#double panel radiators

[budget-radiators]

The benefits of having a good quality radiator are that it can keep the room cool during summer and warm throughout the winter. Bathroom radiators also need maintenance, so that you can replace parts that are prone to failure.

[bullet-prooflove]

Trust: Bill Bevilaqua x Reader

Tagging: @kmc1989

References to current and upcoming Dwight Manfredi fics

Bill is in a bad mood. You can tell from the moment you step inside his office. The curtains are drawn across the floor to ceiling windows, creating shadows around the mahogany desk situated in the end of the room. It matches the glossy wood panelling fixed to the walls. It’s a hangover from his father’s reign as the head of the Bevilaqua Family. It’s meant to radiate power and wealth, instead it feels stifling.

The light from his desk lamp causes the gold fixings to gleam in the warm light as Bill sits in the sturdy leather chair, studying something on his tablet. He looks tired tonight, stressed. It’s been going on for a few weeks now, ever since he discovered that his ex-wife Dahlia was marrying Dwight Manfredi. It’s not jealousy, you know what looks like on a man, it’s far more complicated than that.

“She was forced to marry me.” He’d explained to you the last time you were here. “She didn’t choose me…”

But she did choose Manfredi and you know that that must sting. There’s a fragility to Bill underneath the reputation he cultivates. He’s known for this ruthlessness, his efficiency and prowess. However you see the vulnerability underneath all of that, the depreciation of self-worth. There isn’t a single person in his life that actually cares about Bill beyond his power and he knows it.

“When was the last time you actually stood up from that chair?” You ask him as you linger in the doorway, clad in your caramel double breasted overcoat.

His dark eyes flicker up to meet yours as he sets the tablet down on the desk and rubs a rough palm over his weary features.

“Far too long if you’re here for our meeting.” He says raising to his feet, there’s a subtle clench to his jaw as he straightens and you know he hasn’t taken his painkillers today, which means he hasn’t eaten.

He’d been thrown from a horse a few years and it had fucked up his back. On nights like tonight when the temperature drops, the agony can be excruciating.

“Can we take this into the kitchen?” You ask him, tilting your head towards the rest of the house. “I could do with a cup of tea.”

He gestures for you to go ahead before following you out of the office and closing the door softly behind him. The click of your Jimmy Choo heels echo on the hardwood floor as you lead the way. The ranch is quiet at this time of night, the staff have all gone home and it’s just Bill rattling around the empty space. He prefers the solitude, he tells you but you understand the reality of that statement, it’s the only time he can actually relax, that he doesn’t have to be the head of the Bevilaqua family, he can just be Bill.

“Let me take your coat.” He says, his hands coming to rest on your shoulders, squeezing lightly before he helps you out of it.

You’re wearing pinstriped, high waisted trousers and a navy blue, translucent blouse that delves close to your bra line. Most men’s eyes usually dip to your cleavage but Bill’s stays firmly on your face as he folds the coat over his muscular forearm.

“You know where everything is.” He says inclining his head towards the countertops. “Help yourself while I hang this up.”

He disappears from the room as you turn on the kettle. By the time he returns he’s surprised to find two cups of decaffeinated Earl Grey steeping on the breakfast bar, alongside his painkillers and a turkey salad sandwich you’ve thrown together from items you’ve foraged from his fridge.

“Sit.” You say, gesturing at the stool across from you. “Eat.”

“It’s not your job to look after me.” He reminds you as he takes up residence in the offered seat.

“No it’s yours and you’re making a piss poor show of it.” You say taking a sip from your teacup and he fixes you with a glare as he eats his sandwich.

Your actual job is running the most exclusive escort service in Kansas City. You pair well educated, beautiful women and men with elite clients who require an partner to attend high end events. Sex is optional and at the discretion of the escort if they enjoy the company of the client.

You pay the Bevilaqua Family a weekly dividend for protection after Bobby D’Amico, the man you used to hook for tried to take over your business. You only deal with Bill because you broke his cousin Joey’s fingers when he tried to take the payment in ‘services’. You don’t tolerate anyone touching your staff unwillingly and you’d made that very clear when you were called to task for your actions. An agreement was made that you’d turn up at his ranch every Monday evening with an envelope full of cash to any such transgressions in the future.

The silence stretches between the two of you until Bill tilts his head towards the painkillers and the empty plate.

“How did you know?”

“My arm hurts like a bitch when we have a cold spell.” You tell him, watching as he opens the medication bottle. “You were stiff when you got up and you tense your jaw when you’re in pain.”

His gaze strays down to your left forearm, the one with the dimples in from the pins that hold it together. The marks are invisible underneath the sleeve of your shirt but he knows that they’re there. You showed them to him when explained the problem with Bobby D’Amico.

“I don’t like taking them unless I have to.” He says finally as he tips two tablets into his hand before setting them on the saucer alongside his tea. “They make me tired.”

“Then I best get going then so you can pop a couple and tuck yourself into bed.” You say as you reach into your Hermes purse and remove the expensive cream envelope. You set it on the table between the two of you and Bill frowns as he studies it.

“It’s heavier than usual.” He states.

“There’s a lot of events this week. The ballet and the opera are in town and nobody wants to go alone.” You inform him as you close your purse again.

“You could have just paid me the same amount and I wouldn’t have been any the wiser.” He says mildly, his palm coming to rest on the envelope.

“You know I don’t work like that.” You say as you gesture between the two of you. “This relationship works because there’s trust and I would never do anything to break that Bill.”

He knows that, you’ve proven to be nothing but loyal in the few years you’ve worked together. It’s the reason he lets his guard down around you, allows you to boss him around a little. You’re right, he is shitty about taking care of himself, he’s too busy taking care of everyone else.

You raise to your feet and Bill tries to follow suit, hissing through his teeth at the pain that ricochets through his spine. You place a gentle hand on his arm indicating for him to stay seated.

“Bill.” You says kindly. “Be a good boy, take your pills and go to bed. I can see myself out.”

A flush creeps  across his features at the use of ‘good boy’ before you press a featherlight kiss to his cheek. Your perfume floods his senses, the dark, sensual undertone of amber,  the rich, almost floral scent of patchouli. He closes his eyes for a moment and he wonders what it must feel like to be loved by a woman like you, to have your entire attention.

He swallows hard when you pull away, stifling the desire to ask you to stay.

“Good night Bill.” You say and he hears your footsteps disappear down the hall before the front door shuts quietly behind you.

That claustrophobic silence rushes back to greet him and he sighs as he picks up the envelope and begins to count the cash. It’s only when he gets to the bottom that he finds the tickets, two of them for an exclusive whiskey tasting event in a couple of days’ time. There’s a note tucked around them, written in your tidy handwriting.

If you want to get out of the ranch for an evening…

His thumb traces over the words before he withdraws his phone from his back pocket. He takes a picture of the tickets, scrolling down to your name and typing out a message.

Only if you accompany me Julia.

He sets his phone down alongside his teacup before he puts the tablets in his mouth and washes them down with the last of the Earl Grey. His attention shifts to his phone as it chimes with your response.

Well Bill, I do enjoy a good single malt.

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[agustdiv1ne]

cograts on 3k!!! can i request taehyun + the proposal + smut but taehyun is the boss and reader is the secretary? love u <3

NOW SHOWING...

pairing: kang taehyun x fem!reader

genre: smut

wc: 3.9k

details + warnings: mdni, boss!taehyun, secretary!mc, hatefucking (or, more accurately, mildly annoyed with each other fucking), power imbalance, dom!tae, (kinda bratty) sub!mc, unprotected sex (do nawt do this), missionary, doggy, pull out method, very brief degradation (slut is used once), all they do is bicker lmfao

note: tyty nonnie!! ♡ hope you enjoyyy

your boss is — and you cannot stress this enough — a complete and utter hardass. 

he demands way too much from you, he rapidly fires back-to-back orders and expects you to remember every minute detail, and sometimes, he even makes you drop everything to work on the weekend. the weekend. unfortunately, you are forced to grin and bear it. while your parents have urged you to quit every time you call them, and you've definitely considered it, working for taehyun is the only way that you will ever have a shot at becoming an editor, to bring light to stories that can touch others' hearts. there's nothing more that you wish to do than give small-time authors a chance to get their work out there — and even get your own novel in stores. you know how difficult getting a foot into the publishing world can be, but you also know that you won't be able to help them, or yourself, if you don't put yourself through hell first. hell being taehyun's wrath, of course.

even worse: you've now been roped into marrying this man. with new york city's immigration office on his ass, you are the poor soul he decided to use to keep himself in the country and save his job. the gross reality of it all is that if taehyun is fired, you wouldn't last another day at the company, and all of your painstaking work would be for naught. you honestly had no choice but to go with it. 

you first thought that the universe held some sort of gargantuan grudge against you…because the two of you were suddenly slated to visit your little hometown after lying straight to an immigration officer's face (who definitely did not believe a word that either of you said) for your grandmother's ninetieth birthday. since you have arrived in the small town, you've been sharing a bed with him because he refuses to sleep on the floor, separated by a wall of pillows each night; you've been forced to act affectionate with each other in order to appease your overbearing family. 

however, you're also beginning to think that taehyun might not be all that terrible. outside of work, at least. sure, you bicker and you argue and your attempts at pda are painfully awkward at best, but he's shown you a different side of him over these past couple of days. he is still the harsh boss that you know intimately well, but he actually has a personality under that work persona. he's sung old-timey songs for your elder family members, opened up to you on your family's boat about his issues with vulnerability, and the wall of pillows on the bed has slowly diminished to nothing. above all, you've had more heart-to-heart conversations than what you initially thought he had the emotional capacity for. 

but that doesn't mean he still isn't a bit of a dick.

“move over,” he grumbles next to you as both of you try to get some sleep, grumpy after another long day and a very embarrassing encounter with your grandmother. the memory of you doubled over, nearly crying with laughter, because of him stings like a fresh wound. annoyance surges through his veins, and your thin pajamas — on top of the warmth of your bare skin radiating against his — certainly are not helping his conflicted mind. 

“sleep on the floor if you’re going to complain,” you retort, unmoving as you stare up at the ceiling. the moonlight streaming through the windows reflects across the wood panels, shifting with the movement of the thin curtains that hang in front of the glass. it’s soothing, but it seems as if nothing is enough to get you to doze off tonight, even the melatonin that you downed an hour ago. the lack of space between the two of you is a new development, and you cannot deny the nervous pang that resounds in your chest because of it. something feels off tonight, but you can’t quite put a finger on it. 

his elbow sharply shoves in your bicep, pain blooming across your skin as the bone further digs itself into your arm. hissing in pain, you jostle him back, thus starting a petty war of who can gain the most space on the bed. after a couple minutes of exchanging elbows and small curses, your arm growing sore, annoyance finally bubbles over. your scattered brain proves useless in this situation, and while you’d usually rather exchange rude words until one of you concedes, you instead find yourself sitting up to straddle his hips, hands wrapping around his forearms and pinning them to the mattress. his lips part slightly as he stares up at you — a shocking crack in his typical stoic mask — while you shoot daggers down at him, your manicured nails biting into his wrists. 

“quit it,” you hiss. “i’m not in the mood for your shit tonight.” 

the curse word slips out before you can stop it, but at this point, you don’t particularly care. he’s being an annoying prick and all you want is for this godforsaken trip to be over already and for you to get fucking married. the quicker you are, the quicker you can get divorced and return back to your regularly programmed boss-assistant relationship and cut the odd tension that has built up between the two of you over this trip. 

below you, taehyun mirrors your venomous expression, his bare chest flexing as he breaks away from your grip with ease. his hips shift up beneath you, and your balance unexpectedly shifts. in a split second, you’ve switched positions with him now leering down at you. your legs are now wrapped around his hips, hands now pinned to the bed by his. he’s so close that you can feel his breaths against your cheek. that weird feeling in your stomach is back; you can’t help but flit your gaze down to his lips for a moment, licking your own subconsciously. you want — no, you need to kiss him, the phantom feeling of his lips on yours from the day prior taunting you. 

mentally, you slap yourself out of it. where the hell did that come from? he’s your boss. your terrible, perfectionist boss that you never catch a break from, your boss that constantly makes you want to quit your position and give up on your dreams. you shouldn’t be thinking of him like that. you can’t. looking back up at him, you find dark, narrowed eyes staring right back at you. the slight furrow of his brow tells you that he’s thinking — this is one of his most common expressions, you’ve gathered from your grueling time working for him, right after his stony, laser-like stare that is a constant in the office. it’s also the most worrisome.

wiggling, your fiery attempt to get him off of you is swiftly extinguished as he tightens his grip on you. you are not lost on the tick in his jaw, the way his muscles flex beneath his skin. with a gulp, you urge yourself to calm down. he’s your boss. your fucking boss. 

with a hiss, he grits out, “stop moving. fuck.”

his words lead you to notice something hard pressing into the crease of your thigh — his dick. holy shit, taehyun’s dick is rock solid against you, and you’ve barely even done anything. every nerve ending in your body feels like it’s on fire right now, the air surrounding your bodies electric and—

he’s kissing you. 

he’s kissing you and it’s messy and mean and there’s absolutely nothing romantic about it — and worst of all, you actually like it. lips mold together and teeth knock against each other, his hands releasing your arms to find purchase on your hips as he helps you grind against him. with a small whimper, you bite down on his bottom lip, causing him to groan in response. this is weird. this is so unbelievably weird, yet you can’t seem to stop yourself. 

he pulls away first, his warm breath brushing against your lips while both of you pant against each other. you can’t help but stare at the way his lips are red and swollen, slick with saliva and wetted further by a quick swipe of his tongue. 

without speaking, he swoops back down to capture your lips again. your stomach clenches as his hands slip beneath your thin camisole, the fabric bunching up as they slide up the expanse of your stomach and up to your breasts. he greedily gropes the flesh as he deepens the kiss, while you reach down to cup him over his boxers. he’s heavy in your hand, and you can tell just how thick he is even with the fabric in the way. your walls flutter around nothing as the thought of him stretching you to your limit invades your mind, your panties sticking to your folds. 

