#Five Fastest Deliveries

[red-archivist]

TMAGP 23 SPOILERS!

i heard those lines and was immediately inspired to make something sad lol

~

Twenty years ago, Jonathan Sims quits smoking.

Twenty years ago, Martin Blackwood’s mother survives her second stroke.

Twenty years ago, Jonathan Sims quits smoking.

It’s not enough to just stop, the shakes and the headaches nip at him constantly, and he reluctantly concludes that bad habits need to replaced by better ones.

That’s where the cycling comes in, to start with.

It’s exercise, it’s eco-friendly, and he can pretend he is literally leaving his cravings behind him as he pushes hard on the pedals.

He does his homework first, researching what is the best option for city cycling, for his budget, for someone that hasn’t ridden a bike since they were nine.

He plots out his paths to the office, the shops, and the nearest puncture repair centre, just in case. He even makes a spreadsheet to keep track of them.

He is sure Tim would poke fun at him for it, if they were still talking, but the organisation keeps his twitching fingers busy and his roaming mind away from the half-finished box of cigarettes in his desk drawer that he promises he will throw away any day now.

What all that planning fails to account for, as soon as he actually gets onto the road, is the rest of the world moving around him.

Every stereotype he has heard about antagonistic drivers is proven ten-fold as he dodges swerving cars and gets sworn at for whizzing past stalled traffic. He soon learns to sneer through tinted windows.

Pedestrians are almost worse. They seem blind to him, stepping out directly in front of his wheels and making him wobble as he overcorrects. As if a bike can’t still do some damage if he were to actually hit someone. Once, he clips the edge of a pram and stops in the street to shout some sense into the careless father pushing it.

He bitches openly about this during his lunches and his coworkers only roll their eyes at him sometimes.

The cycling becomes a bit of running joke in the office when they spot him coming in with his bike shorts and change of outfit, but he ignores them. The shorts are practical. For some reason, telling them that only makes them laugh harder.

He takes the fastest route into the office and a scenic one home. It winds through quiet well-off estates, before opening out to one of the less well-known urban parks. It’s calming, almost meditative, to roll through the cool shade the cluttered trees offer after another meaningless day of data entry.

In those times, he doesn’t think of his empty flat or his dead-end job, he forgets his sniggering coworkers and his ever-dwindling contact list. It’s just him and the wind.

The only thing that could make those moments better, he admits to himself, is a smoke.

The problem with this particular path is how hard it is to see around corners in the park. There is some national re-wilding initiative in the works and the foliage looms over the roads in a way that block his line of sight.

He checks every turn, even though it is rare to encounter a car in this area. Better safe than sorry.

The night he dies is warm but overcast.

He follows his usual route and cranes his neck to see around the overgrown corner he is approaching. A drooping branch grazes his head and something falls from the tree onto his neck.

It could be a leaf, or a twig, or a ladybird, but Jon feels the whisper-touch of something small at his throat and his only thought is: spider.

He has been afraid of them since he was very young and terrified instinct immediately beats any reason. One hand flies up from the handlebars to bat away at his collar. He swerves. Fear makes him pedal faster and the bike speeds onto the junction.

He is so scared of the potential at his throat that he never even sees the delivery truck.

The bike is sent flying from the impact, Jon falls under the wheels.

The driver, to his credit, calls emergency services immediately, distraught.

The ambulance is there within five minutes, but they needn’t have bothered. Jon is declared dead at the scene with a broken neck.

What few friends he has left comfort each other with that fact.

At least it was quick.

~

Twenty years ago, Martin Blackwood’s mother survives her second stroke.

This is a good thing, Martin reminds himself, more than once. It is Good that his mother is alive.

It doesn’t matter that the nurses need to attend to her around-the-clock now. It doesn’t matter that the care home bills have skyrocketed. He is grateful that she is still with him.

He starts looking for a third job. The admin work during the day and the shelf-stocking at night barely covered his previous bills. He’ll have to look for some flexible positions to cram into his schedule.

In the meantime, he cuts back. Eats cheaply, eats less. Cancels overdue check-ups and doesn’t touch the heating.

His days are a current of constant worry, occasionally breached by a wave of panic that he tries to quell by hiding in the office bathroom and digging his nails into his legs.

Panic won’t pay the rent or keep the lights on or remember to call Mum every Sunday. He smothers it deep in his chest and ignores the spasm of pain he gets whenever he forces it down.

He has been getting those more often; sharp, sudden chest pains, numb fingers, dizzy spells, an aching back, shortness of breath.

He had been going to ask the doctor about it all before he cancelled the appointment but. Well. Needs must.

He has his first heart attack on the evening shift.

Pulling a box of washing up tablets from the top shelf in Aisle 4 causes such a rush of agony in his chest that he dares to ask the manager to take his 15-minute break early.

He doesn’t make it to the back room before he collapses.

In the hospital, after he wakes, the doctors ask if there is a family history of heart problems.

If he didn’t feel so weak he would laugh.

He has more in common with his mother then he likes to admit. Of course they share a bad heart.

Or maybe it came from his father. Mum always said he was heartless. Maybe there’s a hole where Dad’s DNA should be.

When the medical team leaves him to rest, all he can think is how much this will cost him.

The NHS is no charity no matter what their marketing says, not to mention how much money he will lose by recovering. He can’t afford six weeks of not working. His first job doesn’t have that much sick leave and his second doesn’t have any.

He runs the numbers in his head, tries to find what else he can hack out of his life to keep his head above water. Occasionally his thoughts swerve, self-recriminating and barbed. He is so stupid for letting this happen at all.

It’s all his fault.

Mum is going to be so angry with him.

His heart pulses in keen pain, bitter and broken.

Somehow, he drifts off, counting figures instead of sheep.

The second heart attack kills him in his sleep.

~

They die on the same day, at nearly the same time (Jon rushes ahead, always too eager, Martin follows inevitably after him).

Their death certificates are filed away alphabetically by a bored clerk in the dusty management system of the General Register Office.

Twenty years later, Samama Khalid exhumes them and examines them, with more curiosity than sense, only to be disappointed by the mundanity of their ends.

He returns them together, heedless of any organisation.

Jon and Martin meet, in the quiet and the dark.

The filing cabinet is a shared headstone, their names rest side-by-side.

~

Also on AO3

[shinonart]

I have some unused shipping codes that will expire on August the 8th so I am offering FREE TRACKED shipping within Finland until AUG 8TH or until I run out of codes.

IMPORTANT INFO

I currently have only five codes so the fastest five people who

order ANYTHING from my shop

use the code ADDTELNRO at checkout

include their phone number in the message section

will get free shipping.

Please note that while Etsy doesn’t ask for the telephone number it is MANDATORY to include it, otherwise I won’t be able to use the shipping codes and you won’t be able to get tracking. I won’t mail out any orders that use the code but don’t include the number.

The telephone number is for the delivery company' use only as they will contact you when your order is ready to be picked up from a nearby delivery point.

I will message people who don’t include their numbers and if I don’t receive a response and I have other people in line for the codes I will use the shipping code on the next order in line until codes run out.

Just as a heads up, I will be traveling from AUG 23rd to 27th so my mailing days will be different than usual. I will still aim to mail out orders once a week!

If you have any questions regarding my shop please send me a message on Etsy, I’m more likely to notice it there.

[deariemaybank]

Concealed Hearts

Summary: Angela goes back to the outerbanks after many years to visit family but this time she actually plans on making her holiday worth it.

Pairing: JJ Maybank x oc

Warnings: slight mention of abuse, violence, swearing (I think that’s it)

Chapter 6: The Outdoor Cinema

Ange’s POV:

After we tested if the drone or as Pope calls it the RVO worked at the pier, I headed back home agreeing to meet up with my friends later on or possibly the next day depending on when I would get free, as JJ and Pope were out doing deliveries to the kook side of the island and John B and Kie were off doing whatever they needed to do for most of the day, I needed to try and get some school work done as I know my parents won’t be too happy if I completely ignored my school work. They never expect amazing grades but they just want Bella and I to try and pass our school years as best as we can. I sat down in my aunty’s study and flipped open my textbooks and notebooks; I went to check the time thinking only a short of time had passed when in actuality it was nearly time for dinner.

I knew the pogues were meeting up at the beach at the end of the day for a surf and decided to take a small break from study before dinner and go meet up with them for a little. As I approached the beach, I noticed they were already on the waves and my eyes found JJ first, riding a pretty big wave by my account, I was mesmerised by him, god how can someone be so gorgeous?! I don’t know how to surf and jumping in the water today was not an option for me.

I found myself a spot on the sand (with the perfect view of JJ surfing), put my towel down and opened my new book to pass a little time while the rest of my friends finished their surf. “Why is your nose always in a book, Angel?” I jumped a little bit not expecting the interruption and turned to see JJ sitting next to me dripping with water from the ocean, realising I didn’t even hear him approach me. “You know, you need to actually alert people of your presence by saying something along the lines of hello or hi, JJ.” I responded to him closing my book before it gets wet. JJ smirked. “That doesn’t answer my question, Angel. Personally I think your eyes should have been on the waves, you might have spotted a good looking guy trying to show you his skills.” JJ hints at me. I knew what he meant but I’m not going to fold that easily.

“Oh yes, I think I did see him but his skills seemed pretty average to me, I’ve seen better.” I tease him a little, JJ eyes were shocked and I was holding back laughter then his eyes held a mischievous glint, he leaned into my ear and whispered “Oh darling, you haven’t even seen my skills yet.” And fucking winked at me, he had me now and he knew it, I blushed bright red and hid my face in my chest with my knees up, JJ started laughing and pulled me into a side hug. “How did you go with your study?” He asked me, I silently thanked him for changing the topic. “Good, I actually lost track of time and then when I checked, I noticed I had a small amount of time before dinner so I came here as I needed a break but I have to go back soon.” I answered JJ. We sat in silence for a little bit with his arm still around me, at this point I think is considered a type of cuddling but by the grip he has on me I don’t think he plans on letting me go anytime soon.

“So, do you have time to come to John b’s after this?” JJ asked softly, I knew I shouldn’t but the temptation was there as I knew I was leaving soon and I wouldn’t get chances to do these kind of things for a while. I checked my phone for the time as my parents gave me a time of 7pm for dinner and it was already 6:00pm and I’m not the fastest walker around so it will take me about twenty five minutes to get home from the beach, John b’s is an extra ten minutes and it will be dark soon as well so probably not the best idea to walk home by myself. “I promised mum and dad, I’d be home for 7 for dinner so I’m going to have to say not today J, I won’t make it to John B’s then back home in time.” I answered JJ honestly, “I promise, I will take you back on my bike, if you come for a little.” JJ pleaded with me, he was giving me puppy dog eyes like he did the other day at the wreck, I avoided making eye contact with him as I knew as soon as I would, I would give into him, “Just for a little bit.” JJ whispers, trying to convince me even more, I made the mistake of looking at his gorgeous face and beautiful blue eyes. “Fine you win but we leave right now as I have to be home on time before my dad goes into panic mode if I’m late because we still have no phone service.” I conceded defeat again and JJ’s smile is the biggest it could possibly be.

JJ and I were sitting in the hammock while Pope, John B and Kie were sitting in the chairs. “Do you think it (the gold) is really out there? Like no bullshit” Pope asks the group, “My father thought it was.” John b replies “But do you?” Pope asks John B. “After hearing his voice on that tape, I think I do.” John b replies. “Only one way to find out.” I pipe in. “Look, we’re going to find it, you know? Even JJ believes.” Kie speaks up. I look at my phone and notice it was 6:40pm, I need to get home. “J” I call his name, trying to get his attention but was totally ignored “Totally, wait, are we talking about four mil?” He responds to Kie “Four hundred mil” they all say at the same time. “Here’s to going full kook” JJ says. I called JJ’s name 4 times before he hears me on the fifth because I’m basically yelling “can you take me home now?” I ask with as little annoyance as I can mask at him not responding to me calling his name multiple times.

JJ turns back around to see me slightly glaring back at him “Why don’t you just stay, cupcake?” JJ asks me looking at me with soft eyes, yeah nice try buddy but that nickname won’t change anything this time. I’m standing my ground. “No, JJ. I can’t. I already told you, I need to be home in time and you promised that you would take me back but if you can’t keep up your part of the deal then I will have to walk back.” I respond, starting to get mad. “You are such a nerdy, goody two shoes, you don’t smoke and don’t drink much, break the rules for once.” JJ responds, my heart cracks, I definitely didn’t expect that but I should have known this would have happened at some point with him, he is the bad boy and I’m the good girl, it’s not going to work. He needs someone different, I think it would be best if I just went home on my own because I can already feel the tears starting to form, god why am I so easily attached to people? I got up so quickly that the hammock started swinging like crazy. “Okay guys, I’m off. Bye.” I started walking not waiting for anyone to say anything or stop me.

JJ’s POV:

The hammock was still rocking fast as I tried to get up to chase after Ange. Shit, why did I say that? I just wanted her to stay, I wanted to wake up and have her here in the morning so I didn’t have to wait for her tomorrow, I was hoping she would just stay but I forgot she has good parents who she respects and they respect her so she likes to stick to her word. I know because she told me this when we started hanging out more often and she gave me a small reminder earlier as well, the hammock finally gets to the point where I can get off without falling to the ground and I go to chase her but she is gone. “Fuck!” I exhale, I could chase her but I don’t know which way she took back and I won’t know she got home safely until I see her tomorrow, wait, am I seeing her tomorrow? She didn’t even say see you tomorrow like she always does, she just said bye. Damn it.

“JJ, are you okay?” Kie asks me, standing on the porch, drink in hand. She missed the whole thing, I shake my head. “No Kie, I fucked up with Ange.” I reply , going on to explain “I promised her if she came to John B’s for a little, I would take her home and I knew that was pushing her out a bit but she agreed because I begged and then I just wanted to her to stay, I didn’t want to take her home and drop her off because I didn’t want to be without her but instead I called her a nerd and a goody two shoes, she got mad and took off which is understandable but I know I messed up now and I want to find her but I don’t know which way she took.” I tell Kie with all honesty.

“It’s dark, JJ. She would have taken the way with the most streetlights, so probably through the beach and I think you can catch up with her, she only left about ten minutes ago.” Kie tells me. I don’t answer, I ran to my bike and headed towards the beach, I have to find her. She can be mad at me all she wants but I need to know she gets home safe. I start panicking when I notice I’m struggling to find her, then I see a shadow about fifty meters ahead of me walking in the direction towards Ange’s aunty’s house. As I get closer, I notice it’s her but she has her head down, her book from today in her arms and bag hanging from her shoulder, I pull up about fifty meters in front of her, park up my bike and hop off but wait to see if she notices me not wanting to scare her.

