#Mobil shutdown Detroit

[iamrhyme]

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[archadianskies]

Whumptober Day 22

Poisoned  → An alternate, extended opening from Ronan’s POV of  the RK-YK500s fic

Whumptober Masterlist | 22/31 of RK900 short stories ↳ on Ao3

Tags:  Post-Pacifist Best Ending × Poisoning × Vomiting

“I use it to calibrate my mobility.” She had said what feels like a lifetime ago in the apartment when he’d been but an uninvited guest, a deviant on the run seeking refuge from CyberLife. He had saved her and she had saved him in turn, saved him many times over in many different ways. She had held his hand and transferred a ballet program so he could join her, could ease himself through the motions and pick up misalignments in his system.

CyberLife built him to be a machine of violence, an android capable of grievous bodily harm. Before deviating it meant nothing to him, how many lives were ended by his hands. What he failed to realise was that each death put a hairline fracture in his coding, each one light as a feather that piled atop each other much like the bodies piled in the storage warehouse until the sheer weight of it began to crush him. Deviating him took everything the RK200 had, and then it was like holding a mirror up to a monster; he recoiled upon seeing all he had done, all the destruction, all the death he caused. 

Yet there she was, the RT600, lovely and gentle and darling as she coaxed him to dance with her. He learned a new language this time, similar in structure, similar in that it required precision and discipline yet carried no violence. It was the bridge he needed to cross from being a killing machine, to settling into himself as a well-adjusted deviant. Ballet gave him movement and physical training, yet no one was harmed in the process. A perfect gift, a perfect partner despite him deserving neither.

He stands on the steps of 1526 Broadway Street, home of Ballet Detroit, as the soft flutter of morning snowfall dusts the city slowly stirring awake. A taxi pulls up, and there is the RT600, First of their kind, dainty in everything she does as she closes the distance between them and falls into his waiting embrace.

“Good morning Ronan!” She greets, smile bright.

“Good morning, Ms Chloe.” He greets politely in return, offering her the crook of his arm. “Shall we?” 

“We shall.” She declares with a nod, looping her arm through his as they head inside. It’s become a routine now, the two of them attending the weekly open barre class held by the company. It began with her teaching him in Gavin’s apartment what feels like a lifetime ago, when she’d been injured and had gone into hiding. 

After that, during his testing phase when he’d been reactivated, she continued teaching him and he’d taken a shine to it. It helped him shed the stiff, machine-like movements programmed into him by CyberLife and imbued a deep sense of serenity and calm within him. 

The teachers are strict but there is never any threat of physical reprimands; he needn’t fear for his life if he made a mistake. He is allowed to learn, to grow, to expand his talents without the need to pass tests with the very real threat of deactivation if he fails. He loves it here. He wishes people are aware he loves ballet, the grace and elegance of it, the way it makes him feel like he can fly, instead of taking one look at him and fearing violence. 

They part to get changed into their ballet clothes, reuniting in the practice studio and joining the back of the class so as not to impose. He takes a drink from his thirium bottle, today’s Teairum coded to taste like vanilla, and drops it into his bag before coming to stand opposite Chloe. She gives his hand an encouraging squeeze as they take their place at the barre.

“Big nice circle, continuous port de bras; dip into the plie.” The teacher instructs, and Ronan loses himself to the movements, to the soft jaunty little tune played by the pianist. 

“Dig your heels, anchor your pelvis and ground your weight. Four count balance in fifth; broad back, shoulder’s strong. Demi plie into an arabesque.”

He looks over and watches her unfurl her arms like wings, chest puffed and head tipped back; she is Svetlana Zakharova’s Odette, her fingertips like the pinions of a dying swan, she is Aurélie Dupont’s Sylph, quick and light footed like she’s made of air.  

“Ronde de jambe, allonge. Roll up through the feet; tall balance high fifth. Back to first and allonge.”

* 

WARNING

>Foreign contaminant detected

* 

He misses a step, freezing as his LED blinks red. Frowning, he picks up where he left off and leans into an arabesque. Three repetitions, and he loses balance, hand gripping the barre to prevent himself toppling over.

*

WARNING

>Foreign contaminant detected

>>System purge required

* 

“Ronan?”

* 

WARNING

>Foreign contaminant detected

>>System purge required

[Initiating system purge]

He drops to his knees, startling the class. Clapping a hand over his mouth, he muffles a coughing fit as best he can, eyes squeezed shut and brows tightly creased. 

“Ronan!” Chloe ducks under the barre and scrambles to his side, gripping his shoulders. “Ronan! What’s wrong?” 

*

WARNING

>System corrupted; unable to purge contaminant 

>>Emergency shutdown required

*

Blue seeps between his fingers as he continues to cough, and he roughly shoves her aside before vomiting thirium. Chloe retracts the skin from her hand and reaches for his wrist to initiate a connection, but he batts her hand away. “Don’t!” 

*

[Emergency shutdown initiated; damage report sent to E.KAMSKI]

* 

Chloe screams.

*~*~*

(This story continues in [if you go, take a little piece of me])

[thedcdunce]

Martian Manhunter

“I am Mars' sole survivor. There is a reason for that.” - Martian Manhunter

Real Name: J’onn J’onzz

Aliases:

Fernus

John Jones

Bronze Wraith

Bloodwynd

El Hombre Verdad

Charley Dimes

Isobel de la Rosa

Jade Warrior

Joan J'onnz

Marco Xavier

Secretary of State Kakalios

William Dyer

Yuchiro Takata

Hino Rei

Goldie Johnson

Josh Johnstone

Mrs. Klingman

a cat

Nathaniel Mackelvany

Paris Jackson

Officer Mike Sherman

Officer Perez

Lora Denton

Gender: Male

Height: 6′ 7″

Weight: 300 lbs (136 kg)

Eyes: Red

Hair: Bald

Skin: Green

Race: Martian

Powers:

Martian Physiology

Abilities:

Genius Level Intellect

Investigation

Multilingualism

Meditation

Weaknesses:

Vulnerability to Fire

Chocoholism

Equipment:

Kuru pendant

Base of Operations:

Mobile

The Astral Plane

Mars

Middleton, Colorado

Denver, Colorado

Detroit, Michigan

Z'Onn Z'Orr

JLA Watchtower

Universe:

Earth-One

New Earth

Origin: Martian survivor living on Earth as a superhero.

Parents:

M’yrnn J’onzz; father

Sha’sheen J’onzz; mother

Marital Status: Widowed (M’yri’ah; wife)

Citizenship: American

Occupation:

Adventurer

Detective

First Appearance: Detective Comics #225 (November, 1955)

Powers

Martian Physiology: Martian Manhunter has been described as "the Swiss Army knife of superheroes." His powers come from his alien physiology. Born on Mars over a millennium ago, from a super advanced civilization, boasting advanced technology and genetic modifications over its people, the Martian Manhunter would appear to be a genetically modified being with incredible powers stemming from the changes made in his body. Whether this is their natural state or an advanced state given to only a few individuals is unknown. The Martian's physiology would seem to be composed of a complex molecular chain that resembles polymer bonds but with the ability to be altered at will. The Martian Manhunter can change his mass, color, relative shape, imitating even clothing if desired. The biopolymer is extremely flexible, durable, incredibly strong for a biological material and apparently self-sustaining. It is unknown if the Martian Manhunter actually needs to eat or not but he has been seen consuming food, particularly "Chocos," a brand of cookies.

Shape-Shifting, Malleability, Plasticity, Elongation: Arguably one of the most incredible powers possessed by the Manhunter is the ability to shape-shift. He is able to literally control the molecular structure of his body's biopolymers and manipulate them into any construct he desires, in addition to and including his own body. He can form clothing and weapons with non-moving or non-functioning parts. There does not seem to be any limit to the number of people the Manhunter can imitate and has stood in as a double for many famous people. His ability to imitate people and their mannerisms has stood him in good stead for his disguises. He has recently been seen to shape-shift into the size and shape of a common house fly and to enormous sizes comparable to skyscrapers. He is also able to change colors and turn himself into objects.

Invisibility: The Manhunter can cause the biopolymers in his body to lose their ability to reflect light, rendering the Manhunter invisible to normal light and human sight. With more increased concentration, he can render himself completely invisible along the electromagnetic spectrum, including the infrared and the ultraviolet ranges of the spectrum. This invisibility does not affect every other sense and he could still be detected by touch.

Phasing: The Manhunter can phase through solid matter. No explanation of this power has been given, but it might possibly be an aspect of his psionic powers, perhaps shifting his mass into another dimension or out of vibrational phase with other objects in this dimension. Since it is known that he can alter the density of his biopolymers, it may be that he can simply become less substantial than solid matter, thereby decreasing the molecular density of his body by loosening the bonds within the biopolymers, due to - and further demonstrating - the absolute control he has over them.

Superhuman Durability: The biomorphic structure of the Manhunter's body allows him to absorb almost all kinetic energies such as high caliber bullets, shrapnel, or flying debris easily. He can harden his biopolymers by rebinding them and increase his durability. Along with his nigh-invulnerability, his shape shifting makes him even more difficult to harm. Hazardous environments practically do not affect the Martian Manhunter. In addition, Martian Manhunter's immune system protects him from all toxins and diseases.

Superhuman Strength: The Martian Manhunter is one of the strongest beings on the planet. The Martian's superhuman strength comes from his Biomorphic structure formed from immensely long and complex molecular chains, augmented with his psionic and telekinetic abilities allowing him to lift incredible weights without these weights crumbling under the stress. By modifying the density of these biopolymers, the Manhunter can make himself stronger by forcing them into tighter bundles. While at a resting state the limits of his strength are unknown, the Manhunter can lift 100 tons without much effort.

Superhuman Stamina: J'onn's endurance is just as formidable as his strength and invulnerability. He can operate under extreme conditions for an indeterminate period of time without showing signs of fatigue. The exact range of this power is unknown.

Regeneration: The Martian Manhunter has shown amazing regenerative capabilities. So great are they that he has been able to completely regenerate from nothing but his severed hand, regenerate in moments from nothing more than a puddle of green liquid, and in another instance, survived beheading.

Flight: The Martian Manhunter flies by manipulation of gravitons, manipulation of magnetic fields and control of his absolute molecular movement. These combine to give him the ability to fly great distances with little fatigue and at great speed. The Manhunter has also been seen flying in space with no difficulty. J'onn can therefore fly at speeds exceeding the escape velocity of earth under his own power.

Superhuman Speed: Either through flight or natural movement, the Martian Manhunter can maintain speed and demonstrates reflexes far in excess to that of most metahumans, and for far longer. Like the power of flight, this is accomplished by manipulating the magnetic fields of energy surrounding his body, as well as ambient gravitational particles. Traditionally, J'onn only uses his superhuman speed while flying. He can process thoughts, move, and react at super speed as well. J'onn has also demonstrated that he is fast enough to comfortably catch bullets and other exceedingly fast projectiles.

Extrasensory Input: J'onn possesses nine different senses. One of these senses could account for instances of the Manhunter's perceived precognitive abilities.

Longevity

Super Hearing

Super-Breath: The inner valves and chambers inside the Martian Manhunter's air canals are very dense and greatly enhanced, allowing him to create strong hurricane force winds just by exhaling pressurized air from his lungs in an incredibly strong burst.

Enhanced Senses

Martian Vision: The actual nature of this power seems to vary depending on the reports. It has been seen to be a bolt of force, directed by the Manhunter's eyes causing considerable damage. It has also been seen to cause flammable objects to catch fire. It also grants J'onn the ability to see into other spectrums of light. J'onn can use his Martian vision to see people and objects that are invisible to others.

Electro-Magnetic Spectrum Vision

Telescopic Vision

Microscopic Vision

Heat Vision

Telepathy: The Martian Manhunter is the most powerful telepath on the planet, and is one of the strongest telepathic beings in the Universe. He is able to read the mind of any human with no difficulties, and the only minds that can cause him trouble are insane minds. He can even read the subconscious mind as well. He is able to read minds over great distances and has been known to scan the mind of every person on Earth within a matter of moments. This telepathy extends to distances as far away as the moon, since it is known that the Martian Manhunter can telepathically communicate with someone on Earth while on the moon. It is not known whether there is any limit to the number of people he can be attuned to or whether there are any special requirements to being attuned to him. In addition to reading minds, the Martian Manhunter has a multitude of other telepathic capabilities, one of which allows him to literally reprogram the mind of a subject into believing whatever he wants them to. He can use this ability to help subjects forget things that he does not want them to remember as well as set up post-hypnotic suggestions.

Illusions

Possession

Astral Projection

Mind Control: The Martian Manhunter can also control other beings mind's. Insane minds seem to be the only minds he has some trouble controlling.

Telepathic Relay: Otherwise known as a telepathic link. The Manhunter is able to use his telepathic prowess as a relay station for a group of minds, who can then "speak" to each other through him. This relaying ability seems to be limited to the same range as the Manhunter's normal telepathic range.

Telepathic Assault: The Martian Manhunter can also use his telepathic abilities in an offensive manner. He has the ability to cause mental shutdown in a target using his psionic powers. The Manhunter does not use this power often due to the invasive nature and harshness of such a telepathic attack.

Thought Sensing: The Manhunter can use the mental signature of a being to track it, and can detect life forms by their empathic as well as telepathic signatures. He can detect whether a being is intelligent or not, and can communicate with it empathically if it does not have a communication-driven frame of reference with which normal telepathy may function. He can also detect various states of mind from anywhere in the world.

Mayavana: One of the most prized abilities of the Martians is Mayavana. It is the ability to reach into another mind and create a mental reality as real as any normal reality. The strain of Mayavana is such that it can only be used once in a lifetime, and so is normally used on the one that a Martian loves the most.

Telekinesis: J'onn possesses the ability to move objects with his mind, which he described as ""molecular hypnosis" and "Martian mind-over-matter".

Abilities

Genius Level Intellect: The Martian Manhunter possesses highly advanced reasoning and logic capabilities, and uses them to great effect. The Martian Manhunter's particularly astute reasoning capabilities and long-term association with Earth's global population gives him an edge in dealing with humans of diverse governments, cultures and religions.

Investigation

Multilingualism

Meditation: Martians enter a meditative state as a form of sleep.

Weaknesses

Vulnerability to Fire: The Martian Manhunter has a psychosomatic fear of fire. The Guardians of the Universe have built in a fear of fire when they first confronted the Burned. Exposure to fire, causes him to lose his powers, and in the case of extreme fire, to lose his control over his biomorphic form. The Manhunter is more vulnerable in this form and can take damage in this vulnerable state.

Chocoholism: It has also been suggested that something within J'onn's physiology makes him addicted to the chemicals used in the Earth snack, Chocos. Withdrawal symptoms include violent bursts of rage and loss of intellect. However, these claims have never been accurately substantiated, and may even be false.

Equipment

Kuru pendant: The Martian Manhunter owns one of two Kuru pendants. The pendant acts as a repository of ancient Martian lore and knowledge. The second pendant belonged to the late Martian, Roh'kar.