“you drive me insane,” taehyun grumbles as he works on nipping and sucking on the skin of your neck, thumbs now circling your pebbled nipples. you arch into his touch, unable to hold in your gasps.

“yeah, well, welcome to my world,” you mutter, squealing as he delivers a particularly cruel pinch to one of your tits. curling your fingers into his hair, you tug hard enough to hurt, and he hisses at the sting, sitting back up so that he’s leaning over you once more. one of his hands leaves your breasts to find purchase around your throat; you’re sure that he can feel the way you gulp beneath his hand — he does, and fuck, does that make his cock twitch. 

with a scoff, he shifts hips forward with more force, pressing himself directly into your center. the grip around your throat tightens slightly — he revels in the way your eyelids flutter and your gaze grows a little hazy as you stare up at him. you’re an absolute vision like this, and he thinks that maybe…no, he doesn’t. what a silly idea, that couldn’t possibly be true. 

his attention is pulled back to the present as you meet his hips with your own. your teeth digging into your bottom lip makes him want to bite it for you. god, stop. he hates himself a little for how he feels, but you’re just too tempting right now — and you? you seem just as willing.

to hell with it, he thinks.

“beg,” he orders. there is no way in hell he’s going to allow you to be snarky to him. he deals with your offhand remarks enough at work, and you’ve been a little too casual with him during this trip, too complacent with your disrespect. 

“i will do nothing of the sort,” you hiss despite the burning desire to just submit and let him make you feel good. “j-just because you think you’re all high and mighty doesn’t mean i’ll just bend to your will because you expect me to.”

the way he pauses makes you freeze. the narrowed, cold eyes are back, sending chills down your spine as they look over every crevice of your being: your lust-blown eyes, your heaving chest, how your legs have hooked themselves around his waist to pull him impossibly closer. his gaze finds yours again, and you shrink into yourself a little. the action pulls a smirk from him.

“i know you need this,” he says coolly. “more than me, i’m sure. when do you have time to meet people, hm? i doubt you’ve had anyone in a while.”

oh, fuck him. he has no right to comment on your lack of sex life, not when he’s the one and only reason for your lack of partner and your sore wrist each night. not when he has little regard for your free time when your off the clock. you do everything for him, and yet all you get is a measly little paycheck and not one ounce of gratitude in return. 

“that’s because of you,” you fire back, blood boiling. “you work me like a dog! i’m always at your beck and call— how do you expect to find someone to screw when my entire life revolves around you and your needs? ”

he shrugs as if none of that matters. “well, now i’m giving you an opportunity to get fucked,” he remarks, essentially ignoring your entire point. the cocky, impudent bastard. “take it or leave it. so beg, or i’ll just fuck my fist and you can watch. i don’t particularly care.”

slack-jawed, you gawk at him silently. you’ve never heard him be so vulgar. it’s oddly…hot? stop, no, your brain needs to shut up.

when he begins to move off of you, your legs tighten around his waist. actually, you know what? fuck it. your pride has already been tarnished enough while working for him, why not keep that going? you’re desperate enough, and since he’s talking such a big game, you’re curious to find out if he can back it up. 

thus, you give in.  

“fine. fuck me,” you whisper viciously.

evidently, this is not satisfactory for taehyun. his mouth forms into a thin line as he sends you an unimpressed frown. “what? i couldn’t hear you.” 

when you repeat yourself, louder this time, his head tilts and leans closer to you until you’re basically nose-to-nose. his stupid, infuriating smirk has grown wider. it’s almost as if — no, he definitely enjoys teasing you like this. 

“c’mon, you can do better than that,” he mocks while he rocks his hips harder against yours.

while you’d typically throttle a man who patronized you in this way, you are so unbelievably needy at the moment, and his ministrations are definitely not helping your case; so after swallowing what little dignity you have left, you begin to plead, “fuck me, please, need it. use me, ruin me, i-i don’t— i don’t care, just wanna feel good. please, taehyun.”

your cheeks are burning as hot as the sun and shame prickles the back of your neck. you can’t help how you cover your face with your hands as you realize how naked you feel under him, stripped bare by his eyes and his presence despite still being fully clothed. he peels your hands away, pinning them to the mattress just as you did to him minutes earlier. 

“wasn’t so hard now, was it?” he leers, shifting his head so that you can’t look away. one of his hands moves to cup your jaw, a thumb brushing lightly against your lips, and you allow it to push into your mouth and press down on your tongue. you suckle on the digit as your mind clouds up. moving your thin pajamas to the side with his other hand, he swipes two fingers through your soaked folds, bringing your slick up to your clit. he barely touches the already sensitive bud, rubbing tiny circles against it. you shift your hips up to gain more stimulation, but he pulls away. tutting, he sighs, “desperate little thing. don’t worry, i’m not feeling very patient right now either.”

within seconds, your bottoms are discarded and you’re spread wide for him, on complete and utter display for him. his boxers are shoved down to reveal his cock, stiff and flushed an angry shade of red. prominent veins meander their way down the shaft, the skin a shade darker than the rest of him — and you were right: he is thick, intimidatingly so.

but you've never been one to back down from a challenge. 

as he lines himself up with your awaiting entrance, his thumb slips out of your mouth so that he can find purchase on your waist, the warm tips of his fingers pressing into the soft skin. a stinging sensation floods your senses as he shifts his hips forward, his cock slowly stretching your walls far beyond what they’ve ever been before. shit, he’s huge, your pussy stuffed to the brim with him — it feels like he’s in your stomach, your throat, but he allows you to adjust inch by painstaking inch, something you’re grateful for. not that you’d ever voice that to him.

the sting disappears soon enough, morphing into a dull pleasure that isn’t quite enough to satisfy you. rolling your hips, you feel the head of his cock press into a spot deep inside you that sends jolts of pleasure through your body, yet he halts your motions with a firm grip on your hip bones. outwardly, he seems unaffected by the way your walls flutter around him, warm and wet and christ, overwhelmingly tight — inside, however, he’s on the verge of losing it, trying and failing to resist the urge to pound you into the mattress until you’re crying for him. his first thrust is merciless, pulling out and slamming back in so hard that you nearly see stars. when you keen, he knows you can take anything that he will give you. you always have to put up with his hardass tendencies, after all, his borderline mean and unyielding expectations that you somehow meet and even exceed sometimes. you can take it — you will take it, and well. he expects you to.

and, as he wishes, you do, barely able to keep your moans in check as he pounds into you over and over again, your breathing growing ragged and your hands gripping the sheets so hard that you fear that they may tear. the drag of his cock against your walls renders you light-headed and dizzy beyond belief, your eyebrows furrowed deeply while your bleary eyes screw shut. with he plays with the angle of his hips, trying for the best one, the one that would turn your quiet whimpers to unabashed moans — because he would be lying if he said that he doesn’t want to hear you scream for him, even if it meant waking the rest of your annoying family up. maybe they wouldn’t pester him as easily if he got you to. 

shoving your top up above your breasts, he uses one hand to knead one of your tits while he uses the other to halt your squirming. aggravation fills his veins as you continue to wiggle, your hips grinding up to meet his thrusts, greedy for more. 

“stay fucking still,” he bites, moving to swing your legs over his shoulders, effectively folding you in half below him. the angle causes your eyes to roll back into your head, your teeth biting your lip so hard that you almost bleed. as his thrusts resume, he brings a thumb down to your clit, and your walls immediately pulse around him. your mouth falls open as you whine, and he nearly cums just from the sight of your playing with your tits, thumbs circle the pebbled flesh. he resists the urge to lean down and suck on them; he needs to keep a clear head, or as clear as it can be in this situation. he needs to maintain his control. 

“‘m close, f-fuck, ‘m gonna, gonna cum,” you whisper frantically, now pinching your nipples between your fingers. the sight spurs him to fuck you faster, deeper, hitting spots that your measly fingers never could. your swollen lips part to allow quiet, pathetic whines escape, the buzz in your stomach building and building and building and—

it all stops.

“n-no!” you cry, but taehyun pins your hips down before you are able to chase your now fading pleasure. you despise how easily he can just take from you, even your orgasms he controls. the slight upward curve of his lips makes you want to curse him out.

“you're funny,” he remarks. 

“and you’re the worst,” you groan while you lightly slap his chest. catching your wrist, he pins it back to the bed. 

“aw, am i now?” he coos, his hips grinding into you again, teasing. it’s not enough, it’s not enough at all. 

“mhm, i can’t— ah, c-can’t stand you.”

“o-oh, you c-can’t?” he taunts, his mouth formed into a condescending little pout. “yet you’re letting me do this—” he punctuates the word with a particularly hard thrust out of nowhere, causing you to cry out and your nails to claw at his shoulders. “—to you. i can’t be that bad.”

“you are,” you pant as his cock begins to drag along your walls again. “fucking— you are that bad, i— nonono, please keep going. please!" 

taehyun does not heed your cries. rather, he pulls out completely, much to your contempt. whiplash becomes your new best friend as he flips you over onto your stomach, spine arched prettily behind you by the hands pulling your hips up. the sheets brush against your swollen nipples, the pillow below your head cushioning your head from the somewhat stiff mattress. you are rendered unable to push yourself up and out of this position when taehyun gathers your wrists in one hand and pins them behind you, yet you can’t bring yourself to even want to try, not when he slips his cock back inside you and resumes his previous swift pace. the angle has changed, and he presses perfectly into your g-spot now — your brain is completely empty, only able to process how amazing he’s making you feel. your moans grow louder and louder as your orgasm quickly builds up again. a hand curls into your hair and yanks, shoving your face into the pillow. 

“be a good little slut and shut up,” taehyun grunts out from behind you. he’s changed his mind: he doesn’t want anyone else hearing you. no, your pretty little noises should be reserved for him and him only, and he’s more than satisfied with the muffled sounds coming from you as he fucks you into the mattress. he feels your legs begin to give out from below you, but he takes it in stride, shifting his body so that he leans over your back, your legs spread out on both sides of his hips. he quietly admonishes you for enjoying this so much, no matter how hypocritical it is, only if to feel you clench around him and bring him closer to his release. 

your squeals are muffled as you finally, finally come undone, the knot in your stomach snapping and causing your entire body to quake. your walls quiver around his cock, and before he can spill inside you, he pulls out and jerks himself off, hand rapidly sliding up and down until he spills all over his hand with a shudder.

there’s no aftercare, no conversation, just ragged pants as both of you try to catch your breath again. taehyun essentially passes out as soon as he collapses next to you. you’re not sure what you would have said in this situation, so you are a bit grateful for his sleeping form. 

as you listen to his slow, rhythmic breathing, the gravity of what you've just done hits you square in the chest. your lungs feel as if they’ve been pumped with lead, your muscles tense and your mind reeling — shit. holy shit. you just fucked your boss — your boss that you will soon be married to and divorced from — and now? now, you have no idea how all of this is going to pan out. 

and no matter how your mind tries to spin it, there’s no way out of this one.

3k event masterlist | masterlist

© to agustdiv1ne. do not copy, repost, steal, and/or translate.

[loverangels]

Write anything for Charles please<3 (only if you wish)

-☔

RUNAWAY

Pairings- charles macaulay x fem!reader

summary- after the death of bunny and Henry, you and Charles decided to runaways to Italy and start afresh

warnings- none, just a tooth rotting fluffy blab

a/n- I hope you enjoy lovie <3. Thank you for requesting!

you slightly shuffled in the white soft bedsheets, snuggling in the warmth, basking from the sun shining through the double panelled windows and from the human radiator behind you.

After the tradegy of the death of bunny, guilt consumed both you and Charles, causing life in Vermont to not be the same as it was.

