#Two Level Puzzle Parking dealers

[vishalmishra]

Avior Parking System Distributorship Opportunity

There are several business opportunities in the market. As a distributor or individual who is looking for an opportunity like this, you must check the parking system distributorship that is offered by Appoint Distributors with the distribution agreement with Avior Engineering.

[slightly-nerdy-rambles]

Robstar Week Day 2: Morning Sun (Prompt: Warmth)

I decided to take the prompt “warmth” and write something involving “cuddly body heat” (as the planning notes say), and the end result... maybe kind of got away from the actual warmth element, at least as far as the focus. But that’s okay, because I’m immensely pleased with how it turned out, to the point where I can confidently say that this is the story I’m most proud of for this week. Really I probably could have gotten away with just doing the second scene (and it would have fit the prompt more closely anyway, lol), but why do that when you can be EXTRA

Morning Sun

Robin groaned softly as he came to, his head mired in that fuzzy sort of awareness that comes with just waking up. Something felt off, but not in a painful or truly disorienting way – he hadn’t been knocked unconscious, at least. But the odd, half-upright position he found himself in proved that he hadn’t gone to bed properly either.

Blinking open bleary eyes, he pushed himself further up and took stock of his surroundings. That was right – the team had piled into their ops-slash-common room after a late battle and put on a movie to wind down. He must have fallen asleep on the couch, where he found himself now.

As awareness returned to him, he noticed that his side was pleasantly warm. He looked over to see Starfire propped up against him, still fast asleep.

…Huh. It was far from the first time he had fallen asleep with another Titan like this – hell, he was pretty sure every member of the team had done so with every other at least once. That was just what happened when your teammates were also your roommates and nights got unpredictable. But now that he thought about it, he was pretty sure this was the first time he’d actually fallen asleep right next to Starfire. A gentle heat seemed to radiate off her, and Robin frowned. She didn’t look like she had a fever, but he still peeled himself off of her and gently shook her shoulder.

“Hey,” he whispered. “Hey, Star, you okay?”

Starfire’s eyes fluttered open as she began to stir. She gave him a confused look.

“Robin? Did I fall asleep on the couch?” She sat up and looked around, and Robin chuckled.

“You and me both,” he admitted. With a frown he added, “You’re not sick, are you? You feel like you’re burning up.”

Starfire shook her head, the confusion in her face only growing as she stood up and stretched. “I do not feel feverish at all.”

“Huh.” That was just her normal temperature, then. He supposed that Tamaraneans must have a higher than average body heat, or maybe it just seemed that way since he’d apparently spent all night right up against her. He wondered if that was why she gave such nice hugs.

It was that thought that drove in exactly what was going on right now. Not only had he fallen asleep all snuggled up with Starfire, of all people, but they were the only ones here, the other Titans nowhere in sight. He scrambled to his feet, and even though there was no one else to see them he could feel himself blushing furiously.

Starfire just gave him a baffled look, one which was swiftly becoming her expression of choice this morning. “Is something wrong, Robin?”

Robin was too flustered now to answer her, so he just muttered something half-intelligible about paperwork and beat a hasty retreat for his office.

********

It was far from the first time Robin had found himself waking up in unfamiliar circumstances. With the way things had been going, it would be a while before he woke up somewhere that actually felt right.

The Titans had been chasing the Brotherhood of Evil with their stupid worldwide bases and their dumb plots that turned out to be just a small part of some bigger puzzle for about a month now. And honestly? The fact that his mind had resorted to describing the mission this way paid testament to how much he just wanted to go home. If the Brotherhood hadn’t started targeting Honorary Titans specifically, and if what few hints his team managed to uncover hadn’t pointed to some scheme involving the young heroes of the world, he would have been happy to leave these psychos to the Doom Patrol and call it a day. They did have more experience dealing with the Brotherhood, after all.

But the fact of the matter was that the Titans and other young heroes were the targets, and that meant it was their responsibility to defend themselves and their comrades. Even if it meant spending months away from home, chasing any lead they could find. Even if it meant finding themselves in the middle of nowhere in some stretch of northern Russia, where there were no nearby motels to speak of and they had to make do with a parked T-ship and a makeshift snowfort for the second time that week.

Even if it meant everyone huddling up together for warmth.

At least Starfire was there with them this time.

Robin opened bleary eyes to the dim light of the portable lantern set up for this occasion and the gentle glow that always emanated from Cyborg’s circuitry. He checked his communicator for the time, and found it was right around ten minutes before the alarm he’d set for everyone would go off.

Not bad. Normally he would just get up and take the brief head-start to get himself ready for the day, but the makeshift quarters were kind of cramped and he didn’t want to wake anyone else up before he had to. Besides, he didn’t think he’d been this comfortably warm in days.

So instead, he sighed contentedly and leaned closer against his… uh… body heat partner, or whatever he should call it. He was about to rest his eyes for a few more minutes when he suddenly realized he wasn’t the only one awake.

Across the way, from where he and Raven both lay back against a massive green polar bear, Cyborg watched him with the smallest teasing quirk to his lip. In spite of himself, Robin could already feel the heat rising to his face.

“Shut up,” he muttered, pulling the blanket wrapped around him and Starfire up further.

Cyborg’s smirk only grew. “I didn’t say anything,” he pointed out in a voice too soft to wake anyone else. “But if I did, it would just be to point out that you two look very comfortable.”

Robin huffed. “And you three don’t? We all need to share body heat to keep the cold from getting in, if you remember.”

“But there’s plenty of room here on the big green couch, and last I checked, Star does just fine in space-level cold if she’s not overworking herself. Admit it already; you just like the company.”

Robin’s blush deepened. He’d been getting more of these little jabs from Cyborg and the others lately, and he knew it was kind of his fault for letting himself be more affectionate with Starfire without making anything official. But what was he supposed to say? That he hadn’t quite been ready to do this relationship thing when the subject had first come up, and now he was on a long mission that didn’t really seem like the appropriate time to ask out your teammate? That he was maybe sort of stalling on that, and possibly hoping that Starfire would make the first move? That he just really wanted to be near her after the blizzard incident, to know that she was safe, and it didn’t hurt that snuggl- huddling against her just felt warm and comfortable and right?

No, trying to explain any of that would only make the teasing worse. So instead, he huddled back further and summed up all his annoyance and confusion and dumb teenage hormones in the most eloquent way he could.

“I said shut up.”

********

When you took up the hero’s mantle, it wasn’t hard for normal sleep schedules to go out the window. Sure, some villains – the egomaniacs, the sowers of chaos, and those who were just way too confident about attracting the attention of the local superhero team – chose to partake in their villainy at reasonable hours of the day or perhaps early enough in the night. But many others, thieves and black-market dealers mostly, preferred to try their luck at slipping past the city’s awareness when everyone reasonable was trying to sleep. When those late-night crimes spiked, or when it took several nights to crack a case or track down a busy criminal, Robin would often find himself dead on his feet for most of the morning and collapsing into bed at some random hour to take a very long nap.

Because of this, it did not surprise him in the slightest to find himself waking up just as the sun had started drifting down toward the horizon. What did surprise him was the manner in which he found himself: on a hotel room bed, with the DVD menu for some long-finished movie running on the television and Starfire awake but clearly relaxed and curled up beside him in a very definitely non-platonic manner.

