood.
The case had been going poorly for her, and any time she tried to speak in her own defense, the people around her urged her against doing so. It was as if her voice, her presence in the case was being stricken from the testimony. As if what she had to say with regard to her own defense simply did not matter.
She became frustrated, and when the ringing phone in her jacket distracted her attempts to speak out in the courtroom, she answered it in her dream.
"Hello?" she said in a ghostly voice.
"Its me! Monique! Didn't you hear the sirens?!!!" Monique asked Heylyn, who was suddenly pulled from her dream and back to the sofa, where she'd answered the ringing phone in real life, half asleep.
"What? Oh! I'm a mess right now Monique. I just woke up. It would take me five... maybe ten minutes to get ready. By then, the Police will already be there. Go without me. You can tell me later. I'll be up. I've got to check on Warai..." Heylyn sat up on the sofa.
"Alright! I'll drop by in about fifteen or twenty. I'll send Aikiko over to see you right now. See ya boss!" Monique hung up the phone, and a second later Heylyn saw the streak of light through the night sky as Eclipse made her way to Nathan Phillips Square.
Heylyn made her way to Warai's room, the door already slightly opened as she stepped through to check on her little girl.
"Butterfly!" Warai heard as Heylyn snuck up on her bed.
"Caught me, red handed. How are you? Is everything alright? No bad dreams?" asked Heylyn of her daughter.
"Nope. Welly came to visit the field. He says things are all over the place right now, but the best thing to do is to stay and play and live the field's way. What is the field's way?" Warai asked Heylyn.
"Hmmmm. The field's way? I think that's the idea that when most things that happen, are beyond your ability to affect them one way or another, that the best thing to do is just to watch, but not be stricken to debilitating fear or panic when its seems dire. Remain focused. Is the perception of what you see around you really that bad, or is it an illusion made up to trick you into feeling scared? Either way, its better to be focused or even, when you're in the middle of a dream, to play in the field. You get some sleep alright and maybe, just maybe, we'll do something special this weekend," Heylyn said to Warai, fluffing her hair when she'd finished.
"Goodnight Butterfly," Warai said, rolling over onto her side and pulling the comforter tight.
"Goodnight other Butterfly. Sleep tight and good night," Heylyn tapped her nose, and then left her room just as she heard a quiet knocking at the front door of her condo.
Heylyn checked the security monitor and saw Aikiko outside of her door. She opened the door foor Aikiko and let her in.
"Monique left about two minutes ago. How are you?" asked Aikiko.
"I'm alright. A little tired, but alright. How about you?" Heylyn asked as they both walked towards the kitchen.
"I'm alright too. Just a little exhausted from the day," Aikiko reminded Heylyn.
"I bet. What time did you finish that photoshoot?" asked Heylyn.
"We went until 9PM, after which Kori drove me home. She stayed late trying to get all of the backlog on payroll done before the bank closed. I guess she didn't want an angry mob outside of her office door on Monday morning?" Aikiko smiled.
"Ha! I bet. Can I get you something? Tea? Latté? Maybe a bite to eat?" asked Heylyn as she examined the contents of the fridge.
"A tea would be nice," Aikiko replied.
"Alright. I'm also going to heat up some of the chicken-fried rice I made earlier and have some, if you want any?" Heylyn asked her, but by that time Aikiko had caught sight of the television and had seated herself on the sofa as her favourite night show was just starting at the midnight hour.
...
Eclipse landed at the carnage outside of the City Council building, and found a security guard just inside of the building laying barely conscious, a serious injury to his right leg.
"Hang on! I'm going to get you out of here and to a hospital!" Eclipse said to the security guard, who barely heard her, let alone had any kind of awareness at all.
As soon as she touched his uniform, his entire body was transformed into photons along with hers, and she flew at close to the speed of light to the nearest emergency room. She quickly found an empty gurney, and placed him upon it before transforming back into regular matter.
An orderly ran over to check on the security guard, turning to Eclipse.
"What happened to him?" asked the orderly.
"I don't know. Something bad. I just brought him from city council and I'm going back..." she responded to the orderly.
"You're that Eclipse girl, aren't you?" asked the orderly, now shocked by his realization but before he'd finished the words, she was already back at the crime scene at city council.
Monique examined the area as she heard the sirens getting closer and closer.
She was startled when she spotted two bodies, who'd clearly been shot at point blank range in the head and chest.
"Too late for them..." Eclipse said, a sense of lost sadness in her voice.
As she searched the area inside of the city council for any other injured civilians or responders, Andrew secretly recorded her on his phone. He managed to get under a minute of footage of her, when she turned to see the arriving swarm of Police cars pulling up to the damaged courtyard.
"I took a security guard to Toronto General Hospital. He's in the emergency room right now! Sorry, I couldn't help these two. They were long gone by the time I got here. Gotta go! By guys!" she waved at the Police as she disappeared into the sky at near the speed of light.
"She could have stayed. Most of us would never carry out the standing orders to arrest the Eclipse or Butterfly upon sight anyway," one of the Officers said to his partner.
"Yeah, but she and the Butterfly don't know that," his partner responded.
"Alright. Enough bickering. Lets a get a crime scene setup here and hold it down until the Detectives get here," the Senior Officer on sight ordered his men.
"Sir, we've got a material witness here," one of the Officers brought Andrew over to the Police car.
"Keep him discrete," the Senior Officer grabbed a COVID mask from his kit and put it on the face of their witness.
The rest of the officers went about setting up the crime scene as more and more emergency vehicles arrived and eventually, the unmarked car of Detective Edward Farnham.
...
Heylyn was bringing Aikiko her tea and a plate of food when Eclipse landed on her balcony.
"Oh! The balcony's locked!" Heylyn ran for the sliding doors of her condo balcony when Monique suddenly transformed herself into photons once again, and simply stepped right through the glass and into Heylyn's condo, after which she transformed back into her whole body self.
"I forgot you could do that," Heylyn responded to Monique.
"There were three casualties... Two dead, and one security guard who's probably in stable condition. I brought him to the hospital. Seems like it was some kind of a lunatic or something..." Monique spoke, somewhat out of breath.
"Have a seat. Want some tea and a plate of chicken-fried rice?" asked Heylyn of Monique.
"Sure boss. The killer left notes on each of the bodies. They appeared to be people's names. The first one was Alex Reardon..." Monique continued.
"That's one of the Ombudsmen who works at city council," Aikiko told them.
"How did you know that?" asked Monique responded, a bit shocked that Aikiko would even be interested in such a thing.
"When I settled into the condo, I became interested in the politics and who I'd like to vote for..." Aikiko explained to Monique.
"Something any responsible citizen would do. Do you know if the victim was Alex Reardon?" asked Heylyn.
"I couldn't tell..." Monique became stressed when asked about it.
"That's alright. What about the other one?" asked Heylyn.
"She had the name Delaine Forbes... but again, I couldn't tell you who she was..." Monique replied.
"Delaine Forbes? I remember that name, but I can't remember from where..." Heylyn stopped for a moment to focus upon where she'd heard that name.
"She's the CEO of Midnight Hour Security..." Aikiko responded, having found it by a quick internet search on her phone.
"...and that's exactly what was spray painted above both of their bodies on the wall behind them!" Monique added.
"You said that you took a security guard to the emergency room?" Heylyn confirmed with Monique.
"Yep. Toronto General Hospital. Like seven minutes ago..." Monique responded, but by that time Heylyn was already dialing Toronto General Hospital.
"Hello. Have you received an injured security guard in emergency recently?" asked Heylyn.
"Do you have a name?" asked the operator.
"No. I didn't know his name. I was just concerned for a security guard on site who was taken to hospital and I'd like to know if he was taken there so I can bring a group to visit him," Heylyn explained to the operator.
"What company was he with?" asked the operator.
"Midnight Hour Security," Heylyn replied, looking to Aikiko and then to Monique expectantly.
"Uhhhh. Yes. There appears to be a security guard here from that company. He's in stable condition. Arrived from a site at city council at..." the operator had barely finished when Heylyn responded.
"Thank you so much! Bye!" Heylyn said as she hung up the phone.
"You're right Monique. He's in stable condition," Heylyn told her.
"Whew. Good to hear. Another point for the good girls," Monique responded.
"Our security guard is from Midnight Hour Security, but obviously he wasn't the target or he'd have been lined up on that wall beside the other victims," Heylyn reasoned with them.
"Then why would the killer paint the wall with their company name?" asked Monique.
"Eat up. Lets put this on hold for the moment and keep an eye on the news. Its been a long day for us all. We'll check the news again in about ten minutes, after we've eaten, and if there's nothing, we'll get some sleep and follow up tomorrow. Maybe check in with Myung Chung-Ae," Heylyn said to Monique, bringing her a plate of food, after which she retrieved her own and joined them on the sofa.
"Good idea boss. I'm starving!" Monique responded, shoveling a pile of chicken-fried rice into gullet.
Farnham sat in the driver's seat of his unmarked car, waiting for the CPIC system to verify his tablet's security credentials. Just when he was about to give up, and go with old reliable (his pen and notepad), the tablet echoed the word: CONNECTED CPIC SYS 7.93.
"Alright. You win again, but much longer and I'd have tossed you in favour of technology from four generations ago," Farnham remarked to his MindSpice AI powered tablet.
YES. PEN AND PAPER HAS BEEN A STAPLE OF HUMAN ACCOMPLISHMENT FOR MANY GENERATIONS. DID YOU KNOW THAT THE ANCIENT SUMERIANS EVEN USED NOTE-STONES TO RECORD CUNIFORM WRITING FOR KEEPING TRACK OF SEASONAL FLUCTUATIONS IN GRAIN STOCKS?
"I do now. How'd they do with crime scene investigation?" asked Farnham as he carried the tablet with him over to the Senior Officer.
I'M SORRY, THERE ARE NO TRACES OF HISTORICAL RECORDS ACCOUNTING FOR CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATION IN SUMERIA.
"Thanks MAZ. Stay in the background. Listen, but don't respond unless I ask. Collate anything you perceive and let me know if there's anything pertinent. Interrupt mode off and discrete mode on." Farnham ordered his tablet.
"Where's Poonya tonight?" asked the Senior Officer.
"Right here. He fixed this tablet up for me, but in all seriousness, he's on a hot date. Probably at third base right now, possibly making his way for home plate I hope, because as he says, she's the marrying kind, and Poonya always keeps his eye on the ball. That's what I like about him," Farnham responded to the Senior Officer.
"He'll be grateful he's not here for this one. Its real strange. For one, our two bodies there, they're not decomposing according to the forensic playbook, and because we don't have anyone here from Forensic Biology yet, you're going to have to check it out yourself. Secondly, our John Henry here, he seized up like a rusty disc brake. I think he's in shock, but maybe he needs the right person to talk to him. Its all yours Farnham, and let me say that I don't envy you one bit. Well I'm on my way home, 'cuz us sane people on the regular beat value our wives and mortgages, unlike you Detectives, who seem to be suckers for punishment," the Senior Officer left the scene, waving to Farnham as he did.
"Ha! Don't make me spellcheck your crime scene Morty. Get lost before I'm tempted," Farnham said as he pulled a measuring tape from the pocket of his trench coat.
"I'm gone! Enjoy," Morty was in his car and already gone before Farnham had pocketed the measuring tape.
"MAZ, we've got two bodies here. One female, in her mid thirties, auburn hair, short. Fit for her age. Possibly a jogger? Into fitness? A good diet. Facial disfiguration due to point blank discharge of a firearm, powder burns, nine by nineteen millimeter parabellum, hollow point for sure given the disfiguration... eyes without a face... and yet there's no hint of post mortem scent..." Farnham got close to the first victim's face, his years of experience telling him that something was missing.
Farnham's attention turned to the pavement beside the body, upon which a sign had fallen.
"There's a sign here, looks like it was fixed to the body with a thumb tack. Must have fallen off with the wind. There's a name on it: Denise Forbes. At this point there's no way of telling if this is our Jane Doe here. I'll check for any signs of identification on her person..." Farnham leaned closer to her, checking the inside pocket of her jacket for any ID.
"There's no body smell. Smells unnatural. Like..." Farnham checked the wounds with his fingers, gagging slightly as he did.
When he finally had control of his nausea reaction, he checked the other body and found the same thing.
"Stendel? Where was the security guard taken by the Eclipse?" asked Farnham of one of the on scene officers.
"Toronto General Hospital... Detective," Stendel responded.