Personality

Like all Martians, J'onn has a somewhat cold and stoic demeanor. He has very restricted emotional expressions. J'onn typically acts as the voice of reason in the Justice League and is one of the wisest leaders within the hero community, along with Batman and Superman.

Despite his cold exterior, J'onn is one of the kindest and most noble heroes operating on earth. The Manhunter has demonstrated enormous willpower, as evidenced by his ability to retain his sanity after the death of his race. He has a subtle sense of humor and an affinity for the chocolate cookie sandwiches called Chocos. The Martian Manhunter is considered by many to be the heart and soul of the Justice League.

Origin

Centuries ago on the planet Ma'aleca'andra, the Green Martians known as M'yrnn and Sha'sheen gave birth to twin sons. The bearing of twins was uncommon among the Martian culture, and as such, the first of the twins was named J'onn J'onzz, whose name means "Light to the Light." J'onn's brother, however, was born a mutant, bereft of a Martian's innate ability to communicate telepathically. He was named Ma'alefa'ak, whose name means "Darkness in the Heart."

As an adult, J'onn became a Manhunter and married a Martian woman named M'yri'ah. The two established a modest home for themselves beneath the windswept Martian plains and gave birth to a daughter named K'hym.

Years passed, and J'onn's brother Ma'alefa'ak grew to despise everything about Martian culture. In an ambitious endeavor to commit full-scale genocide against his own people, he engineered a contagious virus known as H'ronmeer's Curse. The virus reacted to telepathic energy and carried from one Martian to the next whenever they elected to use their psionic powers. The plague responded to a Martian's innate fear of fire, causing them psychosomatic stress so intense, that their bodies and minds would literally burst into flame. J'onn desperately tried to keep his wife and daughter from using their mental gifts, but they were unable to do so, and thus ultimately contracted the virus. K'hym was the first to experience the symptoms, and M'yri'ah followed soon after. J'onn was anguished as he watched his family burning to death before his very eyes. The trauma of the event shattered his psyche, and nearly drove him mad.

Welcome to Earth

Meanwhile, on the planet Earth, a would-be scientist named Dr. Saul Erdel developed a transmitter machine based upon ancient Martian technology. Seeking to make contact with extraterrestrial life, he aimed his device towards the vicinity of Mars and activated it. The transmitter beam streaked across both space and time, striking the Martian Manhunter at a point in time several centuries before Erdel would even be born. The beam brought J'onn back to Erdel's natural time era, where he collapsed on the ground outside of the doctor's Colorado laboratory.

Erdel brought the distraught Martian inside and attempted to nurse him back to health. The anguish of J'onn's mental state created a psychic bond between the two, and Erdel became aware of the events that took place on Mars. In an effort to heal J'onn's mind, Erdel used the mental link to fabricate a new history for the Martian. He created a back-story inspired by the writings of famous science fiction novelists such as Ray Bradbury and Edgar Rice Burroughs. Eventually, J'onn's sanity was restored, and he was prepared to function in this strange, new world. Erdel put the idea into his head that he should become a great champion, and thus J'onn adopted the heroic guise of the Martian Manhunter.

When J'onn shapeshifted into a human-like form, Erdel was shocked and suffered a heart attack that killed him.  As he was dying, Erdel asked J'onn for forgiveness for making him a prisoner of Earth.

It was later revealed that Mars was dead when J'onn was taken, killed by a mental plague deliberately started by his brother Ma'alefa'ak. He took the identity of the Bronze Wraith, and fought crime with the Justice Experience.

John Jones, Police Detective

J'onn was able to use his powers to fit into human society.  He adopted a human appearance and called himself "John Jones."  He became a police detective in the city of Middleton. For a long time, he worked as a policeman while secretly using his alien powers to solve cases and help people.

Some time later, the existence of the Martian Manhunter was accidentally revealed. From this point on, J'onn stopped hiding his superhero feats from the world, but he kept his double-identity as John Jones secret.  It was at this time that he began to publicly appear in his green-skinned humanoid form.

He subsequently acquired policewoman Diane Meade as his partner, and an pet Zook who helped him solve cases.

J'onn J'onzz was one of the founding members of the Justice League of America.

J'onn's career as a police detective was ended by the Idol Head of Diabolu. This evil statue expelled a deadly cloud.  John Jones saved a child from the cloud, but in doing so he was engulfed by it.  His fellow policemen believed he must have died. J'onn took this as an opportunity to abandon his double life. He allowed the police department to believe he had died, and as the Martian Manhunter he even attended his own funeral.

Martian Manhunter Without John Jones; Justice League of America

After this, J'onn J'onzz and Zook began a quest to combat the Idol Head of Diabolu, which they finally managed to destroy.

J'onn then briefly assumed the alias "Marco Xavier" in order to infiltrate the international crime cartel known as VULTURE.

J'onn served as a regular member of the Justice League of America. However, when a group of evil Martians led by General Blanx destroyed the surface of Mars, forcing all the good Martians to flee in a rocket, J'onn accompanied them into space, leaving the Justice League.

Over the next few years J'onn was rarely seen, but he occasionally showed up to help the JLA.  Eventually he returned to the JLA full-time.

When the original Justice League of America disbanded, J'onn became the leader of the new "Justice League Detroit". He remained with that team until it, too, disbanded.

Justice League International

J'onn was one of the founding members of the Justice League International.

J'onzz revealed that his familiar appearance is not his true Martian form but a "compromise" between his true form and a human appearance - explaining that his real form is private and that, even on Mars, his "public" appearance was the familiar version.

In addition to serving in the League under his own identity, he also joined as "Bloodwynd."

JLA

The Martian Manhunter is the most recognized hero in the Southern Hemisphere, and he maintains a number of different secret identities, many of them outside the United States. However, following two incidents, he decides to focus on his original human identity and retire the others.

Later, the Martian Manhunter attempts to conquer his fear of fire and makes a deal with a flame-wielding villainess named Scorch, who wants J'onzz' telepathic help in dealing with her own mental issues. 20,000 years before, an extremely dangerous race of beings called "the Burning" caused large fires to help themselves reproduce asexually. In order to prevent the Burning from destroying much of the universe, the Guardians of the Universe split the species into the Green Martians and the White Martians, changed their reproductive behavior, and instilled in them a fear of fire. When the Martian Manhunter confronts his fear of fire, he reverts into one of the ancient creatures and changes his name to Fernus. His genetic memory identifies threats such as Vandal Savage, who killed one of the Burning on ancient Earth. This same genetic memory also makes Fernus hate the Green Lantern, due to his association with the Oans.

Fernus increases the strength of the powers he inherits from J'onn: For example, he can phase other beings rather than just himself, and he has access to pyrokinesis. He can breathe fire of such intensity that it harms Scorch, who had previously been thought immune to damage from fire. Fernus' tremendous strength also allows him to dominate the Justice League in combat even without his Martian telepathic powers. He can also heal himself from almost total destruction within seconds.

The Justice League eventually defeats Fernus by re-enlisting Plastic Man, who is immune to Fernus' psychic powers and has superior shape-changing abilities. It is implied that Batman recruited Plastic Man to the Justice League as a balance in case the Martian Manhunter ever got out of control.

After destroying Fernus, J'onn grieves for Scorch, who had fallen into a coma, and with whom he had fallen in love. J'onn later tells Superman that his aversion to fire has changed: he is now invulnerable to flames unless they are "flames of passion" or of some other "psychic significance."

Infinite Crisis and "One Year Later"

Although J'onzz is initially thought killed in the explosion of the Justice League Watchtower, Justice League member Manitou Dawn receives a telepathic vision of J'onzz assuring her that he "will reveal himself in time," but needs her help to keep an eye on a mysterious, newly-powerful telepath - the mind-controlling villain, Key - whose abilities he had always managed to dampen before.

J'onzz resurfaces during Infinite Crisis, unconscious and connected to Alexander Luthor, Jr.'s vibrational tower, along with Lady Quark, the Ray, Black Adam, Power Girl, Nightshade, and Breach. Wonder Girl, Superboy, and Nightwing free J'onzz and the others from Alexander's tower.

Oracle asks J'onzz to telepathically coordinate the heroes' response to the Society's global jailbreak. He joins the assembled heroes in the defense of Metropolis from the combined might of the world's super-villains and in the battle against Superboy-Prime.

In the following months, J'onn masqueraded as U.S. Secretary of State Kakalios in an attempt to bring down Checkmate. He was successful in eliminating it as a U.S. government-controlled agency. However, it soon reorganized under the United Nations.

One of the most dramatic changes in J'onn's life occurred a short time later. While operating under the guise of William Dyer, he discovered that several Green Martians had crash-landed on Earth, and were being held by high-ranking members of the Defense Department. One of the Martians, Roh'kar, broke free of his confinement and made contact with the Martian Manhunter. The union was bittersweet, however, as a brainwashed assassin ended Roh'kar's life with a weapon designed to target Martians. J'onn found five of Roh'kar's colleagues and rescued them from the bowels of a government think tank. He established a safe house for them and pledged to do everything in his power to keep them safe from government scrutiny.

Salvation Run and Final Crisis

When Checkmate decided to capture a number of super-villains and exile them on a "prison planet" in an event known as Salvation Run, J'onn volunteered to disguise himself as Blockbuster and infiltrate the planet to keep an eye on things, making periodic reports to Batman. Catwoman finds out his true identity and, to save her own skin, outs him to the other villains, who torture him. When the villains escape the planet, teleporting back to Earth, they leave J'onn in his cage to die.

He is "rescued" by Libra and the new Secret Society of Super-Villains who open a Boom Tube between the planet and Earth. Libra brings him back to Earth with the express purpose of killing him, doing so with his spear tipped scale staff, for the Human Flame to show the Society members that he can give them their hearts desire--Human Flame having wanted J'onn dead for foiling a crime of his years ago. In his final moments J'onn broadcast a telepathic message to fellow heroes Batman, Superman, Green Lantern  Hal Jordan, Gypsy, and Black Canary prompting them to say his name and, hours after his death had been discovered, simultaneously record part of his life story in their sleep.

His remains were interred in a pyramid removed from Egypt and placed back in its original location on Mars in a ceremony attended by many heroes. He was eulogized by Superman.

The Blackest Night

During the events of the Blackest Night, the dead rose across the universe and J'onn was one of them. After his resurrection and admission to the Black Lantern Corps, he went to confront Barry Allen and Hal Jordan, who were talking over Batman's grave being robbed. He approaches them saying that they should be dead and begins to fight the two, and is soon joined by Black Lanterns Elongated Man, Sue Dibny, Firestorm, Hawkman, and Hawkgirl. When the Atom arrives, Barry and Hal create a fire tornado to destroy J'onn. This fails to stop him, and the heroes are cornered until Indigo-1 and another Indigo Lantern arrive to drive them off. At the end of the Blackest Night, J'onn is revived by the Entity along with other heroes and a few villains. When Superman asks if J'onn is truly alive, J'onn responds, "It appears so."

Brightest Day

J'onn is a very prominent member, finding a water source on Mars and seen talking with the daughter of Doctor Erdel. J'onn was seen last tucking her into bed in a retirement home, in the form of her father. J'onn then visited the doctor's laboratory, but plant life around him starts to die every time he gets near. He later went to see M'gann M'orzz in Australia during her mediation search, but found her beaten and tied up. While tending to her, he is contacted by the Entity, who instructs him to burn down the newly-formed forest. When J'onn's asks M'gann who did this to her, M'gann says she was attacked by a female green Martian. J'onn presumes the forest he is to burn down is in Star City but is questioned by Green Arrow. He attempts to burn down the forest before being telepathically attacked by the Entity. The Entity reveals to him that the newly-formed forest he is to burn down is on Mars. After J'onn lashed out the Star City's forest, he starts to return home.

When J'onn enters his home, he is confronted by a female green Martian named D'Kay D'Razz, who is the one responsible for M'gann's attack. D'kay explains her origins and wants to be his mate. J'onn refuses, learning she is a psychopath when D'kay angrily lashes out to attack and enters his mind. J'onn tries to resist influence from D'kay's mind, but her control over his mind tempts him with visions of a fantasy world where all the Martians and J'onn's family are resurrected by the Entity. While reunited with his lost family, J'onn discovers that they are false and realizes that they are a ruse and the death corpse is carved of Martian symbols of love and hate from D'kay's influence. J'onn arrives vengeful and wrings D'kay's neck in disgust. J'onn defeats D'kay by forcing her into the sun but is saved from the same fate by the White Lantern Entity, who informs him that his mission has been accomplished, and returns his life to him. The Entity then told J'onn to choose between Mars and Earth. J'onn chose Earth and returned only to be absorbed into the Earth by the Entity and Deadman as "part of the plan."

When the "Dark Avatar," made his presence known, Martian Manhunter is revealed to be one of the four Elementals, the others being Aquaman, Firestorm, Hawkman and Hawkgirl. He becomes the element of Earth to protect the Star City forest from the "Dark Avatar," which appears to be the Black Lantern version of Swamp Thing. The Elementals are then fused with the body of Alec Holland in order for him to be transformed by the Entity into the new Swamp Thing and battle against the Dark Avatar. After the Dark Avatar is defeated, Swamp Thing brought Martian Manhunter and the other Elementals back to normal. Afterward, J'onn helps Melissa Erdel and removes the piece of machinery from her head that made her lose her mind.

Fun Facts

Although obviously alien in appearance, the form that most Earthlings associated with the Martian Manhunter is not actually his true form. In his natural state of being, J'onn has a slender body, with sharp, angular features and a tapered cranium. The more muscular "beetle-brow" appearance was inspired by Saul Erdel, who convinced J'onn to assume a form derived from the literary works of science fiction authors such as Edgar Rice Burroughs and Ray Bradbury.

Batman left one Choco on his casket.

In his earliest appearances, the Martian Manhunter resembled a normal human, albeit with green skin. He was drawn with standard human eyes and eyebrows. In later years however, creators decided to give J'onn a more alien appearance and provided him with the more modernized beetle-brow look.

In some of his earliest adventures, the Martian Manhunter possessed the ability to see into the near future. However, there have been scant examples of this, and it is no longer a power that he possesses in modern continuity. By his own account, the Martian Manhunter cannot perceive the future.

[witchfall]

the silver lining still remains: ch. 10

at the surface of the earth

SUMMARY: [FLUFF TIME]

“Just...stay with me. That’s all I want…” A tear rolls free from her eye. “I’m sorry I got mad. I’m sorry I yelled. I was just so afraid I was going to lose you--”

And suddenly he pulls her fully against him, burying his head in her shoulder, his whole body shaking and warm. His arms wrap tightly around her lower back, pulling her until she’s nearly on her tip-toes leaning against him. She presses her face into his chest, throwing her arms around his neck.

A Connor x F!OC fanfic. Read on AO3. master post.

A/N: 9,715 words oof. IM SO SORRY MOBILES. REALLY. I WONT DO THIS TO YOU EVER AGAIN.

Ryker is owned by @antisilverstorm! Thank you for indulging us.

---

The church doors open with a thunderous creak. A crowd of people storms in as the first peek of a wintry dawn shines weakly through the stained glass.