So with scraping every single penny the two of you had left, you fled secretly to crema, Italy to pursue life again peacefully. However there was one problem, leaving vermont meant leaving everything your parents, camilla, francis, and Richard. Although you didn't regret running away, you couldn't help the what ifs in your head.

which leads you to this moment.

Charles nuzzled his head into your shoulder, arms wrapping around from your back to your stomach and he tried to get as close as possible to you. Smiling, you turn around in his arms facing him, as you watch him snore peacefully, his blonde hair falling into his eyes.

You admired his long, thick lashes and his perfectly sculpted nose.

He's so perfect

You couldn't resist but trace your fingers along his soft skin, caressing his cheekbone with your thumb.

Leaning closer to his face you pepper soft kisses to his forehead, nose, cheeks, eyes, and lastly his lips.

As your lips being to pull away, you feel strong hands grabbing your face pulling you deeper into the kiss.

seconds later, you pull away breathlessly, your eyes widening as charles chuckles to himself, tucking the astray hair behind your ear. Kissing your collarbone he smiles at you.

'If waking up means waking up like this, by all means don't let me stop you,' he jokes smirking.

maybe running away wasn't a bad decision after all.

[unknownfacelessfanfictions]

Warmth

Paring: Hemmer x fem!Reader Fandom: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Words: 1.6K Summary: She couldn't be sure if it was an Aenar thing or just a Hemmer thing but as pacifist as he was, just as stubborn and proud he could be.

Not my gif!!!

WINTER WRITING PLAN!!!

"Are you sure?"

She looked at him sceptically, if amused, leaning against the doorframe. Hemmer snorted snidely and wrinkled his nose. "I am Aenar. I grew up in snow and ice. That little bit out there won't hurt me."

With that, he pointed above them where a glass ceiling revealed a snow-covered landscape.

It was December and the Enterprise had actually found time to stay in space dock for repairs, allowing the crew to spend Christmas with their family.

Her family, however, were either no longer alive or currently nowhere near Earth and instead, after asking if it was all right, had decided to go on holiday with her fiancé. Hemmer had given her permission to choose the holiday destination and in the end she had decided on Lapland in Finland.

She had been more than lucky to get one of the ice igloos, which served as a kind of hotel.

They were not very spacious, but there was enough room for a double bed, a small bathroom and a small kitchenette, as well as a small fireplace in front of which a fluffy carpet was placed...

At first Hemmer had protested. He did not want to travel to a place  where she would be so cold, but she had not given in.  Hemmer had spent most of his life on a ship, where it was far too warm for him. So what was two weeks in the cold for her?

After a while, he had scowled and agreed on the condition that they would stay in the hotel for the first few days so that she wouldn't immediately suffer a shock freeze. She had agreed and

the last two days they had spent in front of the fireplace, wrapped in a blanket, leaning against each other and just enjoying each other's presence.

They hadn't had to talk much. If she had wanted to tell him something, she had only had to think about it and if he had wanted to say something, he had leaned down and whispered in her ear so softly that it would not have been heard under other circumstances.

And she loved this togetherness and closeness, but she wanted to finally make good on her promise and give Hemmer his coldness. However, the Aenar turned out to be quite stubborn.

"I believe you, darling. However, you might want to wear something more than a rather thinner jacket after all."

Hemmer just shook his head. "It's not that cold for me. These temperatures were summer on Andoria. Here, though..." He didn't finish his sentence, just wrapped a scarf around her neck, pressed gloves into her hand and topped off his creation by pressing a pink bobble hat onto her head, which had little flashing lights built in and which she had never seen before.

"So I can find you in the dark too." He grinned impossibly smugly and, jokingly, she swatted at him with her gloves.

"Idiot. But fine, if you say so. Don't complain if you're cold, though."

"I won't be cold."

She was still sceptical but could not suppress a smile when Hemmer held out his hand and bowed to her. "May I ask the lady for this dance?"

She laughed out and placed her gloved hands in his exposed ones and curtsied slightly.

"It would be my pleasure."

Hemmer gave a short laugh as well and pulled her close so that she slammed against his chest, pressing a quick kiss against her temple, followed by a strand of transmitted thoughts that she couldn't quite follow, but all of which radiated gratitude and appreciation.

Before she could return this, however, Hemmer pressed the panel next to the door, whereupon it slid aside and an icy wind whistled at them.

" Sure you don't want to wear something thicker?"

At her question he just shook his head vigorously and began to pull her energetically behind him, which in turn elicited a laugh from her.

She hadn't seen him this eager and keen in a long time.

However, she could understand him. The landscape was breathtakingly beautiful.

Their igloo was in the middle of a forest. Although it was accessible by vehicle and the area was cordoned off enough so that they were not in danger of being attacked by wild animals, this patch of untouched earth seemed so peaceful that she felt she could stay here forever, despite the biting cold.

It was already dark, but the snow glistened in the pale light of the occasional lantern. Her breath danced in the air, forming the most beautiful shapes before mingling with Hemmer's and rising towards the sky.

To the stars, as they always did.

During the walk, she had hooked her arm with his and wrapped her hand around his, while at the same time resting her head on his shoulder. She felt his calm, even breathing and the light pressure his fingers exerted on hers and had to sigh.

While her fiancé liked to pretend he was grumpy and standoffish, he secretly loved physical contact and the full range of it.

Holding hands, hugging, resting his head on her shoulder, or the other way around, cuddling, kissing, he was open to everything.

Once, as they lay in their quarters on the Enterprise at night, her head on his shoulder, his arm around her and her hand on his chest to feel his heartbeat, listening to the ship's engines, Hemmer had spoken quietly, in a whisper, of his home.

About the majestic ice caves and structures the Aenar had built over the last millennia. About his family, whom he loved and missed more than anything, but who supported him in all his deeds. And about the Aenar culture and how important physical contact was for them.

They lived on an ice planet, a moon of cold, where warmth was something precious. Sharing one's own body heat was therefore a sign of a high level of trust, appreciation and love, and something that was not done lightly.

His words had brought tears to her eyes and since then she had appreciated every single touch of his body and had not taken it for granted.

Now to have this physical contact, in a place that was similar to Hemmer's home planet and where this custom, this culture, would make sense again and could take up its original intuition, was more than proof enough for her that Hemmer loved her.

Even if she really didn't need this proof.

During their walk, Hemmer had started to talk quietly about the possibilities of excursions for the next few days, the future five-year mission of the Enterprise and everything else.

It did not bother her. She would never tire of listening to him.

However, she was beginning to notice something that was not normally common for Hemmer. His voice was shaking, getting quieter and he was stumbling over words.

At first she didn't give it much thought. Maybe he was tired or distracted by his surroundings, but the further they walked, the more noticeable it became and she became sceptical, looking at him out of the corner of her eye.

At first glance there wasn't much different from before, though on closer inspection she noticed that wasn't the case.

His lower lip was trembling, his shoulders were hunched and he seemed to shiver with every gust of wind. She had to avoid rolling her eyes in amusement.

"Hemmer, dear?" she interrupted him gently and instantly he turned his attention to her, which in turn warmed her heart.

"Yes?" They stopped and she disengaged her arm from his to touch his cheek with her hand, looking at him amused and loving at the same time. His skin was ice cold.

"I don't want to tease you, of course, or say that I said it, but, could it be that you are cold?"

Hemmer straightened up and almost seemed to bristle. "Of course not, that's ridiculous. I am an Aenar, I hardly feel this cold."

Just at that moment, a particularly icy wind brushed against them, making him shiver.

"Mhhh, of course."

Hemmer glanced to the side and she instantly felt bad as she thought she saw shame on his face. She now took his entire face in her hands.

"Hemmer, there's nothing wrong with that. Everybody gets cold sometimes."

"But I shouldn't be cold. I'm an Aenar, these temperatures are nothing compared to Andoria."

"Maybe." Lovingly, she let her finger run over his dominant cheekbone. "However, you must remember that you have spent the last few years on Earth and on starships, all of which are not geared to the normal temperature tolerance of Aenar and Andorians. So it's normal for you to have to get used to it again."

Hesitantly, he looked up. "So you don't think that." He hesitated."... that I am broken?"

She gasped and immediately pressed a kiss to his lips. "Hemmer, don't even think of putting words like that in your mouth. I love you and I don't care if you walk around in sub-zero temperatures in short clothes or suddenly find only desert temperatures comfortable. You are the best thing that has ever happened to me, do you understand that?!"

He nodded hesitantly and she kissed him again. "And that you'll never forget it."

She then let go of him and started twiddling with her scarf, which elicited a frown from Hemmer.

"What are you doing that for?"

"Giving you my scarf." Hemmer protested, however she didn't listen and managed to wrap the piece of fabric around his neck.

"You'll be cold!"

"And you are cold," she countered. He started to protest again, however she pressed her finger to his lips. "Please," she whispered, "let me share my warmth with you."

For a few moments Hemmer held still, looking at her with admiration and love and wonder all at once, before he glanced to the side and pulled her close.

"You are impossible."

"I love you too, Hemmer."

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

@bigblissandlove1

@akamitrani

@moonlightshaiku

@indignantlemur

[dreamer-of-all-time]

Did you know that in that scene Hetch was leaning against an electriccal panel/radiator/something if the sort i forgot, and it's actually the second "person burnt during filming" in genloss after Ranboo!

Now I dunno if it was the live double or the actual Criken (from the pre-recorded part that cuts in) but one of them got their back slightly toasty

So not only did Hetch get stabbed, he also got his spine slowcooked

Cue in Charlie "who's frying bacon in here" Slimecicle

Sorry for attacking your inbox with nonsense <3

Bro?? Timestamps??? Cuz I remember none of this. Also preach, Charlie "who's making bacon" slimecicle

[itstheendofthegoddamnworld]

Fortune Teller: Adar

Support me on Ko-fi!~    -   Patreon

Relationship: f! reader x m! monster (Tabaxi)

[Also I am not familiar with tarot cards and palm readings so I did some research on it and hope it makes some sense.]

-

“Tarot and dreams are two dialects in the language of the soul.”

― Philippe St Genoux

-

The days were hot, days longer and lives lived longer.

Though even with the heat that swelled and radiated through the city of sand, it was known that fortune came to those who sought it.

With destiny that you thought a 'trial' awaited, you needed answers. Needed answers that would fall on false hopes and dreams; for it all to be wafted lies that anyone would have to pay double in seeking.

You did not pay for it luckily, with your parents and their pleas for you to seek 'professional help' in your dilemma, you found it in the eyes of fates, fates that lay within the flick of a card.

Adar was his name. Adar the Sahir. Adar the Seer of Fates. Yet, you had to be the judge of that.

You found his spot in the market easily: situated between the two stone walls of other buildings, his was smaller and made from sticks and heavy cloths, telling you it had been put up with haste and less in need of protection against the elements.

Off to a good start, in thinking this person and their job was real. You sulked, making your way over, ignoring the staring, and the whisperings that came from drawing your name. Many thought of you as odd, leaving you to yourself as they whispered and mocked.

When you stood a few inches from their open entrance, you gave a harsh knock to the wooden panel holding the structure together, and popping their head out was the one you sought that was known as Adar.

The palm reader was that of a Tabaxi, and though you had seen few of them in your lifetime, you had been familiar with them roaming the lands, tending to keep to warmer temperatures, though some preferred the cold.

You were familiar that many were different from one another: ones with dark fur, light fur, ones big and small, stripped or with spots. Though you had never seen one like himself. He looked like a caracal: small and lithe, standing almost an inch taller than you. He's dressed in cooling clothing: an open white blouse, with tailored purple and bold trousers, his long legs wrapped in dark linen that acted as 'shoes' to protect the soles of his paws from the heated cobbles and boiling sands.

"You must be my new customer? I am Adar, a palm and tarot card reader. You are familiar with my work?" You liked his voice immediately: velvety and pleasantly soft, mixed with a sweetened accent.

"That is correct, yes." You awkwardly spoke, he was charming, and the way he looked at you so kindly made your stomach flutter.

"Come, come, you are welcomed inside." You're shuffled inside the small hut with sweeping rugs and colour cloth that was as bright as him and his clothing. When he passed by you, you got a hint of jasmine and plum, a scent sweet that surprised you yet suited him well.

You entered his small hut, a richness of Sandalwood and Patchouli filled your nostrils, candles lit in the unlit room as you followed the Tabaxi to the table in the middle of the room. It was instead an eyesore, an controlled mess. Cards filled the table with crystals of all sorts of colours, mainly amethysts were scattered across his table of all shapes and sizes.

"Excuse the mess," Adar spoke cheerfully, "I need rearranging."

"It is quite alight. My ma is always telling me I must tidy after myself."

"You live with your parents, correct?" He shuffled around the table to sit, you following in the chair opposite him, nearly being engulfed by the plush cushions. "It is not a judgmental question," he eased, "it helps me to know you better and with the cards."