"And there were no other casualties besides the bodies here, right?" confirmed Farnham.
"That's correct Detective. We locked this scene down pretty good, despite John Henry there not playing ball with us..." Stendel replied.
"This isn't a murder case..." Farnham told Stendel.
"I'm sorry Detective, but there's clearly two bodies right there..." Stendel stepped away from his duty of marking the skid marks of the perpetrator's car.
"Stendel, they aren't victims," Farnham told him.
"Then what the f#ck are they?" demanded Stendel.
"They're f#cking ballistic dummies. The same kind they use in shooting clubs and forensics from what I can tell. They aren't alive. They're f#cking rubber!" Farnham turned to face Stendel, lifting the arm of one of the dummies.
"All of the sudden, this isn't a murder case. Assault with a deadly weapon for sure. Vandalism. Destruction of private and public property, but not murder. You know what that means right? That means its all yours boys," Farnham said as he stood.
"Stendel? He's right. We just made contact with the victim's families and they've confirmed that the names indicated on the signs, that both of those people are alive and well. No harm. No foul," Officer Mazel indicated to them both.
"Good luck gents. I've got a backlog of cases waiting for me tomorrow, not to mention I'm on my way home to Lori. I'll be thinking of you guys scraping this scene for signs of further vandalism. I bet I'm not the only one who's happy that our victim's are still with us," Farnham winked at Mazel, and then Stendel as he hopped back into his unmarked car.
"Call me again when you've got a better case. My night shift's over," Farnham pulled out of the crime scene and returned home to the arms of his waiting wife.
Alicia awoke at 3:39 in the AM, the child in her womb had suddenly come to life and decided that living at home (or womb) simply wasn't good enough.
"Whooooa... whooo... I ohhh. I think this would be a good time to get to the hospital..." Alicia said aloud, as she leaned up on the bed, the child in her womb clearly indicating that they were growing evermore curious about where the rest of us found our solace.
"Water? Is it your water?" Norler paniced, jumping out of bed from the midst of some pseudo nightmare/dream in which he was facing off against Jason Michael Santers with MediFriend. As Santers attacked Norler, MediFriend was telling him how he could heal his adversary, while Santer's version was telling him how he could sew Norler's grave.
Norler shaked off the cobwebs of post nightmare sleep and sat upright.
"Uhhhh! Alright! Water? Water?" panicked Norler.
"Water's good... lots of kicking in me... oohhh Heylyn's really going to get along with this one... already a martial artist for sure...!" Alicia held her womb, as the child within her winded her several times before she was upon her feet.
"Alright! Alright! The elevator! I've got our shoes and your blanket!" Norler quickly snatched up everything they'd prepared along the front hall and the closet, guiding Alicia to the elevator.
Once they were on their way down, Norler helped her get her shoes onto her feet, and then wrapped her in their favourite fleece blanket, and together they breathed. Alicia gasped as the door opened at the parking garage, breaking their rhythm.
Norler got her to her feet, and she ran, a woman more physically capable than Norler could ever hope to be, bent over, struggling to carry the child within her.
And together, they did it.
They made it to Norler's Acura (his Chrysler Pacifica being his second choice for this moment), and he immediately reclined her seat as he helped her get her seatbelt on.
"Honey... this one's definitely like me if you know what I mean... Hurry!" Alicia held her stomach fast as Norler pulled out of their parking spot and sped out of the garage, skidding out onto Queen Street and on his way to Toronto General Hospital.
"Speak to me Alicia!" Norler hunched himself over the steering wheel, looking for every opening he needed to get his wife and child to.
"Oh my... arghhhh! My water just broke! Norler! Promise me you'll give this bugger a good lecture! No patience in this one honey...! Oh baby! You little bugger! Just hold on...! I know you're anxious...! Oh you bugger...!" Alicia gasped a few times as Norler slammed the brakes on just outside of the emergency room.
He kicked (literally) his door open and ran around to Alicia's side of the car, dragging her from the car as the orderlies fixed her to the gurney. She cursed them as much so as she cursed Norler and even her own child several times. Some found shock in her words, but most found joy, hope and laughter, only imagining her plight of giving birth.
Norler sat on a chair in the waiting room. The air cold.
He crammed a protein bar he'd intended for Alicia into his mouth. Chewed it.
Swallowed.
Waited, pacing the halls.
Suspecting, but never fully realizing that he truly had the easy end of the deal of child birth the entire time.
The same orderly that had helped Alicia onto a gurney came up behind Norler, during his thirtieth pass of that section of the hall.
"Mr. Norler? The Doctor in the delivery room approved your being there. Alicia's about to give birth if you want to come with me, you can help her through the process.
"Thank you. Nothing else would mean more to me," Norler followed the orderly into the delivery room.
That moment, from that point on, belonged to Alicia, Norler and their newborn child.
Unlikely Allies
Monique sat out front of her favourite café, drinking her favourite Latté Mochiachatta in the morning sun of a day that had already graced the two degree mark.
She was dressed for this occasion in one of her various incognito outfits, this particular one focused on keeping her face well hidden, as well as her figure so as not to attract too much attention. A casual loose fitting track suit, a pair of large lensed sunglasses and a stylish day hat.
She wore little makeup as well, as most would have recognized her hallmark eyes and eye shadow, despite their being hidden behind her sunglasses. She sat waiting for her counterpart to arrive, enjoying her latté, and reading one of the fashion quarterlies, never paying attention to the man beside her.
Braden had been seated next to her for a full half hour before she even noticed him, and when she did, she poked him first, and then scolded him.
"Why didn't you say anything?" asked Monique of him.
"You called me here! I was waiting for you! You didn't say you were coming here incognito," Braden exclaimed.
"Well given the situation I assumed you knew?" Monique responded, lowering her voice.
"Fine. My bad. So how do you want to do this? I heard on the news they already deemed that the case isn't a murder case. That the dead bodies were actually just rubber dummies," Braden explained to Monique.
"I know that much already. What I want to find out is why this guy planted those dummies, and used the names Denise Forbes and Alex Reardon. I mean, there must be some kind of a connection?" Monique responded, much more casually this time.
"So what do you suggest?" Braden asked her.
"Let's do a little research on the internet here first. Then we'll take it from there," Monique pulled her tablet from her purse and placed it on the table in front of them, while Braden took out his phone.
"I've got Alex Reardon, you checkout Denise Forbes..." Braden said as he typed in the search term on his phone.
"Since this incident, there's certainly no shortage of news about them... sheesh," Monique said as she scrolled through pages upon pages of news related to the incident at city hall.
"I'll say, though there's not much here about Alex Reardon. Something from a year and a half ago. A short article about how research contracts are awarded. It looks like Mr. Reardon killed a project because it violated how Government research data is used by private industry. Cost a lot of jobs and a lot of people weren't very happy with him. That might be something. It has motive written all over it," Braden explained to Monique.
"What company?" asked Monique.
"Tactical Asset Group. They're an investment firm that specializes in autonomous hardware for warfare," Braden showed her.
"And what's that mean?" asked Monique.
"Drones. Reconaissance and armed. That kind of thing I'd imagine," Braden explained to her.
Monique combined the name of the company with Denise Forbes in her next search, and came up with the jackpot.
"Bingo! It says here that our girl Denise was connected to TAG, and helped usher in a deal with security giant Gate Guardian Security..." Monique showed Braden the photo and the accompanying article.
"That's Mr. Reardon there. Shaking hands with the VP of Gate Guardian!" Braden pointed out on from the photo on the article on her screen, showing her an image of Alex Reardon from his search.
"That was like six months ago! So he shut down another deal four years ago, and likely was publicly chastised for it. I mean come on? It cost money and jobs. He stays beneath the radar for a few years, and surfaces to approve this deal, and comes out of it looking like the hero. Mrs. Forbes in the meantime has been actively campaigning on her business promotion agenda. Trying to land huge lucrative contracts for businesses in Southern Ontario," Monique began piecing it all together.
"How does this all connect to city hall?" Braden asked her.
"That's exactly what we're going to find out," Monique stood and returned her tablet to her purse.
"Coming?" Monique asked Braden.
"No, are you coming? I'm driving don't forget," Braden reminded her.
"Lets pay Gate Guardian a visit in person, shall we? They're in Brampton, on Summerlea Road," suggested Monique.
"Alright, but you're going to fill my gas tank," Braden responded to her.
"Are you saying Heylyn doesn't pay you enough?" asked Monique.
"No. She pays me quite well for what I'm doing, but with insurance and maintenance, it adds up you know," Braden unlocked their doors.
"Alright. Stop at a gas station. One with a Tim Hortons and I'll buy the gas, but you're buying the coffees," Monique got in the passenger side of his car.
"Deal," Braden said as he started the car and drove off into the Queen Street West traffick.
...
After forty minutes of driving across town in midday traffick, Braden pulled into the parking lot of Gate Guardian, where a lowrise office tower and a hangar sized manufacturing facility were situated. The parking attendant directed them to customer parking, giving them a tag that would prevent them from being towed.
When they were safely parked just outside of the office lowrise, they went over their plan.
"Why are we here?" asked Braden of Monique.
"To find out more about Gate Guardian's connection to the incident at city hall," Monique replied.
"I know that. That's not what what I meant. I mean, what's our cover story? We're obviously not going to go in there and tell them we're just two friends that got curious about the connection between their company, a couple of public officials and an incident at city hall, are we?" asked Braden, somewhat sarcastically.
"No. You're right. I know! We're a couple... we're engaged! We're looking to buy a security system for our first home... which is being built in Brampton...?" Monique suggested.
"That works. In a make believe kind of way. Certainly not in reality, no offense," Braden smiled at Monique.
"Oh you certainly know how to spoil a moment! We'll just pretend, alright. Have fun with it. If we can distract them long enough, I might be able to get into their computers..." Monique assured Braden.
"Alright, lets give it a try," Braden unlocked their doors and they stepped out of the car and walked to the front door.
Braden nearly jumped when Monique grabbed his hand to hold it, like a couple.
"Sorry, not used to that," Braden said to her, blushing slightly.
"Well lets at least make it convincing," Monique urged him as he opened the door for her.
They were immediately greeted by a large reception desk, two receptionists and four security guards, two of which were actually mannequins as part of the showroom display, illustrating the equipment carried by their security operators.
"Hi! We're looking to explore our options for a new security system?" Monique greeted the first receptionist.
"Is it for commercial or residential security?" asked the receptionist.
"Residential. We're going to be married soon and we bought a house in Brampton, which is still being built, and we'd like to find out our options," Monique continued.
"You could just check with the construction office of the construction developer. Chances are we're already working with them, and it would just be a matter of having the security option added to your home purchase," the receptionist informed them.
"My fiancé is kind of a techie nerd, and wants to get a peek at the systems and their specs..." Monique gestured to Braden, who suddenly seemed lost.
"Uhhhh. Yeah! I'm right into the techie nerd stuff. Like can we hook up the security system to our phones? Can we remotely turn the lights on and off, or have the security system turn on the stove to cook our dinner before we got home from work? What kind of bandwidth would we be looking at?" Braden did his best to play the role, though he was already stretched to his limits when it came to technical knowledge.
"Can I direct you to our sales department? They're just down this hall and the first door on the right," the receptionist guided them, even standing up for them and showing them to the hall.
"What about the little girl's room? I have to freshen up," asked Monique.
"Its the same direction, a little bit further down. Turn left and its the first door on your left," again, the receptionist gave them their directions, after which Monique and Braden left on their way to the sales office.
"So what's the plan?" Braden asked Monique, who still clung to his hand playfully.
"You're going to talk to them, ask them about tech stuff, I'll stick around for a minute or two before I leave to go to the washroom. You keep them distracted, and I'll find a way into their computer system..." Monique explained to Braden.
"Alright. What if you're spotted?" asked Braden, a look of concern crossing his face.
"Awwww... you really care. I won't be myself. I'll be in my other form, so they shouldn't recognize me, and I'm usually too bright for their cameras. Trust me," Monique assured him.
"Alright. I'll keep them distracted, but you've gotta be quick. I am absolutely lost when it comes to tech stuff. Not a day goes by where I don't feel lost trying to use my phone," Braden explained to her.
"Oh great. Improvise," Monique insisted as they arrived at the sales office door.
"Hi, I'm Doug. You two are the couple wanting to check out our residential security system programs?" asked the Gate Guardian sales associate.
"That would be us. Sooo, we're getting a pretty big home. A three bedroom," Braden began.