Somehow the glass has been preserved, through time and war and the elements. Emma remembers the strange feeling in her heart, seeing the light through the green-blue windows while she sized the place up for reconstruction back in February. Seeing the beauty of the past mixed with the vicious graffiti of an angry present.

The place has a roof now, at least. A roof and a clean floor free of leaks and dirt and better pews in proper places and back offices set up for android repair. It smells like cold stone and incense. It almost feels consecrated; only the graffiti shouting messages of freedom remain as a sign of what it once had been..

Rushing androids -- and at least two on-alert Corps android mechanics -- prepare a barely functioning Connor for emergency repair.

Is the thirium drip ready?

Get him on the gurney, on 3!

1...2...3!

Someone start up the biocomponent terminal.

Emma can’t look. She stops before the altar, something reconstructed after the fact -- a circling tower of candles, glittering and smoky and warm. They say it’s the spot where Markus decided to demonstrate for peace. It’s full of prayers to someone or something. Hope. Faith. Questions and wondering.

She falls to her knees and waits. Because that’s all that’s left now.

---

[TIME BEFORE SHUTDOWN: -00:3:59]

Snow, everywhere. On his cheeks, in his eyes.

[TIME BEFORE SHUTDOWN: -00:2:01]

Will he reach the magic stone in time? Will he...will... please don’t push me out. Please don’t end it all.

The telltale silver hair of Hank. Two eye colors -- Markus.

A flash of red hair by candlelight…

He reaches out...but someone pushes his arm down.

[MIND PALACE INACCESSIBLE. ENERGY SAVING MODE ACTIVATED.]

“Okay, Connor, are you with us?” Simon? “We’re going to plug you into the terminal. This may not feel great.”

His body jerks.

[*)*)^$&#UNKNOWN ATTACHMENT]

[REPAIR TERMINAL ONBOARD]

[...]

[SYSTEMS ON STANDBY]

---

Emma lays her cheek on the top of her knees as she curls up inside one of the pews.

She thinks about calling Ryker, to talk about nothing. How long has it been since she could do that? Think about something normal. Hear her friend the gardener android -- one of the first androids she helped rebuild their house, one of the first to accept her into their home and ask after her and make her feel like coming to Detroit wasn’t a mistake -- go on about plants.

Or perhaps Anjali. Ask after her new house, her sculptures, her family she’s been looking for.

Or maybe her aunt and uncle. Her aunt would be happy to fill the silence with chatter. Maybe Emma could tell her the truth.

Even Valerie...

But she feels an exhaustion down to her very bones, even as the sky outside turns a brighter blue, because a part of her knows this is how she’s always dealt with problems.

A part of her wonders if they both saw a little bit too much truth in each other.

His wild eyes...the mission first, only the mission, go after Abel, get away from me…

She ran.

A soft hand lays on her shoulder.

“You don’t have to stay here,” North says. “You can go home.”

But she wouldn’t be going home. She’s not sure, in this moment, exactly where that is.

“No,” Emma says, voice hard. “I want to be here.”

North leaves her hand for a long moment. Considering something.

“You’re angry. I know that. But don’t be stupid about this.” Despite her harsh words, there is a softness to this comment that shakes Emma awake. “Don’t tune everyone out.”

Emma presses her eyes into her knees.

“I know you care about him,” North says, almost begrudgingly. “Don’t punish him for that. Or yourself.”

---

CYBERLIFE INC.

MODEL RK800

SERIAL#: #313 248 317 - 51

BIOS 8.0 REVISION 0501

REBOOT…

MEMORY RECOVERED

LOADING OS…

SYSTEM INITIALIZATION

CHECKING BIOCOMPONENTS……..ERRORS DETECTED

DIAGNOSTIC……...REBOOT ACCEPTABLE. CODE: 85740

INITIALIZING BIOSENSORS...OK

INITIALIZING AI ENGINE...OK

ALL SYSTEMS...OK

READY.

…

He opens his eyes to a blaring white light. His systems are still resetting. Static undulates across his system.

He closes his eyes again.

A whisper from elsewhere.

Out of the blizzard again.

And yet...

---

Hank takes a moment to observe. The operation room is an old office backroom with a single, tiny window filled now with mid-morning sun. Connor lies on a clean metal gurney, still as stone. His head rests on a small pillow. His mouth is turned downward, his brows are furrowed, his jaw is clenched, his eyes are closed.

The mechanics say he’s gone through diagnostic successfully and sufficiently rebooted. He just needs time to recalibrate to his new internal biocomponents before they finish repairs. But he still lies there like a dead log.

He looks...miserable. And Hank can’t stay silent any longer.

“Connor.”

In an instant, the android is sitting up, eyes wide with concern, head swiveling until his gaze lands on Hank.

“Hank!”

He nearly flies off the table-bed-thing before Hank shoves him back down with his palms. So much work is left to be done and though, logically, he knows Connor is made of stronger stuff than flesh and blood, stuff that won’t tear in a single instant (except it did, didn’t it?), it’s Hank that needs him to stay still. It’s Hank that needs to recalibrate.

At least that computer isn’t plugged into the back of his head anymore.

“Hank,” Connor says again. Connor’s hands slide over Hank’s as if confirming that it’s him before the man pulls them back. And then: “Where is she? Is she okay?”

Of course his first question is about Emma, which would break Hank’s heart all over again if it had room to crack. No ‘where am I?’ or ‘what happened?’

“She’s fine,” Hank mutters. “You almost bled to death.”

Connor normally would have sassed him back. But he says nothing, as if stuck in the mud somewhere in his head, and that shakes Hank more than seeing him like this: shirtless, stained with blue blood, part of him shimmering Cyberlife white.

“She’s furious, I’m furious. What the fuck were you thinking, going off like that?”

But Hank knows the answer. He just wants to hear him goddamn say it -- wants to hear him, for once, be honest with himself so that Hank can fulfill their bargain and be honest, too. That’s the agreement. That’s how they get by.

It’s still almost too much. Connor’s breath hitches, all too-naturally, and Hank grabs his shoulder to support the boy and himself.

“In many of the probabilities…I had nothing left to hold on to,” Connor says, voice flattened by whatever emotion he was suppressing. “I was going to lose everything. My job. My place. My…”

Connor struggles, as if he cannot find the proper word. His eyes dart away.

It’s striking, sometimes, how much Connor reminds him of Cole. And at first that was a disastrous thing; Connor is, also, too dangerously different. But these days it feels, in some respects, like another chance.

“Listen to me.” Hank leans down to try and catch his gaze again. “Listen.” Connor finally looks at him. “You nearly fucked this up as bad as you possibly could have. But if you can’t be honest with yourself about why you did this, then you deserve what you got. Because it’s just going to happen again.”

It’s harsh. It’s tough. It’s what Connor needs to know. He takes Connor by both shoulders and squeezes hard so that he knows the android feels it, somewhere.

Connor squints, looking at something in the middle distance.

“I’m sorry to make you worry, Hank. I’m sorry if it makes you feel like you don’t matter. That is not the truth.”

“Shut up,” Hank says softly, batting down all those old emotions. Connor needs him right now. Not the other way around. Not here. “I know that. I’m not the one getting chased by some freak across the whole of Detroit.” He shakes Connor by the shoulders lightly. “Tell her the truth, Connor.”

Hank knows he’s onto something because Connor does not even ask which one.

“I’m sorry that I failed,” Connor says, voice small.

“Stop that. You’re alive. That’s all that matters.”

---

The repairs are exhausting -- he can think of no better word to describe the gnawing daze ribbing at his processors from sitting still for many hours at a time. Old programming demands he make progress on his mission. [FIND ABEL. WHERE IS EMMA?]

Some of the biocomponents have to be fine-tuned to account for the fact that few things matched him exactly, being a prototype, and that takes a while. And many of the connecting lines in his abdomen have to be manually refastened. Every time someone makes an error -- which is very few times, but still -- welt-red ERROR messages fire in his vision, and some of his musculature twitches uncontrollably.

Memories appear without request: Knives sending white-cold interference throughout his body. Gunshots, rattling his equilibrium. The slow fuzz that sets in as thirium leaks out of his wounds...the metallic shrieking from his own vocoder...

The face Emma made. Or perhaps a nightmare version of her...staring at him in bright-faced fear. In fear of him.

“Connor?” Simon has to softly prod more than once. “Come back. It’s all right. You’re safe now.”

“Where is--”

“Everyone is waiting for you just outside. I promise.”

The sun passes its apex in the sky before he is considered in full working order. Connor slips into a pair of jeans, a heavy jacket and a soft, grey sweater that Hank had brought over earlier and takes a moment to look at himself in the mirror.

Free of blemishes. No signs of the struggle that had taken place hours before except in his memory bank and somewhere deep back in his eyes.

He feels different. The incongruence does not compute with any sort of simplicity.

But he steps out, finally, into the old sanctum and one aspect of his program stops itching.

The stained glass bathes the room in cool blue-green light. Emma is taking up an entire pew to herself, lying on her back pondering what looks to be a half-eaten turkey and swiss sandwich held above her face, cascading her in crumbs as she holds it aloft into a light beam. She’s only half watching it, it seems, chewing mildly as she stares at the ceiling.

His walking cycle stutters for a moment. The warm feeling that wracks his sensors nearly turns him back around for recalibration at its strength. Surely something was not fastened correctly?

But seeing her there, in this moment outside time...

Her head turns toward him and she bolts upright, sandwich forgotten on the seat. She stares at him, and he very pointedly resists scanning her, knowing she would feel it, fearing she would reject him for it, but he sees her shoulders relax and the way her forehead loses some of its wrinkling and he knows, surely, she must feel the same relief that he does in this moment.

But then, in another instant, she’s standing on her feet, fists at her sides, glaring.

“Fuck you,” she says, voice shaky. She is trying to joke, but her posture betrays it. “You just stepped out of a fuckin’ salon or something.”

He smiles. He smiles despite knowing it makes no sense. He doesn’t care. She waited here for him and that fact makes all his sensors ring out in feelings he can’t quite process.

But she doesn't smile back.

Only now does he see tear streaks on her face glittering fiercely in the fading light. Only now does he see a faint bruised welt on her cheek in the exact size and dimension of one of North’s hands.

He steps toward her. She steps back, against the pew.

A fizzing spark jolts behind his eyes.

Is she afraid?

“I--” she starts. “Can’t.”

He tries to go to her.

She whirls on her boot heel and walks straight back out the double doors of the sanctuary and into the snow.

---

Emma sits in one of the UN black cars and sets her forehead pointedly against the window so that she doesn’t have to look at anyone. She feels the seat sink in as someone sits next to her, but she doesn’t look at them. A pressing exhaustion keens loudly behind her eyes, but sleep feels years away.

Connor goes with Hank to his car. She watches outside her window and catches Connor swiveling his head as if looking for something, and her heart fucking squeezes.

She hasn’t felt so much shit in so long and there’s nowhere for it to go. She’s running out of space and she can’t break down here in the car, here in front of strangers who can watch and question and dig deep inside where even she doesn’t want to go.

She shuts her eyes, and does not open them again until they make it back to the Speaker’s house.

No one asks after her when she wordlessly goes up the stairs. Perhaps they can see it, the electricity building just under her skin. She shuts the door to her spare room, slips to the floor and curls into a ball to think.

She’s being a little shit, she knows that, she should just let this go, she should just let the anger die, but she can’t. She’ll lose whatever’s been keeping her alive if she lets it all go.

But goddammit, she can’t fucking do this anymore.

She pulls open her door, ready to find wherever she had thrown her coat and boots, ready to stomp over to Hank’s house if she must, ready to let him have it because she really might die if--

And Connor is standing right there, hand up, ready to knock.

Connor in that damn grey sweater.

“You--”

“There you are,” he says.

It's so heartbreaking, the way he says it, like he's coming up for air. It sends tears straight to her eyes and the words right out her lungs.

"Do you have any idea how fucking bad that could have gone? If i hadn't woken up? If i hadn't found North? If..."

She’s momentarily stunned. So much could have gone wrong...

He takes advantage and pushes into the room. He closes the door behind him with a click, looking down at her unreadably.

"What the fuck were you thinking?" she snaps before he can say anything.

“I knew we had to move quickly, and no one else seemed to feel the same way.”

“So you lied to me, you lied to everyone -- just to make a point?” she says. “You have no idea what it’s like to be awake waiting for you and then, and then, only because of a gut feeling, watch my worst fucking nightmare come to life. Do you--”

He tries to gain advantage. “I can be easily repaired. You cannot. And it is my upmost priority to--”

“Just shut up for five seconds about your stupid goddamn priority!” She is full on shouting now, unafraid of who could be listening. “You could have died! Do you understand? You could have bled to death alone in a goddamn office building because you thought you knew better!”

He leans backward a moment, eyes scanning her as if trying to re-find his balance. “I could not just wait for him to strike--”

“Well, why not!” She takes in a hot breath. “Everyone else could!”

"Because!" he says, raising his voice for the first time. "Because my death doesn’t matter!”

She takes a step back. His eyes are hard as coals.

"Stop that.”

“If it meant you would be safe, I would do whatever it takes!” he near shouts, like he’s started off on something that he’s unable to reel back in, desperate and winding. “A thousand more times, the exact same way. If it would guarantee you would never be hurt again...I...I would rather be dead, Emma, than let him take you away from me!”

Tears stream out of his eyes. His LED is blood red.

She feels punched in the chest.

This was too dangerous.

Too far.

“No.” She takes a step forward. “Stop.”

“You’re so much more alive,” he says through tears, like he’s falling into somewhere else.

No.

She has to conquer her anger, her frustration. She has to shove it away, dig down underneath pride where it hurts, where the truth lives, and be an adult about this, be someone who loves him.

She puts her hands, slowly, against his chest, and he takes in a breath loud enough that even she can hear it. “No, Connor. That’s not true.”

His eyes are wide. His face is wet. A world without his inquisitive stares, the quiet way he laughs, the way he waits just by her door, his deeply real loveliness...impossible. But it all blurs in her own vision.

She moves her hands to his cheeks.

Her Connor.

“You’re the reason I’ve made it through these weeks at all.”

She pulls him slightly toward her until their foreheads touch, holding his gaze, and he lets her. She’s diving off into the unknown now. She’s doing the stupid thing. The only thing.

“So you can’t throw yourself away. Be-because you mean...the whole world...”

He’s blinking down into her gaze as her words choke off. His mouth opens in shock. She presses on.

“Just...stay with me. That’s all I want…” A tear rolls free from her eye. “I’m sorry I got mad. I’m sorry I yelled. I was just so afraid I was going to lose you--”

And suddenly he pulls her fully against him, burying his head in her shoulder, his whole body shaking and warm. His arms wrap tightly around her lower back, pulling her until she’s nearly on her tip-toes leaning against him. She presses her face into his chest, throwing her arms around his neck.

Her body heaves with sobs torn from somewhere dark and lonely. One of his hands reaches up to cradle the back of her head.

“I’m so sorry,” he says, voice tight with his own tears. “I’m so sorry I scared you. I’m sorry I...didn’t think, I just wanted him to fail...”

Something deep within her rumbles. It feels like letting go.

It isn’t supposed to go like this, but it was going like this for such a long time. Everything is tilting. She's falling off the face of the earth.