As Ange approaches closer she notices me and she narrows her eyes, “What are you doing here?” She asks in a tone that made me understand she doesn’t want me here. “Upholding my promise, I need you to get home safely, I’m sorry for what I said, I know right now you might not listen to me, I have no excuse for what I said but I honestly didn’t want you to leave. That’s the honest truth and I was trying to find a way to get you to stay and I went about it the wrong way. Please get on the bike so I can take you home and tomorrow we can talk about this.” I ramble all my feelings out in front of her. “It’s 7:10pm Maybank, my parents are going to be stressed and mad at me and….” She answers truthfully, not finishing the full sentence with disappointment dripping from each word. “No one is going to hurt you for being late, right?” I ask as soon as she stops talking, thinking she might be scared of the consequences of getting home late, that’s why she didn’t finish her sentence. I flinch slightly at the thought of her parents being abusive and I was ready to kill if they were.

“What, JJ? No, nobody in my family has ever laid a hand on me especially not like that and they never would.” She answers with full honesty in my eyes. “Then why are you so adamant about being home on time?” I ask her, is this what it’s like to have good parents? “First of all, my parents are really good people, I know not everyone is lucky enough to have that but I do and I treasure it. If it weren’t for the phone service being out I could have just called one of them or sent a message asking to stay and it wouldn’t be an issue because that’s how it usually works but at the moment I can’t do that until the phone lines come back on in the cut. It’s more of a respect thing as that’s how they treat me.” She answers, I open my mouth but she goes on to say “Next time, if you want me to stay, I can just ask them, I just need a way to tell my parents or even Bella so she can tell them, as long as someone knows where I am, mainly when its night. That’s the only rule my parents really enforce in our family.” She finishes. “Shit, sweetheart, I’m really sorry for what I said, I didn’t mean it.” I apologise to her again. “It’s fine, JJ but I really have to get going so I’ll see you tomorrow.” She tries to turn and leave. I walk up to her grab her hand, wait for her to face me and just tilt my head towards the bike. “I made a promise, cupcake, so get on the bike.” I tell her, I notice a few stray tear stains on her cheeks but don’t say anything for the moment, not when I have hopefully just repaired a little of the damage I did tonight, she nods her head and follows me to the bike, still letting me hold her hand and we head towards her place.

Ange’s POV:

“You gonna be okay, Angel?” JJ asks me as I hop off the bike, “Yeah, I’ll see you soon.” I promise him and turn to head towards the door where Bella is on the porch, mum and dad must be inside. “Tomorrow?” He asks in a small voice before I fully turn around. I smile and nod my head walking towards the house, Bella looks up at me as she hears JJ drive off.

“Has he asked you out yet?” Bella asks as soon as I reach the porch. “No and I don’t think he ever will, I don’t think he even likes me like that after what happened tonight, it’s best nothing happens because the only person who is going to get hurt is me.” I answer Bella. “You going to tell me what happened?” Bella asks softly. “After I speak to mum and dad because I’m so late, dad is probably stressing.” I respond bracing myself for about twenty lectures from my dad about how we are in a different country and he was worried and all the other normal stuff he usually worries about when me and Bella are out.

“Don’t worry, I figured you were with the pogues so I covered for you. You had like another hour before that was going to happen so I told them that you told me before leaving that you might be late, now tell me what happened.” Bella tells me with a smile as I sigh a breath of immediate relief, I join her on the porch and fill her on what’s been going on lately especially with JJ.

“I think JJ doesn’t know himself what he is feeling right now so he is getting ready to put a wall up so when you leave, no one is hurt.” Bella suggests and she might right. “But that doesn’t explain why he keeps dropping these hints all over the place like the constant teasing, flirting and always waiting for me to say that I will see him the next day before I leave and when I don’t he chases me and asks me.” I tell Bella. “Maybe just wait these few weeks and see what happens, then before we leave we will see where we are at with this thing between you two and I will help you sort it out.” Bella promises. “That sounds good, now what’s for dinner? I’m starving.” I ask her as get up to hug and go inside to where my whole family seem to be happy talking to each other and I feel at home.

Turns out the gold wasn’t on The Royal Merchant that was at the bottom of the ocean and it was fair to say all of us were quite disappointed but we haven’t given up as of yet but I think Pope might start soon as he has a scholarship on the line. I was walking into the outdoor cinema with JJ, Kie and Pope because Kie wanted to get back to the OBX life as she calls it.

I went with Kie to get some drinks before the movie starts when we hear someone say “Hey Kie” and I looked around as my eyes landed on a man I have never seen before but clearly knows Kie and she knows him, this guy approaches us and starts asking Kie how she is, “who is your new friend?” Random guy asks, “I’m fine.” She answers his previous question but not the one clearly about me, I stay silent as my gut tells me we don’t like this guy. Kie looks tense “tell your boy we know what he did.” This guy tells her “Sorry, what boy are you talking about?” Kie asks mr no name here. “Uh, he’ll know.” The guy replies, Kie reached out for my hand and we walk back towards the boys.

“Who was that?” I ask, wanting to put a name to his face. “That’s Rafe Cameron, kook princesses brother.” Kie explains in simple terms, now that makes sense why Kie was so tense but I wonder what he is on about with the I know what your boy did, I hope he doesn’t mean JJ.

Kie tells the boys what Rafe said as I look at JJ tapping his palm for me to sit in the spot next to him but his movements holt when Kie mentions Rafe. “Where is he?” JJ asks as they look for Rafe, I decide to sit next to Kie for now as I still don’t know what’s going on with JJ and I. “Everything fine.” JJ reassures Kie and Pope but I can sense he is on edge now, I wonder what happened.

Kie isn’t content with JJ’s answer so Pope turns to us and says “It might go down tonight.” Okay now I’m really fucking confused. “What’s that meant to mean?” I finally speak up sick of the boys talking in code and Kie and I have no clue what’s going on, especially me because I don’t even know who this guy really is.

“What did you all do?” Kie pipes in, Pope looks at JJ before answering us, right something definitely happened here. “JJ?” I ask the silent question and he looks at me begging me not to make him answer so I turn around and drop it, deciding to ignore him for the rest of the night and sit with Kie to watch the movie instead of him, he tried calling me again but I ignored him. I don’t do secrets, I hate them and they ruin everything so if he doesn’t want to tell me then that’s on him but I’m not happy with it and he knows it.

JJ and Pope suddenly get up and I ask for me and Kie “Where are you going?” “Gotta wring it out, princess.” He winks at me “Together, what are you going to do? Hold it for each other?” Kie replies back, the boys don’t answer and walk off. “They have been gone too long, right?” I ask Kie when the boys don’t come back within a few minutes and she agrees. “Come on let’s go find them and I’m warning you, you might not like what you see.” Kie tells me

We found the boys getting beaten by Rafe and some other blokes, Kie jumps in to defend the Pope while I try and find a way to help JJ, I jump on the back of one of the boys as the struggle to push me off due to my little extra weight, good day to be a midsize girly I guess. Eventually I get thrown off although I did leave some good marks from my nails, I notice the screen is on fire and Rafe and his friends start to run off.

One boy wasn’t letting go of JJ, I walked up to the pair “Let go of him.” He turns to me and looks at me, I’ve been known to scare some people off sometimes, mainly creeps after my sister and best friend with just my looks. “Kelce, let’s go.” Someone says as he drops JJ and runs for his life. I run to JJ “You okay?” I ask him as he stands up straight and pulls me into a hug. “I’m sorry you had to see that Angel.” JJ says to me “Although that was the hottest thing I’ve seen from you, jumping in to help me and wow can you give some scary looks.” He laughs as he takes my face in his hands and I think he is going to kiss me but then I look at his swollen face and busted lip. “Let’s go home and clean you up.” I say to JJ but before we turn around fully I give him a quick kiss on the cheek, he grabs my hand with a smile and kisses the back of it before guiding me to follow Kie and Pope so we can go home.

A/N: thank you to all who take the time to read this story it means a lot to me, sorry that I take so long between chapters but I hope you are enjoying it so far. See you in the next chapter!!

[motorspexx]

The 2025 Bentley Bentayga Speed is the most powerful and high-performance version of Bentley’s luxury SUV lineup.

It is powered by a 4.0-liter twin-turbocharged V8 engine, producing 650 PS and 850 Newton-meters of torque.

This engine delivers a 0 to 100 kilometers per hour acceleration in just 3.4 seconds,with a top speed reaching 310 kilometers per hour, making it the fastest version of the Bentayga to date.

The engine is paired with an 8-speed automatic transmission and an all-wheel-drive system that ensures optimal traction in all driving conditions. This drivetrain configuration allows for smooth power delivery and high-performance capability on both highway and winding roads.

The chassis has been tuned specifically for the Speed variant, featuring a recalibrated SPORT mode with a 15 percent increase in stiffness compared to the standard Bentayga V8.

Full Launch Control is also integrated, providing maximum acceleration from a standstill.

The braking system is upgraded with optional carbon ceramic brakes, delivering a maximum braking torque of 6000 Newton-meters. These are paired with ventilated disc brakes on all four wheels.

The exterior design includes several performance-focused elements. 23-inch wheels come standard, and the Speed model features dark-tint brightware, dark-tint headlamp internals, grey tail lamps with dark-tint bezels, elliptical sports exhaust outlets, and Speed badging on the lower front doors.

Inside the cabin, the Bentayga Speed features a Precision Diamond quilt pattern, combined with dark-tint air vents and an exclusive color split unique to the Speed variant. Materials include high-quality leather and Alcantara trim for both luxury and sporting intent.

Passenger comfort is preserved with seating for up to five, along with advanced climate control, optional rear seat entertainment, and configurable ambient lighting.

The 2025 Bentayga Speed has a kerb weight of 2,508 kilograms, with overall dimensions of 5,144 millimeters in length, 2,010 millimeters in width, and 1,728 millimeters in height.

Cargo capacity is rated at 484 liters.

With increased power, refined handling, and high-end equipment, the 2025 Bentayga Speed stands at the top of Bentley’s SUV range.

Bentley Bentayga Speed 2025 - Technical Specifications

Engine 4.0 liter twin turbocharged V8 petrol Power output 650 PS Torque 850 Newton meters

Transmission 8 speed automatic Drivetrain All wheel drive

0 to 100 km h acceleration 3.4 seconds Top speed 310 kilometers per hour

Fuel tank capacity 85 liters

Kerb weight 2508 kilograms Braking system Optional carbon ceramic brakes with ventilated discs front and rear

Maximum braking torque 6000 Newton meters

Wheels 22 inch or optional 23 inch alloy Tires 295 40 R22

Suspension Adaptive air suspension Chassis tuning 15 percent stiffer in SPORT mode compared to standard V8

Driving modes Sport Comfort Custom and Dynamic ESC with Launch Control

Exhaust system Standard sports exhaust with elliptical outlets optional Titanium Akrapovic exhaust

Exterior features Dark tint brightware dark tint headlamps grey tail lamps Speed badging

Interior features Precision Diamond quilting exclusive Speed color split dark tint air vents leather and Alcantara trim Infotainment High resolution touchscreen Apple CarPlay Android Auto rear seat entertainment available

Driver assistance Adaptive cruise control lane change assist 360 degree parking camera traffic assist

Passenger capacity Five Cargo capacity 484 liters

Dimensions Length 5144 millimeters Width 2010 millimeters Height 1728 millimeters Emissions standard Euro 6 compliant

[cantsayidont]

SUPACELL (2024– ): Interesting but uneven Black British superhero drama, created by Rapman, about five seemingly unrelated South Londoners — delivery driver Michael (Tosin Cole), nurse Sabrina (Nadine Mills), ex-con Andre (Eric Kofi Abrefa), pot dealer Rodney (Calvin Demba), and gang leader Tazer (Josh Tedeku) — who discover that they have superhuman powers. Michael sets out to find the others after getting a glimpse of the near future in which he learns that his fiancée Dionne (Adelayo Adedayo) will soon be killed. However, Andre is more concerned with reconnecting with his teenage son (Ky-Mani Carty) and finding a job, Sabrina is desperately trying to keep hers while also trying to keep her sister Sharleen (Rayxia Ojo) out of trouble, Rodney is using his super-speed powers to run London's fastest weed delivery service, and Tazer is enmeshed in an escalating gang war against his former mentor Krazy (Ghetts).

The cast is great (Abrefa, Tedeku, Ghetts, and Ojo are especially good), the characters are engaging, the dialogue and setting are convincing, and there are some clever touches (including the eventual explanation of the title in Ep. 6). However, while watching the ways the characters' emerging powers impact their lives is engrossing, the actual superhero plot (which has distinct echoes of the late and unlamented HEROES) feels a bit stale, the characters' powers are not always clearly delineated, the big fight scenes are sometimes blah, and there are some hokey touches (like over-use of the glowing eyes effect seen on the poster image above).

More concerningly, SUPACELL's attitude toward and treatment of Black women is frequently troubling. The very talented Adedayo is wasted — I hated the way the narrative treated Dionne, which at points had me tempted to nope out — and most of the show's Black female characters consistently get very rough treatment with noticeably less sympathy than the men, which cast a gloomy pall over an otherwise compelling series.

CONTAINS LESBIANS? Not that I noticed, and given the show's attitude toward women, I fear any wlw would meet bad ends in short order. VERDICT: Given how relentlessly most nerd media marginalizes and mistreats Black characters and cast, it's great to see Black characters centered in a story like this, but while much of SUPACELL is really quite good, the misogyny left a bad taste.

[mariacallous]

Jay Graber, the C.E.O. of the upstart social-media platform Bluesky, arrived in San Francisco the Sunday after Donald Trump’s reëlection and holed up in a hotel room. She’d spent the previous days road-tripping down the West Coast from her home, in Seattle, stopping at beaches and redwood groves along the way, and in San Francisco she’d hoped to remain half in vacation mode. But now Bluesky was seeing a surge in new users, and it was looking as if she’d need all hands on deck. “There was momentum,” Graber recalled recently, adding, “It was just picking up day by day.”

Since launching, in early 2023, Bluesky had positioned itself as a refuge from X, the site formerly known as Twitter. For nearly two decades, Twitter had been considered the internet’s town square, chaotic and often rancorous but informative and diversely discursive. Then, after the tech billionaire turned Trump backer Elon Musk acquired the platform, in October of 2022, it devolved into a circus of right-wing conspiracy theories. Liberals began fleeing, and Bluesky in turn accumulated more than ten million users by the fall of 2024, making it one of the fastest-growing social networks. But the post-election influx proved to be of a different order, turning Bluesky into what one tech blogger compared to a Macy’s at the start of Black Friday sales.

