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cutsiewitch · 9 months ago

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A Mechanic’s Worries about Pilots.

A gifted mechanic is called in to service a pilot. As The Mechanic begins to head towards her station to work on the pilot, she can’t help but ruminate on her feelings about pilots. She honestly doesn’t like them.

It’s not a personal thing, she’s sure that they were great people at one point, but it’s hard to see them like that anymore. She finds the whole thing creepy and offputting. She see’s what they do to pilots, knows how they’re made. She probably understands the process more than anybody on the base. She’s a prodigy in mecha suit engineering, which also includes pilot systems.

It makes her uncomfortable. The pilots are treated like objects, tools of war. That’s what they are too, what they’re made to be. Their skulls are full of tech that hooks them straight into their mechs, their brains fried with dopamine and other kinds of chemical soup to reward them when they shoot targets into slag. They even end up sharing the space in their head with the onboard ai’s of their mechs. They’re locked into the mechanical nerves and metal muscles of the mech. It makes them amazing killing machines, but their minds are practically crippled outside of the suits, raw and untethered, ungrounded.

The weirdest thing to her is they seem so happy. It doesn’t even look like it’s just the chemicals, it can’t be. They like it, whatever fucked up experience they’re having, it’s making them happy as can be. They want to get back into the suits, they want to push more. They like getting bossed around like dogs by their handlers. They love their ai’s almost like some weird fusion of a lover, a sibling, and a reflection. They can barely even articulate how they feel, most don’t bother, but The Mechanic has worked in this business long enough to learn anyways.

She gets to her workshop. It’s honestly kind of pathetic, barely worthy of the name. She knows that the pilots are treated as tools, but mechanics aren’t treated much better. Human but still not really worthy of respect. They work her and the other mechanics like slaves, cramping them into the crawl spaces where stuff needs fixing. Even with her advanced position all they afford her is this broom closet from hell. The room is cramped and humid, like a small metal sauna. It’s still marginally better than the communal workshop. Even with the bigger and more open room it still somehow manages to be claustrophobic and hot.

The Pilot is already there, sitting on her workbench, completely naked. The Mechanic isn’t surprised, but her face still burns with heat as she blushes when seeing The Pilot’s bare ass resting on the same giant hunk of tungsten-steel alloy she uses to fix delicate parts and machinery. The Pilot’s augs are invasive and take up a good portion of its body. Its arms, its legs, and a good portion of its back are more machine than human at this point. Normally the jumpsuits account for this, but those would get in the way of repairs. Normal clothes would too, and developing some kind of modesty cover for them is more trouble than it’s worth for the higher ups. They don’t have to deal with the nudity, and it’s not like the pilots even care.

The Mechanic wipes the sweat from her brow and crosses the room. She doesn’t actually acknowledge The Pilot aside from the blushing, but The Pilot’s gaze follows her as she makes her way over to a box of tools. She sets the box down next to The pilots thigh and pulls over the ratty stool she uses for a chair.

She starts servicing The Pilot. She pulls out delicate tools and with ingrained precision she begins opening up The Pilot’s augs, starting with the legs and going up. She hooks its systems up to an old box of a diagnostics unit and begins manually inspecting the parts. She pulls wires aside with tiny fractions of force and checks on the tiny sensors and servos that are no bigger than her fingernail, cleaning them with tiny swabs and lubricating them with drops of oil.

The entire time she keeps hearing weird noises. Soft whines and sounds of scraping play at the edge of her attention, distracting her just the tiniest amount. The Mechanic can’t tell where the noises are coming from, and it’s bothering the shit out of her. When she takes a step back to unfocus and wipe the sweat from her forehead, she sees where it’s coming from.

It’s the pilot. It’s breathing heavily, like it’s exhausted. Its face is almost as flushed as The Mechanic’s when she walked in. The metal tips of its fingers scratch at the polished surface of her workbench. Jesus fucking christ, was The Pilot turned on right now? With the face it was making it had to be.

Fuck, now The Mechanic was thrown way off. It was already hard enough to try and pretend this was just normal machine servicing when all of the machinery was attached to a sweaty, naked girl, it was impossible to do it when she knew it was getting off to her poking around in its augments.

The Mechanic just couldn’t get back into the same groove she had before. Every stifled moan disrupted her concentration. Every squirm messed up her precise motions. Everything just kept bringing her back into the moment, where her face was inches away from the pilot’s crotch.