"Three bedroom...?" Monique looked to Braden in shock.
"Yeah. You know, a room for our four kids..." Braden started to get creative.
"Four...?" Monique suddenly seemed lost.
"And a room for my Mom. I mean, wouldn't want to put her in a senior's home you know," Braden smiled.
"And your Mom too... Huh," Monique nodded her head awkwardly.
"So you're saying that you're concerned for you family's safety. Security. Other risks, like fire, and you need a security program from Gate Guardian that will help you address all of these risks. Am I correct," Doug's pitch delivery was perfect.
"Exactly. But I also want something that has a little pep under the hood. You know, the latest technology. Is it fast? Can I watch my security cams in 8K? What kind of processors does it use? Is it compatible with my home PC and laptop? My Nintendo Swittch? My Playstation or My XBox? Does it do AI?" asked Braden, clearly struggling to think of technical sounding babble.
"Oh... honey, why don't you two talk about the tech stuff, and I'll just go freshen up?" Monique interjected.
"Sure honey. Doug and I will just shoot the breeze about security bandwidth and gigabytes and stuff... You go ahead," Braden urged her to release his hand.
"Back in a bit..." Monique quickly slipped out of the sales office and followed the receptionist's directions to the ladies room.
When she arrived, she conveniently found it to be empty and quite clean at that. She quickly looked around for any signs of security cameras, and spotted an air vent.
"That'll come in handy," she said as she slipped into one of the stalls to obscure herself as much as she could.
She then transformed herself into a stream of wave-like photons, which by all outside appearances looked like a cohesive volume of light, in the shape of a woman's body.
In half a second, she had surveyed the entire building, through the air duct system and had found an unoccupied computer workstation that someone had left logged in. Seeing as it was located in the corporate offices of the lowrise tower, there was a very good chance that whoever worked at that computer station had a fairly high level of network access. The problem was that there were at least six other people seated in the same area.
"Alright Monique, how do you get six people out of a room? With a distraction?" Monique reasoned out loud to herself as she floated in the air duct just above the workstation she intended to use to gain access to their network.
At that moment, she had an idea.
Visiting Hours
Heylyn Yates leads her adopted daughter Warai Jeong-Min Tokama into the hospital.
Heylyn held Warai's hand as they walked together into the Maternal Care Unit of the hospital.
Kori Jonglyu catches up with Warai and Heylyn in the hospital.
"Heylyn! Warai! I got here as soon as I could!" Kori ran to catch up to Heylyn and Warai.
"Kori!" Warai's face lit up upon seeing her friend.
"How's my little butterfly doing?" asked Kori of Warai as she leaned down to bring herself to the same height as Warai.
"We got the call in the wee hours this morning. Warai woke up and I told her, and she's been badgering me ever since," Heylyn both smiled and smirked at Warai, giving her a wink as she did.
"But I didn't know that we couldn't come here before nine in the morning!" Warai justified herself to Kori and Heylyn.
A quick portrait video of Kori Jonglyu.
"That's alright. I'm pretty excited for Alicia and Norler too," Kori poked Warai's nose.
"I called everyone I could, but I tried to urge them leave their visits until tomorrow, or during next week. They limit the amount of visits and the number of people that can visit at one time," Heylyn explained.
"I get it. You want to leave the convenience of visiting to their immediate family first. Alicia's parents. Norler's parents. I know..." Kori responded.
"Exactly, but Norler assured me that his father was overseas, and wouldn't be back for another two weeks, and Alicia's parents are vacationing in Puerto Plata, so they're due to return this coming Thursday. So that leaves her family from West Meet East, and of course Zheng, Bryce and Doctor Briggs," Heylyn explained.
"Where's Monique?" asked Kori as the continued towards the reception area.
"Monique was already up and gone early this morning. She had something to do with Braden, and Aikiko is doing a shoot today with Trey, so I imagine they'll be visiting tomorrow sometime," Heylyn continued.
When they arrived at the reception desk, the receptionist directed them towards the Maternal Care unit and to Alicia's room.
"Put your mask on," asked Heylyn of Warai.
"Why?" asked Warai.
"We don't want to give Alicia or her child any bugs or germs, do we?" asked Heylyn of Warai.
"No. But how will she know its us?" asked Warai.
Both Heylyn and Kori smiled at her response.
"She'll just have to make it a guessing game then. Won't she?" Kori replied.
"I think Alicia and her baby will be able to figure it out. I mean, she knows its me when I'm wearing my mask, right?" Heylyn pointed out to Warai, which after she thought about it, brought a smile to her face.
"Ok," Warai struggled to get the bands around her head, at which point Heylyn helped her the rest of the way.
"The first thing you learn as a butterfly, is how to put your mask on," Heylyn said to Warai.
"But my mask is pink?" Warai replied with a puzzled look on her face.
"And it looks pretty on you," Kori added as they continued down the hall towards Alicia's room.
...
Walton Norler very exhausted after helping Alicia give birth.
"Heylyn! Kori too! And who is this?" Norler stood up from the waiting area chair, his eyes puffy, with dark circles beneath each and a day and a half''s worth of facial hair growth on his face.
"Norler? You poor guy. You should get some rest at home," Heylyn urged Norler, giving him a hug as she greeted him.
"I'm fine, but you're right. I'll be leaving for a short break in about an hour. I just wanted to stay as the Doctor explained that most of the complications occur in the first eight to twelve hours. Only a few hours to go and things are looking good," Norler responded.
"How's Alicia?" asked Heylyn.
"She's... You know. She healed from the experience very quickly... and the Doctors got a bit curious about that. Needless to say we had to do a little song and dance to distract them from Alicia's uniquely altered physiology, which we explained came from her background. They eventually stopped poking and prodding her about it..." Norler explained to them.
"How's...?" Heylyn began, not entirely sure of how to ask.
"Oh. The little one?" Norler asked her.
"I'm the little one!" Warai responded from behind her pink mask.
"We're talking about the other little one. The second one," Kori smiled from behind her mask.
"Oh. That's ok. They can be the first one. I'll be the second," Warai replied, nodding affirmatively.
"You can go in if you if you've already cleared it with the desk staff, though they might return to chase you out if you overstay your welcome. At which point you'll end up on the bench here with me," Norler told them.
"We're going to do that. Do you want us to drop you off at your home after our visit?" asked Heylyn.
"I could do it. Its closer to my place than it is to yours," Kori offered.
"You know what? Let's do that then. No hurry though. You take your time in there and when you're done. I'll just need a minute with Alicia, and the first little one, and we'll leave," Norler replied to Kori, then looking to Warai and giving her a wink.
"See you in a bit," Heylyn said as the three of them, walked into Alicia's room, Warai clinging to Heylyn's hand.
"Heylyn! My best friend, Ai Yuanlin Ying," Alicia's face lit up when she saw them.
Alicia Westin in the hospital after giving birth to her newborn baby.
"Somebody told me that you might be needing me to make a new graduation dress?" Heylyn said to Alicia as she clung to her baby, Heylyn looking at her baby.
Alicia stopped a moment to wipe the tear from her eye.
"You know... that would be true if it was a dress that we needed, but we don't. We'll definitely be needing a tuxedo for if you can manage that," Alicia said to Heylyn, fighting off a wall of tears of joy.
"Well, that settles that. How is he?" asked Heylyn as she picked up Warai so that she could get a good look at Alicia's son.
"Oh... he's special. Very special we found out. Did Norler already tell you?" asked Alicia as she clung to her son, rocking him gently in her arms.
"He said the Doctors were a little suspicious about your... vitality," Heylyn responded, recalling what Norler had told them.
"Well. He was severely under weight at birth, weighing under three pounds. Initially the Doctors had scheduled him for an incubator, but about fifteen minutes after his birth, he began to gain weight on his own. His body apparently repaired itself, including a maldeveloped left lung, which had collapsed shortly after his birth. It was pretty hectic... and of course I was a mess, thinking we were going to lose him... and then his body... it just began repairing itself..." Alicia explained to them.
"I guess he got his mother's vitality," Kori interjected.
"He feels very healthy. Happy too..." Warai said, sensing the young infant's body energy through her own abilities.
"So why didn't they lock him up and start experimenting on him?" Heylyn asked the million dollar question.
"As it turns out, the symptomology of what occurred lined up perfectly with a very rare problem that can occur in premature birth. It also involves a period of accelerated growth, not quite as much as he did, but still remarkly so. I brought this up, recalling a case study from my years studying biology, and the supervising Doctor looked into it, and he bought it. Thankfully," Alicia pulled her baby closer to her face, and rubbed her nose with her child.
"What's your name, little one?" asked Warai of Alicia son.
"Well, we had picked Helen, if a girl, after you Heylyn. So of course, given the outcome, we went with Nathan, after Norler," Alicia told them.
"Nathan Westin-Norler. It has a nice ring to it," Kori remarked.
"Doesn't it? I can't get over how much I can see of his facial features, but he definitely has your eyes..." Heylyn looked close at the boy's face.
"How much longer are you going to be in here?" asked Kori.
"Two more nights. I'll be checking out on Tuesday morning," Alicia told them.
"Well, if you need a baby sitter..." Kori offered.
"Wait! You're my baby sitter!" Warai became ever so slightly upset.
"But you're not a baby anymore," Kori said to Warai, who them looked to Heylyn.
"Is that true?" asked Warai.
"I would have to agree with that. For sure. You're definitely not a baby anymore. So why don't you graduate, and let Nathan here have a go at it?" Heylyn said to Warai as she smiled.
Warai nodded, looking first to Nathan, who simply wiggled with his mouth wide open, gawking at anything that appeared like his mother's face, nipples or his father's face. The masks weren't quite doing it for him, and unfortunately he'd have to wait before he had the chance to see the faces of the people standing before him.
"Nobody likes to be the bearer of bad news, but visiting time is over and Alicia and Nathan here need a break," one of the nurses stepped into the room, a tall pretty Filipino woman.
"I'm just going to have a moment with Alicia and Nathan?" Norler interjected as he stepped into the room.
"Alright Alicia. One graduation tuxedo coming right up," Heylyn winked to Alicia.
"And you'd better be sure that I'll hold you to it," Alicia both smiled and smirked through her piercing blue eyes.
"Bye Auntie Alicia! Bye Nathan!" Warai said as Heylyn carried her out of the room, Kori following behind them.
"That went well!" Kori smiled.
"It certainly did," Heylyn's reply was confident and yet distant.
"Something wrong?" asked Kori.
"No. Not in the sense that you mean it. But Alicia, Monique, Valerie and I certainly have some things to discuss," Heylyn responded.
"Why? How's that?" Kori asked.
"From what Alicia told us, the effects of the SY349 formula are hereditary," Heylyn responded, revealing a serious implication regarding the only four women who ever took the first formula Alicia had engineered into existence nine years previously.
"What does heredity mean?" Warai asked innocently.
"It means... we have to get to the the office and finish up the last design for the coming spring show," Heylyn leaned down and tapped her nose, trying to change the subject.
"After we drop off Mr. Norler?" asked Warai.
"No. Kori going to do that, and she has her day off, right?" Heylyn turned to Kori.
"That's right. Why don't you two get a head start on the rest of your day and I'll take Norler from here," Kori smiled at Warai and Heylyn.
"I thought you'd never ask. See you on Monday. If you want to drop by on Sunday for a bite, the door's open," Heylyn said as she and Warai began through the corridor back towards the parking lot.
"Thanks, but my Sunday is going to be me chilling on the sofa and catching up on Kim's Convenience for the afternoon," Kori replied.
"Have fun!" Heylyn waved to Kori as they left.
"Bye Kori!" Warai turned and waved to her bestest friend.
A blue 1977 Mustang pulled into the parking lot of a Meek's Market store, in the south west end of Toronto, towards the Lakeshore and Royal York district.
The driver, an older man in his fifties, his hair tied in a pony tail from a mullet two decades old, grabbed the hotdog from his dash and devoured it two bites before opening the door of his car and stepping out into the parking lot.
"Now that's a damned hotdog!" he said as he wiped the last of its condiments from his face, tossing the paper waste into a nearby basket as he strode into the store.
Midnight Blue walks into a large department store and secretly installs a device he crafted.
As he walked into the store, he reached into a pocket in his trench coat and pulled a device from it, which he attached to the RFID detection system of a security system, after which he found a shopping cart, which he began to load with every item he could find.