Graber put in sixteen-hour days overseeing Bluesky’s twenty-person staff, taking calls with prospective investors, and recruiting new hires, leaving her hotel room only to pick up DoorDash deliveries in the lobby. In Seattle, Bluesky’s chief technology officer set up an automatic “failover” so that if one of the company’s servers crashed another would take its place. A team of engineers took shifts to insure that someone was on duty at all hours, battling to keep the overwhelmed servers online—“like firefighting,” as one put it. On November 14th—two days after Trump announced the creation of the Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency—Bluesky staffers stayed late, in a virtual “situation room,” to watch the day’s sign-up ticker hit a million. In a matter of two weeks, Bluesky’s population doubled. Today, it has a user base of more than thirty million.

Disaffected X users gravitate to Bluesky as a throwback to a gentler, saner social-media experience. Being on the site feels like a mixture of Twitter in 2012, when it was a haven for internet nerdery, and in 2017, when it was a seedbed of anti-Trump #Resistance. The Bluesky interface reassuringly resembles Twitter’s, down to the winged blue logo (a butterfly instead of a bird) and the character limit on posts (three hundred rather than early Twitter’s hundred and forty). The platform is theoretically open to all, but some MAGA trolls have reported that their accounts have been blocked. Discourse is solidly left-leaning, and disagreements tend to be internecine. The most followed account belongs to Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. As if to consummate Bluesky as a successor to the liberal Twitter of yore, Barack Obama recently joined and, in his first post, celebrated the fifteenth anniversary of the Affordable Care Act.

The platform is not yet populated enough to qualify as the internet’s new town square. Even after the Musk-induced exodus, X reports that it has more than five hundred million active users per month; Threads, Meta’s self-fashioned Twitter alternative, has around three hundred million. Yet Bluesky wields outsized influence in the social-media landscape because of the innovative infrastructure on which it’s built. All the giant social networks are what’s known as centralized platforms: most aspects of user experience, from content moderation to algorithmic recommendations, are dictated by the corporation that runs the platform. Bluesky, by contrast, originated as a radical side project within Twitter under its co-founder and former C.E.O., Jack Dorsey, to create a decentralized social-media model. Where X or Facebook runs primarily on proprietary technology, Bluesky is powered by an open-source protocol, a sort of instruction manual and set of data standards that allows anyone to build compatible software on top of it. As a result, users can customize the algorithms and content-moderation rules that govern what appears in their feeds—and, if they don’t like Bluesky, they can take their followers and their archive of posts and build or join another site running on the same protocol. The power that typically lies with corporations is thus redistributed to the users themselves.

With its post-election boom, Bluesky has become by far the largest decentralized social network and Graber (who, citing privacy concerns, gives her age as “around thirty-three”) the most high-profile female head of a social network in an industry known for eccentrically megalomaniacal men. With Trump and Musk in power, Silicon Valley leaders have taken a rightward turn. At Meta, Mark Zuckerberg has cut back on fact checking, abandoned D.E.I. efforts, and said that the corporate world needs more “masculine energy.” Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, who owns the Washington Post, has ordered that the paper’s opinion pages publish only pieces that support “personal liberties and free markets.” Graber, who defines her politics as “anti-authoritarian,” sees Bluesky as a corrective to prevailing social media that subjects users to the whims of billionaires. “Elon, if he wanted to, could just delete the whole X time line—just do these totally arbitrary things,” she said, adding, “I think this self-styled tech-monarch thing is worth questioning. Do we want to live in that world?”

The Seattle area, home to Microsoft’s and Amazon’s headquarters, is perhaps the most significant American tech hub outside the Bay Area. You can’t throw a Starbucks venti there without hitting a software engineer. But Graber told me that she chose the city in part for its separation from Silicon Valley, and for its “moody and majestic” landscape: “Some people said I moved here because I’m a moss maximalist, and they’re not wrong.”

Graber and several Seattle-based employees have desks in a co-working space with views of Puget Sound. One day in January, I met Graber there. Tall and willowy, with a halo of tight dark curls, she wore a hooded black coat from the Chinese brand JNBY which gave her high-cheekboned face a slightly witchy aspect. The workspace was bright and sparse, with motorized standing desks and scattered beanbag chairs. Graber’s station was in a pod of four cluttered with external monitors, Annie’s crackers, and spent coffee cups. Compared with most tech leaders, she has a low-key digital footprint. On her Bluesky account, one representative post features a photo of her arms cradling a hen, captioned “My favorite chicken.”

“Jay” is an adopted moniker. Bluesky was named before Graber became involved, but by coincidence her given name is Lantian—Mandarin for “blue sky.” Graber likes to say that her mother, an émigré from China, chose it to lend her daughter “boundless freedom.” Her mom, who worked as an acupuncturist, and her dad, a math teacher and a former lieutenant colonel, met at a Christian university in Oklahoma. They raised Graber, an only child, in a Baptist community in Tulsa. Growing up, Graber looked forward to Friday nights after church, when she was granted unfettered access to the family’s desktop computer. A formative internet experience was a game called Neopets, in which users raise digital creatures and connect with other players in a shared virtual village. As an adolescent, Graber kept a blog on Xanga, an early social platform, and taught herself rudimentary code so that she could customize her page with music and a zebra theme.

At the time, Graber identified less as a computer kid than as a bookworm, reading stories of scientific and mathematical discovery. “One thing that interested me was how a lot of inventions came through ordinary people trying things,” she said. “It wasn’t just the lone genius.” She read the children’s fantasy series “Redwall” and every “Robin Hood” book in the library; she grew to love such feminist sci-fi authors as Margaret Atwood and Ursula K. Le Guin, who, as Graber put it, excelled at reimagining “how society could look.” To this day, she remains an avowed fantasy devotee.

In one corner of the Bluesky office sat a pile of padded training swords. Graber belongs to a club that re-creates medieval sword-fighting tactics, and the office had recently staged a tournament. She picked up a mock shortsword and extended it expertly in one hand. I grabbed another, plus a small plastic shield, and she led me in an impromptu battle. “A lot of men just rely on brute force to get through things,” she said. “When you learn that, you can still win, with better leverage and technique.” She raised her sword and mimed slashing it down toward my exposed neck.

After high school, Graber enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania, figuring that its combination of liberal-arts, engineering, and business programs would allow her to “maximize optionality.” She chose an interdisciplinary major called Science, Technology, and Society, and as part of her senior thesis designed an online time bank through which students could swap labor—taking photos for another person, say, in exchange for cooking lessons. Graber told me, “In some ways, it was like a social network.” When she graduated, she moved to an all-female coöperative in West Philadelphia and volunteered for local tech-policy projects, which led to a job as an organizer at Free Press, a media-advocacy nonprofit. But the policy world operated “at a high level of abstraction,” she said, and she found it unsatisfying: “Being able to make change directly has always been really appealing to me.” On work trips to San Francisco, meeting with tech activists and hanging out in “hackerspaces,” she was drawn to the tech industry’s nimble immediacy.

In 2015, she enrolled in a coding boot camp in San Francisco, then landed a job at a startup that employed blockchain cryptography to track inventory for corporate clients. But she was restless there, too. According to Graber, her mother had hoped that she would become a doctor, and would tell her, contra the name Lantian, “You have too much freedom. You have to learn how to be more grounded.” In San Francisco, Graber started going by Jay. A blue jay, she reasoned, could navigate both sky and land.

A new crypto opportunity soon arose: a friend’s brother was running a bitcoin-mining operation in a defunct ammunition factory in rural Washington and needed help from someone with technical prowess and an appetite for grunt work. Graber moved to a house near the factory and, between shifts, spent hours studying code on her own. She described this to me as her “cocoon period”: “There were no distractions—no place to go, no parties, no friends.” Even in isolation, Graber displayed a future tech founder’s knack for self-invention. She wore earrings made out of salvaged memory sticks and dyed locks of her hair electric blue and purple. She began lifting weights and, for a brief time, tried an all-meat diet. “I’m pretty experimental,” she said. “I’ll try anything once.”

In mid-2016, Graber went to San Francisco to attend the first annual Decentralized Web Summit, hosted by the open-web organization Internet Archive. There she met Zooko Wilcox-O’Hearn, who was developing a cryptocurrency called Zcash. Wilcox-O’Hearn told me that Graber stood out for the contrast between her “youth and her seriousness,” and for her emotional intelligence. He hired her as a junior engineer, and she eventually rose to oversee developer operations. One early Zcash transaction became something of a legend within the blockchain community: in the memo field, the sender had encrypted a romantic message. Though people didn’t know it at the time, the note was for Graber, from a programmer paramour.

San Francisco was good for networking and dating, but Graber was spending all her money on rent. She founded her own startup, Happening, a kind of social network for event organizing, but it didn’t take off. “I was trying to figure out how to get people to use a social app,” she said. “But starting from zero was really hard.” Then, in December, 2019, she saw a tweet thread from Jack Dorsey about a decentralized social-media project he was launching—Bluesky. Graber told me that she felt a degree of so-called nominative determinism, pulled toward the project because it shared her name. “If fate doesn’t exist, then we must create it,” she said. “You can follow things that seem synchronous.”

On the internet, protocols are a bit like a city’s electrical grid—crucial to its functioning but invisible to most civilians. When you send an e-mail, you are making use of the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP). When you visit any website, you are using Hypertext Transfer Protocol (hence the letters at the beginning of every address, HTTP). Because of SMTP, your e-mail account can send messages to any other e-mail account; you don’t have to be a Gmail user to e-mail a Gmail user. Daniel Holmgren, one of Bluesky’s head engineers, likened the company’s protocol—called the Authenticated Transfer, or AT, Protocol—to an “open data lake”: whatever is in the water is public property, and any boat on the lake can dredge it up. Conventional social media, by contrast, is siloed: a Facebook account cannot follow or message a TikTok account. In recent years, Google, Meta, Amazon, and Apple have all been targets of antitrust lawsuits. Protocols are anti-monopolistic by design, allowing stakeholders to build coöperative systems that run side by side. As the founder of Internet Archive, Brewster Kahle, put it in an influential talk in 2015, decentralized technology has the power to “lock the Web open.”

What piqued Dorsey’s interest, though, was a long 2019 essay by Mike Masnick, the founder of the blog Techdirt, titled “Protocols, Not Platforms.” The piece summed up a “crisis” that social-media companies faced with content moderation: caught between complaints that they allowed the spread of hatred and disinformation and complaints that they stifled free speech, they managed to please “almost no one.” The solution, Masnick argued, was to develop social-media protocols, which would allow individuals to design filtering tools based on “their own tolerances for different types of speech.” At the time, Dorsey was facing accusations that Twitter “shadow banned” content from conservatives; he’d been questioned by Congress about the company’s content-moderation practices. If Twitter were on a protocol and the work of content moderation were decentralized, then the company’s leadership would no longer be the target of blame. (Dorsey did not respond to requests for comment.) Several decentralized social networks already existed, among them Mastodon, another Twitter-like platform, but none had broken into the mainstream. Masnick, who today is a Bluesky board member, told me that Dorsey contacted him out of the blue and said, “I’m convinced by your paper. I think we’re going to do it.”

Graber likes to compare Bluesky’s decentralized structure to a hotel. Users are “going off and exploring custom rooms that people built, and maybe there’s another hotel out back.”

Dorsey announced that Twitter would fund the development of a “decentralized standard for social media” which Twitter would eventually adopt. To kick-start the project, his team created a group chat on Matrix, another open protocol for digital communication, and invited select people who expressed interest in joining. Then Twitter’s C.T.O., Parag Agrawal, kept tabs on the group to see who would emerge as its leader. Graber joined and was struck by the rudderlessness of the conversation. New people would pop in, make a few unsupported suggestions, and then drop out. No broader vision seemed to be coalescing. She began collating papers that other group members mentioned and wrote an overview of existing open-source social-media protocols. She told me, “The way that you become a leader is you just add value—you just do things.”

In early 2021, Dorsey and Agrawal started conducting interviews with prospective Bluesky heads. Jeremie Miller, who created the pioneering open-source instant-messaging system Jabber (and later became a Bluesky board member), sat in on the interviews as a consultant. He recalled that Graber easily became his pick. The Twitter heads had preconceptions of what Bluesky should be, he told me: “She didn’t give in to those and just propose the things that they wanted to hear.” Still, the search dragged on for months. In the meantime, Graber accepted a position at Twitter itself, working on blockchain technology. Then, in the summer of 2021, during onboarding, she got a call from Agrawal, offering her the role of Bluesky C.E.O. Put off by the protracted hiring process, Graber said that she’d accept only if Bluesky could exist separately from Twitter. Negotiating independence took another few months, but the decision proved pivotal. That November, after years of pressure from an activist investment firm, Dorsey resigned as C.E.O. and was replaced by Agrawal. Then, in January, Musk began buying up Twitter stock. By that April, he’d become the largest shareholder. Encouraged by a disaffected Dorsey, he offered to buy Twitter outright, for forty-four billion dollars.

Twitter had agreed to compensate Bluesky for constructing a protocol, with twenty-five million dollars over five years. Following a brief period during which Graber paid her first contractor out of her own pocket, Twitter executives made sure that an initial twelve million dollars went through. But Graber knew that, with Twitter’s leadership in limbo, she now had to think beyond Bluesky’s original goal of hosting Twitter. She put out feelers to other companies, including Reddit, about the idea of using Bluesky’s protocol. Then, in August, 2022, noting the dread on Twitter at the possibility of Musk’s takeover, she made another crucial decision: Bluesky would build not only a protocol but a social network to run on it. Doing so would offer a proof of concept, Graber said: “But it was also important in case we’re on our own and need to lean in on Plan B.”

That October, Bluesky débuted a landing page with a sign-up box. Within days, driven by word of mouth on extant social media, it had a wait list of more than a million e-mails. The next week, Musk officially became Twitter’s owner. When Masnick heard the news, he texted Graber some friendly advice: “Work faster.” The Bluesky team reached out to Twitter to ask whether Musk would continue to fund the protocol. Dorsey, who sat on Bluesky’s board, had urged Musk to make Twitter open source, so Graber held out hope that Musk would support the project. But they soon received an e-mail from a “random dude with no Twitter e-mail address,” stating that their contract would be cancelled.

In late 2022, the writer Cory Doctorow coined the term “enshittification” to describe how social-media companies make changes that benefit them but gradually, inevitably degrade user experience. In recent years, Facebook and X have buried news by deprioritizing links to articles. Instagram and Pinterest have flooded feeds with surreally inane A.I.-generated content, making it harder to find posts of interest. Social-media users who voice dismay at such changes are accustomed to feeling as if they are petitioning uncaring gods. Bluesky staff members, by contrast, like to describe users of decentralized technology as “agentic,” a jargony way of saying that they get to choose what they see.

One January day, I met in San Francisco with Rose Wang, Bluesky’s C.O.O., and Emily Liu, its head of special projects, who spoke about the average social-media user in a way that evoked a factory-farmed chicken resisting going free range. With the advent of platforms such as Bluesky, users “don’t have to petition the mods or complain about the algorithm,” Liu said, using a shorthand for moderators. She added, “Hating the mods is an artifact of when mods had all the power.”