"Ah," you awkwardly laughed, trying to get comfortable. Maybe it was the ease of him, his aura, but you grew a bit more and more comforted. "Forgive me, I've never done this before."

"That is quite alright," Adar reassured smoothly, and your stomach twisted with glee. "I will go through everything with you, and what everything means." Your eyes lit up as you watched him smoothly stack the tarot cards, shuffling them as if they were nothing but leaves and he was the wind, guiding them with a sound that was a delight to anyone's ears.

"These are tarot cards, all different but will tell of your story and what will come. Look at them, and pick which ones look like they call to you. Pick three, and I shall go through them one at a time."

Seems easy enough. You thought, heart racing. They were just cards, it couldn't have been that hard. You eyed the cards, all facing down, and you carefully picked out the three. With a flick of his wrist, Adar swiped the deck away with a smooth motion, the deck stacked once again and neatly placed on the side of the table.

"The first card represents what you can do to surrender to the change in your life." He flipped the first card over, revealing the plain picture of a horned monster, sitting on a throne, above two naked and chained individuals. "The Devil is upright, which can mean shadow self, attachment, addiction or restriction."

It could mean a few things: how the way you had been completely controlled your entire life, dictated by your parents to suit their needs and please them. The ever-dutiful daughter, silent and obedient.

You didn't dare say what you had thought to the Tabaxi, instead, nodding along as the next card was flipped.

"The second card offers direction on caring for yourself during this process." It was a depiction of a knight on a pale horse, offering aid to a kneeling and begging priest, surrounded by others either begging or lying dead.

"Death." You read aloud from the card, but Adar was quick to interject. "It is not foreshadowing your demise," he laughed comfortingly. "The card can mean endings, change, transformation and change."

Oh, that seemed better than it threatening my death. You thought dryly. "So, death is giving advice?"

"Exactly." Adar grinned a toothy smile, before flipping the final card over. "This final card serves as a guide for centring yourself amid this change."

Two individuals, naked as the day they were born, in a loving embrace.

"The lovers can represent love, harmony, friendship, values, alignment and choices." He spoke before looking over to you. "Perhaps there is someone in your life you can look to for help in a situation that is troubling you."

"Perhaps," you thought, fully knowing there were only a handful of friends you could rely on, but they were rarely sighted in your hometown, instead, venturing off to seek a new life elsewhere. "There may be someone."

Adar smiled as he removed the cards away to stack with the remaining deck. "These are just speculations. I do not truly know the inner conflict that goes on inside my customers, so these cards should be of help."

You nodded, believing there was some aspect to it you could understand a bit better. "What about palm readings?"

Adar's eyes lit up with glee at the mention, "Ah, I'm glad you asked, it is after all included in my session with you today!"

After moving around things on his table, he placed his hands stretched, the claws in his paws had been retracted and not showing out. "Again, I will go through the process of how this works."

You shakily placed your left hand in his, aware that you had been sweating profusely when you were about to touch a handsome stranger, your body rigid as he took your hand into him to 'inspect'.

"You have very soft hands," he laughed to ease the tension.

"Thanks, you too." His paws were soft and warm, a contrast to the hands of humans when the fur on him was soft and short. "So how do palm readings work?"

Adar smiled at this as if the topic was a lifetime hobby of his joy from a youngling. "Think of your hands as portals- shedding invaluable insight. It is the art of analysing the physical features of the hands to interpret personality, and characteristics and to predict future happenings."

He inspected your palm closely, and you had to ignore the way it felt so comforting to hold his hand. "Your sun sign is fire, but the shape of your hand is that of an air sign." He spoke after some silence.

"And that means?"

"It means that you have a lack of nuanced insight into the complexities of your personality. You can be easily distracted, anxious or on edge."

He pressed into the bottom part of the palm below your pinky, "This mount of Luna reveals an individual's empathy, compassion, and imagination. And here," he points to the base of your middle finger. "The mount of Saturn reveals you have a hidden yet deep understanding of the ups and downs to life, hidden wisdom some would say."

"Some hidden wisdom, huh? Couldn't say I've heard that before." Your cheeks rouged.

"Meanwhile, your lifeline-"

"It doesn't determine how long of a life I live, does it?" You laughed nervously.

He smiled easily, "No, it doesn't." He squeezed your hand teasingly. "It reveals your experience, vitality and zest. Your line isn't deep, meaning you there is not have much experience. Your line is long, however, meaning you have had much influence and little independence."

How interesting. For not believing in any such thing, the cards and readings did an exceptionally good job in your predicament. It was as if Adar had been there for every aspect of your life, chipping away at your shell to find the crux of your issues.

"I hope this gave you some more insight. Is there anything else you wish to ask me before our session ends?"

"Yes, I do actually, just one thing." You braced yourself for the rejection, the hopes and dreams to be crushed. "Have you ever dealt with anything to do with curses? Or even if the cards could solve them?"

"Curses?" He queried.

Nerves wracked through you as you told him. "I've been told all my life one thing: make my family proud, and not in education but in marriage. I had to find a cordial spouse who had strong blood and good fortune. I had to be compliant, dutiful and quiet, yet the older I got, the more I was told how... undesirable I was becoming. How no husband would want me."

"And who told you this?" His long ears twitched.

"My pa."

His eyes locked onto yours, and it had felt as if he stared not into your eyes, but through the window into your soul. It was uneasy, and jarring to stare back, uncertain of what he saw staring back at him. The silence was palpable, before Adar gave a long hum, releasing your hand as he stated. "Well, there's nothing wrong with you. You're perfectly fine, not cursed I may add."

"Are you certain? I've been told this my whole life. The readings could not be picking this up."

"The cards and readings never lie, sweet thing, and nor do I." His smile was lopsided. "Maybe listening to the wise words of your pa aren't something you should consider."

You could've laughed, could've thought that all of the nineteen years of living had come to being told it was all a lie. That being told a horrible thing would stick with you for the rest of your days: a challenge to your approach to living when it had all been for intimidation.

"So, I've never been cursed?"

"Never before and never have." Adar gave a sympathetic smile. "If what you're going through has been any foresight into the cards-"

"They have, to some degree," I answered. "I want to be independent of my family, but I fear I will never be able to."

"Breaking a harsh cycle is a lot for anyone," spoke the Tabaxi softly. "But if you need anyone to talk to, you know I would be there in a heartbeat."

Your cheeks rouged, words jumbling in your throat. "Is... would I need to book another session?"

His laugh was a sweet thing: a melody so fine. "No, not for me, sweet thing. Free of charge if you wish to have someone to chat with outside of my work."

"Then, I shall be seeing you again, correct?"

"Of course."

[liesmyteachertoldme]

Carbon Dioxide — The Gas of Life

Story at-a-glance

Carbon dioxide (CO2) is commonly mischaracterized as a harmful waste product of respiration and is falsely blamed for disrupting the planetary climate

CO2 is an essential gas necessary for life. Moreover, its impact on Earth’s temperatures is negligible, and will remain negligible even if the current concentration in the atmosphere were to double. A 100% increase of CO2, from 400 ppm to 800 ppm, would decrease radiation into space by just 1.1%, resulting in a 0.7 degree C increase of the average earth temperature

A 0.7 degree C difference means there’s no climate emergency, and no matter what we do to reduce CO2 emissions, it’s not going to impact global temperatures. To fabricate an emergency where there is none, it is assumed that massive positive feedbacks are involved. However, most natural feedbacks are negative, not positive, so isn’t it likely the 0.7 degree C increase is an overestimation to begin with

There’s no single temperature of the Earth. It varies by location and altitude. For every kilometer of altitude, you have an average cooling of 6.6 degrees C

Higher CO2 levels will green the planet, making it more hospitable to plant life. The more CO2 there is, the better plants and trees grow. CO2 also reduces the water needs of plants, reducing the risks associated with droughts

The video above, “CO2, The Gas of Life,” features a lecture given at the Summit Old Guard Meeting in New Jersey, October 3, 2023, by William Happer, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of physics at Princeton University and former scientific adviser to the Bush and Trump administrations.

The topic: carbon dioxide (CO2), commonly mischaracterized as a harmful waste product of respiration and a pollutant that is disrupting the planetary climate. As explained by Happer in this lecture, CO2 is actually an essential gas necessary for life. Moreover, its impact on Earth’s temperatures is negligible, and will remain negligible even if the current concentration in the atmosphere were to double.

CO2 Is Not a Pollutant

At present, the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere at a few thousand feet of elevation is around 430 parts per million (ppm). Closer to the ground, concentrations vary widely, both by location and time of day. This is because ground-level readings are impacted by photosynthesis and the respiration of insects and the like.

In the room where Happer was giving his lecture, the CO2 reading was 1,800 ppm — the result of having a large group of people breathing in a closed space. Air conditioning systems have CO2 meters that turn on fans to bring outdoor air inside when levels get too high.

The question of what is too high is an important one, considering The Great Resetters are pushing a green agenda that demands the dismantling of energy infrastructure and farming in the name of stopping climate change, which quite obviously threatens our quality of life and food supply. Ultimately, it may threaten human existence altogether.

The fact of the matter is that CO2 is not the “bad guy” it’s made out to be, and the “net zero” agenda is wholly inappropriate if maintaining life on Earth is part of the equation.

“CO2 is a very essential and natural part of life,” Happer says. “It is the gas of life. We’re made of carbon after all, mostly carbon, and we breathe out a lot of CO2 a day just by living. Each of us breathes out about 2 pounds of CO2 a day. Multiply that by 8 billion people and 365 days a year, and just [by] living, people are a non-negligible part of the CO2 budget of the Earth.

Nevertheless, we are living through a crusade against so-called pollutant CO2. People talk about carbon pollution. [But] every one of us is polluting Earth by breathing, [so] if you want to stop polluting ... apparently God wants us to commit suicide ...

We're doing all sorts of crazy things because of this alleged pollutant ... more and more beautiful meadows are being covered with black solar panels. It doesn't work very well; it doesn't work at all at night. It doesn't work on cloudy days. It doesn't work terribly well in the middle of the winter because of the angle of the sun.

But nevertheless we're doing it. We’re being misled into climate hysteria, and if you haven't read this book, I highly recommend it. It was published first in 1841, called ‘Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.’ It’s as relevant today as it was then ...

I'm a physicist. I'm proud to say that no one could call me a climate scientist, but I know a lot about climate and I was a coauthor of one of the first books on the effects of carbon dioxide 41 years ago. This was a study done by the Jason Group which I was a member of. I was chairman for a while and it had really good people there.”

Long-Term Impact of Increasing Atmospheric CO2

The key question when it comes to global warming is, how much do you warm the Earth if you double the atmospheric CO2 concentration? This is called the climate sensitivity question. The GUESS is that doubling CO2 would result in a 3-degree centigrade rise in the global temperature.

“It was not based on any hard calculations,” Happer says. “It was because of group-think. That's what everybody else thought, and so that's what we thought. Now, in my defense, one of the reasons I didn't pay much attention to this [is because] I was working on something at this time that I thought was much more important. So, let me tell you about that, so you get a feeling for why I think I'm qualified to pontificate about this subject.

It was the beginning of the Strategic Defense Initiative, of Star Wars ... President Reagan ... wanted some way to defend the United States so that we didn't have to have this mass suicide pact, and among other things we considered using high-powered lasers to burn up incoming missiles ...

But here's the problem. If you take the 1 megawatt laser on the ground and you send it toward the missile, by the time it gets to the missile, the beam — instead of focusing all the power on the missile — breaks up into hundreds of sub beams — speckles — and this was something that was well-known to astronomers. You have the same problem when you're looking at distant stars and galaxies.

Astronomers knew how to fix this ... If you can measure how much this wave is bent, then you can bounce it off a mirror bent in the opposite direction, and when the wave bounces up it's absolutely flat. That's called adaptive optics and it works beautifully. Then, when you focus the corrected beam, you get a single spot instead of hundreds of [beams].

The trouble with that is that if you look at the night sky, there are only four or five stars that are bright enough to have enough photons to do the measurement of the distortion of the wave. So, we had a classified meeting in the summer of 1982. There were a number of Air Force officers there who explained the problem. By chance, I knew how to solve it.

You can make an artificial star anywhere in the sky by shining a laser tuned to the sodium frequency onto the layer of sodium above our heads, at 90 to 100 kilometers.”

While the Air Force was initially dubious about there being a sodium layer in the atmosphere, they did eventually build the sodium laser proposed by Happer, and if you go to any ground-based telescope today, you'll usually see one or two of them. Anyway, that story was simply to impress you with the fact that Happer knows what he’s talking about when it comes to atmospheric constituents and their related phenomena.

CO2 Has No Discernible Impact on Earth Temperatures

According to the climate alarmists, rising CO2 will result in global warming that will threaten all life on earth. In actuality, however, CO2 “is a very puny tool to do anything to the climate,” Happer says.