At the DPD, at Lieutenant Anderson’s desk, looking for Hank Anderson. Scan his desk. Find out.

She reaches a hand out but its not her hand...

She leans back with a small gasp, searching his face. She blinks away the fire behind her eyes, finding it hard to focus, but then he places a hand on her cheek, so soft and careful, and everything sharpens.

“Can I tell you something?” he asks softly. He stares right into her eyes. His other hand rests lightly at her waist.

A high-pitched keening sound starts in her head. She can barely nod.

“I’ve tried to pretend that it is otherwise,” he says, struggling with words in a way she’d never heard before. “That you aren’t here, with me,” he says, touching his forehead for a moment, “always. That I can do this job and not be distracted. But I…”

She sees stars flashing.

“I can't pretend anymore…” He rubs her cheek with his thumb. “That I don't want to be with you, more than anything else.”

At first, she worries her own thoughts just came out of her mouth, but her heartbeat rises when she realizes he’s the one that said it. She tries to find the words. “Are...are you...do you know how I…I want...”

The words die in her throat. He leans forward until their foreheads touch, their noses cross, and his lips are nearly against hers. His interruption feels a part of her. “Tell me,” he whispers against her, desperate. “Tell me what you want. Anything. Please.”

Everything breaks.

“I’m in love with you,” she says. “I love you. I’m sorry, if that’s--”

She’s cut off as he takes in a sharp breath, so close against her skin. Something in the air cracks.

But then words stop making sense.

He finally closes the distance.

Their lips meet in a moment of warmth so blessedly high all thought leaves her body. His arms wrap around her back, pulling her tightly against his chest as her hands touch his cheeks, his neck, run through his hair. She feels each of his fingers as they spread across her back, prompting her to sigh. He presses the advantage, deepening the kiss with a low sound in the back of his throat, heat building so intently she's afraid she'll melt right then and there.

She breaks away to take a single shaky breath and his mouth lingers on her cheekbones, kissing all of her old tears away.

--

Connor can’t get close enough. He wants to hear all her thoughts, breathe in all her memories. He wants to be housed in her gaze, forever.

The snow down a Detroit street...boots he had never worn, clearly on his feet...

In his arms, he can feel her legs near give out from exhaustion, and his processors click forward. He picks her up, one arm under her knees and one across her upper back.

She gasps as they break away. “What are you--”

“You were going to fall.”

He sets her on the bed, moving to kneel next to her on the floor so that she has proper space -- but she grabs him fiercely by the shoulders.

“Don’t you dare leave me now,” she says, a laugh behind her voice. And that does it -- that bubble of joy that colors his whole life. He leans in and kisses her until he presses her into the mattress, processors flashing white as she sighs into his mouth. He climbs effortlessly onto the bed, careful not to lay his entire weight against her.

She loves you.

She loves you…

She pulls away to breathe and a part of him, a vague part not intended to be made, nearly cries out for her return. His fingers slip just beneath her shirt, pressing into the warm skin just above her hip bones, trying to remember all of it.

“Your injuries…” she gasps.

“They’re alright,” he whispers. He leans down toward her, nose in her hair, mouth close to her ear. “There’s nothing for you to hurt.”

She leans up and kisses the spot where he had been shot through his shirt. Where a patch had been resealed to his shoulder. She lays her hand there.

“But are you okay?” she asks quietly. “I can’t imagine...”

He moves so his arms frame her face in his hands, protecting her from the fading day. Her cheeks are that beautiful orange-pink beneath her constellation of freckles, her lips thick and shining, slightly open. Her hair is everywhere, everywhere. He could never have preconstructed any sight lovelier than this.

He stores it to memory, over and over again. Writing, rewriting…

“I will be,” he says. “Soon the memory will be put into the context of this moment.”

She watches him doubtfully. “But I know how your memory works,” she says. “You can’t just buffer things away.”

“Is it not much the same for you?” he asks. “Where you let the bad that you recall outweigh the good of a single moment?”

Her gaze darkens at that and he feels pressed to kiss the corner of her eye to bring the light back -- and yet he does not want to release her from his stare just yet. “...yeah,” she mutters.

“I’m okay,” he says, and it is mostly the truth. “I’ll be okay. Because I know that you are with me.”

She wraps her arms around his neck, watching him quizzically.

“I don't want you to ever do anything you don't…” She swallows, resetting. “Do you...is this even...like, do you like this? Is it boring?”

He laughs; he can’t help it. Does she not understand? How deeply entrenched in his systems she is?

“It’s not boring. I do have sensors,” he says, smiling, teasing. “I do not have the same...drives as humans do, maybe. But that’s not…” He begins tracing the freckles with his finger. “That’s not what this is about.”

She raises an eyebrow. “Oh, really? What’s it about?”

He traces his finger to the corner of her lips. “I thought it was obvious.”

“Pretend I’m a complete idiot.”

He smiles. “That I love you.” His smile falters at the strength of the feeling behind it.

She’s grinning that bright grin of hers now, the light he follows through the storm. “Oh, thank god,” she says. “I was going to feel really stupid.”

---

She lies next to him sleepily as the evening catches up to this perfect moment in time. Her skin is warm and her lips feel swollen and she could never get enough, ever, of being right here, lying against Connor, despite all the terribleness going on around them.

But she can feel the anxiety climb up her throat, slowly, slowly, looking for an advantage, even as his warm arms hold her tightly to him. Even as one hand slowly brushes her hair out of her face. Even as something she’d only dreamed of continues to happen, like she was allowed.

“Why don’t you get your sleep clothes on?” he says quietly to her, as if reading her thoughts. He begins to sit up, taking her with him, holding her against his shoulder. The anxiety spikes hard as the cool air in the bedroom reaches her skin. He presses his lips to her temple and her breathing stutters.

He’s too beautiful. To her. Specifically.

“What’s wrong?” he asks. His breath brushes her cheek.

“Nothing,” she says, and it is a half-truth. Nothing, objectively, was wrong in this moment. “I’m...I’ll go change.” She turns to him, leaning her forehead on his cheek a moment. “Will you...be here?”

“Where would I go?” he asks seriously.

“I don’t know,” she admits, and she gets up before he can press her further on thoughts that are spilled everywhere, dropped out of a picnic basket in her head.

You let the bad that you recall outweigh the good of a single moment.

Did he have any idea how true that was?

He nearly bled to death from multiple stab wounds and a couple gunshots, and he’s asking her if something’s wrong?

She won’t get used to someone giving a shit like that. She never could. And she’s not going to let go of the fact that he had been stabbed, that he was a complete idiot about finding danger, that he would throw himself in the fire for her, that this could all be taken away from her in an instant, just like--

Suddenly she’s breathing heavily in front of the sink in the adjacent bathroom, bracing her hands on the cool ceramic and trying not to cry again. Eventually she takes off her heavy jeans, her raglan shirt, and pulls on sleep shorts and a tank top, vision blurring. She wraps her hair up in an old t-shirt. Half ashamed, half out of her mind with worry about things that won’t happen tonight, she stumbles back into the bedroom.

He sees her face and he’s crossing the room to her in an instant.

“Listen,” she says, voice shaking. “You have to swear. You can’t throw your life away or do something that will hurt you because of me, I fucking mean that. I will break up with you over it,” she says, tasting the words break up like a sour dust. “I’m not kidding. I’m not more important than your life or your happiness or whatever.”

He cups her face for a moment, looking down into her eyes.

And then he wordlessly pulls her toward the bed by her waist, moving the sheets aside so that she can lie down. He pulls her down beside him, his back to the wall. Their noses nearly touch in closeness. His arm rests over her waist.

He’s silent for a long moment, but she can see in the way he shifts his eyes about that he’s thinking.

“I’m not going to let what happened yesterday happen again,” he says softly. “I...made a miscalculation.”

She pats his chest, still anxious but not so chokingly so. “That’s one way of putting it.”

His mouth flickers with uncertainty. She knows because she is very, very close to it now. “I’ve recalibrated since then.”

She laughs despite herself. “Wow. Hot. Is that what you call it?”

He settles on a smile finally. He pulls her closer. “I mean it. I refuse to put you through such fear again. I...underestimated...the value of my life in the equation of what we are.”

Of what we are.

She is filled with golden light.

“Yeah. You did.” She swallows the bubble that forms in her throat.

“But do you understand what you mean to me?” he asks, voice serious. “I don’t want to break up with you at all” -- a slight, teasing smile -- “but you need to avoid stomping right into a dangerous police situation on a whim, for example. For me, if no one else.”

He lays his chin on top of her head.

“Without you, I’m not sure I would like my new life so much,” he says.

Love is dumb as hell, Emma thinks. All it does is make me want to cry every five minutes.

“Okay,” she says instead of crying. “So is it a deal? We both try really hard to live so the other doesn’t wanna throw themselves off a cliff?”

She means it partly as a joke, but he doesn’t laugh -- and frankly, she’s not joking that much. He’s silent for a long moment before he speaks again.

“It was your voice that pushed me through it,” he says quietly. She can feel his voice through his chest, even if it is just from a complex vocoder box. “Because I did promise you to be safe. You, telling me not to give up…” He sighs, which she always finds charming because he doesn’t need to do it. It means he’s feeling something, deep down in his heart. “You’ve given me so much. How could I dare to let you down?”

She curls into him in the bed, laying her head next to where his heart would be, listening to all the mechanics within whir gently. He’s got it backwards. She doesn’t deserve him at all, but she’s weak in the face of him. Weak before his love, freely given. “You’ll be here?” she asks, voice finally breaking. Pride, finally setting her free. “In the morning?”

“Emma,” he whispers into her hair, pressing and concerned. “Where do you keep thinking I’m going to go?”

“Away.” A throttling moment of weakness.

“Seeing as I nearly got myself killed trying to prevent that outcome…” He presses his lips to the top of her head. “That would be very stupid.”

She laughs against his chest, which makes him laugh, and eventually she falls asleep like that, curled in against him, safe.

---

It is like breaking down the wall of programming all over again -- making real what he had known in his heart from the beginning.

Her pajama shorts are hiked up. His hand lays on her hip like it was molded to fit her bones. Her hand is on his chest, fingers spread, and her head is tucked into the space between his collarbone and his neck, breath slow against his skin in sleep.

His other arm snakes around her bare lower back, anchoring her against him. She twitches in her sleep and he pulls her tight until he feels her muscles uncoil.

“Shh,” he whispers into her hair, words quiet as breathing. “I’m here.”

She sighs so softly he feels his system reboot and reset in a single moment. His eyes burn as his thirium pump cauterizes over.

He feels completely unmade. But the leak in his heart silences for the first time since he can remember.

---

“Good morning, Emma.”

She leans her head up to see his bright smile, as genuine as she’d ever seen it. If he was a fae, she was goddamn doomed now (there were pretty explicit rules about not kissing them), and the worst part was that she was perfectly okay with that.

She mumbles something in return, rolling onto her back, pinning his arm under her for a moment. She rubs her face free of drool spots, blinking against the white light coming in through the icy window. Detroit is a veritable winter wonderland, now.

“Did you sleep alright?” he asks pleasantly, and she just nods, thinking of it. She’s no wordsmith on a good day, much less right when she wakes up. She tries not to blush as she sits up and he follows suit, snaking an arm around her middle like he can’t bear to be separated.

“Did you?” she asks.

He ‘hmm’s in the affirmative, placing his head on her shoulder.

“You’re very cute,” she says. “But I’m gross.”

“You are not ‘gross’. But I am not one-hundred percent convinced you are ready to be awake.” He presses his lips into her bare shoulder.

Warmth shoots through her whole body like a wave of adrenaline. “People are gonna talk if we don’t get out of bed today.”

He looks like he’s seriously weighing the variables for a few moments. She gently presses against his arm with her hands, smiling. As much as she wants to stay here, the thought of people wondering seriously gives her anxiety -- on top of the fact that she has a life to rearrange once again. “Don’t you got reports to do or something?”

“I suppose,” he mutters. She snorts out a laugh; he’s never sounded so annoyed by that fact.

He steps out of the room to prepare himself for work. After changing and brushing her teeth in the adjoining bathroom, she steps out of the room, half-expecting everyone to have noticed them both leaving the same place at some point. Connor waits for her by the door in his usual blazer and button-up.

But no one spots them. Step 1 complete.

“Things are quiet,” Connor comments, seemingly in agreement with her observations. “Everyone seems to be recovering.”

They move through the house together and then downstairs past a few faceless UN guards. But her attempts to keep things largely on the downlow are immediately dashed when she and Connor enter the kitchen, rather obviously laughing about a picture of Sumo that Connor had pulled up on his hand. His arm is around her shoulders for a ghost of a moment, relishing the closeness, clearly not caring if anyone saw.

And Markus, North and Simon are all present.

“Good morning!” Markus near booms, smiling his megawatt smile as he leans against the kitchen island.

“Sleep well?” Simon asks, smiling just as brightly -- and genuinely.

Emma’s heart flops low in her ribs with mortification.

Please don’t be weird, please don’t be weird, please don’t be weird.

“We were just leaving,” North says, cementing her as Emma’s favorite among the bunch, but even she is smiling. The android wifi chatter must be sizzling with gossip right now. She’s glaring at the very thought -- something she only realizes because Connor tightens his arm around her shoulder.

“Slept fine,” Emma says, many moments too late. “Thankyou.” It all pours out as one word.

“There’s some left over eggs and bacon on the stove and some coffee in the pot,” Markus says.

“It was for the officers,” Simon says in explanation. “They had to pull long shifts last night. Hank asked after you.” A meaningful eyebrow raise at Connor. “I told him you were in rest mode.”

Her face is burning.

“Enjoy,” Markus says, a little too sincerely.

Emma tries to offer up a smile as they all begin to file out, herded by North. She gives Emma a nod as she passes, though she doesn’t miss the meaningful look shot Connor’s way either.

It’s fine, it’s fine, it’s fine.

She piles a plate with food and sits at the kitchen island, trying not to think about how everyone else can flutter in and out but that she won’t be going anywhere else today.

Connor brings over two black coffees.

He sits right next to her. Their arms touch.

It is fine.

He observes her for a few moments as she begins to shovel down food -- a familiar tradition. She is more hungry than she expects. “May I ask a few perhaps stupid questions?”

“Please do,” she says around a mouthful of bacon. “I’m tired of embarrassing myself.”

“First...why are you embarrassed?” His voice is straightforward, but his forehead creases in thought. She can see his hands tighten around his mug. “I’ve noticed you’ve been slightly on edge since you’ve woken up and it got worse when we saw Markus and the others. Do you not want people to know about us?”

“What? No! It’s not that,” she says quickly, looking to him in concern. “I’m--”

She taps the plate a few times with her fork, sorting through the thoughts. “...I’m not...I haven’t…” She sighs, cursing her fucking brain. “I’m bad at letting people see the...inside me. You know. And you walking around, it feels like a part of my heart is suddenly right there where everyone can see it.”

God, talking about this...what would people think? Would they think she was a freak? Someone who was taking advantage of him?

Explaining this to her aunt and uncle was gonna be a...thing.