Wang, a longtime friend of Graber’s (and the co-founder of a line of snacks made with cricket flour), said, “Success is when users ask us to build tools so that they can go and create whatever experience they want.”

Decentralized social networks can take several forms. The most complex are peer-to-peer systems, in which each individual connects her computer directly to others using her own private server. Perhaps the most prominent example is Urbit, a blockchain-linked platform founded by the neo-reactionary programmer Curtis Yarvin, which has only around sixteen thousand accounts. A more accessible approach, employed by platforms such as Mastodon, which has some ten million registered users, is the federated model, in which some people build servers to host groups of accounts, forming a “federation” of user-hosts. (Last year, looking to break into the so-called fediverse, Meta took its first step into decentralized social media and began integrating some of Threads’ functions with the protocol that Mastodon runs.) On Bluesky, any user can host her own account on a private server or join the server of another user-host. But the vast majority of users choose a default option that lets Bluesky’s servers function as host. As a result, creating an account on Bluesky can be as easy as signing up for Facebook or X.

In the spring of 2023, Bluesky rolled out an invite-only beta version of its app. The first batches of invitations went out to just a thousand people from the wait list each week, but each new user was given invite codes to recruit others, and the population quickly diversified. Wrestlers formed an enthusiastic niche and soon attracted other sports subcultures. Brazilian Taylor Swift fans established a community. Early adopters came disproportionately from the groups most negatively affected by Musk’s right-wing makeover of X—sex workers, trans people, people of color. X users in the media and progressive politics traded invite codes like passengers on a ship hijacked by lunatics, offering spots on the only lifeboat.

When I joined Bluesky, in April of 2023, the scene was underpopulated and raw. Content moderation was minimal. An optional What’s Hot algorithmic feed collected content that was popular across the platform. The posts that qualified had as few as a dozen likes and were, as one user observed, roughly “1/3 nudes, 1/3 technical discussion of federated networks, and 1/3 pet photos.” Posts were dubbed “skeets,” for “sky tweets,” a term that has a double meaning as vulgar slang. Without the possibility of going viral (or attracting much attention, period), users’ only incentive was to entertain their fellow internet addicts. The poet and author Patricia Lockwood, a maestro of tweeting, had departed Twitter after Trump used the platform to incite the January 6th riot. She joined Bluesky in May of 2023 and began skeeting in her signature absurdist style. In one brief prose poem, she narrated tumbling down a hill: “haha—Yes! it will be the job of sisyphus, my sexual partner, to roll me up again.” Lockwood told me that Bluesky felt a bit like “returning to a second childhood,” striving to reclaim a social internet that was fun and freeing.

The early enthusiasm allowed Graber to raise eight million dollars in seed investment that July, providing the team with the runway to keep growing. Then Bluesky’s sign-ups slowed, in part because of competition from Threads, which débuted that month. In February, 2024, Bluesky’s social platform became open to the public, yet it continued to feel like a digital backwater. I checked in sporadically that spring and summer and found little action; periodically, I posted messages into the void such as “btw I’m still on this site.” In August, when X was briefly banned in Brazil for refusing to follow local moderation laws, a wave of Brazilians (among the world’s most internet-savvy people) migrated to Bluesky. But the platform may well have remained as niche as Mastodon, which stalled out after experiencing a bump in popularity when Musk acquired Twitter. One feature that helped make Bluesky a viable X replacement was its “starter packs,” offering user-curated lists of accounts to follow in certain areas of interest, so that new members didn’t have to rebuild their online communities from scratch. Threads soon added the same feature.

When a user logs on to X, two tabs appear at the top of her feed: For You, which shows algorithmically recommended posts, and Following, which shows posts from accounts that you follow. The analogous features on Bluesky differ in significant ways. Where X’s Following feed is crowded with ads and recommendations, Bluesky’s contains only the things that people you follow have posted, in reverse chronological order, as on early Twitter, giving Bluesky users a clearer sense of the conversation happening in real time. A Discover feed, meanwhile, custom-selects posts for each user according to an algorithm designed by the company; one of its advantages over X’s For You is that you don’t have to see Musk himself spouting an endless stream of MAGA propaganda and proudly puerile memes. But the site’s biggest departure from X is its My Feeds tab, which allows users to select additional algorithmic feeds designed by fellow-users. At the Bluesky office, Graber opened her laptop, which bore a large sticker of a vine-wreathed sword, and pulled up a test account, then navigated to the menu of feeds. She clicked on one called Science, moderated by a self-vetted crowd of science professionals, then on one called Fungi Friends, which filled the feed with photos of mushrooms. A Popular with Friends feed shows posts getting engagement from people you follow; Quiet Posters, conversely, brings up messages from accounts you follow that don’t post very often.

Bluesky’s head of trust and safety, Aaron Rodericks, previously worked at Twitter, until Musk dismantled its content-moderation team and eventually forced him out. Rodericks told me that Bluesky performs “a foundational layer” of moderation, with more than a hundred contractors working to remove such things as child-sexual-abuse material and threats of violence. But more fine-grained filtering decisions are made at the individual level. In Settings, users can choose from among hundreds of homespun labelling tools that flag or block certain posts in their feeds. The labels range from the straightforwardly functional (a red check mark for authenticated power users, akin to Twitter’s old blue checks) to the idiosyncratically satirical (a label that identifies landlords, private-school graduates, and associates of Jeffrey Epstein). One of the platform’s most prominent feeds, Blacksky, which draws more than three hundred thousand users a month, offers a tool to identify and block racism and misogynoir. Bluesky as a company can afford to enable free speech because the platform’s smaller, optional communities have the power to police speech however they choose. Blacksky’s founder, Rudy Fraser, told me, “If anyone uses a slur anywhere—in a username, bio, in a post—we can get automatically alerted and take action.” He added, of moderation decisions, “If you’re making everyone happy, you’re maybe not serving a community.”

If there’s a trade-off to nurturing insular online communities, it’s that Bluesky as a whole still lacks the kind of cacophonous urgency that defined Twitter in its heyday. The dominant discourse tends to take place in a tone of cosseted aggrievement. On a typical day, a litany of posts might ask why “nobody is talking about” a given issue—the death toll in Gaza, the threatened defunding of NPR—although people are in fact talking about those very things on the same website. Even when it’s politically diverse, social media too easily creates echo chambers. In time, if Bluesky wants to remain relevant, it will have to evolve beyond its relatively monocultural milieu.

Graber likes to compare Bluesky to a hotel: “We’re trying to create a good time for people who step into the lobby,” she said—though the lobby also contains construction materials, left there as a community resource. Users are “going off and exploring custom rooms that people built, and maybe there’s another hotel out back.” If the system proves successful, there will eventually be many hotels operating on the protocol. In the eyes of some of Bluesky’s original supporters, though, the success of its social network has undermined its decentralized vision; its hotel grew so lively so fast that people didn’t venture off to build their own.

Aaron D. Goldman, a former Twitter engineer who worked for Bluesky in its first year, told me that hosting millions of accounts on Bluesky’s servers is costly and creates pressure for the platform to monetize its user base. “If we’re going to have huge hosting costs, then we need a toll booth somewhere,” he said. Graber has resisted replicating Twitter’s advertising-driven model, and Bluesky’s open-source structure obviates the possibility of licensing the platform’s content to train A.I. programs, as companies such as X and Reddit have done. Bluesky currently has only one revenue stream, from hosting accounts on custom domains, but Graber envisions sustaining the business by eventually charging subscription fees, and by monetizing its marketplace of custom tools—users would pay, say, five dollars a month for Blacksky, and Bluesky would take a cut. Still, Goldman said that Bluesky, even with “the bones of a good decentralized system,” has ended up with “the same incentives that led Jack to make Twitter very commercial.” Goldman helped design Bluesky’s protocol, but he and Graber later came to an impasse; he was let go in late 2022. (Graber ascribed their parting less to ideological differences than to Goldman’s lack of productivity; he was “not shipping like an engineer,” she said, and was “treating this more like a research project.”)

Last May, Dorsey revealed that he’d left his seat on Bluesky’s board. In an interview, he complained that Bluesky was “repeating all the mistakes” that Twitter had made, becoming “a company with V.C.s and a board.” He recommended Nostr, an obscure “censorship-resistant” social protocol to which he had donated five million dollars. Graber told me that Dorsey’s departure actually “freed up” the company somewhat. Some prospective users had grumbled that Bluesky was still the pet project of a billionaire; without Dorsey’s involvement the allegation was moot.

Even on the decentralized internet, founders are not above competing for the primacy of their tools. Mastodon’s founder, Eugen Rochko, told me that last year he and Graber discussed a collaboration that would have allowed their two protocols to interoperate, but each told me that the other seemed more interested in having the rival platform migrate onto their own protocol. Rochko did not see the point in Mastodon using AT Protocol, given that Bluesky already dominates it. “There isn’t really a lot of benefit to running your own app on it,” he said. “There would just be no place.” If the decentralized-social-media vision is realized, a single protocol might, like SMTP for e-mail, one day host an entire mainstream social internet: the next generation of Facebooks, Instagrams, and TikToks.

In January, Mallory Knodel, the executive director of the nonprofit Social Web Foundation, co-founded an initiative, Free Our Feeds, to foster the construction of more social networks on Bluesky’s protocol. The goal, as Knodel put it to me, was to “take them up on their offer to make it a truly decentralized platform.” Perhaps there will soon be a proliferation of other popular social apps operating alongside Bluesky. In the meantime, there are signs of growth. Flashes, an Instagram-like site that launched in February, has so far been downloaded more than a hundred thousand times. My favorite project besides Bluesky is a tiny site called PinkSea, a version of Japanese oekaki, bulletin boards for sharing digital drawings. I can log on to PinkSea using my Bluesky account information and post what I draw on both platforms simultaneously. In the Bluesky office, I pulled up PinkSea on Graber’s laptop, and she said that she had never seen it before. It is not a digital town square; with perhaps a few hundred active users, it’s barely even a digital dive bar. But its existence suggests the possibility of other creative projects on the protocol to come. Graber scrolled through the feed, which showcased both sophisticated anime figures and crude doodles, and her eyes lit up. “What excites me is new worlds emerging that I can’t imagine,” she said.

As the sun began to set, we walked from the Bluesky office to a pub. Graber, who doesn’t drink, settled into a dark nook and ordered a non-alcoholic Guinness. As Bluesky has become more mainstream, Graber has asserted herself more pointedly as a nemesis of social media’s Old Guard. For an appearance at South by Southwest in March, she wore a custom T-shirt that parodied one of Zuckerberg’s own design. Where his is emblazoned with the phrase “aut Zuck aut nihil,” a riff on the Latin “either a Caesar or nothing,” hers read “mundus sine caesaribus”—“a world without Caesars.” (The company started selling the shirts for forty dollars apiece and made more money in a day than it had in two years of selling domains.) In Bluesky’s founding documents, taking a lesson from Twitter’s history, Graber introduced a slogan: “The company is a future adversary.” In other words, they must design their platform today in such a way that, even if new leadership eventually jettisons their guiding principles, the thing they’ve created will remain impossible to abuse.

Graber seemed almost to welcome the idea that Bluesky’s legion of thirty million-plus users could someday disband; if people migrated elsewhere on the protocol tomorrow, it would only prove the viability of her vision. “Every centralized system faces the problem of succession, because leadership changes, and you eventually get someone not smart or not good,” she said. “Then users can vote with their feet, because they have their relationships and their data and their identity. Somebody else can come along and say, ‘Hey, I’m doing it better. Come over here.’ ”

[heroescore]

Heroes

Chapter 21 - All for One (Part II)

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The drive only took three hours, but to Phil it had felt like an eternity. He managed to free himself of his bonds, at the cost of cutting quite a bit into his skin, but in the end the tie-wraps were just weak pieces of plastic.

Now he just had to get the horrid gag off. His entire face felt sore, but the straps were fiddly, and he couldn’t figure out where to begin before the van slowed to a stop and the engine was turned off. Phil cursed mentally, slowly getting up. If he couldn’t use his powers, he had to rely on the good old element of surprise.

If movies were even a little realistic, they probably wouldn’t expect him to have freed himself, and he could push them both aside and make a run for it. He listened very carefully as two sets of footsteps sounded on each side of the van, both making their way to the back.

“Let’s go make the boss happy,” one of them said, to which the other laughed.

The latch of the door clicked as they pulled the handle, and as the doors swung open, Phil jumped out of the van, crashing into one of them with his shoulder, before sprinting off. He quickly orientated himself and realised he was running over a driveway, so surely once he reached the end he would find a road and would be able to find help, right?

No.

He ran into a closed gate. He desperately tried to pull it open, but before he could think of a plan B, Dave and Pete had already caught up and grabbed him by his arms.

“Not so fast you little shit!” Dave said, huffing a bit from running.

Phil tried to yell in protest, perhaps cry for help, but his voice was still hopelessly muted by the gag. Pete laughed, kicking against the young man’s legs as he tried to dig his heels in as they dragged him back to the van, past it, and towards a large manor.

“He’s feisty,” Pete said as Phil proceeded to struggle the whole way.

“Yeah, well, Wendigo can deal with that. We just need to get him inside!” Dave replied, grunting at the last part as they dragged Phil up a few steps, before the front door was opened by a large, bulky man.

“Delivery for Wendigo!” Pete announced, his voice echoing through the entrance hall, and up the crescent stairs.

Alice answered, her nightgown covered with a light blue robe, flowing graciously behind her as she descended about halfway down the stairs.

“It is five in the morning,” she said, “you’re late.”

“We had to take a detour to avoid a checkpoint,” Dave said, “where’s Wendigo?”

“Parlour,” Alice just said, before heading back upstairs to get dressed.

Pete rolled his eyes and dragged Phil through a door to their right. He tried to clutch to the doorpost, but Dave smacked his hand off of it and so they pulled him into the room. A nice warm fire was burning in the fireplace, and a man sat in an armchair, his face lit ominously by the flames.

Pete pushed Phil to his knees, while Dave wrenched his arms behind his back, holding him still while Pete announced their “delivery.”

“One Phil Winter as requested, sir~” he said.

“You’re late,” Wendigo said, “but had you taken the fastest route you would’ve been caught. Good job, guys.”

“Thank you sir,” Pete and Dave chorused.

Phil growled annoyed, trying to pull his arms free, so Dave yanked one of his arms painfully high up. Phil ceased his struggle with an annoyed, muffled yell.

Wendigo stood up, looking down at the growling young man, before suddenly raising his arm as if he were about to hit him. Phil winced and quieted down, to which Wendigo chuckled slowly, bending over to grab him by the jaw and forcing him to look up.

“Look at you,” he said, “all bark and no bite… That muzzle doesn’t look very comfortable, but hear me out. Perhaps I can decide to take it off. Have a seat.”