Keep in mind that there’s no single temperature on the Earth. It varies by location and altitude. For every kilometer of altitude, you have an average cooling of 6.6 degrees C. This is known as the lapse rate. That cooling continues up to the troposphere, where it stops.

The cooling is due to the fact that warm air rises and cool air descends. “It’s the convection that sets that rapid drop of temperatures — 6-and-a-half degrees per kilometer,” Happer says. He then explains the following graph, which details the thermal radiation to space from the Earth, assuming a surface temperature of 15.5 degrees C. The greenhouse gases is the area beneath the jagged black curve.

According to Happer, this is only 70% of what it would be without greenhouse gases, which is shown as the smooth blue curve, because as the sun heats the earth, greenhouse gases — mostly water vapor — impede cooling.

The most important part of this graph is the red jagged line, shown here with a red arrow pointing to it. That red line shows the effect that a doubling (a 100% increase) of CO2 would have on the surface temperature of Earth. As you can see, it’s negligible. It decreases radiation into space by just 1.1%.

As noted by Happer:

“Let that sink in. We’re far from doubling [CO2] today. It'll take a long time, [and] it only causes a 1% change. So, CO2 is a very poor greenhouse gas. It's not an efficient greenhouse gas.”

If you remove ALL CO2, you end up with the green jagged curve. As you can see, the green and black jagged lines run parallel with the exception of one spot. There’s a huge effect if you go from zero CO2 to 400 ppm (green arrow). But it’s again negligible when you go from 400 ppm to 800 ppm (black arrow). As explained by Happer:

“You get all of the effect in the first little bit of added CO2 ... So, it's really true that doubling CO2 only causes a 1% decrease of radiation. The IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] gets the same answer so this is not really controversial, although they will never show you the curve or tell you that it's 1%. That would interfere with the narrative ...

So, this is radiation to space. How do you change that into a temperature? They're worried that we'll get intolerable warming of the surface of the Earth where we live, or other parts of the atmosphere.

Here again it's important to do the first order calculation ... and it says that the warming from doubling CO2 is ... less than one degree ... 0.7 [degree] C. Very small. You really can’t feel that.”

Why, Then, the Alarm Over Rising CO2?

Needless to say, this is a huge problem for the climate science community, because a 0.7 degree C difference means there’s no climate emergency, and no matter what we do to reduce CO2 emissions, it’s not going to impact the climate.

So, to fabricate an emergency where there really is none, the IPCC “assumes enormous positive feedbacks,” Happer says. Because CO2 is not a potent greenhouse gas, the tiny direct warming caused by it is amplified by factors of anywhere from four to six to make it seem like it has a discernible impact.

“I like to say it's affirmative action for CO2,” Happer says. “It’s not very good at warming but if you assume lots of feedback, you can keep the money coming in.” The problem with that is that most who have a background in physical chemistry and physics know that most natural feedbacks are negative, not positive.

“The 0.7 degree C of warming you get when you double the CO2 is probably an overestimate, because there are probably negative feedbacks operating in this very complicated climate system that we live in.” ~ William Happer, Ph.D.

This is known as the Chatelier Principle, named after the French chemist who first discovered that “when a simple system in thermodynamic equilibrium is subjected to a change in concentration, temperature, volume or pressure ... the system changes to a new equilibrium and ... the change partly counteracts the applied change.”

So, the 0.7 degree C of warming you get when you double the CO2 is “probably an overestimate,” Happer says, “because there are probably negative feedbacks operating in this very complicated climate system that we live in. The atmosphere, the oceans, everything is nonlinear.”

The key take-home from all this is that whether we’re at 400 ppm of CO2 or 800 ppm doesn’t matter when it comes to impacting the temperature of the earth. In short, the climate hysteria is just that. It’s not based on any real threat. Only if we were able to get to absolute zero CO2 would there be a change, but doing so also means we’d exterminate all living things on the planet. It’s nothing short of a suicide agenda.

More CO2 Will Green the Planet

As explained by Happer, more CO2 will green the planet, making it more hospitable to plant life. The more CO2 there is, the better plants and trees grow, so if we want lush forests and bountiful harvests, cutting CO2 is the last thing we’d want to do.

“All plants grow better with more CO2 [in the air],” he says. “Plants are really starved [of] CO2 today. We know plants need many essential nutrients. They need nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium; most important of all they need water. But they also need CO2, and like many of the other nutrients, CO2 today is in short supply.”

CO2 benefits plants by reducing their water needs, hence less risk from drought. Higher CO2 levels also reduce harmful photorespiration. According to Happer, C3-type plants lose about 25% of their photosynthesis potential due to increased photorespiration. For more in-depth information about the role of CO2 in plant growth and photosynthesis, please view the video. This discussion begins around the 40-minute mark.

Lies, Ignorance, Stupidity or Something Else?

In closing, Happer makes an effort to explain what’s driving the climate hysteria:

“In spite of incontrovertible arguments that there is no climate emergency — CO2 is good for the Earth — the campaign to banish CO2, ‘net zero,’ has been very successful. So, how can that be? I’m really out of my depth here because now I'm talking about human nature. I'm really good with instruments and with solving differential equations but I'm not very good at understanding human beings.

But here are some of the drivers: noble lies, political lies, ignorance, stupidity, greed. Noble lies goes back to Plato who discusses it in ‘The Republic.’ ‘In politics, a noble lie is a myth or untruth, often, but not invariably of a religious nature, knowingly propagated by an elite to maintain social harmony or to advance an agenda.’

And here there's a clear agenda. If you could somehow unite mankind to fight some external threat, for example CO2 pollution, then we won't fight each other. There won't be wars. So, I think many sincere people have latched on to the CO2 narrative partly for that reason. You can actually read about it in the early writings of the Club of Rome.

Then there are political lies. This is one my favorite H.L. Menken quotes: ‘The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.’”

Ignorance, of course, is widespread, and largely based on incomplete knowledge or a flawed understanding of the facts. And what of stupidity? Dietrich Bonhoeffer, one of the few German clergymen who opposed Hitler and eventually paid for his public dissent with his life, once wrote about human stupidity:

“Against stupidity we have no defense. Neither protest nor force can touch it. Reasoning is of no use. Facts that contradict personal prejudices can simply be disbelieved — indeed, the fool can counter by criticizing them, and if they are undeniable, they can just be pushed aside as trivial exceptions.

So the fool, as distinct from the scoundrel, is completely self-satisfied. In fact, they can easily become dangerous, as it does not take much to make them aggressive. For that reason, greater caution is called for than with a malicious one.”

Happer himself has experienced the danger of opposing stupidity. “I regularly get phone calls threatening me, my wife and children with death,” he says. “So, what kind of movement is this?” Lastly, greed. A.S. Pushkin once said, “If there should happen to be a trough, there will be pigs.” And climate science is currently where the big bucks are — provided your work furthers the global warming narrative and the need for net zero emissions.

Whatever the drivers are, responsible people everywhere need to push back against the false climate change narrative and the net zero agenda, as it will accomplish nothing in terms of normalizing temperatures, but will rapidly erode quality of life and the sustainability of food production, and shift wealth into the hands of the few.

[xtruss]

Photo Booth: A Double View of the World From Inside Mosques! — In Marwan Bassiouni’s “New Western Views,” the Windows of Muslim Houses of Worship Provide an Unfamiliar Framing For Ordinary Sights.

— By M. Z. Adnan | February 27, 2023

Photographs by Marwan Bassiouni

Marwan Bassiouni’s Photographs in “New Western Views” capture two places at once. Each picture in the series was taken inside a mosque, with the camera pointing toward the windows to reveal the buildings or landscapes beyond. But the pictures give equal weight to the interiors of the mosques themselves, which might be colorful or muted, ornate or spare. Bassiouni began the series in the Netherlands, in 2018, touring the country to visit some seventy mosques while attending art school in the Hague. (A book of those images, “New Dutch Views,” was published in 2019.) Two years ago, he expanded his travels to the United Kingdom and Switzerland. Bassiouni told me recently that he sees the project as an act of portraiture. “I’m photographing spaces that, in a way, have a soul,” he said.

Bassiouni was born in Switzerland, in 1985, to an Egyptian father and an American mother. The nearest mosque was about thirty minutes away, in Geneva—he visited twice a year during Eid and for the occasional Friday prayers. He was not a practicing Muslim until the age of twenty-four, around the time that his interest in photography began. He was working in a restaurant at a ski resort, in the Swiss Alps, and living on its premises. Left alone each evening at the top of the mountain after the other employees left, he began photographing the view with his three-megapixel phone camera. Later, he assisted a commercial photographer on fashion shoots, and then worked as a documentary filmmaker for a human-rights organization focussed on the Middle East, a gig that coincided with the Arab Spring. In making photographs that simultaneously depict both the inside of mosques and their outside environments, he was interested in engaging with popular perceptions of Islam. In the easily suggestible Western imagination, the mosque has often been cast as a site of sinister machinations. Bassiouni’s images offer an alternative gaze from within, with the windows of the prayer rooms providing an unfamiliar framing for ordinary sights: a row of suburban houses; the parking lot of a supermarket, flanked by a red bus in London; looming apartment towers; a sports pitch; a highway; a church.

Bassiouni’s approach is informed by the aesthetic values of Islamic art, such as the importance ascribed to geometry, and the notion of euphony with regard to the poetics of the Quran. Every photograph is made with natural lighting and with two exposures, one for the inside and one for the outside space. The images are then combined digitally to produce a scene that corresponds as closely as possible to what appears in reality. “From the Islamic perspective, you’re trying to respect the way things are created,” he said. “So you wouldn’t want to change things, and you wouldn’t be able to do it better. There’s a natural balance and harmony.” Some of the images bring to mind the precision of Indo-Persian miniature paintings, in which elaborate scenes are encased within intricate borders.

Elsewhere, the interior spaces are palimpsests, bearing the quiet traces of previous tenants. In the United Kingdom, Bassiouni has photographed mosques that were formerly cinemas, churches, pubs, night clubs, gentlemen’s clubs, working men’s clubs—their floors now replaced with plush carpets in sapphire or crimson, walls adorned with minarets and Quranic verses. Clues of these past lives are mostly long buried, but occasionally one can identify an old radiator or wood panelling. A wall painted in lime green evokes the possibility of psychedelic forebears.

To view the photographs is to be engulfed in these mysteries. For exhibitions the images are presented at large scale to approximate the experience of being inside the spaces peering out, allowing viewers to imagine that they, too, are standing among the congregants in the room. Ultimately, Bassiouni hopes that audiences will forget that they are looking at a photo. Perhaps they might also forget that there is a separation between the two elements of each photograph, and see that the mosque is as much a part of the landscape as the church or grocery store it looks out on, enmeshed in the mélange of the architecture beyond and the lives that are led there. Bassiouni recalled a recent visit to a mosque in the Swiss canton of Valais at sunset, during the Maghrib prayer. The space was housed in a multipurpose industrial building, whose other rooms were rented out to various businesses. As the prayer concluded, the sound of upbeat music could be distantly heard. In another room, an aerobics class was beginning.

[saintsofwarding]

SAINTS OF WARDING; HUNGRY DEMONS

Chapter 11: In Which Even Devils Have Their Day

He was alone again, alone in the dark, nothing but half-forgotten memories to light his way.

***

A little boy huddled in a closet, knees pulled to his chest, staring through the gap of light between the door and the frame.

In it he glimpsed a room: comfortable and shabby. The glimmer of gilt. Embroidered cushions, worn with use. Firelight shadows. A woman, standing before the outside doorway, her back to the boy as he stared at her, paralyzed with fear.

This is a blessing, you fool. A gift. A chance for him to become greater, to serve a purpose beyond any of your mortal imaginings-

Wings spread, six of them black and glistening like mold. Fury radiated through the room in waves. The woman stumbled back as Miranda advanced, her gilded claws spread.

Somewhere, a baby began to cry.

You should understand. You, the child's mother. Do you not want better for him? To claim his name? His birthright?

The woman hadn't backed down. I won't have you claim it for him.

Miranda's eyes had flashed beneath her golden mask. A god, yes, but also a petulant child, denied a plaything.

Pity, she'd murmured.

"Don't look," the little boy whispered.

Heisenberg didn't. He turned from the scene, from the truth, and stepped through the slick curtain of mold. His mother's cries echoed behind him as the light receded, as the darkness closed around him once more.

***

In that darkness-

"Help me!"

It echoed from the mold-shadows, a long, trailing cry. Rose. Heisenberg picked up speed. Mold rained around him, sucking at his boots, writhing up his body as if to bear him down into the churning black pool at his feet. He tore through, forcing himself on. Voices echoed from the darkness, lost in time.

A perfect affinity...