In the brief, maddening moment before he remembered where he was and what he’d been doing, Robin flew into a panic and made a flailing attempt to get off the bed. Starfire’s eyes widened and she leaned away from him, allowing him to sit up.

“Is something wrong?” she asked.

Robin blinked and took a few deep breaths. Right. They were in Tokyo, and this was part of the team’s hotel suite. He and Star had been watching a movie – actually watching it, nothing untoward – and they must have fallen asleep at some point.

And the reason it was just the two of them, not simply sitting together but cuddling on top of the bed, was because they were dating now. Really, truly dating. He was still trying to wrap his head around that.

All at once he realized that Starfire was still waiting for an answer, so he let out an embarrassed chuckle and said, “Sorry, kind of forgot where I was for a second there.”

The concern in her features dissolved, and just because he could, he leaned over and gave her a small peck on the lower jaw. Yeah, he could get used to this.

Starfire blushed and giggled at the attention, and then swung an arm back around him. “Should we go see what the others are doing?”

Robin leaned into her side and let his head nestle under her chin, basking in her warm presence. “Mmm, I think we can wait a few more minutes.”

********

Nightwing had long since stopped feeling embarrassed when he and his girlfriend fell asleep on the couch.

Now, there were a few unspoken rules surrounding the situation. It was always the couch, or something similar – if they spent the night together in one of their rooms, it’d be too tempting to try something that they personally preferred to wait until marriage for, and even if that didn’t happen, it would still be enough for Cyborg and Beast Boy to start on the teasing and the rumors. In return, it had become common practice for the other Titans to leave Nightwing and Starfire be if they wanted to stay late in ops to talk, or if everyone fell asleep to a movie marathon and one of the others happened to wake up and make his or her way to bed. It still didn’t happen especially often, but it wasn’t exactly something they tried to avoid.

Nightwing had been up late last night, finishing up the paperwork for a case down in ops where Starfire could keep him company, and when he’d finally wrapped up they had both been too tired to bother heading upstairs into their respective bedrooms. Now a soft morning light filtered in through the bayside windows, and he found Starfire still fast asleep with her head on his chest and Silkie curled up near them at the foot of the couch.

Nightwing smiled softly to himself as he ran gentle fingers though his partner’s hair, careful not to wake her. They hadn’t even bothered to fetch blankets, as she rarely felt the need for one and he considered her body heat as she cuddled up against him to be enough. It was a quiet morning, and on these kinds of mornings his mind tended to wander.

They were like a little family, he thought. More so than the Titans as a whole. He loved his other teammates like siblings, of course, but there was something a little more… intimate about just being here with his beloved and their pet. If he closed his eyes, he could almost picture them in a bedroom – their bedroom, not just his or hers – with the snuffling larva curled up in the pet bed that in reality occupied Star’s room, or perhaps swapped out for a young child who had insisted in sleeping with Mom and Dad after a nightmare. It was a nice thought, a peaceful one.

Not for the first time, he wondered what he was waiting for. They were adults now, perhaps a little on the young side for marriage, but he knew that was a weak argument. Even setting aside the fact that Starfire’s home culture had considered her ready to marry ever since her transformation, the circumstances of the team meant they had effectively been “grown up” for years now. He and she had been in love even before they’d begun dating, and he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that their love was not going to waver now.

He wanted this – to give himself over to her completely, to be her partner in the deepest sense of the word, to start a family together one day and to live out his life by her side. He wanted to wake up with her every morning, his own personal ray of sunshine, and to be her moonlight when she went to bed at night.

It was just a matter of figuring out the right time, he supposed, but as his thoughts drifted to the drawer in his room where he kept his mother’s engagement ring, he thought that time might be coming soon.

********

He dimly realized he was awake, but he wasn’t in a rush to get up. Without even opening his eyes, he nestled his forehead deeper into the crook of her neck and draped an arm loosely over her bare side.

Soft laughter reached his ears, followed shortly by his wife’s teasing voice. “Are you comfortable?”

Even though they couldn’t see each other’s faces in this position, Nightwing smiled lazily and cracked open one eye. “Why wouldn’t I be, Kor? I’ve got you here.”

Starfire laughed again at the use of the pet name he’d given her, and then sighed contentedly. Her breath ruffled his hair, and she tousled it lightly with one hand.

“I could get used to this,” she said. “You are so very playful in the mornings, and your presence is… pleasantly warm.”

Nightwing couldn’t help but snort in amusement at that, and he shuffled himself back to get a proper look at her. Starfire was radiant in the morning light, and beyond her he could see the room they now shared. It had been their first night back from their honeymoon, but already the room just felt… right.

“You’re warmed by me being here? I’m pretty sure Tamaraneans run hotter than humans, Star.”

Starfire’s eyes glittered with mirth, and she shook her head slowly in mock disappointment. “It is not a competition,” she said, and before he could retort she leaned forward and planted him with a deep, long kiss.

Not that he really had much else to say. Only that he thought he could get used to this too.

[badgirlsinterviews]

The Paths of Beauty [Interview]

Interview with writer and actress Camila Sosa Villada, author of ‘Bad Girls’.

Written by Sergio Alzate.

11/05/20

Source: El Tiempo.

In her novel, Camila Sosa narrated the experience of a travesti community in Córdoba, Argentina. (Photo credit: María Palacios)

Camila Sosa Villada likes to take in the world with her eyes. For her, life is made up of images: vignettes that catch her eye from which she discerns a speck of light, a dash of colour, a certain meaning. Through her eyes, she listens, she feels, she smells, she sounds out, she travels and she consumes the world around her, a world which is made up of images that she treasures and stores away. Through these snapshots, she forms a collage of her reality and her experiences. They are, in other words, parts of a puzzle which she pieces together, bit by bit, creating a unique, absolute, indescribable final image: one of beauty.

Beauty (not as an anatomical category, nor as the opposite of faithfulness) runs through the pages of Bad Girls, her most recently published work which recounts the experience of a group of travestis who gather each night in the Sarmiento Park, in the city of Córdoba, in Argentina. As such, a travesti mother is able produce milk with her silicone breast; a mute woman turns into a bird; headless men fall in love; gardens burst and cover everything with their lush and uncontrolled vegetation; people declare their bodies as their home; laughter, embraces, words, and love become the shelter from violence; shouts echo with one brutal, resounding, infinite message: “being travesti is a celebration”. Miracles and sparks of beauty unfold with furious tenderness from page to page.

Some of these themes were discussed by Camila in her 2014 TedTalk. The actress, theatre-maker and writer spoke of the suffering of travesti and sex worker bodies, her father’s prediction that she’d end up dead, left in a ditch, the life of a pregnant girl who would meet her clients in the park, her hair filled with weeds from having done her job lying down in the grass. After recounting all of this, Camila asks in a broken voice: “Have any of you have ever imagined that there could be anything more concretely poetic than that?” That’s exactly what Bad Girls is: poetry, concreteness, beauty. 

The novel contains a theme which appears over and over again: beauty, the search for it, the curse of it, its joys and sorrows. What made you write about it?