He let go of him and sat back down in the armchair, while Dave pulled Phil to his feet and pushed him to sit down on the sofa.

“Keep your hands where we can see them,” he warned with a growl, squeezing the young man’s wrists together in front of him.

Phil quickly nodded in confirmation, before hugging himself as he glanced over at Wendigo, who watched him with a smirk on his face.

“Curious, aren’t you?” he said, “or are you just stalling for time?”

Phil wanted to give a snarky reply so badly, but he couldn’t, so he settled for an annoyed look in the villain’s direction.

“You’ve probably figured out that I wanted you here for your powers,” Wendigo simply started, “naturally I can’t force you to use them for me, but I can either persuade you to see my side of things, or I can take them for myself…”

Phil quickly shook his head, shuddering a bit at the thought and tapped his ear, indicating that he would listen.

“Good boy,” Wendigo said, “it’s simple, really. All I need is for people to listen, and I mean really listen. Slade is blind to the truth with his utopic bullshit and all the others are following him without question like a couple of sheep!”

He slammed his fist on his armrest out of frustration, before flexing his fingers as he forced himself to calm down.

“...but you’re different, aren’t you, Mr Winter?” he asked, “You...you question things, you chase the truth even when everyone seems to be telling the same story. You even made the effort to show these so-called super ‘heroes’ in a different light. Human, flawed...fragile.”

He got up, grabbing a piece of wood from the basket next to the fireplace and added it to the fire, poking it a bit with a metal rod to kindle the flames.

“There are branches in the government, backed up by shadow corporations...or perhaps it’s the other way around, I’m not quite sure...they claim to be on our side. They tell us they want to help us understand our origins for better healthcare and acceptance in society, but instead they try to weaponize us, kill and maim us in the name of fucking science!”

He threw the rod down, sparks flying off the red-hot metal as it collided with the tiling in front of the hearth. Then he turned to Phil, putting his hands on his shoulders as he got uncomfortably close.

“They’re harvesting us. Selectively breed and milk and slaughter us like cattle, trying to create the ultimate super. We have to warn people before it’s too late! Tell me you believe me!”

Phil wasn’t sure what to answer. He even helplessly glanced at his two kidnappers, but they seemed to be nodding in agreement with Wendigo. Seeing his look, however, the villain realised that Phil didn’t seem to believe him at all.

“I wish I could’ve done this differently,” he said, “but time is of the essence...take him to Crosby.”

He stepped away from the young man, who quickly reached for the straps of his gag again, forcing Pete and Dave to dive on top of him, grabbing at his arms before beginning to drag him off.

Phil cried out in protest, but it seemed his powers really didn’t work unless he could form coherent words. Kicking and digging in his heels didn’t work either, as it was two against one and he was already pretty exhausted. Before he knew it, he’d been dragged down a staircase and into some sort of creepy underground lab. 

Crosby was just trying to enjoy a midnight snack when the door to his lab was thrown open by Pete and Dave, the poor man dropping his sandwich in shock.

“Christ!”

“Where do you want him, doc?” Dave asked.

“What?” Crosby asked, seeming confused and distracted as he picked up his sandwich and discarded it in the trash with a sad sigh.

Pete raised a brow.

“Didn’t you prepare for our special guest?” he asked, giving Phil a painful nudge.

“What? Oh— OH! Fuck— I-I mean, of course I prepared! I just…hadn’t fully finished preparations yet, I just…pretended I had so I could get some sleep… ahem. J-just put him on the bed for now, I just have to calculate a couple things,” Crosby said, fumbling with his notes a bit, “I don’t suppose you know how much he weighs?”

“Figure it out, doc,” Pete said, grunting a bit as Phil was refusing to get on the bed, or to let him and Dave put any of the restraints on him.

“Don’t let Wendigo find out you lied to him,” Dave added, punching Phil in the gut to get him to stop.

While the young man was gasping for air, they quickly tightened the belts around his arms and legs, leaving him pinned to the bed.

“Y-you won’t tell him, right?” Crosby asked, while the two grunts started heading out, “g-guys? …oh man.”

He watched the door close behind them, before glancing at Phil, who seemed a mix of scared and furious.

“I’m…very sorry,” he said, “I don’t like this any more than you do, but I promise you it won’t hurt.”

“Mmh?!”

Back at The Joint, now that everyone was on board to take Wendigo down, they were trying to piece together all the information they had to avoid any surprises. They had a decent layout of the house he was hiding in, thanks to Brain and Slade, as well as which fiends were loyal to Wendigo.

“So besides Hatter, Alice and Cheshire, there were also some guards you said?” Ranger confirmed, glancing at Slade.

“Aye, but I think it’s best we assume everyone has powers, except for Crosby. There’s still some questions I want to ask him, so try and keep him in one piece.”

“Try being the keyword,” Zoe said, some ice beginning to form on the floor where she was standing.

“Uh, how are we gonna get there?” Aiden asked, “Mirage is…not going to recover in time, is she?”

“There’s no stopping her, but we can’t rely on her either,” Cat said.

“We could get a cab?” King suggested.

“What about the police? Didn’t you call them?” White asked, looking at Cat.

“They ordered a S.W.A.T. team, but we’ll have to go ahead and weed out the dangerous guys before letting the police run in,” Cat said, “best they can do now is block the streets and keep innocents out of harm’s way.”

“I have an idea,” Ranger said, standing up.

“I am not going all the way to Long Island on horseback! I’ll just take my truck!” Zoe loudly said.

“What? No, chill girl, I have a much better idea,” Ranger said, “much faster too. Come outside, follow me.”

“Hang on let me grab my keys to lock up,” Brain said, diving behind the counter for a bit while Ranger began herding the others outside.

As they all gathered on the sidewalk, Ranger rubbed his hands, a glint of childish glee in his eyes before putting his fingers in his mouth and whistling loudly.

“...nothing’s happening,” Slade said.

“Give it time, she’s a big one,” Ranger said, looking left and right down the street.

“What did you summon?” Zoe asked suspiciously, before she was answered with a loud, distant roar.

In the night sky, lit by all the lights of the city, they could see the shape of a magnificent creature getting closer and closer, before it landed on the street, its wings barely fitting between the building, trampling a few cars, and finally breaking a couple of windows as it roared loudly.

“A DRAGON?!” Slade yelled, “ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR BLOODY MIND?!”

“Slade! Dragon is impressive, you should be proud!” Rasputin said, clapping his hands proudly.

“Trust me she’ll get us there so fast!” Ranger said, still quite gleeful, “I thought you’d love it! Isn’t the dragon your national symbol or something?”

“That’s Wales,” Slade said with a sigh, “I must be insane— Rasputin, help us climb up. Ladies first.”

One by one, they carefully climbed onto the beast’s back, while Ranger jogged to its head to talk to it.

“Wendigo might shit his pants if he sees this coming at him,” Brain commented as he got settled, trying to find something sturdy to hold on to.

“I doubt he’ll give in that easily,” Zoe said.

“I feel like I should take a selfie, but I also feel like that would be super inappropriate,” King said.

“Go with your gut,” White said, “super unnecessary.”

“Hang on everyone!” Ranger said, making sure everyone was on board and had found something to hang on to, before whistling loudly, to which the dragon began taking off, causing quite a bit more damage in the street.

“I hope you’re insured for that!” Brain yelled.

“If anyone asks, I saw another T-rex on the loose,” Cat said, giving Ranger a good chuckle.

That would be a very convenient cover-story.

Once she had enough freedom to move around, with a couple proper flaps of her wings, the dragon was soaring over the city at an impressive speed, and although it was rather cold, they were happy they went along with Ranger’s idea, as it seemed they would make it to their destination in record time, and that without Mirage.

Meanwhile in the manor where Wendigo was hiding out, the villain was pacing in the parlour, impatiently awaiting a special meal. He could hear footsteps and whispers outside in the hallway, his friends probably sensing the tension in the home and unable to sleep despite the early hour.

There was a soft knock on the door, before a familiar blonde girl walked in, wearing a blue blouse, tucked loosely into a white skirt, paired with high-heeled black ankle boots, and a distinctive pink parasol with the head of a flamingo on the handle.

“Good morning,” she said, using her powers to roll a cart behind her with a tray, covered by a large cloche.

“Breakfast?” Wendigo asked eagerly.

“Tea,” Alice replied, “and some biscuits to bridge you over before your breakfast.”

“Damn it, Crosby… What’s taking him so long?” Wendigo grumbled, ignoring the biscuits but taking a sip of the tea.

“Apparently he had some trouble with the anaesthesia,” Alice said.

“Then do it without!”

“He said you would say that and he was adamant that the deal would be off if you tried to force him.”

“He knows I don’t need him, right? I could just do it myself. He would die, but that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make,” Wendigo grumbled.

“Killing another one of your own won’t look very good for your cause,” Alice said, now just directly quoting Crosby.

Wendigo groaned annoyed, before giving in and taking a biscuit, though he immediately spat it out as they could hear a distant roar.

“What was that?” he said.

Alice shrugged, walking over to the windows to open the curtains. The light of the rising sun blinded them for a moment, needing a couple seconds to adjust to it before peering outside. In the distance, they could see a large shadow in the sky, and it was approaching fast. It roared again, and they could see the outline of its wings as it flew closer and closer.

“Jabberwocky,” Alice said quietly.

“...no, dear, that’s a dragon,” Wendigo said, “get Hatter and Cheshire, wake everyone and change the layout of the house! They’re here for Winter…”

Alice nodded and hurried off to do as she was ordered, while Wendigo stayed by the window, keeping his eye on the dragon as it began circling over the house. A dragon…had Ranger’s dream finally come true? And who had he brought?

It seemed Wendigo would find out the hard way. While en route, Slade had made some last-minute adjustments to their plan. It took some brave volunteers, but if it worked, they would be able to force Wendigo and his henchmen to divide their attention, giving them the upper hand.

As they circled over the house, Rasputin jumped off the dragon to crash through the roof, and hopefully not fall all the way down to the basement. Then Ranger would ask the dragon to fly very low over the house, and Slade, Aiden, Cat and King would jump after the Russian giant, while the rest would land in the street and try and burst in through the front door.

Inside, Wendigo was just putting on his old costume, wanting to make sure his friends would recognise him. A rather furry kind of outfit, decorated with deer bones, and a mask shaped like a deer skull with its antlers intact.

It had something tribal, and was based on Slade’s stories about indigenous european tribes, but lately he had found a more fitting association, which helped him decide on his new alias. With his suit, he carried vials of blood, so he could rely on the powers of his partners, without them needing to be nearby.

He was just making sure all the bottles were still intact, when he heard a loud crash upstairs, seeming to come from the attic.

“So it begins,” he said, pulling out a specific vial, popping it open and drinking all the blood.

In the toy room in the attic, Rasputin was just clapping some dust off of his shoulders, before looking up to see if the others would follow soon, and whether they would need to be caught to avoid injury.

King was the first to follow, landing with one foot on Rasputin’s shoulder before making a backflip onto the floor and tripping over the small tea-table. Slade let his old friend catch him, while Cat wisely took a lift from Aiden as he flew her down for a much less clumsy landing, while Rasputin put Slade down so he could help King back to his feet.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Yeah, that looked a lot cooler in my head,” King said, rubbing his backside a bit.

“It vas very cool,” Rasputin assured him, while Slade tried the door.

“Locked,” he said, “Rasputin, davai.”

“Da,” the Russian giant replied, stepping over, grabbing the door by the frame, and tearing the entire structure out of the wall.

As soon as they did so, they could hear voices from downstairs, alerted by the noise.

“They’re upstairs! Get them!” someone yelled.

“Don’t worry, they won’t get past Rasputin,” Slade said, “everyone remember the plan?”

“Cross and I find Phil, you two are gonna kick Wendigo’s ass, King’s gonna help the others get inside…if necessary,” Cat summarised.

“Else I’ll improvise,” King said.

“Okay, let’s roll,” Slade said, about to head downstairs, when Aiden stopped him.

“Wait,” he said, before pulling a shiny dagger with a golden handle out of nowhere and pressing it in Slade’s hands.

“For self-defence,” he said, “don’t drop it, it’ll disappear. If you need my help, drop it on purpose and I’ll come.”

“You’re overestimating my skill with blades, Love,” Slade said, “but it’s good to know you have my back.”

Aiden rolled his eyes a bit, before following Rasputin down the stairs as he dealt with the heavy-looking guards that guarded the front doors. King tried to slip past them to see if he could open the front doors to let the others in, when he was forced to jump over the railing to avoid being hit by a distinctive purple throwing knife.

He somehow managed to land without breaking anything. Taking a moment to orient himself. He’d made it to the front doors, but Hatter was standing before them, while behind him Cheshire landed as well.

“Yikes, this is going to hurt,” King grumbled as he reached for his deck of cards.

The three of them started moving at the same time. Cheshire threw another throwing knife, while Hatter dashed forward. King just about managed to avoid the knife, but that allowed Hatter to grab a hold of him, cackling loudly as he pulled out a kitchen knife and tried to drive it into the young man’s side.

He only just about managed to slip free, but had to resort to twisting his already broken arm quite painfully. Just when he got free and managed to back away, Cheshire grabbed him from behind and tried to work him to the ground.

Meanwhile the others finally reached the bottom of the stairs, and Rasputin moved to provide backup, but had to back away himself when the doors were suddenly flung open, brute-forced by a rather large rhinoceros. Followed closely by the creature was an arrow as a warning shot, as well as a layer of ice rapidly covering the floor. Hatter slipped, turning his attention to the new arrivals, while both Cheshire and King had to take cover as the rhinoceros continued its rampage further into the house.

“Brain!” Slade called, “where’s Wendigo?”

“In the parlour, but be careful! The layout will be different from what you remember!” Brain warned.

Slade nodded, but decided to take his chance with the room he remembered anyway, crossing through the entrance hall and letting Rasputin kick down the doors.

Meanwhile White hopped over the layer of ice, using Hatter as a stepping stone (much to the man’s dismay) and helped King back to his feet, before putting his hand against the wall, creating a hole in the floor which the rhinoceros fell through and continued to rampage in the basement.

“Thanks,” King said gratefully, before noticing Cheshire running off, “hey! Get back here you! White, after her!”

“Weirdly, this entire thing would be less chaotic if Mirage were here,” Cat said, still halfway up the stairs with Aiden, “wanna go after that rhino and see if we can find Phil down there?”

“I sincerely hope he isn’t down there,” Aiden said, “encountering a wild animal is the last thing he needs.”

Still, he unfolded his wings and took her hand, skipping the chaos below them and trying to find a safe entry into the basement. Hatter tried to stop them, throwing a teacup after them, but Ranger hit it with an arrow and challenged the villain to take him on along with Zoe.