A villager's face flashed in his mind, wet with tears, the snarls of lycans descending. Please, don't, I promise, my lord, I swear-

A woman's bloodied face, her throat ripped out by one vicious slash, golden claws sticky with blood gripping his shoulder. An alien force in his mind, already licking the memories clean. You needn't worry, child.

You have a new family now.

"Heisenberg! Help me!"

Take her. And take care of her.

Please-

***

With a yell, Heisenberg muscled through the wall of mold.

It fell away around him; the darkness rippled, muscular as a throat, slicking out into the black-and-white tiles of an ornate parquet floor. Crystal chimed, high above: a massive chandelier. It seemed to float, suspended in midair, countless candles flickering through its facets. The ruddy glow of antique wood filled the lofty heights of the hall, stoked by the embers of a fire in a massive carved fireplace. Heisenberg's gaze traveled up the sweep of a staircase, carpeted in red, the heights of the place drowned out in shadow.

His breathing slowed. He knew this place. Of course he did. He'd tried his damnedest to avoid Castle Dimitrescu- place reeked of blood and money- but in all his years of serving Miranda, he'd inevitably been there a time or two. Before, it was full of cackles and taunts, Dimitrescu's daughters circling him like a trio of black-clad hyenas, licking their fangs as they sized him up and spat lewd jokes and giggled when he returned them in kind.

Now, the shadows were empty.

He paced forward. The limits of the hall rippled, details lost in haze; this was a dream, after all, one of Alcina's memories culled from her many years of life. Portraits stared down from the wood-paneled walls, Dimitrescu ancestors as elegant and dark-haired as the Lady herself, watching this interloper in their midst with aristocratic disdain.

Heisenberg stopped before the fireplace, the trio of couches that made a semicircle around a low coffee table carved in overblown Baroque style. Two teacups waited there, an antique silver tea service set up as if in anticipation of a visitor.

All of this is mine? All of it?

Heisenberg turned as the double entry doors were flung wide. A girl swept through, tall and statuesque, her broad shoulders thrown back beneath the fur collar of a gray velvet evening-coat. Her sleek black hair, bobbed to her chin, reflected the firelight, glossy as the mahogany paneling. Behind her, wreathed in a cloak of black feathers, came Miranda.

Of course it is, Alcina. A scion of the ancient House Dimitrescu deserves the embrace of its ancestral home.

The girl- Alcina- laughed, spinning in a circle, letting her coat flare around her. She let it slip from her shoulders, trailing into an opulent pool of silvery velvet on the floor. It's like a dream. It's like something I always knew was there, and yet could never reach...

It's all in your grasp now, Alcina. Thanks to the Black God, everything we penitent can dream is possible.

Alcina glanced back at Miranda, her blue eyes glittering.

Even what you spoke to me of?

Especially that. You-

Miranda cut off as Alcina's eyes widened, then, without warning, she coughed. Blood burst from her perfect lips, spurting across the black and white floor tiles. It spackled the front of her loose day dress, marring the creamy silk, trickling down its intricate embroidery like strings of glossy red beadwork.

Alcina's hand flew to her mouth, but the damage was done.

And...and this? she managed, after a moment, lifting her gloved hand from her lips.

Miranda drew closer, taking the taller girl's hands and clasping them, gently, in her own. Everything, she said, her voice soft and soothing. This will become a strength too, my beauty. You needn't be afraid of it.

You needn't be afraid ever again.

They were gone, and with them went the firelight. Whispers filled the great, empty hallway, the cold darkness. Soft footsteps pattered away as Heisenberg pushed forward, searching the darkness for the first sign of movement.

"Rose?"he called. His voice echoed away, away, warped by the unearthly resonance of this dream-place.

More footsteps, more shuffles. A chorus of soft whispers. Ghostly forms waited in the darkness, huddled together, whispering to one another behind their hands. Young women, all of them. He thought he recognized some of their faces from the monastery. The women Dimitrescu had stolen, he realized. Were their original minds trapped inside her? Had Lady Dimitrescu, mutating still as she healed herself, become a mutamycete colony within herself, trapping these girls' consciousness even as their bodies were wracked and changed by her considerable will?

If they were trapped here, witnessing Dimitrescu's actions, then they must have seen what had happened to Rose.

They flinched away as Heisenberg approached.

"Where is she?" he demanded.

Cannot- will not- Their voices fluttered around him like frightened birds. Mother- she'll hear us- wants to protect us- hurts, hurts, hurts-

"She'll hurt her more if I don't find her. You get me? That kid's father killed her the first time around. You've been inside her head. You have any idea what she'll do to her in payback for that?"

She pleaded with us too-

-Couldn't help her-

-Needed a friend-

One of the women lifted a ghostly hand, pointing. Red glimmered atop a nearby shelf. Heisenberg rushed for it and took it up.

A little straw doll, a twist of red yarn tied around its neck.

"Needed a friend, huh?" Heisenberg muttered.

A scream lit the air. A door thudded open. Beyond pulsed a dull red glow. With a last glare at the girls, Heisenberg made for the door and stepped through.

He passed into a courtyard. The castle courtyard, but chopped up, put back together wrong, blurred and indistinct. Snow swirled through tangled plants, through icy stone archways, flagstone paths leading off at mad angles. Statues rose through the snowdrifts; for a moment Heisenberg thought they were in Dimitrescu's typical taste, nubile young women in poses of slaughter or sacrifice, but as he drew closer he saw they were hooded and corseted, antique necklaces clasped about their throats. Their faces were familiar- pretty young girls with spills of blood dripping from their mouths. Now, though, they didn't taunt him or mock him. Now, each was frozen in an expression of terror. Bela, Cassandra, Daniela, their figures remade in milky crystal, their hands raised as if shielding them from a merciless final blow, frozen forever in their final moments of fear.

The red glow still pulsed ahead. With a last glance at the Dimitrescu daughters' corpses, Heisenberg stepped into it.

The hall on the other side was red, and wet. The walls shone slick as fresh meat, the air thick with the fug of flesh and decay. The door slammed shut the instant Heisenberg stepped through; he whirled, but it melted into the red gloom before he could so much as grab for the handle.

Ahead, further down the hallway, another scream echoed. Agonized, howling. A wounded animal.

Heisenberg picked up speed. Doors swam from the darkness; he pushed through.

Beyond was a bedroom. He'd never seen her private chambers before- thank fuck- but from the decadence of the decor, the ornate goldwork along the ivory paneling, the brocade curtains sweeping from the bed canopy, Heisenberg assumed this was Dimitrescu's. Embers shimmered in the fireplace, illuminating the bed and the two figures on it, one reclining, one standing.

Illuminating the blood.

A sea of it soaked the bed, the carpet, the prone form of the woman lying atop the bedclothes, her nightgown stuck to her skin. She was so pale Heisenberg was surprised there was any blood left in her body at all, her shining waves of dark hair dripping as she gasped each pitiful breath.

Miranda stood over her, watching Alcina as she lay in the throes of her disease. Rest now. Save your strength for the Cadou.

I could not save them, Miranda...

They served me well, dearest Alcina. Take comfort that your daughters' deaths were not for nothing.

I...I was not there to protect them. I left them to the dark. The cold...

The whites of her eyes were webbed with red. One hand- mortal, not yet taloned- twitched on the bedclothes, as if reaching for a girl that was not there.

He cut them down, she whispered. One after the next. My dearest ones. All of this...all my strength...and it was still not enough...

What was this place? The hollow in her heart, Heisenberg realized, with a pang. The locked room deep inside that was her substance, that held captive the summation of her every fear. Past her talons and stature, past her decades of murder, torture, and bloodshed, past her magnificence, her arrogance, her confidence reigning supreme, this was what made up Alcina Dimitrescu. A dying woman, unable to save the daughters she so desperately loved.

A dying woman, plucked from insignificance and granted monstrous power, weeping alone in a hell of her own failures and grief.

Heisenberg approached the bedside.

Miranda melted away as he took her place, standing over Alcina. She looked so small like this. So human. That was what she was, after all, before the Cadou. That was what all of them had once been.

"Alcina," Heisenberg said.

"Heisenberg." She coughed; her teeth were slick and red as rubies. "You...you found me. Wretch. How dare you see me this way..."

"Shut up and face the music, Alcina. You lost. Fair and square. Now let Rose and the other girls go, and fuck off."

"Concede defeat? To you?" Her lips stretched back in a ghastly smile. "Never."

"You serious? I blew you up."

"You may have sprung your little trap, but I can still fight. I will crush you. I will crush you until your Cadou fails you, until that graceless heart of yours gives out..."

"You always hated me, Alcina. From the beginning."

"Undeserving. Common. Utterly without propriety."

"So were you. Who were you before Miranda plucked you from your parents' hovel? A peasant? Do you even remember, or did she fill your head with bullshit, too?"

"Liar," Alcina hissed. "Liar."

"Oh, keep blabbing! You're the biggest liar of us all, and completely to yourself." He leaned over her, grabbing her shoulders and pinning her down. "Now give me back Rose."

"She's...she's never going to...never going to replace her..."

"I know she's here somewhere, hidden in this freaky mind-palace of a castle. Now shut the fuck up and tell me where-"

"She'll never be the same as Claudia," Alcina whispered.

Heisenberg froze.

Mistake.

Dimitrescu's eyes flashed golden. She grinned, her teeth lengthening into fangs, her body crackling as she grew. Her hand snapped around Heisenberg's throat, and with a heave, she lifted him off his feet.

Gasping, pulling at her hand, Heisenberg could only stare as she rose from the bed, growing before his eyes, her bloodied nightgown becoming the rags of her white dress, her hair lashing in gore-matted tangles around her shoulders.

"You want Rose?" she cried. "You'll have to go through me! Just like her father!"

With a heave, she flung him. Heisenberg crashed into the wall and shattered through, chunks of wood and mold raining around him; he hit stone and skidded, tumbling head over heels to an aching, grating stop. Snowy wind spackled his face with cold. A quick glance around told him she'd thrown him onto the bridge between the main wing of the castle and the Tower of Worship, a walkway of stone connecting the two structures over a perilous drop.

As he set eyes on the doors, he felt a warm pulse in his pocket. He clapped his hand over the warmth, feeling the shape of Rose's straw doll.

Ah-hah, Heisenberg thought. Of course. Where else had Dimitrescu ever kept her secrets safe? Nice one, kid.

He turned back as a scream of rage drowned out the wind. Dimitrescu loomed in the hole he'd made in the wall. If she was intimidating in her usual form, like this, she was terrifying. Nine and a half feet of rippling muscle, of bloody gown and bared teeth, she smashed through the remnants of the hole in the castle wall and stalked after him.

Dust and snow swirled around her as she splayed her hand. With a sound like swords drawn, her claws arced free. Five jet-black blades so sharp Heisenberg could nearly feel them on his eyeballs. Oh, now she was really coming out to play. Her draconic form might have been the stuff of nightmares, but when she got the claws out, things got real personal.

"I'll slice you into ribbons," she roared, eating up the distance between them with each mammoth stride. "Just like I should have a long, long time ago!"

His Cadou fluttered in his chest.

Somewhere-

Over Dimitrescu's howl, over the wind-

"Help me!"

Dimitrescu's footsteps hammered closer. Heisenberg made himself stand his ground as long as he dared, those talons slicing closer; she brought her hand back, ready to strike, ready to slash him in two-

Heisenberg whirled and dodged. Dimitrescu charged past him, momentum carrying her up the steps and past him. She smashed into the Tower of Worship's doors and through with a brassy bell-warp clang; Heisenberg ducked past her and into the Tower's gloomy cathedral interior, a mess of smashed pews and broken stained-glass windows, a holy place left to rot and be forgotten.

Now, it was inhabited by the living.

At its far end, where in reality the sarcophagus of Dimitrescu's would-be assassin rested, a small figure stood atop a dais. Hundreds of chains lashed her to hooks in the wall and ceiling and floor, pulling her arms painfully above her head.

Pale hair glinted.

Rose.

"Heisenberg!" she cried.

"Hey, kid," he yelled back.

"No!" Dimitrescu recovered, fast. She heaved to her full height, unsheathing her other hand's full retinue of claws.

There was little usable metal in the place, nothing but a bunch of old wrought-iron candlesticks about Heisenberg's height.

Good enough.

He summoned one and brought it up like a shield as Dimitrescu lunged; it hummed through the air and into his hand the instant before she struck. Sparks fountained as her claws shrieked off the iron, gashing deep marks in the metal. A second strike sheared it in two, edges glowing molten-orange from the force of her blow.

Heisenberg threw the pieces aside, stumbling back, back, with each strike, closer and closer to Rose.

"You think you can face me? You think you can ruin this again?" Fury blazed in Dimitrescu's eyes; each slash seemed harder, wilder, as if she'd thrown all of her elegance to the wind. "Did you enjoy it? Murdering them? Watching the light leave their eyes?"