I think I’ve always been privileged. I’m able to see the world in a way that’s different to others. I felt like a dealer: at night I’d be out with the group of travestis, and then during the day I’d go to university. In those worlds, there were moments I observed that were so defining, spectacular and profoundly beautiful that they affected me on an emotional level. I wasn’t speaking about them arbitrarily: things have always appeared beautiful to me. Not for what they look like our sound like, but for what they emanate. Beauty is the foundation of my book. 

In ‘In Praise of Shadows’, Jun'ichirō Tanizaki speaks of the beauty of shadows, which goes against how beauty in the canon of Western literature is based on light. The beauty of travestis, that which inhabits the shadows, the parks, away from the light, is a bit like that, don’t you think?

Yes, exactly. We were gorgeous during the day as well, though. Like something out of a Tarantino film, we’d go about in the sun, very early in the morning, strutting of the park under the morning sun towards McDonalds, where we’d have breakfast. We’d walk to the bus stop, the red sun over the city, everything glowing orange. Our beauty was a disruption, interrupting the aesthetics and order of a city as catholic as Córdoba. We tried to be beautiful in the light of day, and we succeeded. 

In his essay ‘The Simulation’, Severo Sarduy says that women don’t exist, with travestis constructing their identities based on that knowledge. What do you think of that?

I think we gave in to feminine beauty at some point. But we also moved away from imitating them. We began to explore sensations which still haven’t been defined, and which exist only amongst us travestis. It’s not to do with sexuality or identity. It’s a declaration of our existence in the world. Meeting a travesti who had money or was from a well-off family was rare. While all of us were marginalized, we all had our own bodies through which we constructed our unique existences, capable of being in our own ways. 

Speaking of bodies, the narrator in your novel state we can judge countries by the way they treat travesti bodies. Are these bodies national history? What can we read in them?

Men decide how the bodies of travestis should be, their desires dictate how our bodies are to develop. How incredibly unjust and terrifying! In the past, they wanted travestis to have hips like Sofía Loren. Then they said: “No, we want them tall, slim, and tan”. Now, they want us to be natural. Luckily, girls are therefore no longer obliged to get surgery. But this is just a first approximation, because there’s also the class struggle, something which has never been so concretely exemplified as through the bodies of travestis. Claudia Rodríguez (writer and trans activist from Chile) says that society doesn’t inform us of the danger of certain surgical procedures. All we knew was that, in order to change the world, we first had to change ourselves, our bodies. We fought to become beautiful, marketable, attractive, and when we didn’t have money for silicone, many of us would inject ourselves with industrial silicone, sentencing ourselves to a slow death. And we’d also be at risk of getting AIDS and other diseases, because we’d be terrified of going to the hospital. No one like you can be found there; no one there caters to us, listens to us, reassures us. All of them are hugely different to you. 

However, in the midst of it all, beauty and tenderness always remain. Do you see these as means of resistance? 

It comes naturally to me: I say without thinking that I’m looking for beauty in horror, or flowers in the mud. I tell it as I see it. I think discussing violence is akin to goldsmithing - it requires you to be extremely meticulous, and to take care to make sure what you’re working on doesn’t turn into something finicky or terrible. I have to have the patience and the eye of someone whose job requires them to be millimetrically precise. You have to be like a shaolin monk, wandering through the desert with a staff, looking for beauty. Without beauty, life is unable to exist. 

There’s also a series of miracle that occur throughout the book - some happier than others, but, ultimately, all of them are miracles. What drew you to this miraculous calling?

Neither of us would be here today if it wasn’t for the tale of a miracle. In Argentina, there’s a popular saint called the Difunta Correa. My parents brought a little medal to her sanctuary, and left it there with a promise: that the three of us would go back there together if I left the street and sex work. Three months later, I debuted in my theatre show Carnes Tolendas. I began gaining recognition and I never took cocaine, nor did sex work, ever again. I stopped being exposed to violence. The same year my parents made that promise, I experienced two violent instances with two clients. My parents sensed that, and prayed for a miracle to happen to me. So yes, my reading of it is that magic does happen. 

When Auntie Encarna, one of the characters in the novel, becomes a mother, this stirs up hatred within the community she lives in. What upsets is so upsetting about the thought of a travesti becoming a mother?

Every day, through their various methods and systems, capitalism and the patriarchy are competing for authority over childhood. They therefore want to ensure that it’s them who are raising the children of our country. The danger for them, is that they know that a travesti is incapable of perpetuating their systems of control. I prefer to look at it romantically, and refuse to believe that travestis would ever work for capitalism. That’s what bothers them. They’re scared of losing their control on the order which bestows them with their privileges. They also fear the thought of the existence of families formed through instincts, feelings, and emotions as subversive as love. 

The narrator asks herself how many times she’s written the word “violence”. Twenty years have passed since the events of the book - how many times do you think that word continues being written down today?

News about recent deaths still come up in conversation. We are trapped in a violent system. Violence is still there, but the support for us travestis, as well as other sectors of society, has increased. That possibility has arisen because of us, because of the girl who goes out to buy vegetables, the girl who does sex work, the girl who leaves her CV in a clothes shop for the first time, the girl who opens up to the people she’s living with to tell them she’s going to dress as a woman, the girl who writes books, the girl who sings, the girl who acts,the girl who creates a new kind of knowledge. All of us are creating an animal-like support where we resist and say “look, everyone, we aren’t genocidal, we aren’t rapists or child abusers, nor do we want to steal from anyone.” Violence still exists, and it has become even more intense.  

The travestis which appear in the book find a way of speaking and existing through their biting sense of humour. How does this particular type of language allow bonds to grow between people?

I think one of the most reductive takes on the topic is saying that “we treat each other like that to numb the pain.” In other words, we treat each other cruelly in order to later face the cruelty from the outside world. Last year, I read Claus and Lucas by Agota Kristoff, and there it may be interpreted that, like in the book, we are training in order to become desensitized. And I may be mistaken about this, but I believe that it’s to do with how we knew that language is the most powerful thing that exists. Through words, we could play speech in ways others didn’t expect. We’d say the most horrible things to each other with the greatest affection, and we’d say the most affectionate things in cutting and hurtful ways. We’d make up words, we had secret codes, nicknames that belonged to us. Our lack of privilege drove us to become very intelligent, and we soon realised that language was the only thing that truly belonged to us. As a result, we occupied it in the way we saw fit.

[lucy-sky]

Hey guys! Today is World Theatre Day. I think it’s a great holiday. Theatre will always be on a special place in my heart. At school I attended theatre classes and we did a lot of performances for local events. I’m not doing it anymore but I will always remebmer this feeling when you’re on stage, when you’re someone else, but still your soul is kinda naked. Theatre is an amazing thing. It’s a place where magic happens here and now, unlike movies where you can make several takes of one scene until it turn out perfect. It’s a place where the actors share their energy, emotions, their soul with the audience. It always gives me such incredible vibes I cannot quite describe. Theatre is AMAZING! And the actors who work on stage do an amazing job.

Today I would like to present you a small series of posts introducing Sam Rockwell on theatre stage. I don’t know how you feel about these pictures, but as for me - I sense some kind of magic even in them. Hope you enjoy too.