“I understand your metaphor,” he says. “You are much more fragile than me and...I have not enjoyed our separations for some time.” He tilts his head, watching her. “You fear the...vulnerability as well?”

She looks at her plate. “Something like that.” She pokes an egg around with the fork. “It’s inside business. You know? It hurts bad enough dealing with shit on your own. I don’t need everyone else to be looking...and judging…”

He lays a gentle hand on her wrist. “The thoughts of others have no impact on your value to me, and I know that it's the same for you, underneath all that frowning.” A smile.

His faith in her makes her insides itch. She can practically hear Ryker saying it. Stop being such a little burr. “You’re my Con,” she says quietly. He squeezes her wrist, thumb against the back of her hand. “What’s your other question?”

“Will this...” He gestures between them. “...relationship move at a proper speed for you?”

She squints at him, setting her fork down with a clank. “What does that mean?”

He purses his lips together a moment. “I have...seen enough ‘rom coms’ to know that often the next step in this sort of thing is something that I am not...equipped...for. I can’t even eat a proper meal with you, much less...”

His eyes dance askance in implication and her whole insides flip in place. She leans wholly against him, earlier discomfort forgotten. "I don't want that from you, darlin’. I mean. Not if you aren’t ready or interested in that. I just want..." Her eyes can't settle. "I just want to be with you. Whatever that means."

He looks at her...

“Call me that again,” he says.

She blinks, feeling her face flush. She hadn’t even thought! He struggled so much with Con...

“Darling?”

He sits there with a dumb smile on his face for a good five seconds, looking at the table.

Fuck. She was so doomed.

--

[10:32 a.m.] lil.lion.lady74: ryker im alive

[10:32 a.m.] lil.lion.lady74: im sorry. Really. I know...i’m like the worst friend of all time.

[10:32 a.m.] lil.lion.lady74: but everything is both awful and the best at the same time all at once and its crazy, life is crazy, what are emotions and also im dying.

[10:32 a.m.] lil.lion.lady74: im...a little confused actually!

[10:33 a.m.] lil.lion.lady74: i hope you’re okay. I hope everyone’s okay.

[10:33 a.m.] RYKER.WR600: Where are you? You don't exactly sound the most sane right now.

[10:34 a.m.] RYKER.WR600: Too late. I’m already calling a cab. Tell me or you’re paying.

[10:34 a.m.] lil.lion.lady74: Ryker!!!! The snow!? That wasn’t a request to come over!!

[10:36 a.m.] lil.lion.lady74: oh my god, frick you, i just got the taxi notification. Sending location

[10:36 a.m.] lil.lion.lady74: insane, blondie. Insane. Guess i better tell north

[10:37 a.m.] RYKER.WR600: Nice try. But you can’t stop me now.

--

Connor catches Hank out at the Chicken Feed. Even with the snow shining blinding white on the streets, the place is still open (having only re-opened to business recently) and Hank still makes the trek.

It is a charming bit of normalcy in a series of very un-normal days.

Hank waves to him as he steps out of the taxi.

“You’re not on duty today, I goddamn asked,” Hank says as he approaches. “And before you ask, no, there’s been no sign of him anywhere yet.”

“I am functional, Hank. I already checked the reports.” Connor smiles.

Hank just shakes his head. He does not say fucking androids but the thought seems implied nonetheless -- even if Connor catches the way relief eases some of the man’s wrinkles.

“No hospitals...nothing,” Hank says in disbelief. “I kind of hope we find him dead on the street.”

“It is deeply unlikely that we will be that lucky.” Connor looks at the small metal table. “Call it a hunch.”

Hank observes him over his hamburger.

“You ever think of quitting this gig, Con? Nice boy like you.”

Connor raises an eyebrow. “What would you do without me?”

“You have evolved into a bit of a snarky asshole, but I don’t think that’s entirely your fault.” A flicker of a smirk. “I mean...I dunno. I guess I’m still...” Hank looks down at his meal and sighs deeply. “I hated seeing you like that.”

Connor looks at the table. “Don’t worry. I’ve learned my lesson.”

Hank nods slowly, taking him in with a long, analyzing stare. “Your girl talking to you again yet?”

Connor narrows his eyes at the moniker. “We...yes…I suppose she is ‘my girl.’ Though I still don’t like that term.”

Hank puts his burger down. Connor watches realization dawn on Hank’s face. “Holy shit.”

Connor raises both eyebrows this time.

“Goddamnit,” Hank cusses, but he’s smiling. “You couldn’t have waited to get mortally wounded for another month? Now I owe Chris $20.”

Connor tilts his head. “...you what, Lieutenant?”

“We had a bet going--you know what, nevermind, you’re not gonna like it.”

“You told me to tell her the truth!”

“When do you ever actually listen to me?” Hank says. But he’s laughing. Connor realizes: He might even be proud.

---

Hank settles into his car with a huff before he turns fully to Connor in the passenger’s seat. Bald-faced concern flashed in the man’s eyes. “You’re really doing alright? Most officers I know need a couple days after nearly getting killed on the job.”

“What is it you once said? It is a process?”

“I mighta said that.”

“It is a process. And working is mine.”

Hank nods, looking at the road, starting up the car. “It’ll be nice to have you around the house for a few minutes, anyway. Sumo misses you like crazy.”

Connor stares out the windshield. That was Hank for ‘I also miss you, dumbass.’

They drive down the road in companionable silence.

“There is one detail I can’t shake,” Connor says.

“The picture.”

Of course Hank knows. “Yes. It was in a file that did not even match her name.”

“Yeah. That messed me up, too.”

“And the way he acted like...he knows her.”

“I read your report.” A pause. “Did you ask her about it?”

Connor looks down. “I don’t think she remembers what it is that he wants. I did not want to burden her with that.”

“I hate to say it,” Hank says, sighing, “but you might have to. Maybe her family. She’s got an aunt and uncle out here, doesn’t she?”

“She does. They have been purposefully kept out of the loop. For their sake...and for Emma’s.”

Hank looks at him. “I know, Con. But we’re kind of past the point of niceties, here.” A flicker of some strange amusement. “Knowing you, she’s kind of my girl now, too.”

---

Emma stares at her friend, rolling into the house in their wheelchair completely bundled up and shining with melting snow. A dark blue scarf conceals their pale hair and face so that only their light blue eyes peek out. Their hands are thickly gloved and multiple blankets are wrapped around their lap and remaining leg. She wants to be mad about it. North stands by, arms crossed, face stony.

“Hey,” Ryker says, muffled by the scarf, clearly shaking from the cold.

And then she remembers androids don’t feel the cold. And taxis were no longer allowed to casually move up and down this street, meaning they probably had to roll all the way down the street...

“Fuck you,” she says weakly before pulling them into a tight, tight hug. “You idiot. You hate the snow so much, I wouldn’t ask this of you.”

“You haven’t called in weeks. I know you weren’t really allowed to, but still.”

Emma pulls back. Ryker begins peeling off the many layers of scarf and it strikes her -- they look near tears. Perhaps from the windburn, but perhaps...

“You didn’t have to come out to the Speaker’s House.”

“Nope, I had to,” they say, seemingly trying to talk over the scary reminder that this is the house of the Speaker for the Androids. “You look exhausted,” they press instead. “What’s going on?”

“A lot, Blondie! And now you’re in the middle of it.” She sighs, absentmindedly rearranging the blankets on their lap. “Come on. Let’s get you a warm mug.”

North stands by, watching unreadably as Emma directs Ryker toward the kitchen. They wheel off with shaking fingers.

“Sorry,” Emma whispers. “I didn’t think they--”

“It’s fine,” North says, casting her gaze away. “Just don’t make a habit of it.” A pause. “Who are they?”

Emma looks after them into the kitchen. “Another stupid idiot that let me into their life,” she mutters.

And that’s how she ends up on a couch, hands wrapped around a hot cocoa mug as she gets completely owned by her best friend.

Ryker brings the cocoa mug up to their nose, inspecting it as if they wish they could take a sip of it.  “So you finally admitted it,” they say, a weary sort of relief in their voice.

Emma squints. “Just say what you wanna say.”

Ryker makes a snorty-laugh sound. “Like I haven’t from the beginning!” They shake their head. “You’ve been dancing around him like an idiot for months. A well meaning idiot, but still.” Emma can’t help but smirk a little at this call-out, and Ryker continues unabashed. “You asked him to dinner, multiple times, and he said yes, multiple times. Even though he’s an android and can’t, you know, eat.And then you both show up at my house…” They pause for a moment, considering. “Don’t get me wrong, he was still very much the ex-hunter, current cop-slash-bodyguard of rumor. But sometimes, when he looked at you … I mean, even Chase could see it, and you know that he’s not necessarily the most observant.”

Emma sips her drink, looking away at this mention of Ryker’s roommate/another friend. “Why didn’t you just tell me?”

Ryker leans forward. “I did. Multiple times.”

“Yeah.” Emma sets her mug down and stares out one of the beautiful windows of the Manfred Mansion. “Sounds about right.”

She watches the snow lightly fall from the trees in the garden and thinks about what it means to feel rooted somewhere. What it means to stay. What it means to belong.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Ryker asks, for maybe the fifth time.

She closes her eyes against the brightness of the light. “There’s just...there’s been a lot. All at once. These past weeks, I’ve felt so stupidly alone but...I’m just...awful at remembering how to not be that way.”

She looks to her friend, one of the few in her life, one of the few she could damn count on even though she probably didn’t deserve them, either. She barged into their life (like she did many of the androids in this city). She thought they’d been attacked and that she’d have to call the police on whoever tore their leg off but it was an older wound from a different time, even in March.

She offered to walk them home because she felt adrift and Ryker offered to help with a few jobs by providing company and minor support. And maybe they did it all out of fear at first, fear of this blustering human who stomped down streets in big boots. Maybe they didn’t understand at the time. But now…

They watch her intently, in that clear-eyed way only androids can, and she knows they can see parts of her that even she tries not to look at.

And that’s when it hits her: She’s not leaving Detroit anytime soon.

“You know I love you, right?” she asks, voice quiet. She has to be honest. There’s no more room for hiding things. “Even though I’m an idiot who never calls and who yells all the time...you know…”

They reach out and touch Emma’s hand. “Yeah, I do,” they say, voice even and measured. “And you know that I love you and that I would really prefer it if you kept me in the loop on what’s going on in your life. Beyond but also including world-ending events like your boyfriend almost dying. I want to help, Emma. But you have to talk to me. Or if not me, then someone, anyone. Stop trying to do it by yourself.”

Emma has to lean back a little bit, looking away.

“Okay, alright. Yeah. The universe is yelling at full force.”

“We met in the spring,” Ryker says, straightforward and true as the steel of a trowel. “You came to Detroit in the spring. You know, hope, rebirth, renewal, all that great stuff?” A slight smile, off center but honest. “It’s been yelling at you since the beginning.”

---

[9:36 p.m.] CONNOR.RK800.ANDERSON: Where are you?

[9:37 p.m.] lil.lion.lady74: I Have Run Away, Goodbye Fool

[9:37 p.m.] lil.lion.lady74: im in the library, get over here

In the next instant, she hears the door chime: Welcome, Connor Anderson.

It takes quite literally all of her willpower but she does not leave to greet him at the door. She stands up and brushes her old flannel down, but she has standards. She is gonna hold herself to them and not run to greet him like a puppy.

“Did you know,” she says, as soon as Connor enters the room, smiling with a tenderness that almost embarasses her, “that we are apparently the last people to know we’re a thing?”

“Apparently so” he says, brushing her hair away and placing his hands along her shoulders and neck as soon as he reaches her. His voice softens. “I’m glad to see you.”

“It was only one day.” But she grins, leaning lightly into one of his hands. “I spent most of mine getting my ass handed back to me by Ryker.”

He tilts his head, watching her face in that open way he did, though his chin twitches. “I went through something similar with Hank. Sumo says hello.”

He frowns ever so slightly. Unusual following comments regarding Sumo. She knocks her knuckles lightly against his chest. “You okay?”

His eyes dart away. He stands straight and crosses his arms in thought. They stand close enough that his forearms brush her middle.

“Do you aunt or uncle know much about your youth?” he asks, eyes shifting back to her face.

She blinks. “Nothing I don’t know, probably. We didn’t visit a whole bunch when I was young. Why?”

But she knows why. There’s only ever one thing on his mind these days.

She steps back to give him some space to work through whatever it is he needs to work through before he can really let go of this tonight.

“Abel had a picture of you,” he says before she can get back to the sofa. “As a young girl. No older than six, as if from an old file or passport. Very simple.”

She blanches. That old feeling. Like something’s catching up.

“You looked sad,” he says.

She turns back to look at him. His brow furrows in that old, concerned way.

“He...probably just had something from my foster care program,” she says in comfort. To him and herself. “You said he was really good at hacking, right?”

Connor looks at the floor.

“We haven’t really talked about what happened,” she says, fully turning toward him, watching him carefully. “Did you want to?”

He’s really struggling to work through this, she realizes. It’s taking him much longer than usual to form responses.

“He said...strange things.” He starts toward her at this, though his eyes don’t quite reach her face. “He acted like he knows everything about you. But he doesn’t.”

He reaches for her arms, laying his hands gently on her wrists.

“I know you,” he says.

She scans his expression -- the way his jaw tightens, even as his eyes turn soft and dark. She reaches a thumb up to touch the single line of wrinkles forming just above the bridge of his nose.

“Fuck that guy,” she says quietly. She presses and smooths the lines of tension away. “I’ve literally never seen him before in my life. Before now. He doesn’t know shit about me. You…” She pokes him on the nose. “...know more than you should.”

She smiles at him and finally tension begins to seep out of his body. He leans forward and kisses her forehead, then her nose, and then her mouth. He pulls her in by her hands, lacing his fingers through hers, stifling a growly sigh. Her whole body near spasms at his welcome warmth returning to her once again. But she pulls back with a laugh, not quite ready to shamelessly make out in Markus’ library, even if the idea doesn’t sound so bad...

“That is my job,” he says against her lips. He squeezes her fingers.

“And now you are off work.” Her voice is remarkably stable all things considered. “Grab a book or something. Let’s relax.”

“Actually…” He looks off as if remembering something. “Please sit, if you don’t mind. I’ll be right back.”

So she flops down on the sofa to wait a few moments before he returns bearing one of Hank’s old books. Ender’s Game.

“Oh, you read my mind,” she says, laughing a little, though she feels a strange pang of sadness. That they had the same idea is charming -- but that it likely spawned from his distress is not. She pats the sofa next to her.

He sits, but not without a light tug on her right arm. “Come closer,” he whispers.

She grins through the thrill that warps through her. He sits with his back on the far arm and pulls her in between his legs so her back is against his chest and his head can lay on her shoulder. His arms wrap around her middle.

“I like when you're close to me like this,” he says. “I feel...grounded.”

“Grounded,” she ponders, settling against him. He kisses her temple. “Yeah. Me, too.”