The Mechanic slogged through the rest of the grueling work, doing her best to try and travel into that little place in the back of her mind where she could just stop thinking and do what she was good at. She finished with the legs and then told the pilot directly to lay down so she could begin on her arms.

The Pilot laid down like it was told. The Mechanic scooted her stool forward and raised the seat for a better vantage. In the end the new position wasn’t all that much better than the old. The Pilot’s left arm was cradled on The Mechanic’s lap while she popped it open and began working on it.

It was more of the same. Nothing wrong but basic cleanup, which meant The Mechanic wouldn’t be busy enough to zone out. She could see its face clearly now. It looked so human, so lively. When she pressed a sensor its hand tensed and squirmed, pushing against her stomach a bit. A tugged wire elicited a slight yip of surprise. It felt so carnal, to dig into this things innards and just mess around.

Seeing it like this, The Mechanic couldn’t help but wonder about the difference between the two. Right now it looked just as human as she was, so she couldn’t apply the same cold business mentality she usually did with her work. She felt like they were almost one in the same. I mean, look at it, being a pilot can’t be so bad, right?

The Mechanic’s thoughts ground to a halt. Her surprise was so sudden it caused her to tweak a wire hard enough to get The Pilot to let out a proper yelp. Neither could tell if it was a yelp of pleasure or pain.

What had she just thought? Seriously, what the hell was that? Was she serious? Of course being a pilot is bad, being treated like a mindless dog, worked like a machine, and used like a toy. The Mechanic barely knew where that thought had even come from. I mean, it and her were nothing alike.

The Mechanic stewed in those thoughts, trying to reassure herself that she was nothing like it. She wasn’t an it. The Mechanic was a person, and it was just a pilot. The Mechanic tried her best to just focus on the work, but she couldn’t. The thoughts bothered her so much, and she really couldn’t dismiss them.

Because they were alike, very much alike. Not in the sense that The Pilot was a person. In the sense that The Mechanic wasn’t.

The Mechanic couldn’t help but feel it. She was a cog in a much larger machine, a tiny piece. She was treated almost the same as The Pilot

The Mechanic was worked like a dog. She was given shit conditions and forced to do shittier things. She was expendable, one in a million. You could point to almost any outward aspect of the two of them and they would match up.

The thing that frustrated The Mechanic even more was how they were the same on the inside too.

The Mechanic knew what it felt like to become something bigger. Working in the engineering wing was like being in a hive mind. You’re practically shoulder to shoulder with the people next to you. You become parts of the same whole, you work together, you sweat together, you create together. She can’t even remember how many times she had needed something, a part, a tool, a towel, anything, and a mechanic next to her had just known, and given it to her. She knew she had done the same for others all the time.

She could admit to feeling like an it sometimes. Stripped of your identity, down to everything but your use. She didn’t know The Pilot’s name, and The Pilot probably didn’t know her’s. She was a mechanic. She was nothing but the job she did. A function, not a person.

Her head pounded as she adjusted her grip on The Pilot’s arm. Her head buzzed and it felt like her brain was melting in the heat of the room. She could imagine the wires burning up and melting their rubber casings. The copper and metal fusing together into a frenzied mess as her thoughts jumbled into each other.

She shook her head violently. God she was losing it! Her brain wasn’t made of wires, it was made of meat! She wasn’t overheating, she was just getting some kind of headache. She closed up the first arm, not even sure if she was really done, and told the pilot to swap sides through gritted teeth.

She wanted things to be simpler. She wanted to stop thinking. She just wanted to do her job. The Mechanic missed the engineering floor. She missed the absent thrum as she worked alongside her fellow workers, their thoughts synchronizing into a beautiful and productive symphony. She wanted to be a part of that, of it. She just wanted to be a Mechanic, that was so much easier than all of this.

Is that why pilot’s are so happy? Are they so content because that’s what it feels like? The Mechanic thought about it in her own terms. Would she give up her body to work more efficiently? Would she open up her mind, just to be even closer with the other mechanics? Would she shed all of the cumbersome weight that thinking like a person had, and just become a simple and unbothered it?

The answer was yes. The Mechanic wanted that. The simple, pure existence of it. The Mechanic wanted to be that, and nothing more. When it realized that, it had a much easier time working on The Pilot’s arm.