(I apologize for a lot of text - I didn’t plan it, but it was pretty interesting to read about these plays and I honestly would love to see them on stage)

Sam Rockwell on theatre stage - Part 1:

The Hot l Baltimore (2000), directed by Joe Mantello 

A play by Lanford Wilson set in the lobby of a dilapidated old hotel, from which the “e” in the hotel sign is missing - hence the name, Hot L Baltimore. 

The play is comprised of a series of conversations between the residents of the hotel, who are contemplating an uncertain future after the hotel is condemned and scheduled for demolition. (c) encyclopedia.com

The Zoo Story (2001) 

A one-act play by American playwright Edward Albee. The play explores themes of isolation, loneliness, miscommunication as anathematization, social disparity and dehumanization in a materialistic world.

This play concerns two characters, Peter and Jerry, who meet on a park bench in New York City's Central Park. Peter is a wealthy publishing executive with a wife, two daughters, two cats, and two parakeets. Jerry is an isolated and disheartened man, desperate to have a meaningful conversation with another human being. He intrudes on Peter’s peaceful state by interrogating him and forcing him to listen to stories about his life and the reason behind his visit to the zoo. The action is linear, unfolding in front of the audience in “real time”. The elements of ironic humor and unrelenting dramatic suspense are brought to a climax when Jerry brings his victim down to his own savage level. (c) Wikipedia

The Dumb Waiter (2001)

A one-act play by Harold Pinter written in 1957.

Two hit-men, Ben and Gus, are waiting in a basement room for their assignment. As the play begins, Ben, the senior member of the team, is reading a newspaper, and Gus, the junior member, is tying his shoes. Gus asks Ben many questions as he gets ready for their job and tries to make tea. Ben continues reading his paper for most of the time, occasionally reading excerpts of it to Gus. Ben gets increasingly animated, and Gus's questions become more pointed, at times nearly nonsensical.

In the back of the room is a dumbwaiter, which delivers occasional food orders. This is mysterious and both characters seem to be puzzled why these orders keep coming; the basement is clearly not outfitted as a restaurant kitchen. At one point they send up some snack food that Gus had brought along. Ben has to explain to the people above via the dumbwaiter's "speaking tube" that there is no food.

Gus leaves the room to get a drink of water in the bathroom, and the dumbwaiter's speaking tube whistles (a sign that there is a person on the other end who wishes to communicate). Ben listens carefully - we gather from his replies that their victim has arrived and is on his way to the room. Ben shouts for Gus, who is still out of the room. The door that the target is supposed to enter from flies open, Ben rounds on it with his gun, and Gus enters, stripped of his jacket, waistcoat, tie and gun. There is a long silence as the two stare at each other before the curtain comes down.

Although the play is realistic in many ways, particularly the dialogue between Ben and Gus, there are also elements that are unexplained and seemingly absurd, particularly the messages delivered by the dumb waiter itself. Pinter is notable for leaving the plays open to interpretation, "wanting his audience to complete his plays, to resolve in their own ways these irresolvable matters". (c) Wikipedia

The Last Days of Judas Iscariot (2005), directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman

A play by American playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis.

The Last Days of Judas Iscariot tells the story of a court case over the ultimate fate of Judas Iscariot. The play uses flashbacks to an imagined childhood, and lawyers who call for the testimonies of such witnesses as Mother Teresa, Caiaphas, Saint Monica, Sigmund Freud, and Satan. (c) Wikipedia

Judas was the disciple of Jesus who betrayed his friend and teacher to the authorities. He is seen as the man responsible for Jesus’s death; afterwards, Judas fell into despair and hung himself from an olive tree; since then, he has been suffering for his deeds deep in Hell, and will continue to do so for all eternity. Is that really fair? Was Judas the duplicitous master of his own fate, a much-suffering pawn used for Jesus’s ends, or just a man who made a mistake? Set in a courtroom in Purgatory, The Last Days puts Judas’ case to a hilarious, riotous, piercing trial, the results of which are sure to make the inhabitants of Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory - and the audience - reconsider what each thought they knew about forgiveness, faith, and the human inside one of the history’s most infamous figures. (c) stageagent.com

A Behanding in Spokane (2010), directed by John Crowley

A black comedy by award-winning Irish playwright Martin McDonagh. This is his first play set in the United States.

Set in a rundown hotel room somewhere in small-town America, it depicts the fateful encounter among four disaffected losers: the one-handed Carmichael, who has spent the past 47 years trying to retrieve the appendage that a bunch of "hillbilly bastards" forcefully removed when he was a teenager; Toby, a low-level scam artist; Marilyn, his white-trash girlfriend; and Mervyn, a truly creepy hotel "receptionist" who takes an inordinate interest in his guests' comings and goings. Toby and Marilyn have made the mistake of attempting to con Carmichael with the claim that they're in possession of his errant hand. Upon inspection, it turns out to be not of the Caucasian variety, resulting in his holding them at gunpoint. When they claim that they really do have his hand back in their garage, he runs off to retrieve it, but not before handcuffing them to the radiator and setting a lit candle above an open can of gasoline.

When Mervyn subsequently stops by the room, he's not particularly interested in helping the couple escape, despite his obvious romantic interest in Marilyn. It turns out he's still pissed off at Toby, whom he recognizes as the drug dealer who ripped him off years earlier. (c) hollywoodreporter.com

The play was nominated for the 2010 Drama League Award, Distinguished Production of a Play.

A Streetcar Named Desire (2011)  

A play written by Tennessee Williams. 

The play dramatises the life of Blanche DuBois, a southern belle who, after encountering a series of personal losses, leaves her aristocratic background seeking refuge with her sister and brother-in-law in a dilapidated New Orleans tenement.

A Streetcar Named Desire is Williams' most popular play, is considered among the finest plays of the 20th century, and is considered by many to be Williams' greatest work. It still ranks among his most performed plays, and has inspired many adaptations in other forms. (c) Wikipedia

[lokiiago]

T.J. Lane spent the first 18 months in prison playing with Pokemon cards, using drugs, refusing to listen to prison guards and drawing the word "Killer'' on a notebook during an education class, state records show.

The documents, obtained by The Plain Dealer on Monday, suggest that Lane, 19, was an immature young man who, despite his outward appearances, was not ready for a life behind bars. His escape from the Allen Correctional Institution – and recapture hours later – made national headlines and raised questions about how the convicted Chardon High School shooter could break out.

The prison system's records released Monday highlight and chronicle Lane's issues in prison for the first time. He was disciplined seven times for a variety of offenses, from refusing to listen to a teacher and a guard to using marijuana and placing three tattoos on his chest.

In all but one offense, he was given minor penalties, such as the loss of recreation or reprimands. The records detail how prison officials dealt with Lane and, in some cases, his reactions to officials.

On Aug. 21, 2013, a teacher said Lane refused to take part in a class, a note that indicates Lane's stubbornness and immaturity.

"Mr. Lane cannot come to terms with having the job classification of student," the teacher wrote. "He sits in class and refuses to do anything, including reading. He sits and complains that education makes him ill, that he gets migraines because of it. He cannot read as it hurts his neck. He cannot utilize the computer, as it makes his migraine worse. The only thing he has done is bother the fellow students at his table with his complaints about our making him attend school.