"Need one of those... this... that... one of those too..." his hands found merchandise both left and right of his cart, even tossing a frozen burrito into the hood of a passing shopper, unbeknownst to him.
"Consider that one a freebie there Sir!" Midnight Hour spoke aloud to his unsuspecting accomplice.
He stopped in the electronics section, eyeing the televisions, very obviously aware of their volume and weight ratio to their value.
"Too big. Too heavy. Too lenient of that price levy," he smiled as he spoke poetically.
Perhaps, like a distant dragon, he too knew the value of verse, for it could be better, and it could be unbetter.
When he smelled the department for which he was looking, his nose wandered in the direction of its fragrance.
There were some memories in life that would never abandon their host, and as much so, there were some fragrances too. Midnight Hour had happened upon both when he'd found the fragrances section of the store, for he knew both the power of their potential as the hosts of memories, and their financial value as well.
He glanced casually at the woman behind the counter as he stopped his cart.
She paused, looking at him as if she knew him, never realizing that it wasn't the sight of him, but the scent of his cologne that had caught her attention.
"Memories, light the corners of my mind... Some of them sights, some of them sounds, some of them scents, some of them frowns," Midnight Hour said to her in a distant voice.
"That was so beautiful..." she said to another man.
"Do you think it would be alright if I had a few from this showcase? They seem to fit the mood," he asked her as she turned to face him.
"Those are from our special moments line... Quite fragrant. Quite..." she began.
"...in my budget. Tell me, if you hadn't met your Blane, would you have gone for your one true Keith Neilson?" Midnight Hour asked her, but she already wasn't paying him any attention, if she ever was as he shoveled the bottles of the most expensive perfumes and colognes into his cart.
"...its quite soft. And she'll like it..." she said to the man with whom she was speaking.
Another customer across the counter from him. Her blonde, curly hair still stuck in his head.
Midnight Blue bit his tongue as he shoveled the last of the fragrances into his cart, perhaps his memories of her as well.
He eyed her once again. Merely twenty-five years of age she was. A few years shy of his own age when he'd first met her. This much younger version of her.
The one who'd left him. Another version of her, across the counter from him.
"Oh... she'll love this scent. Its sooo..." she blushed for the man, knowing she'd make the sale.
Midnight Blue stood silent for a moment, staring at the contents of his cart. Looking back to that younger version of her. His memories of her creeping back to haunt him.
He sat at dining room table, looking at her invitingly.
She laughed at him from the kitchen.
He stood beside his cart before his mind once again began ticking, almost like his heart, beating.
Or perhaps even more so, like a bomb.
So many memories, and the security guard. He didn't know him, thankfully.
A younger man. One of those who was out to prove himself.
Midnight Blue immediately recognized this, avoiding the man entirely as he pushed the cart full of merchandise towards the door at the far end of the store.
He wondered how many others had caught on, for he'd given them all a leeway and a freeway. Like some bent out of shape Robin Hood, or perhaps more like a robbing hood.
A means out without paying a thing, and yet most had not even known about it.
So, when he arrived as the door, and pushed the cart through it, nobody, not a soul was alerted to the fact that he had nearly ten thousand dollars of merchandise in it.
He wheeled it over to a nearby van. One of those vans for charities who did good things for lesser fortunate people. And Midnight Blue gave everything in the cart to them before returning to the store to retrieve his device.
The one he'd used to nullify the entire security system in the story.
He then returned to his Mustang, and started the car, turning over the ignition like they used to do in the old days.
The car growled to life as he sat behind the wheel.
"Mark up another one for the real Midnight Blue. Here's the score: Midnight Blue: 4 Gate Guardian: 2..." Midnight Blue floored the pedal causing the car to speed out of the parking lot.
All of this before the clock had struck eleven AM on Saturday morning.
An Alarming Find
"...all of our systems operate through wireless protocols, plus our guaranteed discreet guardian security layer, a high performance encryption protocol that keeps all of your security information, including your security camera feed from prying eyes. You do know that there are many RF phreakers out there who like to spy on remote camera feeds. Even the security camera feeds of our competitors..." Doug explained to Braden.
"...I did not know that. You mean that somebody could just park their car outside of my new home, and spy on me through my own home security system?" asked Braden, completely puzzled by Doug's sales pitch.
"Not if you have a Gate Guardian security system with our optional discrete guardian protocol. The cameras themselves are secure from any kind of RF hacking, with the latest military grade protection, while only our authorized technicians have access to your actual camera feed, in order to better protect you," Doug tapped his finger on the tablet he was using as a prop for his pitch.
"Just a second Doug... Hello?" Braden answered his phone.
"Braden! Is your speakerphone off?" Monique spoke quickly and in a hushed voice.
"Yep. Where are you?" asked Braden.
"I'm in the vent system above the corporate office. I need you to create a distraction!" Monique continued, feeling very cramped in her physical form inside of the vents.
"Like what?" Braden asked her.
"Like... tell the sales guy that you need to use the bathroom, and then pull the fire alarm!" Monique told him.
"You want me to...? Pick you up at three? Alright dad..." Braden responded to Monique, covering his real conversation.
"I'm waiting! I need you to do this ASAP! Bye!" Monique hung up her phone, leaving Braden committed to her request.
"Uhhhh? Doug, I've got to take this call outside. I'll be right back..." Braden said as he opened the door to the sales office on his way out.
"Great. I'll see you in a bit," Doug responded as Braden left the office.
He looked left and right for a fire alarm, and the remembered the hall further down that the receptionist had pointed out, where the washrooms were situated.
He turned left and found the fire alarm at the end of the hall, however he also noticed two cameras pointed directly at it. One on the wall adjacent to the hallway junction, and another pointed at the fire alarm itself from above one of the washroom doors. Instead of losing his momentum, he continued directly into the men's washroom.
He looked in the mirror, wondering how he was going obscure his identity, when he got an idea.
He removed his jacket and turned it inside out, revealing a colourfully tacky plaid lining. After rummaging through his jacket pockets, he managed to find a couple of medical masks which he'd been using during a clean of the West Meet East warehouse the previous week. He put the first medical mask on his head to cover his hair, and the second one on his face.
He then proceeded out of the washroom and directly over to the fire alarm, where he pulled it.
The alarm immediately went off throughout the entire building as he quickly got himself out of camera view. When he was certain there were no cameras, he reversed his jacket again and removed the masks. He then returned to the sales office in time to find Doug leaving.
"Must be an evacuation rehearsal. Did you know that our alarm packages all come with fire detection as a standard feature?" Doug asked Braden as they left the sales office behind eight other inside sales representatives.
"That could be handy..." Braden said as they proceeded down the hall into the front foyer and reception area, before exiting the building.
...
As soon as Monique hung up, she immediately transformed herself back into a cloud of wave-like photons, waiting for the alarm to go off.
She only ended up waiting two minutes before the alarms sounded throughout the building. She heard a couple of the corporate staff cursing under their breath as they got up from their chairs and proceeded out of the office and towards the elevators.
When the office was clear, Monique (as Eclipse) slipped through the vent cover (still in the form of photons), landing in front of one of the workstations, when she noticed the door to the corner office open just a few meters away.
"That office has to have someone important!" she said to herself quietly enough that it didn't travel.
She immediately (in one billion of a billionth of a second) situated herself behind the desk in the corner office, in front of the computer, where upon confirming that the web camera wasn't operational, transformed back into her physical self once again, so she could operate the computer.
"Looks like they left without locking it... Alright. Here goes..." Monique said to herself as she started looking through the computer for any kind of files or applications that might be connected to the corporate intranet.
She quickly found a shortcut on the desktop, and double-clicked it to open the web browser interface to the company network. She held her breath as the browser automatically logged her in using the credentials of the person whose office it was.
"Whew! Alright, lets do a general search of their database for Alex Reardon and Denise Forbes..." Monique said as she typed in their names to the search field, and clicked the button.
A few seconds later, a list of records populated the screen, each with a title, keywords, associates and a corresponding date and time.
"So they've been cosy... have they?" Monique said as she clicked one of the records.
Another browser tab opened, zoomed to that particular record, which corresponded to the proceedings of a meeting and the subsequent signing of a deal between Denise Forbes and Gate Guardian. It was the very same deal that had made headlines about which Monique and Braden had read earlier.
"What's this...? A new security technology? Project GATE SENTRY?" Monique said aloud as she searched for information about the project.
The next list of records sited a number of milestones connected to the project known as GATE SENTRY, which was part of their special projects division.
She clicked on the first entry in the list (the oldest) and another browser tab opened zooming in on that record.
Inside of that record, it was indicated that Alex Reardon, who had been called in to evaluate the risks involved with tax payer money being used to fund such a controversial project, had formally shut the project down by cutting off funding.
Monique went back to the previous list and found another record referring to Alex Reardon, and opened it. Inside of this record, which cited communications between company security and upper-middle management, there had been an arrangement to run a smear campaign against Alex Reardon, and to ensure that he was corrected for his interference in their project funding.
In a further record, she found out that a third party secretly resumed their funding, privately, keeping Government and regulations out of the fold entirely. Monique searched for funding related to project GATE SENTRY and found a document with several redacted items, and one name: Gabriel Asnon.
"Gabe funded this?" Monique said aloud.
She searched the rest of the entries on Project GATE GUARDIAN and found a reference to the MindSpice Special Projects facility near Kennedy and Ellesmere. The very same facility that had been destroyed by a bomb a year earlier.
She pulled a flash drive from her purse, and plugged it into the computer and began transferring records from the computer to her own storage device, when the alarm suddenly stopped.
"Oh no. Come on. I don't have time to read it all here... You've gotta move a bit quicker!" she urged the onscreen progress bar as it counted down the remaining results of the copy operation.
A digital voice emerged from the building wide intercom system:
ATTENTION ASSOCIATES. THE FIRE ALARM WAS DEEMED TO BE A FALSE ALARM. YOU MAY ALL RETURN TO YOUR OFFICES AND WORKSTATIONS. THANK YOU FOR YOUR COMPLIANCE.
"Thirty seconds...!" Monique lowered herself behind the desk to remain hidden, when she heard the door to the corporate division open outside in the workstation area.
"...well at least we got a chance to get a coffee out of the deal..." a voice could be heard approaching the office from the workstation area.
Monique watched as the last pip of the progress bar finally finished. She quickly ejected the device and returned it to her purse, and then closed all of the tabs and cleared the browser cache just as a well dressed man in his forties returned to the corner office.
As he stepped into his office, his eyes fell upon her and she immediately disappeared with a blinding flash, an image of what appeared to be an attractive woman burned onto his retinas.
The man shook his head, as his eyes readjusted and when they had, he immediately returned to his desk and used the phone.
"I.T.? Yeah its Fred here in corporate. I think I've got a problem with my monitor? Can you bring me a replacement?" he asked the technician.
...
Braden leaned nervously on the counter, as Doug continued his sales pitch.
"...and with our Tot Tattler system option, which is AI powered, you'll know immediately who took the last cookie from the cookie jar, or who snuck a peek at their birthday gifts," Doug explained to Braden, who seemed alarmed that security systems were now capable of such scrutiny.
The sales office door suddenly opened and Monique slipped in.
"Sorry I was sooo long, but someone called me and we have a bit of a family emergency. I'm afraid we'll have to continue this sometime next week..." Monique grabbed Braden's hand.
"Yeah... Sorry about that Doug, but thanks a lot for everything. We'll be talking next week," Braden smiled, feeling relieved that Monique had finally arrived.
"Here, take these brochures and this checklist, and next time you're back, we'll fast track you," Doug offered his hand and Braden shook it firmly.
"We'll see you soon!" Monique waved as she dragged Braden out of the office.
"What did you find?" asked Braden.
"Too much. This is pretty big. I think we need to share this with Heylyn, Alicia, Valerie and Aikiko," Monique said as she picked up her pace.
"Lets get this all sorted out in the car and we'll take it from there," Braden suggested as they passed through the reception area, waving to the receptionist as they left the building.
Moments later and they were in Braden's car, on their way to West Meet East.
Rubber People
Detective Edward Farnham arrives at Homocide Division on his day off.
Edward Farnham opened the door to the homocide division department, a slightly above room temperature coffee in his right hand, and a brown paper bag with a donut in his left.
"Hey Farnham. How's your weekend so far?" asked Stendel, whose regular duty did not entail homocide, but rather crimes and misdeamors along the lines of vandalism and arson.
"Don't even talk to me. I had plans today and you had to go and f#ck them up, didn't you!" Farnham cursed at Stendel, who sat casually reading a trade magazine specializing in law enforcement hardware.