She no longer saw him, Heisenberg understood. He was Ethan, or her nightmare-version of Ethan, the monster who'd massacred her daughters. Never mind that she'd set them on him. Never mind that he was searching for his own child. There was no logic, Heisenberg decided, to a parent's love for their children. There was only that love, and its strength, whether good or bad, could tear the world apart.

And now it would. And now she would. Let them all suffer for how she'd suffered.

It doesn't have to be this way.

We don't have to destroy each other just because she destroyed us first.

He stumbled up the dais, beside Rose. She stared at him from the thicket of chains, her eyes wide, her shoulders rising and falling with each sob.

"You came to get me," she whispered, amidst each tearing shriek of Dimitrescu's claws.

"'Course I did, kid," Heisenberg said. "You trust me?"

"Yeah."

He grinned at her. Behind him, the air parted. Dimitrescu's next strike would cut him in half. "Good."

And he fell to his knees and wrapped Rose tight in his arms.

***

The blow never came.

Cold seeped into his knees. A stone floor; the smell of blood. When he opened his eyes, a sea of shifting mold surrounded him, and clamped in his arms was Rose. She looked up at him and smiled, the protective coating of her mold that surrounded them sloughing away, melting into her body once more.

"Kid," Heisenberg managed.

"Did I do good?"

"More than good. How 'bout me? How'd I do?"

"You..." She buried her face in his shoulder with a little snuffle. "You smell gross."

"Shut your trap, kid, before I strangle you." He ruffled her hair, and she giggled. Together, they looked up.

Lady Dimitrescu sprawled before them, buried under the church's half-collapsed roof. Beams and rubble covered her, her flesh blackened and smoking, her wings reduced to rags of membrane and pulsing veins of mold. They writhed at each other, trying to reconnect and heal themselves. Her humanoid torso was slumped, head lowered, shoulders heaving as she breathed. Each exhale was a sawblade rasp, trickles of mold escaping her lips.

"You...you got me, Heisenberg." Her voice was an echo of its sumptuous self, a ghostly hiss, made reedy by her strangled breathing. "In...in the end...it was you...what humiliation..."

"Suck it, Dimitrescu," Heisenberg said.

He released Rose and climbed to his feet, shedding the final remnants of her mold. She didn't make a move against him as he approached and stopped before her, between her great taloned forepaws. Even like this, she towered over him.

"Going to strike the final blow?" she said. Her golden eyes narrowed. "Go on. Do it swiftly. Kill me with honor."

"I'm not killing you, Alcina," Heisenberg said. "Much as I want to." Mutters and gasps filled the church. Glancing behind him, he saw a collection of grubby people filing from a grate in the flagstones, eyes huge, faces blanched, taking in the ruined church and the monsters in its midst. The townsfolk from the catacombs. Some of them fell to their knees, hands raised in supplication, though whether to Dimitrescu, to him, or to Rose, Heisenberg couldn't tell.

"It's over," he told Dimitrescu. "Miranda. Us. All of it. Now move on. Find somewhere else to lord over."

"Someone must pay for my daughters..." A sob choked her, mangled and awful, as if wrenched from deep inside. A rumble coursed through her monstrous body. "My daughters..."

"Then why'd you spare me and the kid, huh?" Heisenberg asked.

Her eyes snapped to him. With a vast stirring of wind, ash and snow swirling in the draught, she lifted her wings. Her talons curled; she heaved to her feet, shaking aside the beams that had trapped her, exposing the great, glistening wounds they'd carved into her sides. Magnificent, Heisenberg thought, not for the first time.

"You really are a fool, Heisenberg," Dimitrescu told him, softly.

Her haunches tensed. Her wings snapped wide, and she bellowed, bringing the rest of the townsfolk to their knees, shaking the church, the hill, the foundations of the whole damn town.

With one powerful leap, she took to the skies. A thrum of pressure, a sweep of shadow, and then she was gone.

Heisenberg let out his breath. He flicked a hand down his dirty, ash-streaked trench coat. Rose approached him, and looked up at him.

"Still cool, kid?" he said.

She was already running. He knelt as she flung out her arms, as she clasped them around his neck. He gathered her to him, holding onto her, knowing all those fuckers from the catacombs were watching, and still not managing to care.

***

Outside, the rest of the town had gathered in the ruined graveyard. The morning light fell gray-gold and bleak across the wreckage, the town beyond, smashed roofs and cratered streets, bonfires sweeping their way through the rest, pouring dark smoke into the sky. People picked through the rubble, ashen, haunted. Some leaned against gravestones, rifles between their knees, heads down, weeping.

But others still were grouped around makeshift camps, around the prone bodies of the winged girls, their wings already dissolving into moldy pulp. Amongst them, he glimpsed Emilia, Anca and her grandmother tucking blankets around her, waiting with water and soup for the first sign of regained consciousness.

"Anca says she'll be all right."

Heisenberg turned. Teo stood behind him, backed by Andrei and the rest of her crew, bloodied and beat-up but fundamentally intact. Her mother's silver pistol was shoved through her belt. She'd shed her coat, and under the open neck of her shirt Heisenberg glimpsed the dark, radiating veins creeping up from her gut wound.

"Did you know the stolen women would be released when you defeated the Lady of Blood?" she asked. "Or was that just a lucky side effect?"

"Fifty-fifty, sweetheart," Heisenberg told her.

She arched her eyebrows. "I should punch you for that."

"Go on. I'd be interested in experiencing for myself the strength of a fresh Cadou recipient." He smirked at her. "All in the interest of experimentation, of course."

"Of course." She paused. "You feel like sticking around? We could use your, ah, skillset."

"Nah. I got Rose back, and that's enough good deeds for this month." He waved a dismissive hand at the townsfolk. "I don't have a horse in this race. Besides. What can I say. This place isn't exactly my scene."

The corner of Teodora's mouth quirked up in a dry smile. "Too dull?"

Heisenberg lifted his eyes to Rose. She'd wandered off, going to crouch by Emilia's side, pressing her hands to the other girl's forehead.

"She deserves a change of scenery," Heisenberg said. "And I made her a promise. I've come this far. In for a cog, in for the engine, as they say."

Teodora nodded. She glanced toward the ruined town, toward the crowd of townsfolk. Something seemed to settle in her eyes, and she gave a little nod, as if to herself.

She faced Heisenberg again and held out her hand, its nails black and split, bloody and bruised in the dawn light.

"What?" Heisenberg said. "No kiss?"

She scoffed. "I'd just come back from the dead, Heisenberg. Push your luck and it'll be your turn next."

He took her hand and clasped it, hard. For a moment they regarded one another. Then Teodora winced. She pressed her palm over her stomach, over the place her sister had stabbed her.

"I feel it," she said, after a beat. "The...the gift. It's like a weight inside me. Like another mind, thinking inside my own."

"Yeah, yeah. If you start mutating uncontrollably or melting spoons with your mind, that's normal. It all takes some getting used to."

"What..." She paused again, a slight furrow between her brows. "What am I, now?"

"Whatever you want to be," he told her. "You can be like me, start doing whatever you want to these people in the name of holy right. Or..."

"Or?"

Heisenberg shrugged. "Maybe this town needs a new saint of warding to keep away all the hungry demons."

[spacebookettes]

Book 6… Secret Manors

She woke dreamily into a warm bedroom… NOT Her bedroom. The shock of a strange bohemian room with almost rainbow colours, a mirrored dressing table with antique jewellery; delicate classical pieces, some with gems. A giant painting glances down at her. She gets up and uses the adjacent loo. Quilted loo roll. The bathroom is a slightly luminous green, with old threaded beads strung loosely around the panelling and doorway. All the fixtures are antique but she isn’t sure if that loo roll is modern or antique itself. Maybe just a wealthy persons make of loo paper. It is sunny back in the bedroom, the light intensifies as she looks up and around. She feels an old radiator, it is cold, so must be summer time.

She leaves the bedroom onto an old delicate hallway, down some stairs she slowly creeps. The kitchen has fruit and freshly made bread. A full stomach and she is looking out to a kitchen garden of slightly familiar vegetables, but the varieties she has never seen before. The growing techniques are a little unconventional. She makes her way through double glass doors into a sitting room, more large paintings are lazily unmoved by her presence… all but one, who’s unpainted eyes blink.

The library back up the stairs full of books written in perhaps Greek, she isn’t sure. The house is silent, the garden has no bird calls or crickets, the sky is blue. She can see a sprawling garden in the distance, it is lush but does not look Greek. Back in the library she searches the books for something she can read, a door way bookshelf opens with a light ‘thunk’. Inside is a circular spiralling down staircase carved out of an irregular rock cave shaft. The banister is simple though ornate, made of metal. Above her is a shallow glass dome letting the light in. The walls are carved shelves with simple earthenware urns places on them. Each urn is slightly different though they all look fashioned along the same principals or perhaps by the same person; they spiral down with the staircase into the slight gloom with warm light highlighting a lower floor, she can see the stairs continue down further into darkness from this level. She descends. At the next level is a cave exit into a grand garden for the Dead. She walks admiring the abundant though unfamiliar plant life. Something ‘criks’ from the undergrowth. A green glass hand parts the foliage, a green glass body comes after the hand and glass arm, it is carrying a basket of apples; it hovers at body height, a little pulse of green lightning generated below it’s body; no discernible eyes, just the clear glassy green body and arms. The robot ignores her and carries on back toward the cave.

Up the spiral staircase and into the library, she is following. It places two apples on a table in the library and goes downstairs and into the kitchen, where it hovers in a corner.

She goes back down the hidden spiral staircase from the library, she continues past the lower floor and into the darkness. She creeps down the stairs silently, to a sandy cave floor. A cave passageway leads into sunlight, large fronds of palm like bushes. She hears a human humming and stays hidden behind the fronds. A small man, a sort of classical fisherman type is humming and trundling happily along a path, he does not notice her. She follows the path in the opposite direction staying inside the frond cover. A town. A coastal village of rickety Tudor cottages, she sneaks her way through the misty back alleys and lanes, past quiet pubs, past a loud raucous pub onto the centre of the village; a duck pond. Parked next to it is a sleek hovering antique carriage. A smallish laughing man with moustache of the conniving variety, immaculate suit, expensive phone to his ear. Laughing the laugh of a nastily wealthy man. The carriage hovers away toward the other unexplored side of the seaside town. She explores the rest of the village unnoticed. At the edge of town, a little into the frond bushes is an old medieval stone cloistered building, long lines of arches and central courtyards of plain grass. Along the sheltered open air passageways stone shelves and urns in the same style but again all slightly different: perhaps the dead can come and go as they please. Behind the cloistered building is a small ornamentally carved stone house. Its arch features are similar in design to the larger buildings. She goes around to the back and listens near a high open window. It sounds like Greek they are speaking, with a slow pronounced plum to its accent, low and considered. She notices a path that leads beyond the small house and follows it.

The ground is soft, wet, a bog. Mist, cooler damp air, mangrove palms cast shadow everywhere; there is still a path, that leads to a gargantuan old tree: with more palm fronds, though its branches are twisted in serpent like meanderings. Dull silver coloured tubes are twisted around the branches holding them into the malformed positions.

Chapter 2

Back in the manor house. The robot has disappeared. She eats some more. Makes her way to the upper floor and looks inside the other bedrooms: All colorful though plainly decorated, looks like no one occupies any of them. She reaches a turreted stone staircase spiralling Cosily upward. At the top is a room with long views of palm like forests. She can see the garden for the dead it sprawls out away from the large house. She looks out towards the ocean, a distant lighthouse. The village is quiet still, only the occasional person about some errands. It would all be beautiful to her, if not totally alien. A dream paradise with familiar comforts, only totally surreal. She spies the end of a beach and just visible, a stairway up the distant cliff face.

Back unseen through the village she reaches the end of the beach and ascends the stairs up to a colder clifftop. Low bushes with miniature split patterned palm fronds... they retract and close up as she touches them, an automatic response to whatever munches up here she believes. A tall hooked claw like rock, orange in colour it reaches three stories into the sky. Silvery water bubbles up from its base, it surrounds the stone claw in a pool. The plant life keeps its distance from the strange water and the stream that runs away from the peculiar rock. The miniature palmed moors stream off into hillocks and mounds of all distant sizes.

She walks back down to the beach, she hears children and stands behind the larger palm bushes. The kids stand below the stairs up the cliff face. Giggling they look upwards excited and scared, pushing each other towards the stairway. A cold wind blows down from the cliff with just a hint of dog barking. The children run back down the beach. She makes her way past them through the palm fronds and back through the coastal village town. The other side is more beach that leads to the lighthouse, at it’s base are stylized red waves painted. Locked. She shoves the door and it breaks open quite easily. Up through rooms of empty wooden crates, some remnants of past living, a kitchen with 360° views and finally a giant light bulb fitting but no giant light bulb. She looks out at everything and sees a wide cobbled road leading away from the town and into the distance.