"He also does not wear deodorant to the point no one wants to sit next to him. I keep giving him options of puzzles, math games, reading, computers, etc., and he refuses. I had allowed him to draw in class, but now he even refuses to do that. The previous drawings were of himself with 'killer' on them and then drawings of kitty cats over his math assignment. I gave him several warnings in class about some participation. He remains stubborn with his refusals."

The report underscores two key points from Lane's case in Geauga County: the drawing of the word "killer" shirt and his schoolwork.

Lane pleaded guilty to killing Demetrius Hewlin, 16; Russell King Jr. 17; and Daniel Parmertor, 16 on Feb. 27, 2012, in the school's cafeteria. He also pleaded guilty to shooting and injuring Joy Rickers, Nick Walczak and Nate Mueller. On the day of the shooting, Lane wore a shirt with the word "Killer'' on it. He again scrawled the word on a T-shirt that he wore to his sentencing, when a judge gave him three life prison terms.

Lane's actions in the prison classroom also go against what he initially told authorities after he was arrested: that he wanted to enroll in college and study mental illness.

On Aug. 22, 2013, a day after a teacher sharply criticized him for failing to work, the same teacher wrote: "I could no longer tolerate his behavior.'' She then kicked him out of the class.

In November, Lane submitted a urine sample that was tested at a hospital. Records show it contained substantial levels of marijuana in his system. He also had high levels of the drug Dilantin in his system. A prison official recommended Lane spend 15 days in solitary confinement. It is unclear the exact length of the punishment.

On Aug. 28, a guard said he saw Lane urinate on a prison wall. Lane's response: "The officers didn't come to let us back in to use the restroom, and I had to go bad."

A question on the report asks: "Is the inmate currently on the mental health caseload or does the inmate show signs of serious mental illness?" The response is redacted. A prison official said the conduct report on the case had been withdrawn.

Last Friday, the day after Lane and two others escaped from the prison and were apprehended, a guard went into his cell. Lane was shipped that day to the Ohio State Penitentiary in Youngstown, which is the state's only super-maximum prison.

The guard said there were several things left behind: a blanket, T-shirts and shorts, Pokemon cards, 15 books and miscellaneous papers.

In the Youngstown prison, Lane will be forced to spend 23 hours a day in a cell the size of a small parking space. He will get an hour of recreation.

[wohrparking]

The developer solution to increase parking capacity: Automated Parking

Are you a developer struggling with parking capacity in your new project? Torn between using space for parking or for green spaces?  Troubled by budget constraints, growing car numbers and limited building space?

In recent times, growing population, availability of easy finance and affordable car options have resulted in a significant increase of cars on the road. For developers of multi-unit residential, office, commercial real estate, airport and hospitality industries, this poses a huge challenge as they have to provide adequate parking space even as they grapple with shortage of land, escalating land prices and other constraints.

Automated parking systems offer an effective solution to overcome these challenges. Automated car parking systems offer clear and indisputable benefits over traditional garages. In Europe and Asia, automated car parking systems have been tested and proven over the last two decades, and they are growing in usage in America too. It’s time for this solution to become mainstream in Indian cities now.

Why choose automated parking systems?

The benefits of automated parking systems include:

1.       Improved Space Utilisation- Typically, parking garages are designed to allow cars enough room to safely move and park, and for people to walk to and from their vehicles. In an automated car parking system, vehicles can be parked door-to-door and bumper-to-bumper. Automated parking systems use narrower spaces because pedestrians do not have to be accommodated and there is no need for ramps, stairwells and elevators. So you require 30-50% less land to house the same number of cars. This substantially reduces land acquisition costs or frees up precious space for other usage.

2.       Reduced Development Costs- Since automated parking facilities require less building space, developers can save on construction costs through reduced excavation volume, fewer building materials, shorter construction time and lower land costs.  These add up to huge savings that go directly back to a project’s budget.

3.       Lower Operating Costs- If being used by known parkers, there is a minimal staff requirement. Since users do not enter the system, lighting and ventilation costs are also reduced, leading to greater savings and sustainability.

4.       Minimal Environmental Impact- There’s a reason why automated parking systems are called ‘green’.In an automated garage, cars are turned off before they enter the system. Cars do not idle for long periods of time while trying to park or exit, nor do they drive up and down ramps or in and out of spaces. All this contributes to a reduction in the amount of pollutants by 60 to 80%, and significant fuel savings as well.

5.       Safety& Security- For the end user, the additional safety that comes with automated parking is an important plus point. In an automatic parking system, the driver simply drops off the vehicle at a convenient drive-in entry cabin. When returning to pick up the car, the driver can wait in a safe, well-lit pick-up zone until the vehicle is delivered automatically. This system eliminates the concern and worry of being alone in a dark garage, searching for your car. Moreover, the car too is much safer in an automated system. You don’t have to deal with pedestrians, bad drivers or careless parking attendants. There are less chances of vandalism or theft; dents and scrapes are practically eliminated.

6.       Customer experience-Users of automatic parking systems always park and retrieve their cars in well-lit, comfortable transfer areas. It would be relatively inexpensive for developers to create a luxurious experience for users here. Developers can implement slick touch screens and mobile apps for quick retrieval to make for a comfortable user experience that will enhance the value of their project.

Wohr Parking Systems: the developer’s partner

Even if local governments implement projects to improve public transport; even if they enforce car sharing programs, the proliferation of vehicles is a challenge that’s here to stay. Developers need to look ahead and think automation – so they deliver projects enforced with parking solutions that are reliable, efficient, cost-effective and convenient for users.

Wohr is a well-versed and innovative parking system manufacturer who can help review all your options and choose the automated parking system that is best suited for your application.

Wohr Parking Systems has over 5 decades of experience and thousands of automatic car parking system projects to their name. Wohr has installed more than 700,000 multilevel parking spaces worldwide – over 100,000 in India alone. Wohr offers design flexibility to help in terms of both feasibility and profitability by enabling parking to be located in areas where conventional parking won't fit. The possible locations for automated parking systems are virtually unlimited: above ground, underground, freestanding, underneath or integrated into existing buildings and even very narrow or irregularly shaped areas.

For smaller garages for 15-50 cars, Wohr offers simpler, semi-automated stack parking systems, puzzle parkingsystems and platform parking systems. These are ideal for apartments, retail, small hotels, car rentals & car dealers, or wherever vertical space poses a problem. Multiple units can be installed together to enhance capacity horizontally.

Wohr also delivers state-of-the-art fully automatic parking systems, ideal for large scale apartments and condominiums, hospitals, office buildings, universities, public parking, etc., and most economical when servicing a large number of cars. The automatic parking system can be used for parking vehicles up to 50 levels in height, and is well adaptable to individual project requirements.

Wohr partners with developers right from consultancy with architects in the design stage through planning, construction, installation and commissioning. Wohr also undertakes maintenance and running of the system, ensuring operations are smooth and trouble-free.

[lookbooktrips]

3 Family Trips From Cincinnati Within 3 Hours

In times of pandemic like this, vacationing to faraway places with family is a worrying thing. However, if you are in Cincinnati, there is no need to be afraid. This is because you can make a family trip from Cincinnati in approximately 3 hours to amazing places. Here are the locations.