Meanwhile Slade found Brain had been right. The doors they went through did not lead to the parlour, but to a library, which shouldn’t fit inside the building by all logic. Rasputin seemed equally confused.

“Vhat happened?” he asked.

“Alice,” Slade replied, warily looking around.

“Crazy Alice?”

“No. Her daughter.”

“Ooooh blyad…”

“Aye, you can say that again.”

However, nobody attacked them, giving them the chance to look around. The door they had broken through had been replaced with a wall, separating them from the rest. On the other side of the room, was another door. Seeing no other way out, the two old friends shrugged and headed through.

Now they did end up in the parlour, but from the sound of it — which was none — they were still nowhere close to the front door. Furthermore, the parlour was empty. The fire was burning, and there was a tray with tea that was still warm. Curiously enough, there was a vial on the tray as well.

Slade picked it up, checking the label, but it was just a random combination of letters and numbers to him. He used his pinky finger to swipe some of its contents off the side, smelling it, before tasting it, and then spitting it out.

“Blood,” he concluded, “Wendigo was here.”

“Or maybe he’s still here,” a familiar voice said.

They both turned around and found the man perched on a ledge just above the door they stepped through. He was holding onto one of the ceiling beams to keep his balance, grinning as his two old friends seemed shocked.

“Carnivore!” Rasputin said, “get down here, I vill teach manners!”

“Be careful, Vitaliy, we don’t know what powers he holds,” Slade said quietly.

“Oh I’ll tell you,” Wendigo said, “it was a very concentrated mix of some strong individuals. So if Crosby got his math right…”

He grabbed onto the ceiling beam with both hands, which then began to creak and break as he tore part of it off and swung it down hard towards his two old friends. Slade managed to dive out of the way, while Rasputin blocked the blow with his arm and found himself forced backwards. The beam splintered and Wendigo hopped down to the floor flexing his fingers a bit as he chuckled victoriously.

“Still think you’re invincible, big man?” he said, “bring it on~”

Meanwhile in the basement Aiden and Cat almost got nailed by the rhinoceros, when Ranger suddenly remembered to recall it, and it disappeared like a ghost before it could harm either of them.

Cat laughed it off, while Aiden checked if his heart was still beating, before he vaguely recognised a tiled floor through a small hole in the wall. He conjured up a large hammer, trying to smash through the concrete, but every time he managed to break off a chunk, it would grow right back.

“There’s something whack going on,” Cat said, putting an arm on his shoulder to stop him before he would wear himself out.

“We’ll find another route then?” Aiden asked.

“Afraid we’ll have to,” Cat said, before jerking around as she heard a familiar plopping sound.

Aiden did the same, blinking as they recognised Mirage, stumbling a bit as she seemed a little out of it.

“Made it~!” she said, “oh Cat! Catch me!”

Both young supers hurried forward to catch the young woman as she seemed to faint, but she was giggling as they helped her back up.

“Are you okay?” Aiden asked worriedly.

“Yeah, yeah, just exhausted,” Mirage said, “got any booster pills left? I’ll need two~”

“You shouldn’t have come,” Cat said, though she did dig through her pockets for the pills.

“It’s fiiiine,” Mirage said, “can’t let my girl do this alone.”

“Okay, but no more teleporting unless necessary,” Cat said, before letting Mirage have the two pills she requested.

“Actually,” Aiden said, “maybe just one small jump through time and space? We need to get to the other side of the wall but it keeps repairing itself.”

“Oh sure!” Mirage said, dry-swallowing the pills, and not even waiting to see if they’d work before grabbing a hold of both of them and teleporting.

Hardly a second later, they were standing in a narrow hallway, leading to a staircase in one direction, and a door in the other.

“Door,” Cat said, heading over to which the other two followed.

However, as they tried to open it they found it wouldn’t budge.

“Locked,” Aiden said.

“Teleport?” Mirage suggested.

“Axe,” Cat said, shaking her head and pointing at Aiden.

He nodded, conjuring up an axe and assaulting the door with it. It also started self-repairing, but he managed to hit the lock and swing the door open before it could fix itself. The three of them poured into the room, tools clattering as someone dropped something, but they didn’t immediately see them.

“Curtain!” Aiden yelled, to which Cat ripped it aside, revealing Crosby in full surgical gear.

He was about to slather Phil’s throat with iodine, a dotted line already marking his plans.

“Surgeon!” Mirage said with a gasp.

“Mine,” Cat replied, ready to kick the man’s ass when he already threw his hands up and backed away from Phil.

“I didn’t do anything!” he cried, “Wendigo forced me! P-please! I don’t like this anymore than you do!”

“Yeah right,” Cat said, rolling her eyes.

“He’s speaking the truth,” Aiden said, “he’s not a threat…unless you think you can stop us.”

“N-nope, I’m good,” Crosby quickly said, “just uh…d-did you defeat Wendigo?”

“Working on it,” Cat said, while Mirage checked on Phil, reading the labels on the chemicals that were running into his arm through an IV, before shutting half of them off.

“Oh man…h-he’s going to kill me,” Crosby said, “or worse, sell me out!”

“Relax,” Cat said, “you’ll be arrested and end up in jail. Wendigo can’t hurt you there.”

“No, but they can,” Crosby said.

“Who is they?” Aiden asked, sensing a rather intense fear from the nervous doctor.

“There’s some truth to Wendigo’s words, you know?” Crosby said, “I think his paranoia has taken it a bit far, b-but there are places out there who are performing human experiments on supernaturals, o-or even mundane people to see if they can turn them into supers— Which is ridiculous if you ask me, so far genetic research has only shown abilities are hereditary, and to somehow stimulate developing powers in a mundane person would require—”

“Extreme measures,” Mirage added, “chronic stress starting at a young age to stimulate dormant sigma genes— Are you saying someone out there is torturing children to create new supers?”

“I don’t know the full extent or the details,” Crosby said, “I couldn’t even stomach it if I tried…Wendigo is insane, but he’s not lying. No matter what happens today, you kids have to watch your backs.”

“Whatever, I’m bringing you in.” Cat said, pulling out a set of zip cuffs, “Mirage, how’s Phil?”

“It’ll take a minute before he comes to,” Mirage said, “I think it’s better we watch his vitals a lil longer until we’re sure he’s okay.”

“You got anything to speed up the process?” Cat asked while cuffing Crosby.

“No I’m afraid we— Ow! W-we’re all out,” Crosby said, “I’m sorry…there’s something else you should know though!”

“Now what?” Cat said.

“You,” Crosby said, looking at Aiden, “we still have your blood.”

“...so?” Aiden said, not sure how to feel about that information, besides a little nauseous.

“Wendigo can copy powers and such by consuming the source; bear flesh for the strength of a bear, Slade’s blood for healing, Phil’s vocal chords for the power of command, bloodletting weakened Amon, but also provided a very large source for Wendigo to get strength and powers from. Not just yours, but that of Amon and Michael too.”

“Oh Lord,” Aiden said, “th-that’s a lot of power…the others could be in danger.”

“Go, we got this,” Mirage said, “we’ll get Phil out safely.”

“Okay,” Aiden said, “don’t tell him where I went, he’ll die of a heart attack.”

“I know CPR,” Mirage said with a wink.

Aiden managed a small smile before hurrying off, leaving the girls alone.

“A lil mouth-to-mouth,” Cat said quietly.

“Shut up!” Mirage hissed, blushing a bit.

<prev | masterlist | next>

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

Record-breaking laser demonstration completes mission

NASA's TBIRD (TeraByte InfraRed Delivery) demonstration and its host spacecraft—the PTD-3 (Pathfinder Technology Demonstrator-3)—have completed their technology demonstration. The TBIRD payload spent the past two years breaking world records for the fastest satellite downlink from space using laser communications.

NASA's PTD series leverages a common commercial spacecraft to provide a robust platform for effective testing of technologies with minimal redesign in between launches. After launch in May 2022 on the SpaceX Transporter 5 mission, the PTD-3 spacecraft entered low-Earth orbit, and shortly after, TBIRD began sending laser communications signals to an optical ground station in Table Mountain, California.

TBIRD's two-year demonstration showcased the viability of laser communications. Most NASA missions rely on radio frequency communication systems. However, laser communications use infrared light and can pack significantly more data in a single communications link. This technology is ideal for science and exploration missions that need large data transmissions.

In 2023, TBIRD continuously broke its own records, reaching its peak in June when it transmitted 4.8 terabytes of error-free data—equivalent to about 2,400 hours of high-definition video—in five minutes at 200 gigabits per second in a single pass.

The TBIRD payload was one of many laser communications demonstrations. NASA's SCaN (Space Communications and Navigation) program is maturing this technology to demonstrate the impact laser communications can have on bringing more science and exploration data home. The next demonstration will be on the Artemis II mission.

In addition to breaking a world record, this mission demonstrated cost-effective design and extremely low size, weight, and power requirements—both on the PTD-3 spacecraft and within the TBIRD payload. The tissue-box-sized payload contained two commercial telecommunication modems that the TBIRD team modified for the extreme environment of space.

The PTD-3/TBIRD system also overcame one of the major challenges associated with laser communications: making the narrow beam laser link connection while moving at orbital speeds while being buffeted by atmospheric drag. The PTD-3 spacecraft's precision "body pointing" and stability enabled the TBIRD payload to make its record-breaking achievement while moving as fast as 17,000 mph through space. The spacecraft set a record for the highest accuracy pointing ever achieved by a NASA CubeSat without any moving mechanisms or propulsion systems.

The end of PTD-3 and TBIRD's mission was expected. The system did not contain a propulsion system, meaning once it was deployed into its low Earth orbit, the mission could only last until its orbit naturally decayed.

While only planned to operate for six months, TBIRD carried out its demonstration for well over two years, enabling NASA to learn more about laser communications operations in low Earth orbit.

The lessons learned during TBIRD will be applied to future implementations of laser communications and minimize downlink constraints for mission designs, enabling future exploration and discoveries.

TOP IMAGE: The benefits of laser communications: more efficient, lighter systems, increased security, and more flexible ground systems. Credit: NASA/Dave Ryan

LOWER IMAGE: An artist’s concept of the Pathfinder Technology Demonstration -3 carrying the TeraByte InfraRed Delivery payload. Credit: NASA/Dave Ryan

[partnervizhil]

One App Offering Five Solutions.

One great app for all solutions. If you want to quality and branded shopping, there is a new launch on the way called Vizhil. If you need a quick ride or want to go on an immediate trip, or if you are hungry and want spicy or delicious food to eat, Vizhil is for you. If you are having a problem in your household and you need an immediate solution, join us. We also work in the digital industry, and we have given you a digital service—the one super app for your daily needs called Vizhil. 

Shop with Vizhil: 

The lower-cost and smarter purchasing app with more benefits. branded kurtas with offers and seasonal deals. The ability to browse a wide range of products, compare prices, and read reviews has empowered customers in ways they have never experienced before. 

Online shopping app with many perks. Vizhil offers rewards for each visit to our app. 

“Have benefits and have useful shopping experiences.” Use your time more effectively by using the Vizhil e-commerce app. 

Ride with Vizhil:  

Have a safe and smart ride with Vizhil riders. Existing features and safety-secure features are available on one online booking app. With real-time tracking of your ride, stay informed. The app gives you real-time information on the route being taken, the driver's location, and the anticipated time of arrival. 

"We make sure you get to your office promptly." That is our team's promise: one app for all your needs. The name is Vizhil. 

Food delivery with Vizhil: 

When you book using the Vizhil food delivery app, you will never miss out on the taste or heat of the dish. Vizhil gives India's fastest delivery for you to make an online order on the best app, which makes your hungry time a happy one. Food delivery services have surged in popularity, offering a diverse range of cuisines at the tap of a button.  

“Turning your hungry time into a pleasant time.” Make your first order on Vizhil Food.  

Services facility with Vizhil: 

It provides a superb one-stop service facility; if you are having problems with your household items and need assistance, Vizhil can help you. These platforms provide a comprehensive directory, user reviews, and booking options, streamlining the process of finding reliable service providers. 

"You are not alone; Vizhil provides you with a budget-friendly and smart service. 

Digital service with Vizhil: 

Hey businessman, here's the finite solution for all your needs. Vizhil Digital makes you happy with low-budget services such as social media marketing, SEO, AI and machine learning, blockchain, and IoT. Digital transformation enables organizations to function more efficiently and satisfy consumers' ever-increasing demands. 

  “Make your business grow higher with Vizhil Digital.” 

[osiriabud]

Xiantober Day 9 ❅ Training

Wei Ying spewed coke all over the table. Jiang Cheng voiced his intense distress, but Jiang Yanli just reached into her purse for a tissue packet.

"A triathlon?!?" Wei Ying sputtered as he ripped open the tissues and mopped up the coke.

"My brother was interested in trying it. Nie Mingjue will be away for work the weekend it's being held, so he invited me to do it with him." Lan Zhan opened the container of his perfect, diagonally-sliced whole wheat avocado lettuce tomato sandwich.

"And you said yes?" Wei Ying's voice rose several octaves. Jiang Cheng glanced around the liberal art's building lobby and shushed him. Wei Ying waved him off.

"With what time?" He cried "You are taking nineteen credits this semester, have orchestra and tutoring."

"I trained for the marathon last year without any issue." Lan Zhan pointed out.

"But," Wei Ying snapped his mouth shut while putting some real thought into why he felt immediately opposed to Lan Zhan completing in a triathlon. "Your bunnies will miss you if you are too busy."

"Oh!" Jiang Yanli exclaimed, "Would you look at the time. We have dinner with our parents to get to. Lovely to see you Lan Zhan. Take care A-Xian!" She hauled a confused Jiang Cheng to his feet and pushed him toward the exit.

Lan Zhan watched them go, then turned to Wei Ying. "If you are worried about not spending time together, why don't you train with me?"

"What?" Wei Ying scoffed, "No, I said the bunnies. Besides, I'm way to busy. They started scheduling me for a few more hours each week, which I asked for, but..."

"Are you worried you won't be able to keep up with me and Xichen?" Lan Zhan said as Wei Ying trailed off. Wei Ying's mouth fell open. Lan Zhan calmly took a bite out of his sandwich.

"Are you kidding me?" Wei Ying leaned forward, "Keep up with you? I'll leave you in the dust!"

"I grew up in Yungmeng, swimming all summer long! I'm the fastest swimmer there is. And I'll have you know that I'm a pretty fast runner too! I'm always outrunning people's dogs when I deliver their food! And, speaking of that, I'm the fastest delivery person they have!"

"My bike even beats people in cars sometimes!" Wei Ying huffed, "Just you watch."

Lan Zhan finished his sandwich and wiped the corners of his mouth, "So you'll train with me?"

"Of course, Lan Zhan." Wei Ying grumbled as they gathered up their things.