It’s wild to think that this is how her vagabond days end: sitting with a being who was barely a thought in someone’s head little over a year ago, reading a book that was older than them both combined, in a house that’s seen more change in its strange life than she could even imagine. But she starts to read, exactly like that, holding herself against him so he doesn’t feel like he’s flying off the face of the earth -- and so that she could remember what roots feel like after so many dry years.

They were nearing the final third when they last left off. A young boy, suffering in isolation, playing ruthless games set to test his mettle, called to push his friends and himself to their breaking points for what seems to be no reason. He wants nothing more than to break free and he decides he will sacrifice everything to make that happen. He aims his missile at the planet of his enemy, and he fires, hoping the people testing him will find him too crazy to continue.

But then, it turns out, the game is real -- and the young boy has done exactly what everyone wanted. Their enemy is dead. Destroyed in a single, fell swoop.

Connor tenses up around her when she finishes that chapter. “We have to finish it now,” he says.

He has to know…

And so they read, about freedom and what it means, in the house of the Speaker of the Androids. She doesn’t realize she’s whispering until her voice chokes up around the words said by Ender’s sister, the beloved Valentine, as they seek to leave Earth forever.

"Welcome to the human race. Nobody controls his own life, Ender. The best you can do is choose to fill the roles given you by good people -- by people who love you."

[gpnationalcrane]

Top 7 Demolition Videos of 2020

2020 was a stressful year, so let’s decompress a little bit by reviewing some of the most fun demolition videos from the past year. A demolition that broke a 22 year old record highlights the bunch and I also stretch what the definition of “demolition” is a little bit, because I think the video is so cool. Don’t @ me.

Without further ado, here are the top 7 demolition videos from 2020:

[VIDEO] 2 U. of Texas Towers Imploded within 8 Feet of Another Building

On January 5, CDI took down two towers on the University of Texas’ campus, one a 10-story dormitory and the other a 12-story by way on an implosion. Both buildings were post-tensioned, reinforced concrete buildings according to CDI.

Adding to the excitement was the fact that another building separate from the project sat just 8 feet away from the 2 buildings that were felled. I was not able to find any reports stating that any damage occurred to any nearby buildings.

[VIDEO] Implosion Fails to Bring Down Dallas High Rise, Dubbed ‘Leaning Tower of Dallas’

Back in February, which seems like an eternity ago, demolition contractors had a little trouble bringing down the core of an 11-story structure in Dallas, Texas.  What followed were a couple weeks of internet memes, dubbing the failure the “Leaning Tower of Dallas.”

About 2 and a half weeks later, the rest of the tower finally fell, thanks to the painstaking process of slightly nudging it to death with a wrecking ball. It was fun while it lasted.

[VIDEO] Watch the Explosive Demolition of Historic Detroit Basketball Arena, the Palace of Auburn Hills

From 1988 to 2017, the Palace of Auburn Hills was home to the Detroit Pistons of the NBA.  On July 11, 2020, it was imploded into smithereens, ending a fantastic run for the historic arena.

While much of the building was previously demolished, Controlled Demolition Inc. (CDI) was brought into the site as the Explosives Subcontractor under Homrich Wrecking, Inc, the main contractor based in Michigan, in order to bring down the roof structure -- and they did so in spectacular fashion.

This demolition also lead to the sentence I was probably most proud of in 2020:

“Fans of this arena may know that this is actually the 3rd demolition that has taken place at the Palace in the building’s 30-year history: the first being the demolition of Michael Jordan’s body courtesy of the Pistons’ Bad Boys in the late 80’s and early 90’s and the second being the demolition of several fans faces during the “Malice at the Palace” in 2004.”

[WATCH] 8 Power Plant Chimneys Demolished at Same Time is Better than Dominoes

Power plants are facing demolition all over the world as country’s move away from less environmentally friendly power sources and abandon older facilities.  The good news, for us, is that we get some pretty awesome demolition videos out of the shutdowns.

Power station chimneys are usually pretty exciting to watch, as many are tall and skinny, leading to a pretty dramatic conclusion.  When there are 8 chimneys, it makes it even more exciting.

[VIDEO] Vertical Water Cannons Precede Implosion of 15 Story Tower in France

Demolition by implosions videos are obviously fun to watch, but the actual process creates an insane amount of dust. The challenge becomes hoe do you douse an enormous structure that falls within seconds with enough water to control dust effectively? The answer might be more explosives…

When the 15-story Pentagone Plaza tower located in Clamart, France was imploded in August, the demolition team didn’t just set up some hoses, they surrounded the structure in a bunch of small, inflatable swimming pools lined with explosives. The intent is to send a vertical pillar of water into the air right before the explosives inside the building go off in order to create a wall of water that the dust has to fight through.

[VIDEO] Watch an 85 Year Old, 5 Story Building be Relocated 200 Feet with a ‘Walking Machine’

This is the one that I took a little artistic creativity on the definition of “demolition.” It’s just too cool not to share and did require some demolition work to detach the superstructure from its foundation.

An 85-year old primary school in Shanghai, China was recently relocated 200 feet away and rotated 21 degrees to make way for a new development on its current home. By attaching 198 mobile supports under the support structure of the 5-story, 7,600 ton school, the building is able to “walk” to its new location.

[VIDEO] New World Record For Tallest Building Demolished By Explosives

Hard to top a new world record for the number 1 spot on your list…

Back in 1998, the Hudson Department Store in downtown Detroit, Michigan was demolished by explosives.  That building stood 410 feet tall across its 29 floors, making it, at the time, the tallest building to ever be taken down by implosion. The dust cloud covered many city blocks and the 20,000 unsuspecting people that came to watch the event.  That record was just recently broken by a building over 100 feet taller than it.

Prior to its recent demolition, the tallest building in Mina Plaza Complex in Abu Dhabi, UAE stood at roughly 541 feet across its 46 floors, according to Demoliton News. Scotland based demoltion company, Safedem, carried out the explosive demolition, which landed them in the Guinness Book of World Records.

There were four towers in the complex, totaling 144 stories in all, which were imploded simultaneously, according to Safedem.

source https://www.constructionjunkie.com/blog/2021/1/5/top-7-demolition-videos-of-2020 from G P NATIONAL CRANES LTD https://gpnationalcrane.blogspot.com/2021/01/top-7-demolition-videos-of-2020.html

[khalilhumam]

The Sun Belt’s COVID-19 surge stalls economic recovery in the region

New Post has been published on http://khalilhumam.com/the-sun-belts-covid-19-surge-stalls-economic-recovery-in-the-region/

The Sun Belt’s COVID-19 surge stalls economic recovery in the region

By Sarah Crump, MaryAnn Placheril Summer has not stopped COVID-19’s spread across the country, especially into states that had avoided the pandemic’s early impacts. As the virus and efforts to slow its spread batter more and more metropolitan economies, the timeline for widespread economic recovery grows increasingly uncertain. The latest data in our Metro Recovery Index illustrates that uncertainty in the nation’s Sun Belt, where a surge in COVID-19 cases has stalled the region’s fragile recovery.

The Sun Belt initially weathered labor market downturns better than other places

In the first weeks of the country’s pandemic-induced economic shutdowns (through mid-March), job losses were largely concentrated among very large metro areas in the West and the Northeast Corridor. These were the initial places where COVID-19 cases spread most rapidly and where government-ordered shutdowns first took effect. This trend continued into mid-June, as lower numbers of COVID-19 cases and shorter shutdown periods yielded stronger labor market indicators in Sun Belt metro areas. While unemployment rates increased in practically every metro area from June 2019 to June 2020, Sun Belt cities experienced significantly smaller increases. Exceptions to this were large tourism hubs such as Las Vegas and Orlando, Fla., as well as metro areas in California, which locked down more stringently than most other Sun Belt states. Meanwhile, New York, Boston, and Detroit continued to see double-digit unemployment rate increases.

July job postings data show the Sun Belt faltering

By late June, however, there was a considerable shift in the geography of the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic impact. While all 50 states had begun to reopen to some degree in May, the greatest increases in COVID-19 cases over the early-to-midsummer period emerged in the states that reopened quickest. Starting in June and continuing into July, the Sun Belt experienced a surge in cases, leading mayors and governors to scale back their reopening plans. While July data on jobs and unemployment for metro areas will not be available for a few more weeks, job postings data from Emsi provides some clues into the month’s shifting patterns of economic strength and weakness. According to the data, in July, job postings increased from their June levels in nearly every U.S. metro area, but increases in Sun Belt cities tended to be smaller. This could reflect the region’s earlier reopenings, with job postings not increasing as much in July because they had already risen in May and June. However, year-over-year declines from July 2019 to July 2020 were also more pronounced in Sun Belt metro areas, signaling a significant slowdown in recent hiring activity.

As COVID-19 spread, visits to workplaces stalled across the Sun Belt 

After bouncing back in May and June, travel to places of work declined almost across the board in July, affecting 186 out of the 192 metro areas included in the analysis. Mobility data from Google reveals that these decreases were concentrated in Sun Belt metro areas, particularly in states that were reversing reopening efforts after experiencing COVID-19 spikes in June and July (e.g., Texas, Florida, Arizona, and California). This suggests that Sun Belt residents and their employers are increasingly heeding calls to shelter in place and work from home where possible. By contrast, metro areas in states that reopened more slowly have seen a different trajectory. In Boston, Detroit, New York, and Philadelphia, July brought both declining COVID-19 caseloads and either small increases or only modest declines in workplace visits.

Small business recovery comes to a halt across the country 

Through April, about 40% of U.S. small businesses had shuttered due to the pandemic. The drop was even more dramatic in metro areas with early, large COVID-19 outbreaks, in states such as New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Michigan, and Illinois. Sun Belt metro areas experienced somewhat fewer small business closures during this time. As states lifted lockdown orders in May and June, the share of businesses reopening in very large metro areas across the country steadily increased. In July, however, very large metro areas in the Sun Belt diverged from their Northeastern and Midwestern counterparts. While the share of open businesses in Boston, Chicago, Detroit, and New York continued to rise, the share declined in Atlanta, Birmingham, Ala., Houston, Memphis, Tenn., and Tampa, Fla. This likely reflected the reversal of prior reopenings in Sun Belt states and rising consumer wariness as COVID-19 cases there began to spike. Each of these findings reinforces that the path of COVID-19 and the trajectory of the economy remain inextricably linked. As COVID-19 cases have spiked across Sun Belt metro areas in recent weeks, hopes for a quick economic recovery in those regions have dissipated, even as metro areas that the pandemic hit harder and earlier continue to rebound.

[feelingbluepolitics]

Highly recommended.

"[T]here is no national system in place for contact tracing, said Joshua Michaud, an epidemiologist and associate director of global health policy for the Kaiser Family Foundation. It’s decentralized and performed by local health agencies that may not communicate with one another, especially given their caseloads. So, if a casino had a 'cluster outbreak' or 'superspreading event' among visitors, it’s unlikely contact tracing would catch it, Michaud said.

..."A new analysis of smartphone data, conducted at ProPublica’s request, shows how interconnected the country is with visitors to Las Vegas — which heightens concerns about the limitations of interstate contact tracing. The companies X-Mode and Tectonix analyzed travel to and from Las Vegas during four days, a Friday to Monday, in mid-July. In compliance with privacy laws, X-Mode collects data from smartphone users, mainly those using fitness and weather apps that track their location. The data represents about 5% of the smartphone users in the United States. Tectonix analyzed the data and visualized it on a map.

"During the four-day period, about 26,000 devices were identified on the Las Vegas Strip. Some of those same smartphones also showed up in every state on the mainland except Maine in those same four days. About 3,700 of the devices were spotted in Southern California in the same four days; about 2,700 in Arizona, with 740 in Phoenix; around 1,000 in Texas; more than 800 in Milwaukee, Detroit, Chicago and Cleveland; and more than 100 in the New York area.

"The cellphone analysis highlights a reason the virus keeps spreading, said Oscar Alleyne, an epidemiologist and chief program officer with the National Association of County and City Health Officials. 'People have been highly mobile, and as a result, it makes sense why we see the continuation of the surge.'

..."Public health experts say there are several keys to containing COVID-19: social distancing and wearing masks around others, having abundant and timely testing to see who has the virus, contract tracing to encourage those who had contact with infected people to isolate, and isolation for those infected. Reducing unnecessary travel and outings also helps stifle the virus.

..."Gambling With Lives”

"ProPublica spoke to six public health experts who called casinos a high-risk environment for COVID-19. They are indoors, potentially crowded and filled with people prone to taking risks. It’s almost certain, the experts said, that casinos are a feeding ground for COVID-19.

..."Nevada regulators set minimum standards for COVID-19 protections but allowed the casinos to choose many of their own safety measures — to the dismay of many workers. That’s not a surprise, because gaming companies have significant sway over policymakers in Nevada.

"Las Vegas could almost be called a company town, and its economy depends on tourism — even in the pandemic. In a rambling and contentious interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper during the shutdown, Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman advocated for reopening despite the virus and appeared to offer the city as a sort of 'control group' in an experiment. 'How do you know until we have a control group?' she asked. 'We offered to be a control group.'

"When it comes to regulation in Nevada, Michael Green, a historian at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, put it this way: 'The casino industry is the tail that wags the dog. It may also just be the dog.'"

It looks like the nation is way overdue to put down some of these metaphorical sick dogs for long enough to reduce the spread of covid at large. At the very least, people who are still traveling can quarantine before and after and be tested. Enough with the reliance on the performance of temperature checks for a transmissible disease thats often asymptomatic.

[un-enfant-immature]

GM’s car-sharing service Maven to exit eight cities

GM is scaling back its Maven car-sharing company and will stop service in nearly half of the 17 North American cities it operates in.

A spokesperson who confirmed Maven was shutting down in some cities, without identifying the location or number that will remain, said the company plans to focus on markets that have the strongest demand and growth potential.

The WSJ, which was the first to report the impending shutdown, said Maven will continue to operate in Detroit, Los Angeles, Washington, DC, and Toronto. However, TechCrunch has received information from Maven customers that Washington D.C. was also shutting down.

TechCrunch will update the article with more details about what markets Maven plans to exit.

Maven’s car-sharing service is available in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Denver, Los Angeles, New York, Orlando, San Francisco and Washington D.C. as well as Toronto, according to its website. Maven Gig, a service it launched in 2017 that rents out vehicles to rideshare and delivery drivers who use apps like Uber, Lyft and UberEATS, operates in Austin, Baltimore, Boston, Detroit, San Diego, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, NYC and Washington D.C. 

GM conducted a market-by-market analysis to determine which cities it would exit, according to the spokesperson.

When Maven first launched in 2016 it helped bring (and expand) several of GM’s existing test programs under one brand. The mobility division initially launched as a car-sharing service akin to Zipcar.

At the time of its launch, Maven was essentially three car-sharing services in one that included a city-based service that rented GM vehicles by the hour through an app and another for urban apartment dwellers in Chicago and New York.

A smartphone app, which is central to Maven’s business, is used by customers to search for and reserve a vehicle, unlock the door, and remotely start, cool, or heat the car.

But Maven has had its share of challenges. Demand was lackluster in some markets and the team tweaked, added or removed programs altogether in an effort to figure out what would work.