Children’s Museum of Indianapolis 

Just an easy drive, Indy has all sorts of things to discover. One of the coolest things in the city is the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis. It’s right downtown and has this fantastic interactive maze called the Marvelous Macaw. They have all sorts of exhibits that put you in a position to try to solve a puzzle. As you make your way through the maze, you learn things about the city, it’s history and your abilities as a detective. Other exhibits are about clothing and toys, and what it was like to be in the 1800s.

Louisville Slugger Museum 

After visiting where the most exciting two minutes in sports takes place annually, check out the home of one the most famous pieces of sporting equipment, the Louisville Slugger Baseball bat. The Louisville Slugger was designed in 1908 by Louisville arms dealer Sid Lynn, and Frank King, a local taxidermist. Since its founding, the Louisville Slugger has become a staple for baseball fans around the world. You’ve probably seen at least one Louisville Slugger in your life. It’s the official bat of Major League Baseball, the St. Louis Cardinals, the New York Yankees, and the Colorado Rockies. You can even get them at Wal-Mart.

Red River Gorge

Among the scrolling hills of Kentucky, just past Louisville, sits Red River Gorge. The park attracts nature lovers from around the world, especially those looking to get into the nature-lover's mindset. Like its name implies, Red River Gorge was formed after a riverbed had its course redirected. Its level of solitude is unsurpassed, and its scenery is second to none.

[daniel1244martinez]

Car Parking System Market Research Report: Know Market Dynamics, Opportunities and Risks 2025

Car Parking System Market

Summary

Car Parking System Market report provides future growth potentials, key drivers, competitive outlook, Scope, key challenges analysis. The reports conjointly elaborate the expansion rate of the Car Parking System market supported the highest company profile analysis. This report providing an in depth analysis, market size, and estimate for the developing section among the Car Parking System market.

The research report studies the Car Parking System market research report 2018 market on the basis of several criteria, including type, application, and geography to provide a better understanding to the readers. The overall supply chain of the market has been explained in detail, which includes statistical information and special emphasis on various upstream and downstream elements.

The report also sheds light on the current trends related to the demand, supply, and sales of Car Parking System market research report 2018, along with the recent developments in the field. The report includes tools such as Porter’s five force analysis and market attractiveness analysis. Through those tools, the report sheds light on the bargaining power of buyers, bargaining power of suppliers, threat of new entrants, threat of substitutes, degree of competition, and measure of the potential of each regional market.

Get 15 minutes of free Consultation When you request a Sample Report! Download PDF Brochure @ http://garnerinsights.com/Asia-Pacific-Car-parking-system-Market-Report-2018#request-sample

The research report takes into consideration the drivers, restraints, trends, and opportunities of the  Car Parking System market research report 2018 market in order to identify the future of the market. The report also provides an estimation of the overall market size in terms of both value and volume and offers qualitative and quantitative insights into the key segments and the geographical subdivisions of the Car Parking System market research report 2018 market. It also provides a comprehensive study of the development trends and government regulations and policies in each of the geography. According to the report, equipment and raw material are two primary components of the manufacturing process of Car Parking System market research report 2018.

Market Segmentation: Car Parking System

Some of the major players involved in the research and development of Car Parking System market are;       

LÖDIGE, Skyline Parking, Multi Level Car Parking System, MHE Demag, Westfalia, Amano Time & Air, TYT Corporation, CityLift, PARI, ALS logistic solutions, Unitronics.

This report displays the sales volume, revenue, product price, market share and growth rate of each type, primarily split into

Automated Guided Vehicle Parking Systems  , Auto-Transfer Parking Systems , Tower Parking Systems  , Puzzle Parking Systems.

This report focuses on the status and outlook for major applications/end users, sales volume, market share and growth rate for each application, including

Construction Building, Industrial.

Browse Detailed TOC, Tables, Figures, Charts and Companies Mentioned in Car Parking System Market Research Report @ http://garnerinsights.com/Asia-Pacific-Car-parking-system-Market-Report-2018

Table of Contents:

Chapter 1, to describe Definition, Specifications and Classification of Car Parking System, Applications of Car Parking System, Market Segment by Regions;

Chapter 2, to analyze the Manufacturing Cost Structure, Raw Material and Suppliers, Manufacturing Process, Industry Chain Structure;

Chapter 3, to display the Technical Data and Manufacturing Plants Analysis of Car Parking System, Capacity and Commercial Production Date, Manufacturing Plants Distribution, R&D Status and Technology Source, Raw Materials Sources Analysis;

Chapter 4, to show the Overall Market Analysis, Capacity Analysis (Company Segment), Sales Analysis (Company Segment), Sales Price Analysis (Company Segment);

Chapter 5 and 6, to show the Regional Market Analysis, Car Parking System Segment Market Analysis (by Type);

Chapter 7 and 8, to analyze the Car Parking System Segment Market Analysis (by Application) Major Manufacturers Analysis of Car Parking System;

Chapter 9, Market Trend Analysis, Regional Market Trend, Market Trend by Product Type, Market Trend by Application;

Chapter 10, Regional Marketing Type Analysis, International Trade Type Analysis, Supply Chain Analysis;

Chapter 11, to analyze the Consumers Analysis of Car Parking System;

Chapter 12, 13, 14, 15 and 16, to describe Car Parking System sales channel, distributors, traders, dealers, Research Findings and Conclusion, appendix and data source, disclaimer.  

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[coolmathgamesforkids]

Darkest Dungeon - Beginners Guide - Tips & Tricks!

1. Your heroes will die, you will have to deal with it. Some of them may survive dozens of missions, others will perish on the first mission that may appear to be a walk in the park. Most of them will die sooner or later; take care of your best warriors, and for the risky missions use the maddest and weakest.

List puzzle games for mobile.

2. The very first building you should focus on should be the Stage Coach. It keeps the flow of the heroes, and you will need at least four of them to start the mission. However, there is no point to waste valuable resources - the first couple of upgrades to the amount of heroes available per week should suffice, but you should increase their overall amount (your roster size) to 25 as quickly as possible.

Top 5 fun games for Pc.

3. Except for the start, do not recruit all of the available heroes. Check which heroes' classes do you need in the first place, and then look at their merits and quirks. You do not want to end up with a warrior who has a quirk which decreases health by 20%. Additionally, it's worth to pay attention to the abilities they start with - each ability they start with (which is the one you want to use) is a 1,000 gold you don't have to spend, which is a lot in the early game.

4. Most of the classes are designed for the specific roles. These roles are: tank, damage dealer, healer and support. The tank protects the team and takes the biggest damage on himself. Damage Dealer focuses on... well, dealing the damage and killing the enemies as fast as it is possible. The Healer keeps the party alive and takes of the debuffs through his skills. Support is the only one who is less specific as he generally supports the team through his buffs, changing the hostile party's order and so on. Of course it is possible to play in a different set-up, but this one would be the most efficient and recommendable. Especially in the first missions.5. Take care of the party's stress level. If it increases to 100/200, your heroes will gain negative afflictions - if that happens, send them to the Abbey or to the Tavern to decrease their stress. They will be unavailable for the next mission, but it is a far better solution than letting them go on a quest whilst insane.