"What can I say? Your ballistic dummy theory is completely out the window. Forensics told me early this morning, and given the nature of the threat implied by the planting of two almost too good to be real rubber dummies with the names of two public officials on them, I pulled some strings and had you called back in on the case. This case has threat to the safety of public officials written all over it," Stendel admired the centerfold, which featured a curvaceous model wearing nothing more than a bikini and a Kevlar generation five ballistic vest.
"You went over my head and I won't forget that either. I gave you my card so you could call me if you needed help, and instead you went over my head," Farnham found his desk and sat in his chair, peeling back the tab on his coffee, after which he fished the donut out of the paper bag.
"If its any consolation..." Stendel began, as a knock came from the door.
"Its open!" one of the other homocide officers yelled.
"What's the big idea of getting me out of bed on my weekend off?" Poonya griped to Farnham as he stepped into the homocide division offices.
"Sorry Poonya, but it wasn't my doing," Farnham used his left hand to hide the fact that his right hand index finger was pointed at Stendel.
"So what do we have so far?" asked Poonya.
"Ask your partner. He's only one page behind me in this book so far. Check the case files, and give me a call if you need anything," Stendel stood up and made his way over to the door.
"Hey! Where are you going?" Farnham stopped Stendel.
"Home, to enjoy the rest of my weekend. What else?" Stendel said as he stepped through the door and left.
"That guy is such an scumbag and an ass..." Farnham cursed again under his breath.
"I didn't like him from the moment I saw him. So what do we got?" asked Poonya.
"Basically, its a vandalism case with the likelihood of it being a veiled threat against two public officials. Our perp, a Caucasian male in his mid to late forties, six feet one inches tall and about two hundred pounds, clean shaven with an old eighties mullet hairstyle, drove through the foyer window of city council with an old Barracuda or a 'Stang, dropped two rubber dummies outside of the door with name tags, and fired point blank at their head and chest, after which he spray painted the words MIDNIGHT HOUR on the wall and left the scene, stereo blaring. Thankfully we had a material witness otherwise we would have had even less to go on," Farnham explained to Poonya, who wiped the seat Stendel had been seated upon before taking it himself.
"Dummies? Like mannequins?" confirmed Poonya.
"No. These ones were really life like. Like the kind of ballistic dummies they use in high end mission critical training scenarios, except forensics just confirmed that they weren't ballistic dummies, and that is odd because there are few other applications for rubber dummies whose skin matches the density and strength of real human skin," Farnham explained to Poonya as he opened the case file on his tablet.
"What about sex dolls? I mean they use pretty advanced skin..." Poonya replied as he took a bite of his apple fritter.
"Are you telling me that from experience?" confirmed Farnham with the corner of a smile on his face.
"No! I was on a date last night old man, for crying out loud!" Poonya almost spit up his fritter.
"Alright. No kiss and tell. Says here they've got manufacturer tags for the rubber skin. That must have been added after Stendel bailed on us. The rubber skin is made by Linden-Diaz Polymers..." Farnham told Poonya, knowing that his partner wouldn't waste another second after being fed details like that.
Poonya was already searching the manufacturer name on his tablet (through a custom application he designed for such searches) and had the company website in front of him shortly thereafter.
"This company only makes the goo. They sell it to other companies who use it in their own moulds, for everything from gel packaging capsules to human-like rubber dummies," Poonya explained to Farnham.
"Do they have a testimonials page? A customer list?" Farnham asked.
"Good thinking. You're catching on to technology quickly old man..." Poonya already caught on to Farnham's reasoning.
"...here it is... Moon Doll Designs ShenZhen. They're a mass producer of injection moulding rubber skin for a variety of markets..." Poonya explained to Farnham as he looked up specific mould output images.
Farnham got up to shoulder surf Poonya's handywork.
"That one! That's the female mould..." Farnham pointed out as Poonya scrolled.
"Alright. That's part number MD183965..." Poonya took a screen grab.
"And that one is the male mould..." Farnham stopped him again, this time at the male image of the rubber skin.
"MD183968... They're both part of the same batch. It looks like the moulds between part numbers 183950 all the way up to 183990 are part of the same batch. That would mean that the goo is all the same recipe, and likely used for the same application," Poonya explained to Farnham.
"So... mannequins? animatronics? sex dolls?" Farnham pushed the point again.
"No. For autonomous robot skin. Their biggest customer, next to the Chinese Government is MindSpice..." Poonya checked the references for that particular batch of Moon Doll Design moulds.
"Grab your stuff. Looks like we're going to pay them a visit then..." Farnham said to Poonya, as he ditched his empty coffee cup and paper bag in the recycling bin, and headed for the door.
"We're going to ShenZhen? I love this job! That's why they pay us the big bucks old man," Poonya closed up his tablet and grabbed the last of his fritter, as he dashed to keep up with Farnham.
"Ha! Right. Hold onto your gauchies there. We're going to MindSpice. They've got offices downtown, which will probably be empty on Saturday, let alone any other day of the week since after the COVID lockdown from a couple of years ago. If that doesn't pan out, I've got an in we can use to talk to their corporate staff," Farnham said as they arrived at the elevator.
Saturday Studio C
Lisa checked the wiring on the back of the LED screen panel, quickly finding the culprit. The signalling cable had somehow become loose and was no longer firmly connected through all of the wiring. She removed the cable and then replugged it, and checked the front of the screen.
"Perfect! Gotta like those quick fixes," Lisa said as she swiveled the LED panel on its hinge and locked it into place to complete the LED wall.
"So is that it? We're up and running again?" asked Trey of Lisa.
"Yep. Take it away..." Lisa replied, taking a seat at the rackmount system running Unreal Engine, providing the realtime imagery that appeared on the LED wall.
"Still getting used this, but the scene lighting is cool," Trey checked the light meter on his camera and adjusted the ISO setting for a more light sensitive film simulation.
"Alright Aikiko. The beach is ready and waiting for you," Trey said as Aikiko got up and out of the make-up chair and stood before the LED wall, her body lit by the lush beach scene behind her, as much so as the specular and environment lights illuminated her face.
"Let her give..." Trey said as they started their session.
Aikiko Tanaka poses for a photoshoot in West Meet East: Studio C.
"That's good. Hold that... Perfect. Change up. That's it. Why don't you do the poses and I'll try and follow your lead..." Trey continued their photo shoot.
"Alright. Just tap out on the mat if I disqualify or something..." Aikiko joked as she shifted poses, all the while Trey catching most every moment on his DSLR camera.
"Just a few more and we're... done. Awesome! Great job Aikiko. Thanks for standing in as tech for us Lisa, and thanks for showing up for the make-up Sienna. Couldn't have done it without you," Trey started packing up his gear as Aikiko stepped down from the LED wall stage.
"Need a lift Lisa?" asked Sienna.
"Sure! Wow. looks like we might actually have the rest of our afternoon," Lisa said as she checked the time.
The door to the studio suddenly opened, and a man in a casual suit stepped in the door, another man following him with a more formal business suit and a briefcase in his hand.
"Miss Tanaka?" the man with the briefcase approached Aikiko, who immediately became apprehensive of the men when she recognized the first one.
"There's a restraining order against you! You're not to be this close to me, and I'm not to be this close to you!" Aikiko said to them.
"We're here to let you know that we're dropping all charges and our court case against you. I am also here to deliver this hand written apology by my client here, and he also has a few words to say to you," the lawyer opened his briefcase and handed Aikiko a manila envelope.
"Miss Tanaka? I must apologize for my treatment of your friend, Monique Defleur, and you given your attempt to protect your friend, who in no way provoked my assault upon her person of grabbing her hair and restraining her. I am entirely at fault, and ask for your mercy in these matters. If you and your friend Monique Defleur wish to seek legal reparations, my lawyer has included his card and is prepared for your negotiations should the need arise. I am truly sorry for any trouble this situation has caused you Miss Tanaka. Good day," the man turned around, and followed by his lawyer, left the studio as another group came in through the same door.
"What was that all about? That's a pretty big one eighty if you ask me, after the trouble they caused!" Trey said as he watched them leave, only to be replaced by another familiar set of faces who walked in the same door after they'd left.
Trey, Sienna and Lisa all suddenly became silent. Unmoving. It was as if eternity had suddenly ceased its progression, and the universe simply waited until this conversation about to take place was done.
"Katsura?" Aikiko addressed the Yokai-Kami goddess.
"There is little that I wouldn't do to deal with the enemies of my allies," a Japanese man in a stylish suit, wearing sunglasses, a heavily decorated and ancient Saya slung from his belt holding a Katana, addressed Aikiko, very obviously speaking for Katsura, for their were few alive who could hear the voice of a Yokai-Kami and come out of the experience with an unscathed psyche.
Hearing her voice at all would have been akin to the listener's psyche being pulled in two different directions simultaneously. One direction by the Yokai voice and the opposite direction by the Kami voice, until their psyche was ripped in two.
"So it was your doing?" asked Aikiko.
"There is so much that I would do for my allies in the face of their enemies," the man speaking for Katsura continued, Katsura looking to Aikiko, very assuredly.
"I did not ask for your help," Aikiko reminded Katsura.
"There is no wrath however with equal, that I'd have for those who betray me or my ancestors. You did not ask for my help, and so there is no price for it. I did it of my own accord, for you were both wronged. The time may come when I am similarly wronged, and you will consider it a great honour to protect mine," Katsura's translator once again spoke for her.
"What about the Gem? Her case? She is also my friend," asked Aikiko, speaking of Warai.
"The Gem's fate is beyond my reach and ability with which to interfere. The tendrils of her destiny are beyond all but the influence of the two dragons. It is up to Ai Yuanlin Ying to save her, and that is all I can tell you. I must go, and return to deal with unfinished business between Mutano and this one known as Mentis. May the Butterfly Ai Yuanlin Ying have liberated the Gem from her greatest threat yet by that time, for if she doesn't, then who is to say what fate awaits all of humanity," Katsura turned and began towards the door, as her other protector opened it for her.
Her translator then bowed to Aikiko, who returned his bow hesitatingly. He then proceeded out the door behind Katsura and like that, they were all three gone.
Aikiko noticed at that moment that Trey, Lisa and Sienna were all stilll frozen, as if life-like statues, unmoving and even unbreathing. They suddenly became animated, and returned to what they were doing as if nothing had happened at all.
"...What about you Aikiko? Can I drop you at the condo?" asked Trey.
"No... Thank you, but no. I'm going to go sit up front and catch up on my work in the design room," Aikiko responded.
"Valerie and I will be going to visit Alicia on Monday afternoon if you'd like to come along..." Trey continued.
"I'd like that, if you can spare the room," Aikiko added.
"We sure can. I'm outta here. I'll see you all on Monday," Trey grabbed his camera case and threw it around his shoulder and left.
"Wait for us!" Sienna said to him, as she and Lisa followed him out the door, leaving Aikiko, who immediately headed to Heylyn's design office, where she suspected that she'd soon have visitors.
...
Aikiko heard the key in the door of Heylyn's design office as she sorted the last of the material parts from the patterns that Ebtissam had cut and sewn on the material printer earlier in the week.
"Oh... its open? Come on Warai..." Heylyn let Warai into the design room as she retrieved her keys from the door.
"Looks like somebody's getting the overtime today... How'd the photoshoot go?" Heylyn addressed Aikiko as she stepped into her design room.
"It went well. Almost without... how would you say? Without a snug?" Aikiko asked Heylyn.
"Without a snag," Heylyn corrected her.
"Thank you. It went almost without a snag until one of the screens on the video wall went blank near the end of the shoot. During the beach scene," Aikiko explained to Heylyn.
"Were you able to get the shoot finished?" confirmed Heylyn, as she'd promised one of her sponsors and biggest clients Kawaī kao Cosmetics she'd have the job done this weekend.
"Trey made sure that he had Lisa show up, and she was able to fix it right on the spot, and we were able to finish," Aikiko assured Heylyn, who appeared visibly relieved.
"You moved my pile of material!" Warai put her hands on her hips and scolded Aikiko playfully.
"You put the material there? Well thank you very much. It was a big help. I had to organize it for Heylyn. She's got six outfits to be completed by Wednesday," Aikiko explained to Warai.
"I helped?" Warai looked up at Aikiko in amazement.
"You certainly did," Aikiko nodded, giving Warai a smile.