It finished up The Pilot’s back in no time too. Without all of the messy thoughts clogging up its head, the whole thing went smoothly. The Pilot was sent on her way, on wobbly legs and with shaky breath. The Mechanic might have messed with it a bit more than necessary, but it liked to consider that a reward, for good behavior.

The Mechanic realized it wanted a bit of a career shift. It thought that if being a mechanic was good, then being a pilot must be great! It loved working on machines, but it wanted that sense of empty completion even more. Plus, it’s not like it won’t be allowed to also do mechanic work still. It would be a lot better for everyone if it got to service its own mech. It would be a win win. The Mechanic wiped down its workbench for the last time, and with renewed vigor, went to sign up to become a pilot.

#empty spaces #mechaposting

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jpitha · 1 year ago

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Scientific Progress Goes Twang

"Why are we doing this again?" Del'rennian's tail flicked in worry.

"Because, if it works, it'll be really preem!" Rachel's voice was muffled under the machinery. Only her feet sticking out belied where she was in the room.

"Rach, that does not inspire the confidence you might think it does. I'm not a human, that doesn't work on me." Del's small hands were on her hips as she spoke with Rachel. Del'rennian grew up on a starbase that was equally populated with humans and K'laxi, so picking up their gestures and mannerisms was natural.

"Don't worry so much, Del. It's not like I'm modifying the main reactors. We'll be fine"

"No Rach, you're modifying one of the main batteries! You're messing with the weapons! I know how important weapons are to humans, you can't build anything without sticking a few exawatt lasers on it 'just in case.' I think your research telescopes have slug throwers on them even!"

Rachel slides out from under the weapons machinery. She's on a little board with wheels on it. Her face is smudged with... something. Del'rennian was pretty sure that human laser batteries didn't have oil, but maybe they did. "Del, this is the secondary battery, not the primary! I'm not an idiot."

Del's ears flicked. "That has not been determined with 100% certainty yet." Rach could hear the smile in her voice. She looked around the room. They were deep inside the battery, and were all alone. The lasers required only minimal maintenance and service after they were used. People would come once in a while to make sure everything was working, adjusting and collimating as necessary, but it's not like it needed a full time crew.

"Del'rennian, Rachel has explained to me what she is attempting, and I have given her provisional permission to install her modifications. Once we determine that nothing bad will happen, she will be allowed to test."

Del's ears rotated around, instinctively focusing on the source of the sound. Growing up on stations and starbases, Del knew that the AIs that humans put in charge of them were listening all the time, but she also knew that they mostly would wait for someone to query them before replying. It was a little unnerving when one decided to just jump in to a conversation. The AI that ran Reasonable Request was known to want to be a part of conversations and had a habit of butting in, but it was still odd. "You're telling me you're in on this nonsense, Request?"

"Yes Del'rennian. I think that Rachel's work could offer significant benefits to me in defense, as well as humanity as a whole. Ever since the convergence, we've had to increase our defences.

Del had to admit, Request had a point. Ever since the usurper Emperors Nick and Eastern did their little stunt to try and defeat Empress Raaden, things in human controlled space were much more... active than in decades previous. The influx of the Gren seemed to worry the K'laxi administrators more than she thought really was warranted, but they probably knew something she didn't.

Del sighed. She wasn't going to get anywhere with these two. A human designed AI was entirely too human to not go along with something that "seemed cool" when a human came up with the idea. "Fine. If you're okay with this Request, let's finish the install."

Two hours later, they were done. Del'rennian had to admit, it was more interesting that she thought it would be. She had never been that deep inside a laser battery, and it was - at the same time - much simpler and much more complicated than she expected. The actual laser part was incredibly simple. It was the power delivery that was complex. Rach's additions were made to assist with that.

As they put their tools away, Rach explained. "We've had wormhole generators for generations now and nobody has really done much with them. When the Others came over with their Flip drives, we were able to... er... borrow one and discover that while they concept was the same, the actual implementation was completely different! Theirs was more efficient, but ours was more accurate. Don't even get me started on the FlashWarp drives, I still have no idea how they work, and we've been warned against tinkering with them."

Without waiting to see what Del was going to say, she continued. "Anyway, it got me thinking. What if we used a wormhole generator to... boost the power delivery of the laser batteries! We could use a microscopic wormhole instead of superconductors and we'd be able to get a massive increase in power delivery in a much smaller package! With the generator that we installed, I should be able to increase the output of the laser by 3 or 4 times while making it smaller!"