6. The amount of gold you will have in the early game is extremely limited, so don't spend it on everything that comes across. Do not level up all of the heroes and try to pick only a couple of them for each role. The same rules apply for the Sanitarium treatment. Send there only the best of your members which are the least prone to dying in the next mission. As far as the quest supplies go, their amount depends on the length of the mission - you can learn about it in the "Provisions" and "Locations" sections.

7. First things first, you should upgrade your Stage Coach, so that you have access to at least 13-16 heroes at all Times. The Blacksmith can be omitted during the first several weeks, as you won't be able to upgrade the weapons and armors of your heroes above level 1 until they reach level 2. It's worth to complete the first 3 upgrades from every "tree" in the Tavern and the Abbey, so that you unlock the second slot for treatment, and at least the first 2 upgrades in the third "tree" in the Sanitarium.

8. The highest amount of damage comes from the 3rd and 4th enemy position - it applies to both regular, health damage, and the stress damage as well. Additionally, those positions are almost always occupied by enemies which can mark your heroes, or those who have the highest speed attribute. Your highest priority should be to either take them out, stun them, or pull them to the front - most of those enemies can't use their most powerful abilities while standing on the 1st and 2nd position.

9. Before you send your team on a mission, check what the objective of the mission is (searching through 90% of rooms, finding an artifact, defeating the boss, etc.). Proper preparations are half of the success. If you don't know which heroes (and in what combinations) are suitable for a specific type of mission, check the "Locations" and "Recommended Teams" sections.

10. Try to always have at least one hero with a high chance to disarm a trap (the chance to disarm a trap can be checked in the "Hero Classes" section of this guide). Getting into a trap is always "rewarded" with a large increase in the hero's stress (up to 20 points) and a high amount of damage, damage over time, and / or a severe debuff.

11. It's a good idea to equip an item (trinket) which increases the chances of Scouting. Additionally, the class perfect for that task is the Grave Digger - this hero has increased chance of scouting, and has a camp skill which increases it even further.

12. Do not ignore the power of scouting ahead! Thanks to that, you will be able to detect the potential enemy groups (preventing them from surprising your party, and increasing the chances of your party surprising them). Additionally, it will allow you to detect a trap, quest items, or even secret rooms.

13. Always check the Curio before you decide to activate it and NEVER risk. Activating some of the Curios without proper items may turn out extremely badly (a disease, +100 to stress, etc.), which is why you must always check them beforehand - see the "Curio" section to learn about the types of Curios in the game.

14. Boss fights are always located in the deepest parts of dungeons. Always count the number of rooms and if you want to go straight for the boss, head right where the amount of rooms is the highest.

15. Never, ever take a character with a high amount of stress (above 70 points) on a mission. A single, unfavorable move during combat and stepping into a trap can easily break the 100 points barrier, resulting in a hero getting an affliction.

16. If you are not entirely sure that you will be able to clear the dungeon from all the enemies without sustaining grave injuries, always take a healer with you (Vestal, Occultist). It's never worth the risk, especially when using high-leveled characters.

17. Always have someone who can reduce the stress levels of your team (Hound Master, Jester). Stress is the most dangerous mechanic in the game, which must always be monitored. A little bit of stress can be healed with the help of critical strikes, but it's always worth to have a character capable of reducing the stress of his/her teammates.

18. Never, ever send a party without taking food, especially on longer missions. Every time that a hunger check appears on the screen and you won't have any food for your team, you will have to make them starve, which will result in them taking 20% max health damage and about 20 points of stress. It's really not worth to save on food.

19. There's no point to invest a lot of gold into new recruits. If a low-leveled hero comes back from the mission with a massive amount of negative quirks, a disease, or a huge amount of stress, it's always more beneficial to get rid of that hero and take another one for its place - this way you will be able to save a lot of gold.

20. If your hero happens to have a very powerful positive quirk (details can be found in the "Quirks" section), it might be worth to lock it in. To do so, go to the Sanitarium, select a hero, drag him into the Infirmary, then select the positive quirk you want to lock in and then accept your choice. You can lock up to 3 positive quirks on a single character - remember that you can't remove them in any way.

21. Remember that you can remove a negative and lock in a positive quirk simultaneously - all you have to do is to simply select a single negative and positive quirk and start the treatment. You can save a lot of time with that method.

22. It's worth to complete the upgrades that decrease the costs of upgrading armor / weapons / skills in the Guild and Blacksmith. The first two upgrades are quite cheap, and they will give you a 20% discount on all those purchases. It basically means that every 5th upgrade is now free.

[sciberpunk-stories]

By Name of -Frengh, Part 2 [by: Z. Texalek]

description: traditional sci-fi. in the deep future, a dead soldier is resurrected across space and a little bit of time, musingly bound for the adventure of an afterlifetime with several ghosts along for the ride, all stuck in the same brain. word count: 1970 content warning: deals with paranoia, delusion, subjective experience, state programming.

M'xiira.  This is our next friendly rigrunner.  She and Briin know one another, somehow.  I’m not interested, still, in these details.  I barely had time to use our last friends’ names.  Barely took time.

I think, sometimes, about all the softer information in the energy that went back into my brain.  If the smudges, including myself, are smudgy–inconsistent but extant–my sense is that it’s because we’re the most recent and undiffused information stored in that near-immaterial substance.  There must be knowledge from the other living and unliving canisters as well, integrated into the underside of my knowing without voice.  Genetically imprinted but on an interlocked plane.  A plane without literal material. An other dimension of being.

I have a bunk and a hammock below it, and twice the space again beside it inset into the hull behind a panel, which I can close or curtain as I like.  I use both.  M'xiira leaves thick-mesh curtains over her bunk, tucked in behind her navigation console and the course calculation readout screen.  She says it’s easy to see the space speeding by in front of you, staring at the numbers.  “After a while you get used to it.  I can move around the ship so long as I keep a peripheral of the upcomings.“  She always wears a screen over her left eye, a little projection of the big screen.  She says when she’s at the big screen, she turns it to cartoons and blogs.  Cartoons and blogs. I don’t know what those are and the translator doesn’t change the words for me.  Nothing in my language is like these sounds.  Her name translates but these words fail to.  Her name to me means empire.  Her bunk is in a different part of the ship from mine, as is Briin’s.  Moved into close proximity they would form an exercise weight shape.

We’re in transit.  Briin reads screen after screen of text in its bunk, wanders the ship, listens to stories from M'xiira.  I like to listen to her too.  She’s a weapons dealer and runner; her day-to-day is the combination of plausible diversion and constant detection-evasion that is necessary cover for our life out of reach.  At some point we’re meant to stop somewhere more permanently, some out of sight, forgotten place to stow ourselves.  Briin researches where, and how to set up, and what is needed–even what "our intentions” are in terms of …living.