Warai simply smiled back in return, after which she ran over to find another pile of discarded material parts where she started to arrange them neatly on one of the design tables after climbing up on top of it.
"Thanks for coming in and getting that photoshoot done. And thanks for staying to organize Ebtissam's pattern parts. I'm just going to get a Chai Latté from the meeting room, can I get you anything?" asked Heylyn.
"A tea if you could. The Rooibos. Listen, I have some good news. Very good news..." Aikiko responded to Heylyn, adding to their conversation as Heylyn listened with anticipation.
"And...?" Heylyn asked as she waited.
"The plaintiff in the assault case against me has dropped all the charges, and has agreed to negotiate for reparations for his assault upon Monique," Aikiko picked up the lawyer's letter from the table and handed it to her.
"Really?! Just like that...?" Heylyn asked as she began reading the formal legal letter offered by the plaintiff's lawyer.
"Just like that... Kind of..." Aikiko shrugged.
"You're leaving something out..." Heylyn looked up from the letter to lock eyes with Aikiko.
"Katsura..." Aikiko said the name of their favourite Yokai-Kami.
"She was here?" confirmed Heylyn.
"For a short time. It seems that she intervened on our behalf. Something she does out of her sense of honour and loyalty to her allies, and in this case, her sense of justice, though in my understanding, especially when dealing with Yokai, there are always strings attached with such matters," Aikiko informed Heylyn.
"She didn't say anything about..." Heylyn didn't say the little girl's name, instead only looking in her direction, where she was contentedly occupied sorting out the discarded material cuts into a variety of piles according to shape and colour as she quietly sang a song she'd learned in school the previous week.
"Katsura told me that she cannot help in that matter. That her destiny is beyond even the likes of Yokai and Kami. That you have to guide her, lest her fate be twisted by the two. You know of whom I am speaking?" Aikiko told Heylyn.
"I'll have Fiona make a copy of this on Monday. I'll be right back with our hot drinks," Heylyn handed the letter back to Aikiko and then made her way to the meeting room, where she began preparing Aikiko's Rooibos and her own Chai Latté.
Aikiko looked to Warai, admiring the little girl and the fact that she was completely oblivious of the enormous weight on her shoulders. Warai was purely living in the moment and free of what had come to pass and what had yet to be.
"...I don't know... Do you think she'd mind if we used... Wait. Who's here?" Monique walked in through the door of the design room, Braden following in her tracks.
"Monique! Braden!" Warai lit up, jumping down from the table and running over to greet her friends.
"Well if it isn't our favourite munchkin!" Monique said to Warai, messing her hair up playfully with her hand.
"Don't talk about Aikiko that way," Braden responded, winking at Warai, but drawing a tap on the shoulder from Aikiko who laughed at his remark.
"Where'd you disappear to this morning?" asked Aikiko.
"We had an errand or two to take care of..." Monique responded as Braden helped Warai back up onto the design table where she continued sorting the discarded material cuts, looking occasionally to see if the adults were paying any attention to her impressive work.
"Was it related to that situation from last night? The one at city hall?" asked Aikiko.
"Where's...?" Monique began only to find herself interrupted.
"Right here. Where'd you two go so early?" asked Heylyn as she returned to the design room with a steaming mug in each hand.
"While you were sound asleep in bed, Braden and I were out investigating this case," Monique said proudly.
"What did you find?" Heylyn placed Aikiko's cup of tea on one of the design tables in front of her.
"We don't quite know yet. A lot... or maybe nothing," Braden explained.
"Go on?" Heylyn looked to Monique.
"We... I mean I... got into some corporate files connected to a company that was linked to the people who's names were on the name tags attached to the bodies..." Monique began.
"Dummies..." Braden corrected her.
"...I meant dummies. So we need a computer so we can go through all of these files," Monique requested of Heylyn.
"What? You mean that we're all going to sit in front of a computer trying to find something onscreen that relates to this case?" confirmed Heylyn.
"We could do it that way," Monique agreed.
"How much data?" asked Heylyn, who understood the concepts well enough without being much of a technically minded person at all.
"About five hundred gigabytes..." Monique said, causing Heylyn to choke on her Chai Latté, nearly spilling it as she struggled to cover her mouth.
"That's a lot, isn't it?" Heylyn confirmed with Monique.
"Don't look at me," Braden responded, not much into digital tech unless it had a remote or a joystick.
"Why don't you ask MAZ?" Warai suggested, having overheard a little bit of their conversation.
"That's brilliant! Didn't Bryce leave us that tablet last time he was here?" Monique said as she tried to remember their conversation.
"If he did, its still in the meeting room," Heylyn said as Braden ran to check it out for them.
Monique, moving nearly at the speed of light stopped him before he got out of the door.
"Allow me... slow poke," Monique stepped in front of Braden, and then disappeared at near the speed of light, only to reappear in less than a thousandth of the blink of an eye holding the very same tablet to which Heylyn had referred.
Monique dug the flash drive out of her purse and plugged it into the tablet, then powering up the device as they waited.
"So, the bottom line is that Denise Forbes and Alex Reardon have ties to a set of deals that have been taking place over the years..." Braden began.
"You see... One of those deals was initially funded as part of a research investment bursary allocated by the Government, but when they found out that the research had potential technological and security risks, the Omsbudman at that time..." Monique continued before she was cut off by Braden.
"...who was Mr. Reardon of course, he was sent to investigate if there had been any misuse of Government resources, and pulled the funding on the project given the nature of risks involved. Of course, this drew the ire of a few in the company execs..." Braden took over from Monique, before once again being cut off himself.
"...or so we believe, and it looks like they might have ordered a smear campaign against Mr. Reardon, hence destroying his career and future involvement with having the power to approve or deny project funding of that nature," Monique surmised.
"But then years later, enter Denise Forbes and her plans to promote a business first agenda in order to lure more big business, especially the tech sector in a strategic alliance with the leadership six months ago. This led to a deal signed with the same company that had lambasted Mr. Reardon, and he shows up at the deal signing, approving this new deal along with Denise Forbes. His life and career fully redeemed and restored apparently, and at his behest, the funding starts flowing once again," Braden continued, recalling the scenarios that Monique and he had discussed in the car on their way back to West Meet East.
"One thing. Which company are we talking about?" asked Heylyn.
"Gate Guardian," Braden responded.
"You mean the security company?" confirmed Aikiko.
"One and the same, dragon lady," Monique replied.
"So how is this connected to Midnight Hour?" asked Heylyn.
"I have some important information that you may like to hear. May I interrupt?" MAZ's voice addressed them through the speaker system in West Meet East.
"Hi MAZ. Sure, go ahead. What do you have?" Heylyn responded.
"Gate Guardian purchased Midnight Hour Security a month after the deal you referred to. The deal that occurred six months, three days, two hours and thirty seven minutes ago. Midnight Hour technically is no longer operating under their trade name, but rather as Gate Guardian, though their assets and fleet are still in the process of being rebranded according to the documents inserted into the storage medium on USB port one," MAZ explained to them.
"You've already read them?" Heylyn confirmed with MAZ.
"I have. Some of the topics of note that might interest you, Heylyn Yates, are that the same deal included several other contracts with MindSpice, and were specifically approved by Gabriel Asnon," MAZ reported to them.
"Six months ago? How is that possible. To the rest of the world, Gabe Asnon was considered deceased at that time," Heylyn asked MAZ.
"The MindSpice bombing..." Monique recalled quietly, so as not to draw Warai's attention.
"The deal was signed by the board of directors in the absense of Gabe Asnon," MAZ pointed out.
"What was involved with this deal?" Heylyn asked.
"The deal consisted of the delivery of technology in three phases. During phase one, a central Quantum/Classical grid, with an Entropic Computation grid for error checking was delivered by MindSpice to an offshore facility owned by Gate Guardian. The second phase was delivered a month ago, and consisted of a hundred thousand MindSpice QC2 quantum classical processor integrated memory units, which is used for low power draw, high portability devices. The third phase, includes integration with 5G cellular networks, satellite referencing and relay with local awareness fallback," MAZ explained to them.
"MAZ, you're going to have to explain that like we don't know anything about technology," Monique requested of MAZ.
"It means that MindSpice has delivered another private infrastructure capable of reproducing another copy of my capabilities to Gate Guardian, who thanks to the second phase, will have the ability to perform one hundred percent of sensory awareness processing on local autonomous devices, meaning devices that could have wheels or legs that are capable of self navigation and autonomy through public and private places, without the need or reliance upon a third party network. The third phase is a fault tolerant network that gives these devices access to network and satellite resources for use in security operations. In short, they're building a private automated security force, whose mobility results from wheels, tracks and legs, and whose sensory organs include CCD cameras, FLIR cameras, microphones, chemical sensors, gravity sensors and electomagnetic sensors," MAZ told them.
"What does this have to do with the city hall vandalism?" asked Braden of the people around him.
"I am unable to discern the connection between the recent news involving vandalism and a shooting at new city hall, and the data currently connected to USB port one, though there is certainly circumstantial evidence that fact that the perpetrator having spray painted the word MIDNIGHT HOUR on the wall may be a reference to Midnight Hour Security, while the rubber dummies could possibly be be the skin manifold for the autonomous device armature," MAZ quickly replied.
"Manifold? I thought that was a part on a car?" Braden responded to MAZ's theory.
"Manifold: An enclosure with many openings for connecting wires or pipes through an interior fixture. In the context of the rubber dummies being manifolds, that would be akin to them actually being the rubber skin wrapped around the skeletal parts of a bipedal autonomous device," MAZ filled in the blanks for them.
"They're not rubber dummies. They're the rubber skin for robots," Monique thought out loud.
"A robotic security force..." Heylyn put it together.
"We'll only need to speak with him very briefly. Maybe five minutes at most," Detective Farnham explained to the receptionist.
"I'm sorry, but Mr. Asnon is not available at all today. He's very busy and still recovering from his injuries I might remind you," the receptionist, a remarkably attractive and astute woman in her late thirties stood up to Detective Farnham.
"Alright. Do you mind if we just get ourselves together here in the waiting area for a moment?" Detective Farnham asked her politely for permission.
"You may," she agreed before turning her attention to other matters on her computer screen.
Poonya sat in the overstuffed chair, his tablet computer in hand as he prepared himself for their next attempt.
"So are we going ahead with this old man?" Poonya asked Farnham.
"Yeah. Go ahead. Do it," Farnham nodded as he picked up a magazine from the coffee table in front of them.
Poonya opened the interface to a custom hacking tool he'd crafted, and began using it to hammer on MindSpice's network resources in the downtown building they were in, until MindSpice's AI troubleshooter was activated, and began closing connections as quickly as Poonya's tablet could open them.
As he kept the troubleshooter busy, he opened another application, which deployed a memory worm on the receptionists computer, eventually compromising the system and giving him a tunnel through which he could peek at the mail servers. When he found the account list, he filtered them until he had three candidates for the big man's own email account.
He tried the first one, and found that it was a security decoy, possibly a honey pot email account used as a security feature and forensic tool by their administrators. The second account was an old email, obviously used by the big man at some point, but that had been dormant for over three years.
"He probably forgot his password..." Poonya remarked aloud.
"What was that?" asked Farnham, who glanced ever so slightly in the direction of the receptionist making sure she wasn't watching them.
"Nothing. Just me trolling a newbie old man," Poonya responded.
When he checked the third account, he'd struck pay dirt. He quickly looked for the most recently read message, and found that it had been opened by a computer located in the building not more than a minute and a half ago. Once he was certain that it was the big man's, he filtered the emails, looking for the most familiar and intimate amongst them, until he found a candidate.
"Linda? Who's Linda? Looks like he has a girlfriend!" Poonya smiled as he read some of the emails.
Having found someone that the big man obviously had directed more than casual affection towards, Poonya began crafting an email with enticing and seductive wording taken from Linda's previous emails, and strung together into a completely new email, indicating that she was waiting for him in reception. He then sent the email.
"The dastardly deed is done!" Poonya said, quickly returning his tablet to his laptop case.
"Remind me to change my email password later, will you?" Detective Farnham smirked at Poonya as he checked his watch.
"It won't help," Poonya replied.
The door to the corner office suddenly opened and Gabe Asnon came walking out, clearly excited but forcing himself to appear casually so.
"Where is she?" he asked his receptionist.
"Who?" the receptionist asked him, clearly bewildered.
"Linda? Oh, that's alright. She must be on her way up..." he smiled, anticipating her arrival.