He did not realize when he agreed to this that it meant meeting Lan Zhan at five every morning to go for a run or a swim. He dragged himself out of bed and complained the whole time, but was secretly grateful because it meant their training time didn't eat into their move nights.

Plus he enjoyed any extra time he got to spend with Lan Zhan even if it was before the crack of dawn, when he kept embarrassing himself by showing up to the gym as a half-asleep mess while Lan Zhan looked refreshed and perfect.

And it started to be the perfect excuse to spend the night at Lan Zhan's place. Why bother going home after they hung out when he had to come right back to the campus gym next to his apartment. Staying over meant extra time harassing the bunnies and his favorite person. So, all in all, he didn't mind waking up so early and spending his free time working on cardio.

The day of the race came. He and Lan Zhan and Lan Huan all stood together at the beginning. A sense of anticipation and challenge gripped him.

They dove into the lake together and hit the other side at the same time. Lan Zhan made sure Wei Ying's helmet was properly secured before they hopped onto their bikes and raced down the winding roads together. When they pulled on their running shoes, Wei Ying teased Lan Zhan about double-knotting his laces.

Lan Huan kept pace and threw them warm glances the whole time until they reached the sprint, then he pulled a head and secured second place overall.

Lan Zhan and Wei Ying crossed the finish line hand in hand in the top ten. The Jiang's and Nie Huaisang screamed and waved their signs. Wei Ying threw his arms around Lan Zhan's shoulders then gave him a big, sweaty kiss.

"See," he panted, "I beat you by a whole two seconds."

"Mn." Lan Zhan agreed, drawing Wei Ying in for another congratulatory kiss.

[forathousanddays]

Closure in Moscow - First temple (REVIEW)

First Temple is the 2009 debut album of Aussie five-piece prog rock powerhouse Closure in Moscow, and a stunning introduction to their avant-garde sound, remaining untouched to this day. Produced by the titanic label Equal Vision Records (formerly Polyphia, Pierce The Veil, etc.) there was an expectation to uphold the standard set by their previous EP (self-proclaimed albumette,) The Penance and The Patience.

Closure in Moscow went to great lengths to pump out an equally impressive album, with a wide range of tracks and atmospheres. Their follow-up album Pink Lemonade is a far cry from the grounded surrealism of First Temple, but you can feel the trails their freshman release patted down first. They've got another one coming out October 25th, so keep your eyes peeled for that review when it comes out.

Track-by-track below the cut.

TRACK 1 - KIssing Cousins

No, I didn't mess up with the shift key, that's how it's stylized. The mix on this track feels a little too subdued, with the vocals and the instruments occupying the exact same space. It creates a crowded effect for the listening experience, in a way that detracts a little too much from the stellar performances on both ends. The background vocals come through way in the back, but that does come with a more surreal feel to it.

I'd like this a lot more if it was mixed better. 6/10

TRACK 2 - Reindeer Age

The tone is immediately different. The guitar has a curious synthetic twanging to it in the verses that still persists in the back of the mix during the chorus, making way for an incredibly fast-paced guitar. To this day, Reindeer Age remains the fastest track in their discography. Verse and chorus switch back and forth almost too fast to keep track of in a frantic crystallization of the experimental and esoteric sound of First Temple.

8/10, pay attention to the drums when you listen. They're definitely a highlight.

TRACK 3 - Sweet#hart

I really couldn't tell you why this is stylized the way it is. The lyrics are a vivid portrait of a very specific state of mind that's a little too complicated to convey in semi-formal prose. The chorus is incredibly strong, maybe the strongest on the album (or in their discography?) without detracting from the poignant verses. (I feel like I need to use that word more here.) The contrast between the instrumentation between the verses and the chorus is really something special.

Just as fun from start to finish. 10/10

TRACK 4 - Vanguard

This is First Temple's most traditional presentation of rock in its instruments and vocals, but most outlandish lyrics. Frontman Chris de Cinque has described Vanguard as "entirely too obtuse [...] an exercise in thesaurus masturbation," and I'm not inclined to disagree. I know with full confidence, however, that nobody is here for the lyrics. Vanguard has soaring guitar riffs from start to finish, and a palpable energy that permeates every line delivery.

Really, really cool. 9/10

TRACK 5 - A Night At The Spleen

Vanguard might have been a ten if it wasn't in between Sweet#hart and this. I can't in good faith count them as cut from the same cloth. A Night At The Spleen is a honeyed experience, wrought with thrumming riffs, cheeky soloes, and the timeless classic "boomer bend." There's an infectious energy running through it, even infused in the quiet tension of the bridge. Not even the silence is free of it; every rest feels like an intentional build to what comes next.

Perfect energy, a masterclass in momentum. 10/10

TRACK 6 - I'm A Ghost of Twilight

Again, the questionable mix rears it's head. The instruments and the vocals occupy the same space, and it takes away from both. That being said, this is a better execution than in Track 1, as it gives a little more room for de Cinque's more powerful vocals to make their own space. This has possibly the most decipherable lyrics o

n the album, and I'm thankful for it. I'm A Ghost of Twilight builds a powerful atmosphere in both it's sound and lyrics, with both augmenting each other.

It would've been easy to give these lyrics a slower, sadder song, but this was the better choice for sure. 8/10.

TRACK 7 - Permafrost

It wouldn't be a prog rock album without a couple very experimental tracks. Permafrost lives up to its name, with a cold and impenetrable haze over the mix. The lyrics are pretty grim, and de Cinque has gone on record calling it a separation for the two more distinct "acts" of the record. Allegedly super drunk recording the vocals, which I could probably guess.

5/10.

TRACK 8 - Deluge

Very refreshing, coming out of Permafrost. The mix is clear and properly arranged, with the vocals in front of the instruments and very clean layering. The pre-chorus belt is a great touch, especially next to the more delicate delivery on the chorus itself. Deluge is a lot of moving parts, and it would be lesser without any single one of them. The chorus lyrics are really profound (dare I say poignant?) and contrast with the more whimsical delivery. Closure's always been good at mixing whimsy with melancholy.

8/10.

TRACK 9 - Afterbirth

I really couldn't tell you what's going on with the instruments here. Logically, I know what I'm listening to is a guitar, but something about the tuning and key of it make it feel alien. de Cinque cites game show music as his inspiration for it sonically, and I can definitely see it. This is maybe the least decipherable the album has been so far, but "the hour of my echo is at hand" is a badass line. There's so much going on here, and I appreciate the cacophony.

The guitar in the back of the bridge is way too cool to be that quiet. 7/10.

TRACK 10 - Arecibo Message

Oh, good, the lyrics got even less decipherable! The sound is full and developed, with a completeness to it that says I don't really mind not being able to understand the lyrics. This is probably the most "First Temple" song on here, with a huge range of sounds and feelings behind it. As the last real rock song on the album, it's a fitting dismissal of the second "act" and a comfortable transition into the "epilogue." The chorus is a blast.

The key change into the last chorus really makes it. 8/10

TRACK 11 - Couldn't Let You Love Me

The acoustic shift here doesn't make this song any less full. Every inch of the mix feels occupied by something that needs to be there, and the steady guitar is very welcome. I'm impressed by the ability to set a bassline off an almost pizzicato-esque acoustic guitar.

6/10, still a fan though. Anything above a 5 isn't a bad song!

TRACK 12 - Had To Put It In The Soil

Had To Put It In The Soil is the most intimate and bare song on the album, lyrically. First Temple has been full of fits of real emotion obscured by cryptic and overcomplex lyrics, and our final track is the conscious effort to face that habit and push through it. It's really beautiful, surprisingly serious, exceedingly mature and most of all just poignant.

9/10, doesn't sound too stellar but it's really pretty.

RETROSPECTIVE

First Temple is an avant-garde exploration of a lot of complicated feelings and dynamics, in a generally energetic and digestible package. It's one of the prime examples I use for prog as a genre, with an incredibly forward-thinking style and range of sounds. Every track on the record feels like it fits the name of the genre perfectly, as a progression and test to the limits of what we understand as rock. The separation between the two distinct "acts" is a really nice touch, too.

9/10, even if it's largely indecipherable.

[24worldnewsnet]

India remain in control of second Test despite England centuries by Harry Brook and Jamie Smith on Day Three.England had big centuries from Harry Brook and Jamie Smith but little else to celebrate as India stayed in control of the second Test on a turbulent Day Three at Edgbaston. Resuming on 77-3 on Friday, in reply to India’s mammoth first-innings 587 all out, England lost Joe Root and Ben Stokes to successive balls from Mohammed Siraj in the second over but recovered brilliantly purely thanks to a 303-run stand by Brook (158) and Smith (a career-best 184 not out). After taking the second new ball, India claimed England’s last five wickets for 20 runs in just 44 balls to dismiss the home team for 407 – Brook and Smith accounted for 342 of those runs – and take a lead of 180 into the second innings. England had a remarkable six ducks in total, and Siraj’s figures of 6-70. Batting under cloud cover, the Indians reached stumps on 64-1 – with only the loss of Yashasvi Jaiswal (28) – and will resume on Saturday 244 runs ahead and with a series-tying victory in their sights. Lokesh Rahul was unbeaten on 28 alongside Karun Nair, on 7. “We are quite ahead right now,” Siraj said, “but the plan is to get as many runs on the board because we know their attacking mindset.” Mohammed Siraj of India celebrates the wicket of Josh Tongue of England during Day Three of the second Test [Alex Davidson/Getty Images] England was in a big hole that looked gargantuan when Root and Stokes departed to leave their side on 84-5 and still trailing by more than 500 runs. Siraj dismissed England’s best batter — Root for 22 — by enticing a nick down the leg side, with wicketkeeper Rishabh Pant taking a diving catch, and then its captain for a golden duck. Stokes trudged back to the dressing room after a steeply rising and seaming delivery came off the shoulder of his bat and flashed to Pant. Advertisement England were rocked, but Smith and Brook played as if there was no pressure with a counterattacking riposte. “Hopefully, we’ve clawed ourselves back in the game,” Brook said. “I just tried to bat as long as I could, and Smudge [Smith] tried to get the momentum back our way. He’s a phenomenal player.” Jamie Smith of England celebrates reaching his century during Day Three of the second Test [Alex Davidson/Getty Images] Smith came in to face a hat-trick ball, struck that for four, and went on to make the biggest score by an England wicketkeeper – surpassing Alec Stewart. He raced to his second Test hundred before lunch in just 80 balls, the third fastest by an Englishman, and including an over when he pulled and smashed Prasidh Krishna for a six and four fours. Smith was dropped by Pant on 121 off a tough chance. Brook compiled his ninth Test hundred in 27 matches, getting to three figures, courtesy of a classy late cut for four, after being dismissed for 99 in the first test won by England at Headingley last week. Brook, a star for England in all formats, reined in some slight frustration at India changing tactics and bowling wide outside off-stump to a lopsided field and looked good after going down with cramp. Soon afterwards, he was bowled by Akash Deep (4-88) – armed with the second new ball – and was serenaded as he walked off gingerly. That precipitated England’s late-order collapse that saw numbers nine through 11 – Brydon Carse, Josh Tongue and Shaoib Bashir – all being removed for ducks, joining Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope and Stokes. Tongue responded by trapping Jaiswal lbw, but India finished the day in the driving seat. “If I hadn’t got out, we would not be in this situation now,” Brook said, “but we saw last week how quickly it can change. “Hopefully, we can put pressure with early wickets and make them crumble.”

[fiveprogrammers]

What to Expect from a Custom App Developer in Morocco

In today’s fast-evolving digital landscape, businesses no longer settle for one-size-fits-all mobile solutions. They want customized, user-friendly, and scalable mobile applications designed to meet specific business goals. That’s where the expertise of a custom app developer in Morocco comes in.

Morocco is now one of the fastest-growing hubs for digital innovation in North Africa. From startups to large enterprises, businesses across the globe are turning to Moroccan development teams for tailored app development solutions. This blog will help you understand what exactly to expect when you hire a custom app developer in Morocco, and how a reputable company like Five Programmers can bring your app vision to life.

Why Choose a Moroccan Custom App Developer?

Outsourcing to Morocco offers more than just affordability. You get a complete package: skilled professionals, top-tier technology, and global delivery standards.

1. Localized Expertise with Global Standards

Moroccan developers blend local market insight with global coding practices. Whether you're launching an app in the MENA region or beyond, they ensure compliance with international security and performance standards.

2. Cost Efficiency

When compared to European and North American rates, Moroccan developers offer high-quality app development at a fraction of the cost. You receive end-to-end service without overextending your budget.

3. Advanced Tech Stack

Most Moroccan developers are proficient in modern technologies like Flutter, Swift, React Native, Node.js, and cloud-based backends. Whether it’s iOS, Android, or hybrid development, you’re in capable hands.

4. Cultural and Linguistic Compatibility

Fluency in Arabic, French, and English allows smooth communication and a better understanding of diverse client needs. Moroccan developers are adept at working in international settings.

What Services You Can Expect

A top-rated mobile app development company in Morocco will generally offer a full suite of services, including:

Business Analysis: Understanding your goals, audience, and competition

UI/UX Design: Crafting beautiful, user-focused interfaces

Custom App Development: Tailored coding for iOS, Android, or both

Testing & QA: Rigorous testing across devices and use cases

Maintenance & Updates: Ongoing support post-deployment

Teams like Five Programmers deliver each of these services with transparency, dedication, and efficiency.

Phases of Working with Moroccan App Developers

Understanding the development journey helps set expectations and builds mutual trust.

1. Discovery Phase

You begin with an in-depth discussion around your app’s objectives, target audience, and core functionalities.

2. Prototyping & Design

Designers create wireframes and UI mockups to visualize the user experience before coding starts.

3. Development

Agile sprints allow developers to create modules, conduct reviews, and integrate real-time feedback.

4. Testing & Deployment

Apps undergo detailed quality checks and are deployed to Google Play and App Store after final approval.

5. Post-Launch Support

Expect continuous monitoring, performance optimization, and feature upgrades from companies like Five Programmers.

How Five Programmers Enhances the Experience

Choosing Five Programmers means working with a Moroccan team that combines technical skills with business insight. With years of experience building apps across industries like fintech, logistics, healthcare, and e-commerce, their custom approach ensures:

App development that meets real-world business goals

Fast turnaround times with iterative testing

Scalability and future-readiness

Full transparency and weekly progress updates

As a trusted name in Morocco, Five Programmers has earned recognition for its ability to turn complex ideas into functional mobile apps that actually work.

FAQs: Hiring a Custom App Developer in Morocco

Q1: How long does it take to develop a custom app in Morocco? A: Timelines vary, but most custom apps are built in 10–16 weeks, depending on features and platform.

Q2: What industries do Moroccan developers work with? A: Common industries include retail, education, fintech, logistics, travel, and healthcare.

Q3: Can Moroccan teams scale the app as our business grows? A: Absolutely. Moroccan developers like Five Programmers build scalable architecture from the start.