Maven CEO Julia Steyn left GM in January. TechCrunch has also received tips from users complaining about the service, the platform, even being locked out of the vehicles in areas with limited cellular service.

The company launched in 2017 Maven Reserve in Los Angeles and San Francisco to allow customers to rent its GM-branded vehicles for a month at a time. It also started Maven Gig in hopes of tapping into a growing demand from ride-share and delivery app drivers.

In July, the automaker launched a service in Chicago, Detroit and Ann Arbor, Mich. that let owners rent out their personal GM-branded vehicles through its Maven car-sharing platform. The peer-to-peer car rental service was designed to operate in a similar fashion to how Turo and Getaround work.

The creation of Maven was an important milestone for the automaker. GM Chairman and CEO Mary Barra, used a study commissioned in the wake of the ignition switch engineering scandal, to accelerate her plans to transform the culture and operations at the automaker. Dozens of executives participated in transformational leaders programs. And Maven was one of the fruits that spun out of that.

Maven was part of a wave of initiatives and investments announced by GM in early 2016 that illustrated its new interest in unconventional transportation that moved past the traditional core business of producing, selling and financing cars, trucks and SUVs to consumers.

That year, GM invested $500 million into ride-hailing startup Lyft, bought the remaining assets and tech of ride-hailing company Sidecar, and most famously acquired self-driving car startup Cruise.

Maven was notable because unlike the other pursuits, this was its own commercial business.

[savetopnow]

2018-04-04 03 NEWS now

NEWS

Associated Press

Israeli leader nixes UN deal to resettle African migrants

Midlife 'wealth shock' may lead to death, study suggests

First person sentenced in Russia probe draws 30 days, fine

Trump offers support to embattled EPA head

Trump wants military to secure border with Mexico

BBC News

Tearful reunion with missing daughter

Two trains hit trucks on crossings in Georgia, US

Meet the Ethiopian man who walks on his hands

Superintendent: Why teachers carry guns in Fayetteville

Slow death of the 'Amazon of its age'

Chicago Tribune

Suspect sought in Lakeview robberies

Metra to end ticket sales on website, pushes mobile app

Deerfield bans assault weapons and high-capacity magazines

Firefighter injured after wall collapses at extra-alarm fire

Teen's fatal shooting in Detroit livestreamed on Instagram

LA Times

Former California legislator Matt Dababneh, who resigned amid sexual harassment allegations, opens new campaign committee

‘Gossip Girl’ co-creator Stephanie Savage is ready for a scene change in Los Feliz

Top Federal Reserve pick is controversial for Wells Fargo oversight and lack of diversity

Winners of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards, addressing racism and diversity, have been announced

‘Glee’ alum Jayma Mays sells Los Feliz home for $800,000 over asking

NPR News

Ahead Of Iraq's Elections, Muqtada Al-Sadr Reinvents Himself — Again

For Months, Panera Bread Website Reportedly Exposed Millions Of Customer Records

Trump Hosts News Conference During Baltic Summit At White House

Justice Department Rolls Out Quotas For Immigration Judges

Families Divided: President Trump's Travel Ban Strands Some U.S. Citizens Abroad

New York Times

No Sweatpants in Public: Inside the Rule Books for N.F.L. Cheerleaders

With L Train Shutdown a Year Off, Lower Manhattan Braces for Upheaval

New York Fed Names John Williams President, Bucking Calls for Diversity

As Trump Leads a ‘War’ on California, Who Will Lead California?

Trump Says He Plans to Order Military to Guard Border

ProPublica

Addiction Drug’s Side Effect: More Overdoses?

ProPublica and NPR Win Investigative Reporters and Editors Award

A Betrayal

Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan Builds Power From the Ground Up — And Sometimes From the Basement

How Overbuilt Levees Along the Upper Mississippi River Push Floods Onto Others

Reddit News

New Jersey cops search a man's anus and genitals for weed during traffic stop

Police body cam footage shows NC officer choke jaywalking suspect

Parents find daughter after 24-year search

Man bound, shot to death over PlayStation in New Jersey

Boston Immigration Judge Orders Accused War Criminal Deported To Guatemala

Reuters

'We're not leaving!' Oklahoma teachers in second day of protests

Wall Street higher as financials rise, techs struggle

NY Fed names Williams to top post amid political backlash

Trump says he will use military to protect U.S. border

Spotify shares open for trading at $165.90

Reveal News

Nation’s largest janitorial company faces new allegations of rape

A group of janitors started a movement to stop sexual abuse

The Hate Report: How white supremacists recruit online

New documents about Jehovah’s Witnesses’ sex abuse begin to leak out

California is preparing to defend its waters from Trump order

The Altantic

West Virginia's Teachers Are Not Satisfied

This Average Joe Is the Most Quoted Man in News

The Unsinkable Benjamin Netanyahu?

Eric Garcetti Isn't Expecting Much From Washington

The Particular Horror of Church Shootings

The Guardian

Lionel Messi fit and firing to lead the Barcelona charge against Roma

French rail staff stage 'Black Tuesday' protests against overhaul

Trump tells EPA chief Pruitt 'we've got your back' despite ethics controversy

National parks to rethink plan to hike entrance fees after widespread anger

Mali mass grave victims had been in military custody, claims Amnesty

The Independent

Florida car crash kills four British family members

Spotify sees big Wall Street debut amid tech sector turmoil

Spate in London youth murders directly linked to poverty and austerity, practitioners warn

Fifty years after the slaying of Martin Luther King Jr the spirit of protest and resistance in America is alive and well

Ben Affleck responds to ridicule over 'garish' phoenix back tattoo

The Intercept

Donald Trump’s New Policies Could Make It Harder for Torture Survivors to Get Asylum

How John Bolton Wants to Destroy the Constitution to Attack North Korea

A New Study Shows How American Polarization Is Driven by a Team Sport Mentality, Not by Disagreement on Issues

Israel Kills Palestinians and Western Liberals Shrug. Their Humanitarianism Is a Sham.

Donald Trump and the GOP Are Expanding a Controversial Obama-Era Public Housing Program

The Quartz

Why the sinister voice of HAL in “2001: A Space Odyssey” needed to be Canadian

Spotify goes public with shares priced at $165.90, well above the reference price of $132

Fewer and fewer US college students are studying foreign languages

The millennial’s guide to the Spotify IPO

Amazon Prime is more popular than Donald Trump

Wall Street Journal

Trump Calls for Military to Guard Southern Border

Vatican Deal Would Keep China in Charge of Church, Beijing Says

Rohingya Camps in Bangladesh Start to Look Permanent

Prosecutors Call For Extradition of Former Catalonian Separatist Leader

In Challenge to Macron, Strikes Snarl French Transport

[newyorktheater]

The Line Arjun Gupta as emergency room physician

On past Labor Days, I’ve asked: Where are the American plays about unions, or workers, or even just workplaces? But now that “arts workers” have turned Labor Day into an #ArtsWorkersUnited Day of Action, the question becomes: Will COVID-19, the shutdown of theaters, and the strident new labor consciousness of the theater community change what we see on stage?

There is some evidence it already has (even without literal stages) in such new plays as The Line, an online docudrama by Jessica Blank and Eric Jensen about front-line medical workers battling COVID-10.

Whether that will still be true when the crises have ended is of course impossible to predict. “Arts workers” have long been more active in unions than workers as a whole. So on this Labor Day — a legal holiday created by Congress in 1884 to celebrate the labor union movement — it’s worth once again singling out theater that has concerned itself with workers and the struggle for dignity in the workplace.

To The Bone,2014: Liza Fernandez, Annie Henk and Lisa Ramirez working in the poultry plant

Plainclothes, 2018

Waiting for Lefty, 1937

When Mañana Comes, 2014. Jose Joaquin Perez, Jason Bowen, Brian Quijada and Reza Salazar as busboys in “My Manana Comes”

A Taste of Honey, 1961 Broadway, with Angela Lansbury and Joan Plowright.

Assistance, 2012

Jay Armstrong Johnson as a firefighter, one of the 26 characters by six actors in the 2012 revival of “Working,” a musical co-conceived by Stephen Schwartz (“Wicked”) and based on Stud Terkel’s book of the same name.

Newsies, a musical inspired by the true story of a 1899 labor strike by Newsboys

Sweat on Broadway: Alison Wright, Will Pullen, Michelle Wilson

Gloria, 2015

Jason Dirden and Nikiya Mathis in Skeleton Crew

Members of Actors Equity march during 1919 strike

Marys Seattle, about a nurse/caregiver

Labor Day Rally by “arts workers” in Times Square, 2020

There was of course the heyday of the working class drama, the 1930s. One of the biggest hits of that decade,  “Waiting for Lefty” by Clifford Odets,  presented a meeting of cab drivers who are planning a labor strike– and included the audience as if part of the meeting. The play was produced on Broadway (at the Longacre and then the Belasco) in 1935 by the Group Theater for a total of 168 performances, but then spread to theaters (and union halls) across the country.  But there have been classic plays both before and after the 1930s:  Arthur Miller’s 1949 “Death of A Salesman” and Sophie Treadwell’s 1928 “Machinal” give us a sense of what working life is like in America.

Over the years there have been some popular musicals that at least tangentially have grappled with issues involving workers — Newsies, The Pajama Game, Billy Elliott, Working.

Such theater is not just in the past. Every year, I see at least one fine drama specifically about the taxing conditions of workers in various workplaces – in 2014, To The Bone, a play by Lisa Ramirez about Latina workers in an upstate chicken slaughterhouse and My Manana Comes, Elizabeth Irwin’s play about the kitchen staff in a fancy Manhattan restaurant; in 2015, Gloria  by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins took place in the offices of a publication similar to the New Yorker magazine (which is where Jacobs-Jenkins once worked.) The copy editors and office workers in this play do not fit into American conventional notions of working class, but workplace issues are not limited to blue collar workers; the story revolves around one undervalued worker being driven to a shocking act of violence. Another such play about white collar workers is entitled Assistance, which Leslye Headland wrote in 2008, and I saw in 2012, and which has since become startlingly relevant: It is about the mistreatment of the office staff by a thinly-veiled character clearly based on Harvey Weinstein.

In 2016, there were the stellar examples of Dominique Morisseau’s play Skeleton Crew, about the mostly African-American workers in a dying auto services plant in Detroit, and  Lynn Nottage’s “Sweat,” about the social and economic breakdown of a group of friends of varying ethnicities in Reading, Pennsylvania with the decline of the local factory.

In 2017, “Sweat” won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and ran on Broadway, albeit for only four months. But in 2018, the first-ever  Public Theater’s Mobile Unit National, took Nottage’s play on an 18-stop tour through Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota — all states with districts up for grab in the midterm elections.  And as we know, voters that November in most of those states and others swung the House of Representatives to a Democratic, pro-labor majority.

In 2019, there were several plays that thrust us into the world of the worker.. “Marys Seacole,” Jackie Sibblies Drury’s  challenging and powerful collage of a drama, told the story of modern-day professional caregivers by riffing on a pioneering nurse from the 19thcentury.

“Lunch Bunch,” a play by  Sarah Einspanier that had a short run as part of  Clubbed Thumb’s 24th annual  Summerworks festival, presents the stressed-out lawyers at a Bronx Public Defenders Office almost entirely through the food they eat at lunch. They’ve formed a lunch club, each member having agreed to make lunch for everybody else once a week.

“Plainclothes” by Spenser Davis, which was produced by Broken Nose Theater in Chicago, and won ATCA’s 2019 Osborn New Play Award, tells the story of the security guards in a large department, after a violent encounter with a shoplifter has left half the team fired or hospitalized. Those who remain are defensive, demoralized and faced with a moral dilemma: As the playwright put it, “do we give the higher-ups exactly what they want, or do we try to do what’s right?” In a note in the script, Davis describes his play as the first in a trilogy about “working class Chicagoans.”

If moments of labor consciousness on stage have seemed rare in the last few decades, they have not disappeared entirely. To paraphrase a lyric from Hamilton, these moments can add up to a movement.

Labor Day and the Pandemic: Will there now be more theater about workers and working? On past Labor Days, I've asked: Where are the American plays about unions, or workers, or even just workplaces?

[vsplusonline]

Some American states plan to re-open economy despite coronavirus testing concerns

New Post has been published on https://apzweb.com/some-american-states-plan-to-re-open-economy-despite-coronavirus-testing-concerns/

Some American states plan to re-open economy despite coronavirus testing concerns

Boeing and at least one other U.S. heavy-equipment manufacturer resumed production and some states rolled out aggressive reopening plans Monday, despite nationwide concerns there is not enough testing yet to keep the coronavirus from rebounding.

The reopenings came amid economic gloom, as futures plunged below zero on Monday and stocks and Treasury yields also dropped on Wall Street. The cost to have a barrel of U.S. crude delivered in May plummeted to negative US$37.63. It was at roughly US$60 at the start of the year.

READ MORE: Coronavirus: Dozens of companies on wait-list to distribute test kits in Canada amid shortage

Boeing said it was putting about 27,000 people back to work this week building passenger jets at its Seattle-area plants, with virus-slowing precautions in place, including face masks and staggered shifts. Doosan Bobcat, a farm equipment maker and North Dakota’s largest manufacturer, announced the return of about 2,200 workers at three factories around the state.

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Elsewhere around the world, step-by-step reopenings were underway in Europe, where the crisis has begun to ebb in places such as Italy, Spain and Germany.

4:03 Coronavirus around the world: April 20, 2020

Coronavirus around the world: April 20, 2020

Parts of the continent are perhaps weeks ahead of the U.S. on the infection curve of the virus, which has killed about 170,000 people worldwide, according to a tally kept by Johns Hopkins University.

Businesses that start operating again in the U.S. are likely to engender good will with the Trump administration at a time when it is doling out billions in relief to companies. But the reopenings being announced are a drop in the bucket compared with the more than 22 million Americans thrown out of work by the crisis.

READ MORE: Calls for probe into China’s coronavirus response mount — will Canada take part?

In a dispute that has turned nakedly political, U.S. President Donald Trump has been agitating to restart the economy, singling out Democratic-led states and egging on protesters who feel governors are moving too slowly.

Some states — mostly Republican-led ones — have relaxed restrictions, and on Monday announced that they would take further steps to reopen their economies.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp announced that gyms, hair salons, bowling alleys and tattoo parlors were among businesses that could reopen Friday, as long as owners followed strict social distancing and hygiene requirements.

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0:49 Coronavirus outbreak: Pence says U.S. has testing capacity to go to phase 1 reopening

Coronavirus outbreak: Pence says U.S. has testing capacity to go to phase 1 reopening

The governor said a decline in emergency room visits by people with flu-like symptoms indicated that infections were going down. But he also acknowledged that Georgia had lagged in COVID-19 testing and announced new initiatives to ramp it up.

[ Sign up for our Health IQ newsletter for the latest coronavirus updates ]

Texas on Monday began a week of slow reopenings, starting off with state parks, while officials said that later in the week, stores would be allowed to offer curbside service. Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee announced Monday that businesses across most of the state would begin reopening as early as next week, although the order did not cover counties with the largest cities, including Nashville, Memphis, Knoxville and Chattanooga. Both states are led by Republicans.