Del'rennian's tail flicked. "Will it work?"

Rachel nodded. "Probably."

Request added. "Most likely."

Del crossed her hands over her ample chest. "So, when are we going to test it?"

Rachel looked around. "I don't see why we can't do it now. Request, what do you think?"

"I will query the commander."

They continued putting tools away for another three or four minutes when Request came back "The commander has approved a single firing of the secondary battery for testing purposes on my recommendation. She thinks it's 'a little strange' but I assured her that it was a routine test."

Del's fur bristles "Wait, you didn't ask the commander first?"

Rachel shrugs. "I asked Request. It's their body. I figured this was close to the same thing."

"But, you're messing with the weapons systems! What if the Gren attack?"

"We have the primary battery. Del, it'll be fine. Everything will work great. Request, please power up the battery for the test."

"Yes, Rachel. Powering up Secondary Battery."

While they watched, the laser battery powered on and warmed. Del felt rather than heard the emitter fold out of is storage blister on the side of the station. While she stood there, she heard a rising whine of capacitors charging and her fur began to stick out on it's own.

Wormhole generators are interesting things. They effectively punch a hole in space-time and allow things to pass between the two points instantaneously while the wormhole is open. For the majority of time that humans have used them, they have been used for spacecraft. Del couldn't remember a time when one was used in an atmosphere, or at least in a place that someone could hear them.

She had no idea that they made a noise.

When Reasonable Request fired the laser, the wormhole generator activated, punching a tiny hole in spacetime between the reactor and the laser. There was a noise that Del could only describe as a... twang.

Del'rennian and Rachel came to on the floor. Sirens were loud in her sensitive ears. As she sat up, her head pounded in protest. Rachel, who was closer to the laser, fared worse. Most of the hair on her head had flashed off, and she was unconscious on the floor.

"Request! Rachel is hurt!"

"Yes Del'rennian, I have already alerted the medical team. Quick Alert teams are on their way now, they'll be here in a few seconds. Are you hurt?"

"I don't know... I don't think so. My head hurts pretty badly though. Ugh, what happened."

"It appears that the secondary laser battery... linked away."

Del's eyes focused beyond Rachel. In the smoke and sparks of the room, she could see bare wires sticking out of the walls, mounting brackets sheared so cleanly as to shine like mirrors and a large empty space where the laser battery used to be.

As she marveled at what happened the Quick Alert team came in and rushed over to Rachel. They applied a heal pack to her and the Nanites within got to work. After a few seconds she groaned and tried to roll over. "No no, don't move yet. Let the Nanites do their work" One of the Alert team said as they touched Rachel's shoulder.

Del turned back to the door and saw Commander Hollister standing over her. "Del'rennian, kindly tell me what is going on here? I get a report of a wormhole generation inside my station and now my secondary laser battery is gone. What. Did. You. Do. "

Del stood up and shakily saluted. "I apologize Commander Hollister, Rachel was trying to... improve the performance of the laser batteries by installing a miniature wormhole generator." She intended to explain more, but that was as far as she got before she collapsed.

#humans are deathworlders #humans are space orcs #jpitha #sci fi writing #writing #humans and ai #humans and aliens #humans are space oddities #humans are space capybaras #Oops did I combine the K'laxiverse and Grenverse?#maybe I did #FlashWarp

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blueiscoool · 11 months ago

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Lost and Found: Bottle Hunter Digs Extraordinary Farmland Treasures

Tom Askjem is a time traveler. Every May to November, he disappears into the bowels of the earth, descends to depths of 13’-plus, and returns to the surface with treasure—bottles and glassware from farming’s past.

After 1,800 pits and hundreds of thousands of relics, Askjem is equal parts archeologist, thrill seeker, and mole. Muscle on dirt, the North Dakota farm boy has turned an addiction into a career, multiple books, and a captivating YouTube channel with millions of views. However, Askjem seeks more than glass.

“I’m digging for adventure, history, and love,” he says. The past is in these holes and there are countless numbers of them across farmland.”

Time to hunt with a master.

The Infection

On the flats of extreme eastern North Dakota’s Traill County, Askjem, 32, prepares for a dig trip. “No mountains and no hills in the Red River Valley,” he describes. “You can see your dog run away for days. The land is mostly featureless, other than a few big cottonwoods and shelter belts where farms used to be.”