Chapter 3

She sits in the library slumped looking at a large floor level painting, notices a thread, a long thread by the eyes like an eyelash; she pokes the eye and a flap of painting opens. Two eyes rise up to greet hers and look surprised. She backs away. The whole painting opens inwards and out steps a woman. “do you like, apples you call them?” she backs away from the small woman. “My name is Aromond”. The woman walks to the table with two apples and picks them up and walks back through the painting door, “come on".

They walk through behind the walls corridors. Down some behind the walls stairs. Along and then into a small wooden panelled hidden study, it has double glass doors leading out onto a small balcony, with views into the distance of the road leading away from the town. They sit and eat the apples. The green glass robot hovers into the room. Aromond speaks the Greek like language and asks it if anything unusual has been happening in the village. The robot answers that the spies have seen nothing. Though someone has been seen climbing the cliff stairs to Shadow Corps point.

“amazing work! Though You’ll need to do better, if you are to find your way back home”.

Chapter 3

She is sat behind a curtain inside a plain looking floating carriage. The road is long.

A new town surrounds the carriage; more tudor cottages, a duck lake with neat grass parkland. Brick industrial buildings next to the park. She slips out of the carriage as it is moving. Finds a patch of unused industrial buildings. Inspects them all. They are covered in moss, little plantlifes in all the cracks and damp corners. Behind some straggly overgrowth she sees a tunnel, a smooth bricked circular tunnel of deep terracotta. The long underground tunnel has occasional shafts up and open to the air… the shafts get taller and darker. The end of the tunnel has a shaft with no light at the top, she climbs its metal tubed ladder. At the top is a metal door hatch. It is locked. She pushes, it doesn’t move. She pushes her back up into the hatch, wedges her feet and pushes with full body strength. It ‘clanks’ open into a beautiful water garden. Fountains. Pools. Ponds. Cascading streams and rock pools. All informal with moss everywhere. Tiny palm fronds higher up attatched to the high rocky parts. The garden is surrounded by a high brick wall. One wooden gate that she swiftly breaks open. Along a path surrounded by palm tree forest. Not far a house made of lighter terracotta coloured bricks. The door is open. She’s been warned about the robots and checks every room before entering. Finds a study, behind a painting is the safe she had been told would be there. She listens for the clicks of a simplified locking mechanism; opens the safe. Inside are documents. She takes out a small rectangle, slides its lense opening sideways. Takes all the usual pictures and is away back through the secret gardens tunnel.

In the town she has a look around. A sign made with red circle and medical looking equipment designs surrounding. She peers inside from one corner of its window. A waiting room. Men and women sneezing into cloth masks. They all look very unwell. A doctor with another villain moustache ushers someone from the waiting room. The person who had been before them looks healthy and happy and leaves.

She continues into this new town, lots of raucous pubs... eventually another beach, misty and cooler. She hides in the mist and follows the beach to its end. There are caravan homes with the mist, along the beach, wider plastic rectangles with large windows and single wheels in the middle for moving them. No one sees her hidden in the mist. She looks out to sea. A grey boat that looks translucent, large with sails the design is nothing like she has seen before... it disappears into the mist. She turns and sees a gray woman in elaborate dress on the beach waving at where the boat was; the mist curls around her and is gone. She looks down at the rocks at the end of the beach, a little further along is a large sculpture of a Lockness type monster staring out to sea. This world could almost be cute she wonders, if it wasn’t so alien.

Chapter 4

Back in the first house, Aromond is telling her about the local legends, ghost ships with a terrible lady who betrayed many sailors. The large reptiles that swim in the seas around here, the sculpture is to scare them away; it is larger than the real ones, who only see in black and white. A local legend hermit who lives behind a waterfall, he makes polished glass crowns with the local sand: his cave behind the waterfall is filled with sparkling polished glass jewellery and tiaras, no one has found the cave, though there are plenty of waterfalls in the region.

The robot comes into the lounge and Aromond ushers her into another painting doorway to hide. She watches through more eye holes. A man walks into the room, he has the metal emblems of a lord mayor; he too has the conniving moustache. They look at odds whispering the greek like language. He smiles an evil smile and leaves the room. Aronmond does not beacon her to leave her hiding place and stands motionless in the centre of the room. Men come into the room and assault Aromond, she struggles and they begin to drag her from the room. She bursts through the painting and throws the men to the ground, stands in shock at her strength, she notices that the men are all slightly shorter than her. They regroup and attack, she beats them down again, they seem to be significantly weaker than her. The people of this world have evolved differently. She is a super woman here. A surge of excitement and the men are all tied up. The robot will see that the men are cared for... her and Aromond leave the house. She expertly hides them both from the towns people as they leave the village and go to the lighthouse. On the rocks behind is another Lockness sculpture. Under its head is a switch that Aromond presses. A dark blue submarine surfaces out of the water. They swim a little way to it and climb inside.

Chapter 5

They are laying back in hammocks, Aromond is singing translated ocean riddles... tales of hillock gremlins, hope goblins and tiny bakery flour stealers. Giant ocean crustacean-mollusks that hold pirate treasure made pearls; you have to break the precious pearls and hope for gems or the lost cities coinage. Giant sea reptiles are hated by fishermen’s mothers. Tales of oddly sugary syrup seas, the many coral pinks of the seas weeds. The submarine bleeps. Water rushes from under the compartment door. They get into the torpedo launch tubes and swim out into the cold water, they surface to see the cave ceiling of an underground beach of stalagmites and stalactites. They turn and watch the surfaced submarine bubble and sink into the water. Remote controlled sabotage Aromond says... “that’s why i sleep by the torpedo launch bay”.

They walk up the beach of solid rock and up a rock carved staircase. It seems to go up forever. They are almost dry when they reach the top. Hot and exausted. A dusty storage room, old boxes. Shelves of skinny blue dolls. They reach the front of the shop, a gift shop: ocean clowns, tall blue cloth figures with bark covered wooden swords. Spiny plastic sea creatures. All dusty. They reach the street of ruined modernist roman like buildings. Ruined fake columns. Cracked reinforced concrete pretend domes. Shells of rubble and old armless fake marble statues. They pass an ancient library, there is life inside. People are sat reading, large old canvas books with gold titles. None of them notice they are being watched. A wild goat-ling walks past staring at Aromond and her. More goat-ling eyes stare out from the ruins they now notice. They walk to a crumbling old train station and sit. It is getting quite dark now. Streams of solar powered party lights blink on all around the abandoned city. The moons twirl and dance with each other in the sky as Aromond tells her about the two cults. Their country is run by two secret cults. No one speaks of the cults openly and no one knows who might be a member of each cult. Most people try not to be apart of it but the secret organisations secretly organise everything in their country. They have no headquarters nor hidden bases. Everything is organised in the houses of the villages along the coastal regions. It is morning, some naughty children are throwing rocks at the ruined buildings. They come over with backpacks full of pasties. Aromond buys some. An old smelly diesel train grinds into the station, it’s blue fumes release at ground level onto the platform. They get on board. Aromond tells her about her involvement and why the men attacked her... the usual tales. The train cackles and stutters along the tracks through a desert, a large triangle of metal on the front shifts the shifting sands… distant hulled out skyscrapers, more ruins. They pass in between two colossus statues... naked stone men battling. A skeletal face peers out from a hood above them on a sand dune. They sleep in the dark of a night train. The train shunts to a stand still and they get off into a dark cool night. A platform, sand all around them. They follow a wooden raised pathway from the platform. The desert night is packed with bright pins of white light that collect into an arch across the centre of the deep blue nights sky. The wooden path is following this line across the sky. Behind a large sand dune is an outcropping of yellow rock. They walk between its cliffage. They reach a rock face of all carved palace, all around them. An ancient giant carved stone stepway walks up the cliff face at the far end. They ascend onto a high platform covered in pooling silver water. A flat reflective surface of trembling tension. Abstract star light flashes up to them as their feet make ripples in the shallow water. They reach a shiny silver chrome hatch shimmering in the middle of the high plateau. She breaks it’s fixtures and with all bodily might heaves the hatch doorway open. Water drains down into the dark hole. They climb down. Aromond takes out a little spark box that lights the underground rooms. There are puzzle symbols etched into the walls and a crude circuit board of the usual unmet connections. Aromond rearranges it and the symbols on the walls glow with fluorescent pink. A doorway opens. Inside is a room with a large deep blue painted stone serpent coiled around a stone tablet. On top is a small box. There were other small boxes around the floor, all empty. Aromond opens this box, inside is a posh mechanical watch, etched on the back are the words Naughtiless6363. This ancient watch is worth 20,000,000 says Aromond as she stuffs it into a pocket. The room rumbles, liquid silver stars to seep from the edges of the ceiling. They run back, but the hatch is closed again. She pushes her back into the hatch and wedges her feet pushing open the door, silver liquid gushes onto them

To be continued

[twentyyearstoolate]

You stare at the scrap of paper in your hand, a little black x marked in the center. The others stare at you expectantly. Tammy sets the hat down and gives you a hug. "You got this, Lou. You'll be okay."

You approach the bunker door, unsealing the bulkhead and stepping into the decontamination chamber. You close the door behind you and climb the stairs. For the first time in months, you see the sun. God, after so long underground, it almost feels normal up here.

Then you notice the source of the disturbance. A large... it's a cluster of tubes? You're not exactly sure. Whatever it is, it's a ways off to the south. Maybe two miles of walking. You pull up your binoculars. You can hardly believe what you see - Strange, insect-like creatures are crawling out of a hatch in the bottom. They begin to set up equipment around the ship.

A smaller craft ejects from the side of one of the tubes. It looks almost like a boat, but with a hull on top and bottom. You realize a little too late that it's headed in your direction, very quickly. You hit the dirt and pray to God, but a few seconds later the double-boat pulls up right over the treeline above you. It springs a couple of feet out of its side and lands next to you. Two of the insect things pop out of a door on the bottom. They approach.

You hear them chittering between one another. One pulls out a device and punches a couple buttons. It makes a strange hissing sound. They look at you, then at one another again. A few more keys pressed. Again the device makes a noise, low and loud this time, almost like...

Wait. You know that sound. From the zoo. The marine life exhibit, the sound whales make, singing to one another. You get up, slowly.

"Do you... have English on that thing? English."

More chittering. A couple more presses. This time it emits a strange voice, almost human, but clearly synthesized.

"Greeting, denizen of planet. We none harm. Do you understand?"

You nod. "Yes, I understand."

The insect creatures nod back to you in an exaggerated fashion. The movement seems a little strange on their bodies. The one holds a button and speaks into the device.

"We have detect large energy on planet surface, there are harmful radiation. We come to speak planet leaders, join galactic alliance, offer assistance to you impact by disaster."

You look around. "Ah, jeez. Well, a couple months ago that probably would have been President Carson, but I think D.C. was one of the first to get nuked. If he survived the fallout, we haven't heard from the Capitol yet. We... I don't know how many more are left out there."

They read the screen on the device. More chitters and chirps.

"Explain what is 'nuked'?"

"Nuclear Bombs. There was a war, I... I don't know who launched the first one, but the advisory went out over the TV, the radio. We'd had a shelter prepared since our great-grandparents built it in the 50s, we got in and just... waited."

"You bomb you planet?"

"I guess you could put it that way. Not me, personally, but... the leaders."

A long silence. After a few minutes, the two insects begin to chirp back and forth. Another question, directed into the device.

"Leaders bad?"

In spite of it all, you can't help but crack a smile. "You wouldn't be the first to say it."

The two exchange words with one another. The other insect-creature brings out a device, topped with what appears to be a large solar panel. It plugs the speech synthesizer into the device, and text panels light up around a series of buttons.

"This thing make. Energy from sun, make into things. Food. Medicine. Give things to who need."

It hands the device to you, gingerly. "Thank you."

"Welcome. We return, one planet-cycle. Talk to you, leader. Be better of leader 'President Carson.' None harm planet."

"I'll do my best."

The two nod vigorously at you, and climb back into the craft, presumably to look for other survivors. You walk back to the shelter, gizmo in hand. You know it's not what they intended, but you hope to hell and back this thing can synthesize a cold one.

The war has ended, and all governments have collapsed. Now the world is so devastated that recovery is but a pipe dream. Now, in a cruel twist of fate, a massive alien fleet arrives, demanding to speak to the leaders. You are chosen at random to address them.

[mogulinterior]

Exquisite Antique Doors & Indian Fortress Doors

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Antique doors, Indian doors in washed patinas, are carefully salvaged from old Indian homes to custom design them into functional door or wall art.

Beautiful holistic carvings of chakras and folklore make the doors unique pieces of art and carry a lot of historic value.

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[wedezineinterior]

Luxury Roof Designs: Transforming Your Bangalore Home with WeDezine

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