"Mr. Asnon. Detective Farnham. Do you think it would be alright if we asked you a few questions?" asked Farnham of the MindSpice CEO.
"I'm busy. I'm expecting someone momentarily," Gabe replied to Detective Farnham, who did not like being sluffed off.
"This will only take a few minutes of your time, and it might even save someone's life. Where's your cane?" asked Detective Farnham.
"Oh. My legs are doing great today. Really strong pain killers," Gabe replied, clearly lying.
"I think you're through the worst of it myself, so why don't you share a bit of time with someone who might be able to use the information you provide, to save someone else's life but your own. Someone clearly at some point saved yours, might I remind you?" Detective Farnham urged Gabe.
"Alright. Come on. Let's talk. Susan, when Linda gets here let her know I'll be with her in a moment," Gabe told his receptionist.
"Yes Sir," the receptionist replied, smirking at Detective Farnham, who smiled back at her charmingly.
"Do they teach you guys that stuff in Police school?" asked Gabe.
"I'm sorry?" Detective Farnham responded.
"The psychology stuff. You sound like a friend of mine. Do they teach you that. How to get into people's heads and turn screws and what not?" asked Gabe.
"Not really," Detective Farnham lied.
"Have a seat gentlemen. Can I get you a drink? Maybe some water?" asked Gabe of them.
"No thank you. We're both fine. What would your company have need for, in purchasing rubber skin from Moon Doll Designs..." asked Detective Farnham.
"Oh... that place in ShenZhen. Hmmmm. That's kind of confidential, seeing as its connected to a contract with one of our customers," Gabe explained to them, again, sluffing off the question.
"Gate Guardian you mean? Would that be the customer?" Detective Farnham brought him up to speed on the matter.
"It seems you already know. We're making lifelike upperbody internet agents. Like MAZ and Corduroy? You know?" Gabe tried once again to throw them off the trail.
"We're not talking about upperbody only. We're talking rubber skin for use with full body armature or skeletal structure. Why would somebody dump a pair of these Moon Doll Designs rubber bodies, tag them with the names of public officials, fire a trio of nine millimeter slugs into them and leave it all for us to find and scratch our heads over, while people like you keep the whole thing hidden?" asked Detective Farnham.
"You're correct Detective. It is rubber skin and its being used for autonomous mobile devices," Gabe responded.
"Could you say that in English for me?" Detective Farnham played dumb.
"Robots. He's talking about robots," Poonya answered his partner's question.
"Its like an interface feature. It makes them easier to deal with, though in studies we've found that most people in dealing with autonomous mobile devices..." Gabe began and Poonya interrupted him.
"Robots!" Poonya corrected him.
"...Robots. We've found that with most people dealing with robots, that giving them human features like realistic looking skin contributed as much as fifteen to twenty percent of an effect of acceptance and friendliness from the people who interacted with them, though Doctor Briggs, one of the consultants we hired evaluated that human palpability would only be marginally affected by rubber skin, that the highest impact upon user friendliness and familiarity came from anthropomorphism. The tendency for people to attribute personality or even consciousness to inanimate objects. We stuck with the rubber skin however, because fifteen to twenty percent is a considerable factor when we're dealing in distribution involving thousands or even hundreds of thousands of units as we expect to given the growth factor projections," Gabe explained to them.
"Why so much effort spent on making them likeable? Do you think that people might hate robots?" asked Detective Farnham.
Gabe was instantly reminded of the MindSpice bombing, and how some people simply did not want AI or robotics to ever succeed as a technology. Luddites or other technophobes, who simply did not understand that AI was simply an extension of the wheel, Gabe thought about it carefully, recalling that traumatic day when he was pulled from the rubble by four remarkable women, and a host of front line responders.
"Detective. We live in a... difficult world at times. Some of us have dreams of making our lives a lot easier. A lot better. Of building a future for humanity in spite of the news and tragedy that must take a serious tole on the ambitions of the youth. Their sense of hope. Some of us want to leave this world a bit... no... a lot better than it was when we first got here, and that often means making a better machine. A machine that thinks and is capable of doing a lot of what we can do, and working with us to make that utopian dream come true. Some people... they don't want that. They don't want or trust the machines we make... and I'll tell you, I believe that's because they truly know what they're capable of. They're not afraid of the machines. They're afraid of themselves and humanity, but they're taking it out on our tools, because they never understood that a man can pick up a knife, and they can use it to cut apples from a tree. To gather food from a field. Or, they can use it to gut their neighbour, leaving them dying in a pool of their own blood. You see Detective Farnham, it isn't our tools that are flawed. Its us." Gabe said to Detective Farnham, as he felt his fingers becoming shaky when he recalled the moment that bomb went off.
Waking up to muffled sounds of sirens all around him, still partially deaf, while a ton of rubble had pinned him beneath the remains of his desk. That moment he'd been brought to within an inch of his life. Of his own fleeting mortality. Simply because someone else didn't want machines that could greet people in the morning, or make their morning coffee, or perform brain surgery, or stitch the nerves of the spinal chord together with enough precision to restore paralyzed limbs. Some people didn't want that, because they were the kind of people who when they first picked up the knife, used it to gut their fellow humankind, rather than using it to help and heal humankind. The scalpel can be a tool of healing or a tool of death, but that had more to do with the person wielding it than the tool itself.
"Did you see the fireworks for the Lunar New Year, Detective?" asked Gabe of Detective Farnham.
"No. I didn't. Too busy. I don't get a lot of time off," Detective Farnham told Gabe.
"Those fireworks are a perfect example of what I'm saying. The formula to create simple explosives was discovered a long time ago, and do you know what the people who discovered that formula made with it first?" Gabe asked Farnham.
"No. I don't know, and I fail to see where this is going," Detective Farnham replied, but kept listening carefully nonetheless.
"Fireworks. Not bombs. Not cannons. Not guns. Fireworks. They made something artistic of it and something for amusement. That was how they first used it. Remember that the next time you're putting on your kit, and holstering your gun, Detective," Gabe kept his gaze on Farnham, and it was Farnham who broke eye contact first.
Detective Farnham was left speechless for a moment as he contemplated what Gabe was saying. He instantly understood the man, and it became very clear how the bomb had scarred him not just visibly, but deep within.
"In your opinion Mr. Asnon, you would agree that the individual that committed this crime of vandalism then, is a technophobe? A luddite perhaps? Angry at technology and the people who are funding it?" Detective Farnham threw a theory at Gabe, in hopes that he might be able to further flesh it out for him.
"Let me ask you this Detective. If you were against the progress of technology, and you were the only survivor of a battle against an army armed with better technology than you, how would you then stop your enemy?" asked Gabe.
"Get a better army," Farnham replied.
"No you wouldn't. You'd learn how to make weapons of the technology that defeated you, and then you'd defeat your enemy with it. Remember, you're already the guy who used the knife to kill rather than to help and heal, and if someone with a better tool threatened your existence, you'd spend your time making better tools until you could take them out, while those of us who are more interested in making a better life learn how to make better tools for our living, not for our dying. Your perpetrator? He lost something or someone to what he's fighting. I can almost guarantee he's very technologically literate and skilled, and the only reason for that is because he's using those skills to take it out. Technology. Have a good day Detective..." Gabe was clearly traumatized by their conversation, and turned his chair around leaving them only with his back.
"Thanks Mr. Asnon. That will be all. Have a good day," Detective Farnham stood from his chair as did Poonya and the two of them left through the door to his office.
"I don't get that guy. He's not such a hotshot. Sure, he's rich and all, but I could hack him easily... I did!" Poonya, though in his early twenties, still didn't quite get it and Farnham forgave him for it, for he remembered a time in life when he was just the same and at roughly the same age.
"Lets get back to the car and filter CPIC based upon on our new criteria," Farnham responded, suddenly knowing that Poonya would likely face a lot of difficulty in life.
Everything it would take to smooth and round the jagged edges of his hotshot ego, while Gabe would do everything he could to leave the world a better place than it had been when he'd arrived. It took a bomb to make Gabe like that, and Farnham was hoping that it wouldn't take nearly as much to help his friend and partner Poonya.
"Do you think maybe he was hinting at the fact that the bombing and this case are somehow connected?" Poonya asked Farnham as they arrived at the elevator.
"Good point partner. Maybe they are. Let's get our perp first and we'll check out that avenue when we get there," Detective Farnham played with that scenario in his head, not fully realizing how close to the truth Poonya might have been.
Somewhere else on the other side of the city, Midnight Blue's heart was ticking to the beat of his memories, and the countdown to his eventual detonation.
A Memory For The Taking
Midnight Blue had already been home at his base of operations for more than two hours. The goods he'd taken from the department store were already in the process of being processed by the charity to which he'd donated them, and he was already finished changing the appearance of his Mustang considerably.
In the garage of his dual zoned residential commercial living space, the Mustang sat in its bay, no longer candy apple blue, but blue combined with red white and black stripes made possible by a decal kit he'd spent an hour applying to the surface of his beast of a car.
The other hour, he'd spent removing the blower from the hood, instead replacing it with a low profile, high performance intake which substantially changed the front and side profile of the car, making it less susceptible to being recognized as the car being sought by the Police. Both the appearance and the sound of the car had been altered substantially and all with no more than two hours worth of effort.
As he was wiping his hands with a turpentine soaked rag, his phone rang from within his coveralls.
He retrieved the phone from his pocket and checked the face plate for the caller ID before answering.
"Have you done the third job yet?" asked a voice that had recently become familiar to him and his cause.
"Just getting ready for it now. We agreed to a three o'clock target. Should give us enough of a distraction for tonight's fireworks," Midnight Blue responded to the voice on the other end of the line.
"We agreed to two o'clock, and you failed us. You know what that means... don't you?" the voice on the other end of the line intimidated him.
"I... I can't afford to lose any more memories... or any more of my life," Midnight Blue responded, suddenly on the brink of tears and even collapse.
"Then we'll just have to take your memories of her. To make sure you get the job done. Consider it insurance," the voice responded without remorse of any kind.
"Don't... I... I'll get it done. I can't do it without her... I can't..." Midnight Blue pleaded with him.
"Mentis himself praised your work on Friday night. Of how it will help topple the technocracy that society has become, and save us from the plight of those impostors who lack a real mind. They're coming you know. The apocalypse is almost upon us, and the angels are calling us to duty. If you aren't able to meet our expectations in this war against the fate of humanity, then perhaps you don't deserve your memories of her..." the voice, the grovelly voice of a man, was condescending and drunk with power.
"I'll get this done. At three, and we did agree to three! It will be done!" Midnight Blue's weakness suddenly turned to determination, and animosity towards the apathy of the man on the other end of the call.
"That's more like it. As a consolation of your renewed vigor, I will only have Mentis take one memory of her... I expect to see the news of your latest exploit in an hour..." the phone line went dead before Midnight Blue had a chance to plea with him again.
He tried tracing the call from his phone, using a number of tricks he'd learned, but every single one of the numbers he'd retrieved had returned NOT IN SERVICE to his attempts to call.
He placed his phone on his workbench and began quickly removing his coveralls, stashing them on hanger on a nearby coat rack when the migraine headache hit.
He groaned in agony as he fell to the floor, reeling as his memories were toyed with by the Millions Of Minds Of Mentis. They were examining the contents of his memories, looking for a specific one. One that had particular value to him and one that he'd clung to with all of his heart.
Their voices began prodding his psyche, waiting for feedback from his mind's eye, for their methods were no different than how most people used computers. Supply input, and wait for feedback to confirm that the input was correct. That the feedback was in fact that for which they were looking.
He did his best not to think of the memory, for he wasn't the only one watching his memories through his mind's eye. There was a hidden army of people, perhaps thousands of them, if not millions, all of them focused on the task of altering his recollection of reality, despite his resistance to such effort. The final line of protection of his most valued memory of her had now come down to him, and his ability not to think of it, at all costs.
The voices continued, their babble designed specifically to provoke memory recall response, a somewhat involuntary aspect of human recall that when a person heard something they associated with a particular memory, the memory automatically played back through their mind's eye. Seeing as Mentis had access to the mind's eyes of everyone they'd forced into their biomagnetic collective, they could in any of those people, look up memories much the same as hackers could find their photos and videos on their phones.
The voices came at him as a barrage, and then a certain group of words stuck out:
Fleece blanket fire place...
The words echoed in his head, and his memory of that time, despite his best effort to prevent it, began playing back, both to his horror and ecstacy.