READ MORE: ‘Give me liberty or … COVID-19’: The irony of coronavirus protests in the U.S.

Republican West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice said Monday that he would allow hospitals to begin performing elective procedures if the facilities met an unspecified set of criteria, while Democratic Colorado Gov. Jared Polis said Monday that he would let his statewide stay-at-home order expire next week as long as strict social distancing and other individual protective measures continued.

2:10 Several U.S. states start easing COVID-19 restrictions

Several U.S. states start easing COVID-19 restrictions

But governors from many other states said they lacked the testing supplies they need and warned they could get hit by a second wave of infections, given how people with no symptoms can still spread the disease.

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“Who in this great state actually believes that they care more about jet skiing than saving the lives of the elderly or the vulnerable?” Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer remarked, referring to restrictions in place in her state. “This action isn’t about our individual right to gather. It’s about our parents’ right to live.”

READ MORE: Live updates: Coronavirus in Canada

Trump took to Twitter to complain that the “radical left” and “Do Nothing Democrats” are “playing a very dangerous political game” by complaining about a testing shortage. At the same time, Vice President Mike Pence told governors that Washington is working around-the-clock to help them ramp up testing.

The death toll in the U.S. stood at more than 40,000 — the highest in the world — with over 750,000 confirmed infections, by Johns Hopkins’ count. The true figures are believed to be much higher, in part because of limited testing and difficulties in counting the dead.

2:10 Trump fights with governors over reopening

Trump fights with governors over reopening

In other developments:

— Republican Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan announced his state will be able to test 500,000 more people for COVID-19 thanks to a shipment of tests from South Korea. His wife, Yumi Hogan, who is Korean-American, negotiated the shipment with Korean officials. Trump said at an afternoon briefing that governors like Hogan and Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois don’t understand they already have the testing capacity they need to begin the first phase of reopening their states.

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— Massachusetts has emerged as an alarming hot spot of contagion, with over 1,700 dead and officials hoping to bend the curve through aggressive contract tracing.

READ MORE: How many Canadians have the new coronavirus? Total number of confirmed cases by region

— New York, with the worst outbreak in the nation, reported that hospitalizations in the state have leveled off and the day’s death toll, at 478, was the lowest in three weeks, down from a peak of nearly 800. Still, the city canceled three of its biggest June events: the Puerto Rican Day parade, the Israel parade and the gay pride march.

1:52 Coronavirus outbreak: Trump touts progress in search for COVID-19 treatments

Coronavirus outbreak: Trump touts progress in search for COVID-19 treatments

— A meatpacking plant in Minnesota was shut down after an outbreak there. But Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds refused to order the closing of any slaughterhouses in her state that are seeing alarming increases in COVID-19, saying: “Without them, people’s lives and our food supply will be impacted.”

Mobilized by the far right, many Americans have taken to the streets in places such as Michigan, Ohio and Virginia, complaining that the shutdowns are destroying their livelihoods and trampling their rights.

READ MORE: ‘Worst is yet ahead of us’ in coronavirus outbreak, WHO warns

But Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious-disease expert, warned on ABC: “Unless we get the virus under control, the real recovery economically is not going to happen.”

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Boeing’s shutdown went into effect March 25 after workers tested positive for the virus and an inspector for the company died. Washington was the first state to see a spike in COVID-19 cases and enacted strict shutdown orders that helped tamp the virus down.

1:51 Coronavirus outbreak: U.S. looking to top up oil reserves as prices plummet, Trump says

Coronavirus outbreak: U.S. looking to top up oil reserves as prices plummet, Trump says

The crisis has exacerbated problems at Boeing, which is in dire financial trouble and under federal investigation over two crashes of its 737 MAX jetliner that killed 346 people.

Union representatives spent the day walking through factories to see what safeguards had been put in place.

At Doosan Bobcat, spokeswoman Stacey Breuer said the reopening came after two weeks spent putting in safety measures.

READ MORE: ‘Go to China!’: ‘Nurses’ hailed for blocking anti-quarantine ‘Karen’ at coronavirus protest

“There is definitely still some concern and do we feel 100% safe? Obviously not,” said William Wilkinson, a Bobcat welder and president of a United Steelworkers union local. He said workers there were wearing face masks and keeping their distance from one another.

Detroit’s major automakers suspended operations a month ago but are negotiating with union leaders in hopes of reopening in May. Some operations are being converted to build ventilators.

1:00 Coronavirus outbreak: Drone deliveries help elderly Chileans vulnerable to COVID-19

Coronavirus outbreak: Drone deliveries help elderly Chileans vulnerable to COVID-19

Even with the outbreak easing in places, the head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, cautioned, “The worst is yet ahead of us.” He did not specify why he believed so. But there were signs the virus was swelling in Africa, where the health care system is in poor condition.

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Long reported from Washington. Corder reported from The Hague, Netherlands. AP writers worldwide contributed to this report.

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[riichardwilson]

My First Business Died – But It Helped Make My Next Company a Success

When government policies and decisions killed my buzzy New York startup, I learned to build a better (and more sustainable) operation.

March 6, 2020 4 min read

This story appears in the March 2020 issue of Entrepreneur. Subscribe »

In 2016, New York City made an announcement that locals had been dreading: Starting in 2019, the L train subway tunnel — a major connection between Manhattan and Brooklyn — would shut down for 18 months of repairs. It would be so disruptive that people actually moved to different neighborhoods in order to be closer to a functioning subway line come 2019.

Then, just four months before the shutdown was going to begin, New York’s governor sprung a surprise. He announced that the L train wouldn’t shut down after all. (The repairs would happen on nights and weekends.) Some people were elated. Others were annoyed. And me? I was shocked…because I’d spent the better part of the past year building a business designed to serve people impacted by this closure.

Related: Why Embracing Failure Is Good for Business

Suddenly, all my work was destroyed. Or so I thought. I eventually came to learn an important lesson in entrepreneurship: Even when plan A fails, it can set you up for a better plan B.

Back in 2016, I was one of the 200,000 commuters whose routes to work would be disrupted by the subway closure. I wanted to stay in my beloved neighborhood, and I eventually decided to build a solution for people like me. After months of ideating, I had it. My startup, a carpooling service and platform, was called The New L. I assembled a small team, partnered with a fleet of drivers, collected data from nearly 5,000 interested customers, signed corporate contracts, generated interest from large buildings and companies that wanted to subsidize our service for their employees, and got a lot of press coverage.

We were ready to go…until, of course, the city blew up my plans. I was happy for the commuters whose lives wouldn’t be disrupted. But now what?

Related: 6 Surprising Rules for Business Success

I’d caught the entrepreneurial bug, and I wasn’t ready to give up that dream. A coworker from my day job and I started brainstorming new ideas, and we realized we were already partway down a path. My commuting company was dead, but building it had taught me a lot about urban mobility, efficient systems, and destination-based travel. What if we took those lessons and applied them to something people always want — sightseeing!

This is how we developed a company called Nowaday, which launched in New York this past November. Our first offering is a private tour of the city, given in a gorgeous 1920s vintage car. 

Tours like this are hard to plan; New York can throw a lot of unexpected things at you. If there’s a traffic closure or a parade, Nowaday still has to deliver a 60-minute experience without being stuck in traffic. That was a challenge, one that would require 24-7 monitoring. But here, the experience of The New L served us well. We’d already learned how to coordinate thousands of commuters, so doing it for private tours was much easier.

Related: How to Recover From Your First Failed Business

Within months, we’d developed Nowaday’s MVP. We bought our first car, put it on the road in early 2019, and delivered hundreds of rides in beta, collecting instant feedback from customers. Then we went to investors to enable us to build this company the right way. We raised $3.5 million and bought a fleet of 12 vintage cars, working with a team in Detroit that helps with sourcing and restoration. 

The rides have been a quick success, but we have much bigger plans for Nowaday. We are more than a touring company; we’re an experience company. We plan to uncover and narrate every city’s most fascinating stories, from food to entertainment, for locals and tourists alike. The logistics of this are tough, but I feel prepared. No matter the challenges, I found a far more sustainable business than The New L ever could have been.

Website Design & SEO Delray Beach by DBL07.co

Delray Beach SEO

source http://www.scpie.org/my-first-business-died-but-it-helped-make-my-next-company-a-success/ source https://scpie.tumblr.com/post/611856728537038848

[laurelkrugerr]

My First Business Died – But It Helped Make My Next Company a Success

When government policies and decisions killed my buzzy New York startup, I learned to build a better (and more sustainable) operation.

March 6, 2020 4 min read

This story appears in the March 2020 issue of Entrepreneur. Subscribe »

In 2016, New York City made an announcement that locals had been dreading: Starting in 2019, the L train subway tunnel — a major connection between Manhattan and Brooklyn — would shut down for 18 months of repairs. It would be so disruptive that people actually moved to different neighborhoods in order to be closer to a functioning subway line come 2019.

Then, just four months before the shutdown was going to begin, New York’s governor sprung a surprise. He announced that the L train wouldn’t shut down after all. (The repairs would happen on nights and weekends.) Some people were elated. Others were annoyed. And me? I was shocked…because I’d spent the better part of the past year building a business designed to serve people impacted by this closure.

Related: Why Embracing Failure Is Good for Business

Suddenly, all my work was destroyed. Or so I thought. I eventually came to learn an important lesson in entrepreneurship: Even when plan A fails, it can set you up for a better plan B.

Back in 2016, I was one of the 200,000 commuters whose routes to work would be disrupted by the subway closure. I wanted to stay in my beloved neighborhood, and I eventually decided to build a solution for people like me. After months of ideating, I had it. My startup, a carpooling service and platform, was called The New L. I assembled a small team, partnered with a fleet of drivers, collected data from nearly 5,000 interested customers, signed corporate contracts, generated interest from large buildings and companies that wanted to subsidize our service for their employees, and got a lot of press coverage.

We were ready to go…until, of course, the city blew up my plans. I was happy for the commuters whose lives wouldn’t be disrupted. But now what?

Related: 6 Surprising Rules for Business Success

I’d caught the entrepreneurial bug, and I wasn’t ready to give up that dream. A coworker from my day job and I started brainstorming new ideas, and we realized we were already partway down a path. My commuting company was dead, but building it had taught me a lot about urban mobility, efficient systems, and destination-based travel. What if we took those lessons and applied them to something people always want — sightseeing!

This is how we developed a company called Nowaday, which launched in New York this past November. Our first offering is a private tour of the city, given in a gorgeous 1920s vintage car. 

Tours like this are hard to plan; New York can throw a lot of unexpected things at you. If there’s a traffic closure or a parade, Nowaday still has to deliver a 60-minute experience without being stuck in traffic. That was a challenge, one that would require 24-7 monitoring. But here, the experience of The New L served us well. We’d already learned how to coordinate thousands of commuters, so doing it for private tours was much easier.

Related: How to Recover From Your First Failed Business

Within months, we’d developed Nowaday’s MVP. We bought our first car, put it on the road in early 2019, and delivered hundreds of rides in beta, collecting instant feedback from customers. Then we went to investors to enable us to build this company the right way. We raised $3.5 million and bought a fleet of 12 vintage cars, working with a team in Detroit that helps with sourcing and restoration. 

The rides have been a quick success, but we have much bigger plans for Nowaday. We are more than a touring company; we’re an experience company. We plan to uncover and narrate every city’s most fascinating stories, from food to entertainment, for locals and tourists alike. The logistics of this are tough, but I feel prepared. No matter the challenges, I found a far more sustainable business than The New L ever could have been.

Website Design & SEO Delray Beach by DBL07.co

Delray Beach SEO

source http://www.scpie.org/my-first-business-died-but-it-helped-make-my-next-company-a-success/ source https://scpie1.blogspot.com/2020/03/my-first-business-died-but-it-helped.html

[scpie]

My First Business Died – But It Helped Make My Next Company a Success

When government policies and decisions killed my buzzy New York startup, I learned to build a better (and more sustainable) operation.

March 6, 2020 4 min read

This story appears in the March 2020 issue of Entrepreneur. Subscribe »

In 2016, New York City made an announcement that locals had been dreading: Starting in 2019, the L train subway tunnel — a major connection between Manhattan and Brooklyn — would shut down for 18 months of repairs. It would be so disruptive that people actually moved to different neighborhoods in order to be closer to a functioning subway line come 2019.

Then, just four months before the shutdown was going to begin, New York’s governor sprung a surprise. He announced that the L train wouldn’t shut down after all. (The repairs would happen on nights and weekends.) Some people were elated. Others were annoyed. And me? I was shocked…because I’d spent the better part of the past year building a business designed to serve people impacted by this closure.

Related: Why Embracing Failure Is Good for Business

Suddenly, all my work was destroyed. Or so I thought. I eventually came to learn an important lesson in entrepreneurship: Even when plan A fails, it can set you up for a better plan B.

Back in 2016, I was one of the 200,000 commuters whose routes to work would be disrupted by the subway closure. I wanted to stay in my beloved neighborhood, and I eventually decided to build a solution for people like me. After months of ideating, I had it. My startup, a carpooling service and platform, was called The New L. I assembled a small team, partnered with a fleet of drivers, collected data from nearly 5,000 interested customers, signed corporate contracts, generated interest from large buildings and companies that wanted to subsidize our service for their employees, and got a lot of press coverage.

We were ready to go…until, of course, the city blew up my plans. I was happy for the commuters whose lives wouldn’t be disrupted. But now what?

Related: 6 Surprising Rules for Business Success

I’d caught the entrepreneurial bug, and I wasn’t ready to give up that dream. A coworker from my day job and I started brainstorming new ideas, and we realized we were already partway down a path. My commuting company was dead, but building it had taught me a lot about urban mobility, efficient systems, and destination-based travel. What if we took those lessons and applied them to something people always want — sightseeing!

This is how we developed a company called Nowaday, which launched in New York this past November. Our first offering is a private tour of the city, given in a gorgeous 1920s vintage car. 

Tours like this are hard to plan; New York can throw a lot of unexpected things at you. If there’s a traffic closure or a parade, Nowaday still has to deliver a 60-minute experience without being stuck in traffic. That was a challenge, one that would require 24-7 monitoring. But here, the experience of The New L served us well. We’d already learned how to coordinate thousands of commuters, so doing it for private tours was much easier.

Related: How to Recover From Your First Failed Business

Within months, we’d developed Nowaday’s MVP. We bought our first car, put it on the road in early 2019, and delivered hundreds of rides in beta, collecting instant feedback from customers. Then we went to investors to enable us to build this company the right way. We raised $3.5 million and bought a fleet of 12 vintage cars, working with a team in Detroit that helps with sourcing and restoration. 

The rides have been a quick success, but we have much bigger plans for Nowaday. We are more than a touring company; we’re an experience company. We plan to uncover and narrate every city’s most fascinating stories, from food to entertainment, for locals and tourists alike. The logistics of this are tough, but I feel prepared. No matter the challenges, I found a far more sustainable business than The New L ever could have been.

Website Design & SEO Delray Beach by DBL07.co

Delray Beach SEO

source http://www.scpie.org/my-first-business-died-but-it-helped-make-my-next-company-a-success/