I spend my time mostly in my bunk, sometimes I tune into the chattering voices of Briin and M'xiira on the rigwide vocal broadcaster.  The chattering voices in my own mind are now as easy for me to tune in and out of, and I listen to their stories as well much of the time.  When Ix'ia sits to my mind’s table again, ze comes with a request: Ze wants to stop over at Zer planet and assess–and possibly interfere in–the political situation.  Ze imagines vividly for me what could be happening in zer absence.  And as vividly back as I can, I imagine placidity–pastoralism.  Zer planet mapped over with imagery about the pre-War of Extermination period on Tris'vgh.  I have to add in more creeping vines and night-active creatures, skip the grainfields waving in the warm wind with wind+++ turbines hazy in the distance.  I say no to the course ze urges.  This is of no interest to me, and this life is my own.  All favors owed to the priestess by anyone were null at zer death, and no new favors are owing.  Why I’m certain about the morality of this is Mee-av, who agrees with my gut instinct, that this life is my own because I’ve claimed it, and must serve myself.  However, Mee-av feels that I owe my life to Briin as much as to myself, or more, and that this constitutes a debt of service to it, where none could exist between myself and the less active controlling interests now-seated in my psyche.  Possibly I… agree partway.  I can’t tell whether it’s subtle cross-pollination between our minds, or whether (again on a gut level) I believe, independently, that I owe something to Briin.  Something that doesn’t take the shape of “a favor” in my mind.  A fealty.  I suppose compounding it is the fact that aside from my inherent desire to distance from Briin (seeded by the unlikely-seeming success of our escape and egged on by carry-over suspicion from not being able to assess the basis for my present motivations as original to my own mind, thanks to the smudges), I like Briin.  I’ve liked it ever since we met–all its stupid blinks and its cheerful, cooperative, concerned behavior.  But I don’t know Briin and I keep distance from it.

We stop place to place, to refuel mostly.  Briin goes offrig and takes in the local culture.  Usually the local culture is food that makes its asshole sick, its stomach unhappy.  Smoke from various inhalants in the air, industry-polluted recycled air.  Sometimes, however, we stop off on a planet, and I’ll stretch my legs, do combat exercises.  Briin is amazed at what comes easily to me.  A true librarian. Briin captures specs on my movements, exclaims over what, to any soldier of my species, is standard performance.  Expected.  To perform backflips, running drops from heights many times our own.  We stop sometimes where plants get very large with reinforced structures, and on these I can really fly.  Briin initially insisted that it was dangerous but quickly turned to simply observing my ability to leap and travel at speed high above the ground. The little scholar, shorter and less muscular than myself.  So flimsy, so limited in range of bodily control.  The charming bright child.  I don’t know, really, whether I’ll be able to fend for it with my skills in the way it fends for me with its skills.  My training is to combat nonhumoid creatures.  Against even something so low-tech as a retrieval squad of bounty hunters with pulse weapons, my kill skills are not so valuable.  M'xiira is more valuable than I am, in that regard.  A true warrior, respected by that subtle hired killer my head.  M'xiira wears a bandoleer of micro-teleporting skipgrenades and carries a giant blade of timefrozen acid, in a wedge of flexible platinum-enforced plastic on her back.  A very unfavorable encounter awaits any alien at our stops who might enjoy trouble.  Perhaps it is fair to say that I revere M'xiira.

But in spite of my respect or… affection for the two I travel with, I have cause to remain skeptical. I continue to puzzle over an exchange I overheard between these comrades a few stops back; we had parked the rig on a small asteroid, a mining site with one cafeteria for workers, known to M'xiira as "the saloon.”  The artificial atmosphere of the tiny outpost burned my airways after a few minutes standing outside the rig, and I decided to practice crypsis.  I am able, under certain states of stress (which can easily be self-induced), to exercise intentional control over the frequency of the vibration of atoms in my exterior down to the dermis, and create a kind of distortion out of myself, a static in which to hide.  In this state I am virtually unable to defend myself but I become both difficult to observe and a more astute observer; my senses heighten as I become more superficially permeable atomically and am able to intake and organize more information from the environment about any actions and matter within it. Wandering around the rig in a casual way, I passed out of the line of sight of all the exterior security monitoring sensors I had spotted, and entered crypsis.  With a few ground-covering jumps I closed the space between myself and the back of the saloon, and scaled the exterior.  From the roof I made my way into an air circulation duct–the place was so defenseless it was surprising to me that this was where M'xiira apparently had an arms deal, although maybe picking the least likely spot had a wisdom to it–and from the duct, into the space above the interior ceiling-facing, which was thin planks of reformed pressed inorganic foam laid between a wide lattice of metal bars.  I spread my weight across the supports and made my way by the light between the planks until I could hear the tones of my companions’ voices in the eatery, between the many other, mainly louder, conversations.  It was a bit like being in a large crew transport after retrieval, with leitmotifs of shouted phrases, the solos and the chorus swells–in many languages now, rather than slight regional dialectical variations.

“I don’t know what to do about them,” Briin said, the first phrase I caught distinctly.  That was the moment the exercise clarified itself into a good idea. Then as now, however, I felt uneasy about potentially raising more suspicions for myself without any clear preferable alternative to continuing with this group.

“Well does it matter that… they… is delusional. Are delusional?” That was M'xiira.

“Explain it to me again?” This other voice was clearly a third participant in the conversation, maybe M'xiira’s contact.  "Is every personality delusional or just the main one. Why is there a main one, do they ever take turns?  Have you met the others?  How do you know its true anyway?“

"The company did regular neuroprints, Frengh has multiple distinct personalities subsumed within the guiding ego. I don’t know why the company established a backstory like that, with compartmentalized knowledge.  The senior programmers claim an organic system like a human mind will reject organizing too much information consciously. You can’t just hypnotize someone into knowing everything.”

“But they hypnotized her–them, whatever–into being able to jump between trees like a soviet gymnast.”

“A what?”  M'xiira’s casual tone felt surreal to me, in light of my comprehension of their conversation.  They meant me. Briin knew more than had been made known to me.  I had not been brought into the domain of my former captors in the way I remembered.  I might remember nothing factual about my life at all.

“Soviets, they lived hereabouts two hundred years ago.  Learn your history, girl, or you’ll swing your blade for nothing.”

“There’s not a lot of room in the van for books.”  

“Get an e-reader,” the three of them laughed the same tired laugh.  "Wouldn’t you like the Security Agency stopping you next time you try to take the Alaska tunnel down to our friends in Cabo, asking why you’ve been brushing up on your ruskies, why you’re accessing antiestablishment concepts?“

Briin hadn’t said anything in a while, now adding "even better, my former employers could just execute me by laser the second they catch me through the thing’s camera.”  This was reassuring to hear, in a way.  At least something about the paradigm of my life remained un-unraveled by this eavesdropping.  If I had thought to guess how my reality might be called into question by what I might overhear tonight, I think I would have banked on an inversion of this revelation–to discover Briin is still an agent of the “undesertable” collective, by pain of death or some hidden patriotism, and for my own memories, my own nature, to remain unquestioned.  Does this news, so unexpected, make any difference to my situation?  Am I too shocked by the implications to process them?  I asked myself then, braced across a thin barrier in a gloaming dark, but the “answer” I supplied back was as confused and uninformative as my own skin.   I’ve concluded that I have as much ability to gain traction on the topic of who or what I am, as someone looking at me from the outside.  My mind is even more cryptic than it seemed.

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