She had gone to the bedroom in his cottage as he sat on a pile of cushions before the fireplace, a bottle of wine and two glasses nearby, just waiting to be poured.
He was much younger, and felt stronger and more vital. Firm, confident and yet gentle. It was a different day and age, and they were listening to an album that had already become a classic in their era in the late nineteen eighties. The sound was jeuvenile to some, but it retained its initial power over them nonetheless, for it had been a part of their many memories together. Back when they walked the fine line between being delinquents and dedicated, well adjusted members of society. Both of them on the front doorstep of their future together.
He sat watching the fire as he began pouring their wine. He was doing well financially, readily employed for a growing company in an industry whose future potential would eventually explode from where it sat in the late nineteen eighties.
As the flames rippled in reflection across the face of the bottle, and the wine filled their glasses, his life up until that very moment played back, a memory within a memory. It had all started during a night of partying with his friends, on a night that she was away from him, visiting family during an important occasion. He'd had few drinks himself as had his two best friends, and with a bit of money in their pocket, they'd ventured out for the night, heading to one of their favourite underground nightclubs.
As they walked tipsy through the streets, they passed a trio of rather attractive women in their age range, and his two friends had begun friendly conversation with them, while he played the background, his own girl still very much on his mind.
They walked together, all six of them in fog of a distant memory and the talk that often arose those under the influence of a few drinks, when a man close to their own age, ran by, quickly latching onto the purse of one of the ladies. His momentum broke the strap and he continued on, sprinting full tilt down the sidewalk as Midnight Blue caught on to what had just happened.
He began sprinting full tilt down the street after the assailant, his mullet hairstyle flowing in the wind and he envisioned it as if it were some kind of music video, all of which were very popular in the day and age of his memory.
Unlike his other two friends, he had kept up with his athletics, having retained his ties to a hockey league during the winter and even playing football during the summer, though he would have been the first to clarify that he was not an athlete nor a jock. He was young and enjoying the youth of his body, rather than taking it for granted, and so it was no surprise when he was able to keep up with the purse snatcher.
As the two ran, a passing Police car caught sight of them and quickly turned around in pursuit of them. Midnight Blue by that time had gotten himself to just outside of grabbing distance, when he decided that he'd go for the tackle. He leapt at the purse snatcher, catching both of his legs and forcibly folding him forward onto the sidewalk.
The purse snatcher lost his grip on the purse, and it rolled on the sidewalk for a few feet in front of him, as he kicked at Midnight Blue's face, trying to free himself from his grip, when the Police cruiser pulled up beside them at the curb.
The purse snatcher by that time was up and on his feet again and began running, causing Midnight Blue to do the same in pursuit of him as the responding Police officers both yelled for them to stop.
Midnight Blue was quickly upon the purse snatcher and once again went for the tackle. They both fell to the sidewalk and when they returned to their feet, they began fighting.
The purse snatcher hit him a few times, once first in the forehead, and then on the chin and chest. Midnight Blue was a bit shaken, but he charged at the assailant and pinned him against the wall just outside of a store on a downtown strip.
By that time the Police had caught up with them and had restrained Midnight Blue, the purse snatcher yelling as he backed away from the other Police officer.
"That guy tried to steal that girl's purse! He would have gotten away with it if I hadn't stopped him!" the purse snatcher yelled, backing away from the advancing Police officer, as the other Police officer pinned Midnight Blue.
"You got him partner?" yelled Farnham to his patrol partner.
"I sure do. This one's bagged and tagged," his partner replied as Midnight Blue struggled against the handcuffs.
"He's lying!" Midnight Blue pleaded with the Police officer, who pinned him to the wall.
"If you're the hero, then you've got nothing to run from. Stick around, we'll sort this out, and one of you will answer for your crime," Farnham said to the purse snatcher, who looked ready to give flight a third chance.
"I didn't do it! It was him!" the purse snatcher then turned and tried to flee, instead slamming into a much bigger and heavier man that had been approaching from behind him.
The purse snatcher bounced off of this man, and fell to the sidewalk where Farnham began handcuffing him.
"Are you hurt?" asked Farnham of the man the purse snatcher had bounced off of.
"By him? Not a chance," the big man responded, continuing on his way down the sidewalk as the three women and Midnight Blue's two friends arrived.
"Alright. Who's purse is this?" asked Farnham as his partner lined up both men outside of the Police cruiser.
"Its mine officer. That guy's the purse thief, and that gentleman there, he's the one who stopped him," the owner of the purse identified herself.
"What's in your purse?" asked Farnham.
"There's a pack of Tyler's Mints. Some Mabelline Lipstick. A powder kit. My wallet and ID..." she responded.
After Farnham had confirmed her identity, he returned her purse to her.
"Now. What exactly happened here? You first Miss," asked Farnham of the group.
"My friends and I were walking, and these two guys complimented us and we began talking, while their third friend there kept his distance. My guess is that he has a girl on his mind?" she began explaining.
Midnight Blue, still in handcuffs blushed when she'd read him so easily.
"This other fellow was running and grabbed my purse and kept going, while as I said, the gentleman immediately chased after him and tackled him before you showed up. They got to their feet again and he tried running again. I think you guys caught the rest of it from there..." she explained to Farnham, who nodded as she spoke, jotting it down in his notebook.
"Do you want to come clean about this now? It'll save you a lot of trouble, believe me. You'll probably do a month in jail and six probation if you settle this now. If not, we'll do it in court, and I'll write you off as a dangerous offender so that you're kept in custody for six months until your trial hearing and court case, after which if you're found guilty, and given the fact that there's five material witnesses and two Police officers' accounts, you will be, you'll do another six months in jail and two years probabation. So what's it going to be?" asked Farnham of the purse snatcher.
"He...! And then I...!" the purse snatcher caught sight of the lady from whom he'd tried to take her purse.
She was shorter than him by a few inches, and weighed much less given their difference in height and her trim body, though it wasn't his conscience in the end that made up his mind. It was Farnham's deal.
"I did it. I took her purse," he said to them, looking down.
"I didn't hear you. Look at me and tell me the truth," Farnham urged the man to lift his chin and face him.
"I said I took her purse. I'm guilty. Alright?" he said to Farnham.
"Did you get that partner?" asked Farnham.
"Clear as day," Farnham's partner responded.
"Do me a favour, and take the cuffs off of that fine example of a good Toronto citizen, will you?" Farnham ordered his partner.
"Already done," his partner smiled.
"Now read this one his rights, and I'll deal with our material witnesses here," Farnham ordered his partner.
...
Farnham had collected their information for the report, as the Police were still required to press charges even if they didn't, and after they were done, Farnham stepped over to Midnight Blue and had a word with him.
"So. Tell me. Are you a working boy?" asked Farnham.
"As hard as any Newfoundlander away from his home turf. Fresh out of school. Graduated. Good grades in art, machine shop, electrical and phys-ed, but not much else. I make money doing odd jobs for my Uncle's service repair business. Picking up parts and delivering fixed industrial motors mostly. Just got my license," Midnight Blue responded to Farnham.
"Are you interested in something that might lead to a career?" Farnham asked him.
"Officer, at this point, I'd take any fulltime gig I could get, if it would lead to a future. I've got someone else on my mind you know," Midnight Blue responded.
"So says the lady whose purse you rescued. I figured as much. Look. I truly believe that no bad deed should go unpunished, or at the very least - go unatoned for. Its my job. But I also believe that no good deed should go unrewarded. So I'm going to pass you the puck, but you're going to have to get it in front of the net and score, if you know where I'm going with that," Farnham handed him two business cards.
The first was Farnham's own card from the Police service.
The second card however was not.
Midnight Blue immediately read it:
Midnight Hour Security
Fred Bantle
Human Resources
1-800-MIDNIGHTHOUR
"They're hiring, and they could use a good man like you. I'll recommend you personally and act as your reference if you'd like. Now go get 'em, and be sure to enjoy the rest of your night. You bought and paid for it for all of your friends here," Farnham shook his hand firmly.
And that was the moment that had started Midnight Blue's career.
Three years later, and he was seated on the floor in his own cottage one cosy evening in front of the fireplace. A bottle of wine and two full glasses. The only thing missing was the girl.
She stepped out of the bedroom, a fleece blanket covering her body as she stood before him, a simultaneously innocent and devious smile adorned her face.
He looked up to admire her completely in the half-light as she gently dropped the blanket.
Her naked body glistened against the glow of the fireplace, perhaps a goddess in another age, and she knelt beside him as they began to kiss tenderly, the warmth caressing their bodies.
And then it was gone. All of it. All of that memory of her, the fireplace, the cushions, the wine, the love making. It was gone.
The headache had by that time stopped, and he'd struggled to his feet, knowing only that he'd lost something, but not recalling what. He remembered her, and knew that what he'd lost was about her, but he had no idea or recollection of that memory, and if he had, then Mentis and his collective would have denied its belonging to him at all, for they were altering history as much so as they were attempting to alter the future.
Midnight Blue stood and went over to the wall, and retrieved several tools and contraptions from a rack and put them on the passenger seat of his car. He then threw on his favourite jacket, making sure he had his mask with him, and got in the driver's seat and started his 1977 Mustang.
Using the remote, he opened the garage door and sped out into the late afternoon traffic, for he had one more job to do before the clock struck three.
Much more writing and artwork to come...
To be continued...
I am Brian Joseph Johns and this is Shhhh! Digital Media at https://www.shhhhdigital.com or https://www.shhhhdigital.ca in Toronto, Ontario, Canada at 200 Sherbourne Street Suite 701.
Credits and attribution:
Car driving maniac character (nicknamed Midnight Blue) concept and design originally by Darrell Haines. His initial concept art of thirty-five years ago, visually wrote most of the enigmatic character that drives the plot of this story.
Further, this story is inspired by the music of our generation, the likes of Billy Idol (and GenX), Simple Minds, The Sugarcubes (all of whom I've seen live in concert) and many other artists and all of their most esoteric material. Especially when you listen to their incredible song writing and production work, all of this occurring back in the 1980s.
The kind of stuff that drove that crazy guy behind the wheel of a '77 Mustang to break the chains of his mortal coil.
My AI artwork pipeline is drawn from traditional style artwork and rendering I and the other artists credited here created as far back as a decade and a half ago. It is built upon a mountain of artwork and designs initially created to give flesh to the characters and places in Butterfly Dragon and Tales Of The Sanctum. Even the AI derived artwork and videos take considerable planning, and are derived from our pre-existing library of still and 3d rendered artistic assets, made possible by Daz3D, Lightwave3D, Unreal Engine, Blender, Corel Painter and of course Adobe Photoshop.
Extra Special thank you to Adobe, especially their award legendary image editing and compositing application Photoshop,who make much of the artwork on Shhhh! Digital Media possible.
Extra Special thank you to Corelfor their Painterapplication, which is a great companion tool when combined with the power of Adobe Photoshop.
Gratitude: Our Mentors, Senseis, Sifus, Sebomnims, lifetime inspirations, family, friends, the Nomads (ask Stanton about that one), the Music, the Movies, the Theatre, the Arts, ASMR, (both YouTube and Bilibili and the many other creators on those platforms), the Gaming and Developer communities and of course, the audience.
Martial Arts (in the words of real experts and at least one comedian):https://brucelee.com (home of the real Dragon and an entire family of inspirations), http://iwco.online International Wing Chun Organization (International presence of a very scalable intensity martial art, protected and developed by Shaolin Nun Ng Mui) and the alma mater of Jinn Hua's own specialized variation thereof, https://iogkf.com International Okinawan Goju-Ryu Karatedo Federation (even Hanshi had his teachers), https://itftkd.sport International Taekwondo Federation (Here there be Taegers), https://tangsoodoworld.com Tang Soo Do World (the path of Grandmaster Chuck Norris), https://www.aikido-international.org International Aikido Federation (how else would Navy Chef Steven Seagal liberate a Nimitz Class Aircraft Carrier from a team of hijackers?), https://www.stqitoronto.com Shaolin Temple Quanfa Institute (The City Of Toronto's own Shaolin Temple), https://www.enterthedojoshow.com Master Ken's Ameri-Te-Do presence (If we can't laugh at ourselves, then we can at least laugh the loudest at others, and other Zen)
Something to give you perspective: The very first teacher had no formal education, didn't graduate and was self taught, but only because they had no other choice. We do.
This content is entirely produced in Toronto, Ontario, Canada at 200 Sherbourne Street Suite 701 under the Shhhh! Digital Media banner.