Q4: Is communication a challenge? A: Not at all. Developers in Morocco are fluent in English, and tools like Slack, Zoom, and Trello make communication seamless.

Why Five Programmers is a Top Pick

Among Morocco’s development teams, Five Programmers stands out due to its balance of creativity, technical precision, and customer satisfaction. Here’s what they bring to the table:

100% custom app development

UI/UX design focused on end-users

Full-cycle development: from concept to launch

Transparent, on-time delivery

If you’re looking for an app that is not just functional but also future-proof, Five Programmers is your go-to partner in Morocco.

Ready to Launch Your App?

Hiring a custom app developer in Morocco means you get top-tier services at unmatched value. From ideation to post-launch support, developers here work with dedication and passion.

Contact Five Programmers today to discuss your app idea. Whether you need an MVP or a complex enterprise solution, their team is ready to deliver.

Get a quote now and see how your vision can become the next big mobile success story—powered by Morocco.

[reports77]

2021–2031 Market Forecast: How Autonomous Ground Vehicles Are Reshaping Last Mile Delivery

The global Last-Mile Delivery Autonomous Ground Vehicles (AGVs) market is projected to surge from USD 1.25 billion in 2024 to USD 6.36 billion by 2031, recording a robust CAGR of 26.9% between 2025 and 2031, according to the latest industry analysis by Business Market Insights.

The report, titled “Last-Mile Delivery Autonomous Ground Vehicles Market”, offers a comprehensive look at current market dynamics, trends, technological advancements, and regional outlooks. The study uses a mix of quantitative and qualitative research methods to provide key insights that help industry professionals and decision-makers form data-backed strategies.

🚚 Key Market Players

Prominent companies driving growth in the last-mile delivery AGV sector include:

Amazon, Inc.

Postmates, LLC

Nuro, Inc.

Starship Technologies, Inc.

Deutsche Post DHL Group

FedEx Corporation

JD.com, Inc.

Kiwibot, Inc.

Zipline International, Inc.

Wing Aviation LLC

These companies are at the forefront of autonomous delivery innovation, introducing ground-based vehicles designed to improve delivery times, reduce costs, and enhance the customer experience.

🌍 Market Overview and Key Insights

The report features an executive summary and a global economic outlook. The Market Overview section includes:

PESTLE Analysis to evaluate external factors affecting market behavior

Porter’s Five Forces Analysis to understand competitive pressure

Product Lifecycle Analysis (PLC) to map innovation and maturity stages

This in-depth assessment enables stakeholders to identify potential investment opportunities and mitigate risks.

📊 Strategic Analysis & Forecast

The report analyzes:

Production volumes

Revenue growth patterns

Gross margins

Pricing strategies

Each element plays a crucial role in shaping the competitive landscape of the AGV market. It also includes practical case studies that offer real-world business applications and successful deployment strategies of AGVs in logistics.

📈 Market Drivers

Key factors fueling market expansion include:

Rising demand for contactless delivery post-COVID-19

Growth in e-commerce and urban logistics

Advancements in AI and machine learning for navigation

Increasing investments in smart city infrastructure

📌 Regional Outlook

Regions analyzed in the report include:

North America

Europe

Asia Pacific

Latin America

Middle East & Africa

North America leads in adoption due to established tech ecosystems and logistics demand. However, Asia Pacific is expected to witness the fastest growth, thanks to rapid urbanization and increasing tech penetration.

📥 Get Sample Report- https://www.businessmarketinsights.com/sample/BMIPUB00031695

🛠️ Customization Available

Business Market Insights offers tailored report solutions to meet your specific needs. Whether you’re a startup or an established enterprise, their team can customize data sets and insights for strategic decision-making.

📌 About Business Market Insights

Business Market Insights is a trusted market research platform offering subscription-based access to industry and company reports. Their expert analysts deliver actionable insights across sectors such as:

Automotive & Transportation

Technology, Media & Telecommunications

Healthcare

Energy & Power

Food & Beverages

Manufacturing & Construction

📞 Contact Us

Ankit Mathur 📧 Email: sales@businessmarketinsights.com 📞 Phone: +1 646 791 7070 🌐 Website: www.businessmarketinsights.com

[gloriasewor]

How Ghana’s Road Infrastructure Affects Freight Timelines

By Gloria Sewor

When most people think about delays in freight, their minds jump straight to customs clearance or port congestion. And yes, those matter—hugely. But there’s another factor, one that operates silently and steadily in the background, often underestimated: the roads themselves.

Ghana’s road infrastructure plays a central role in how goods move from ports to warehouses, factories to retail shelves, and border points to rural hubs. And if you’ve ever tried to move cargo from Tema to Tamale during the rainy season, you’ll know exactly what I mean.

Freight doesn’t just need to arrive. It needs to arrive on time, intact, and without bleeding your logistics budget dry in the process. That last part? It's where road conditions can quietly make or break a shipment.

It’s Not Just About Potholes

People hear “bad roads” and think potholes. But the challenge is more layered than that. We’re talking about:

Unpaved or poorly maintained secondary routes

Seasonal flooding that cuts off key highways

Weight restrictions on certain bridges

Unmarked detours due to ongoing roadworks

Now, these issues don’t exist everywhere all the time. Some corridors are fantastic—well-maintained, expanding, and getting more efficient. But others, especially those leading to landlocked regions or connecting to neighboring countries, are… complicated. Predictability is often the first casualty.

We had a shipment once—a container of pharmaceuticals bound for Wa. Everything was on track from Tema Port. But 120 km from the destination, heavy rains made part of the route impassable for the truck's axle weight. A five-hour delay turned into two days. And with medical supplies, time sensitivity isn’t a luxury—it’s non-negotiable.

The Cost of Unpredictability

Delays caused by road issues don’t just hurt delivery schedules. They ripple across entire supply chains:

Perishable goods risk spoilage

Retailers lose revenue due to stockouts

Factories pause production while waiting for parts

Transporters incur extra fuel and driver time costs

At PORTLINK GHANA LIMITED, we’ve developed routing strategies that account for these variables. Sometimes the “shortest” route on paper isn’t the fastest—or the safest. We use real-time driver feedback, weather forecasts, and even community updates to plan around potential road hazards.

Still, there are moments—especially during the peak of the rainy season—where even the best plans require last-minute pivots. That flexibility has to be built into the system. It’s not a bug. It’s the nature of road-based freight in our part of the world.

Investment Is Happening—But It Takes Time

To be fair, road infrastructure in Ghana has seen improvements in recent years. The expansion of key trade corridors like the Accra–Kumasi road and parts of the Eastern Corridor Road are great examples.

Government projects supported by regional trade initiatives and infrastructure partners are ongoing. These improvements aren’t just cosmetic—they reduce transit times, vehicle wear and tear, and ultimately make goods cheaper for everyone involved.

But infrastructure is slow-moving. A new road announced today might not impact your logistics operation for three or four years. So while it’s encouraging, businesses still have to operate within the current realities.

A Practical Example: The Aflao Border Route

Let’s take the Aflao border post as an example—a key point for goods heading between Ghana and Togo. While the border post itself has improved in terms of customs and clearance efficiency, the surrounding roads can be patchy. During busy periods, congestion isn't always caused by traffic alone—it’s a result of vehicles navigating tricky road segments slowly, cautiously, sometimes even dangerously.

We had a rice shipment moving through that corridor. Halfway through, a section of the road near Akatsi gave way after heavy rains. Our team rerouted via Ho—a longer path, yes, but one that ensured timely delivery. It was a scramble, but it worked.

The Human Element

What’s often forgotten is that drivers are navigating these conditions—sometimes overnight, sometimes without rest areas. Bad roads aren’t just a mechanical issue; they affect driver fatigue, morale, and safety.

At PORTLINK GHANA LIMITED, we’ve started staggering dispatch times and rotating driver teams to reduce pressure. It doesn’t solve the road itself, but it helps our people operate better within those conditions. And it matters.

Recognition That Reflects the Bigger Picture

As I write this, I can’t help but reflect on how far we’ve come as a logistics provider in Ghana. PORTLINK GHANA LIMITED is honoured to be a nominee for the 2025 Go Global Awards, hosted by the International Trade Council in London this November.

This isn’t just a moment for our company—it’s an opportunity to connect with global minds addressing complex trade realities. Because logistics isn’t static. The challenges we face in Ghana—like road infrastructure—are mirrored across other parts of Africa and beyond. Events like this create a space to exchange ideas, build partnerships, and imagine smarter ways to move goods in a world that’s always shifting.

We’re proud to be part of that conversation.

Final Thoughts

Roads connect more than places—they connect economies, ideas, and lives. In Ghana, the condition of those roads can quietly determine whether your shipment arrives on time or not at all.

There’s progress, yes. But in the meantime, freight companies, shippers, and importers must plan for the terrain as it is—not as we wish it to be.

And maybe, that’s what logistics really is. Not just movement. But adaptation.

[cricnewz]

Best Indian Debut Performances in Test Cricket

Stepping onto the field in Test cricket for the very first time is a moment every cricketer dreams of. For an Indian player, wearing the whites and representing the country in the game’s oldest format comes with immense pride—and pressure. The first match can shape a career, and while some players take time to settle, others make an instant impact. Over the years, there have been several unforgettable Indian debut performances in Test cricket that left fans and experts in awe.

From blistering knocks to match-winning spells, let’s revisit the best Indian debut performances in Test cricket—moments that made a statement and announced the arrival of future legends.

1. Shikhar Dhawan – 187 vs Australia (2013)

Few players have had as dramatic a start to their Test cricket journey as Shikhar Dhawan. On his debut at Mohali against Australia in 2013, Dhawan didn’t just score runs—he rewrote records. Opening the innings, the left-hander smashed a breathtaking 187 off just 174 balls, the fastest century by a debutant in Test history.

His fearless strokeplay, cover drives, and unmatched confidence left the Australian bowlers stunned. Though he missed out on a double hundred, Dhawan’s debut remains one of the most explosive Test debut innings by an Indian.

2. Ravichandran Ashwin – 9 Wickets vs West Indies (2011)

Before he became India’s spin spearhead, Ravichandran Ashwin made an unforgettable debut against the West Indies in Delhi. The off-spinner picked up 9 wickets in the match, including a five-wicket haul in the second innings, helping India secure a massive win.

His variations, control, and sharp cricketing mind were evident from the start. Ashwin was also handy with the bat, scoring a valuable 30 in the first innings. His debut was a sign of things to come—he now sits among India’s most successful Test bowlers of all time.

3. Prithvi Shaw – 134 vs West Indies (2018)

At just 18 years of age, Prithvi Shaw became the youngest Indian to score a Test century on debut. Facing the West Indies at Rajkot, Shaw played with freedom and maturity far beyond his years. He reached his hundred in just 99 balls, eventually scoring 134 off 154 deliveries.

What made Shaw’s knock special was his balance between aggression and control. His stroke play was crisp, and he looked at ease against both pace and spin. Though Shaw's career has had its ups and downs since, his debut remains one of the most promising starts by any Indian batter.

4. Mohammed Shami – 9 Wickets vs West Indies (2013)

Making his debut at Eden Gardens in 2013, Mohammed Shami made an immediate impact with the ball. He used reverse swing to great effect and bowled with accuracy and pace. Shami took 9 wickets in the match, including a five-wicket haul in the second innings.

His performance played a crucial role in India’s win and showed that India had unearthed a genuine fast-bowling talent. Today, Shami is a mainstay in India’s pace attack across formats, but it all started with a dream debut in Kolkata.

5. Yashasvi Jaiswal – 171 vs West Indies (2023)

Among the recent best Indian debut performances in Test cricket, Yashasvi Jaiswal’s knock against the West Indies in 2023 stands out. Opening the innings in Dominica, Jaiswal batted with incredible composure and technique to score a majestic 171 off 387 balls.

It wasn’t just the runs, but the way he constructed the innings that impressed cricket lovers. He left well, rotated strike smartly, and showed solid temperament for someone playing their first Test. His debut innings was the third-highest score by an Indian on Test debut—signaling the arrival of a potential red-ball superstar.

6. Sourav Ganguly – 131 vs England (1996)

The Lord’s Test in 1996 saw two iconic debuts for India, but it was Sourav Ganguly who stole the spotlight. Making his debut at the Mecca of cricket, Ganguly scored a sublime 131, becoming only the third Indian to score a century on debut at Lord’s.

His cover drives were picture-perfect, and he displayed incredible confidence against a strong English bowling attack. Ganguly’s debut was the beginning of a remarkable Test career, and his innings at Lord’s still holds a special place in Indian cricket history.

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7. Subhash Gupte – 7/162 vs England (1951)

Often regarded as one of India’s greatest leg-spinners, Subhash Gupte made a strong first impression in only his second Test (his official debut performance was modest, but his breakout came in the same series). Against England in Kanpur, he picked up 7 wickets for 162 runs, bamboozling batters with his sharp leg-breaks and googlies.

His performance came in an era where spin bowling wasn’t as celebrated, making it even more remarkable. Gupte would go on to become one of India’s earliest spin greats.

8. Narendra Hirwani – 16 Wickets vs West Indies (1988)

No list of best Indian debut performances in Test cricket is complete without Narendra Hirwani. Making his debut in Chennai, Hirwani spun a web around the West Indies, taking a jaw-dropping 16 wickets for 136 runs—the best bowling figures on Test debut in history.

With 8 wickets in each innings, Hirwani delivered a magical performance that stunned the cricketing world. Though his career didn’t take off as expected afterward, his debut remains one of the most iconic moments in Indian cricket.

9. Axar Patel – 7 Wickets vs England (2021)

In the 2021 home series against England, Axar Patel got his opportunity due to Ravindra Jadeja’s injury. Making his debut in Chennai, Axar didn’t disappoint. He picked up 7 wickets in the match, including a five-wicket haul in the second innings.

What stood out was his control, sharp turn, and ability to bowl in the right areas consistently. He finished the series with 27 wickets in just three Tests, but it was his debut that laid the foundation.

Why Debuts Matter in Test Cricket

Test cricket is the ultimate challenge, and a strong debut often sets the tone for a successful career. These standout performances are not just about stats—they reflect a player’s readiness, confidence, and ability to perform under pressure.

Making a mark on debut requires mental toughness, skill, and self-belief. It’s the first step toward becoming a long-term asset for the team, and fans always remember those who shine from Day 1.

Final Thoughts

India has been blessed with several cricketers who made dream starts in the toughest format of the game. From batters who scored centuries on debut to bowlers who ran through line-ups, the best Indian debut performances in Test cricket have left an indelible mark on the sport.

These stories are not just about great numbers—they are about belief, preparation, and the moment where a dream becomes reality. As Indian cricket continues to evolve, we’re sure to see many more such debut heroes in the years to come.

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