A mop of blonde hair sits atop a 6’-tall, lanky frame as Askjem saddles his pony—a Honda Civic. At the current mileage rate, the Civic will be junkyard fodder before it has a scratch: 60,000 backroad miles added to the odometer in the past six months.

Askjem piles layers of gear into the trunk, including three of each tool for insurance: shovels, pronged garden forks, trampoline pads, probe rods, buckets, plastic scoopers, trowels, tents, sleeping bags, blankets, pillows, air mattresses, clothes, and waterproof, Redwing leather work boots.

“It never gets old,” he says, wearing a wide grin. “I caught the infection when I was a kid.”

Digging Bodies

Pushed from the Grand Forks area by the historic Red River flood of 1997, Askjem moved to a farm outside Buxton at six years young. The main property was an 1878 homestead—a progression from sod house to log cabin to the present standing 1898 farmhouse decked in Victorian-era woodwork and hardware.

Surrounded by history, including the skeletons of old wagons and rusting machinery, Askjem explored a 5-acre patch of woods on the property, and chanced on a garbage dump: pop bottles and trash.

Askjem dug.

“I went deep and found stuff going back to 1898. When you’re a kid living in the country, there’s no going down the street and there’s no hanging with friends to play video games—you make your own adventure. I started hitting up all the farmers I could find for leads.”

Behind the wheel of a rattling go-cart, Askjem sought Buxton old-timers and collected tips on abandoned houses. “They all helped me,” he says. “Nobody cared where I hunted because I was just a little kid exploring for all the right reasons.”

“I’ve still got an elementary school journal with an assignment describing my weekend,” he adds. “I wrote, ‘Me and Mom dug up old bodies.’ The teacher marked my paper out of concern,” Askjem describes, with an easy, deep chuckle. “I meant to spell bottles, not bodies. But it shows I was truly hooked.”

Indeed. Wonderfully hooked.

Soft Landing

Why are bottles buried under farmland and old house sites?

Prior to plastic and synthetics, glassware held everything: medicine, hygiene products, alcohol, soda, and beyond. Glass was it.

Additionally, prior to waste disposal services, homeowners discarded trash on-site—in back yard outhouses, trash depressions, burn pits, and wells or cisterns. In short time, the various ground receptacle spots were filled and forgotten.

“Let’s say, for example, a family moved in around 1880,” Askjem explains. “That site likely has two or three outhouse locations prior to World War l. The outhouse spots filled up at a rate according to family size. I dug one farmhouse site that had six outhouses in a 10-year span. Folks went into the outhouses and threw away bottles: medicine, opiates, beer, whiskey. It was convenient and private, and had a soft landing, and got covered quickly. Even now, the bottles often are still preserved.”

“Generally, these houses also had a burn pit and/or dump pit. In the early days, they burned all trash in the stove for heat. Also, homestead bucket wells were filled up with trash and bottles once they were replaced by pump wells. Cisterns also were eventually filled up, but most of those are associated with houses in town.”

And the sites remain, he emphasizes, hiding intact relics beyond the reach of farm machinery or tillage equipment.

X Marks the Spot

Location. Location. Location. Other than a tip or invitation, how does Askjem find dig sites?

X marks the spot, at least in the county courthouse or public library. He spends winters poring over early property transaction documents. “I look at lot sales. If several lots sold for $100 each in 1880, but one sold for $1,000 in 1885, the price climb tells the story and likely represents a building location.”

“I also read old newspaper archives, looking for hotel or business advertisements,” Askjem continues. “Then I can look up the proprietor’s name and keep tightening the scope, narrowing down the exact building location.”

“Every single house is different, but generally, in the countryside, outhouses were 30 paces out the back door. In the city, where most lots were 140’ long, outhouses could be as close as 5-10 paces.”

Confident of a site’s potential, Askjem first asks for permission to dig from the landowner. “Property owners are always so kind to me and I don’t hide anything I find. They’re curious about what is in the ground, just like anybody else.”

Second, he grids out the site. “I put down markers 2 paces apart, maybe 20 paces long. I push probe rods into ground and feel for compaction differences. Depending on the location, I’ll call in and have utility lines marked out for power and gas.”

Decked in Levi’s and a tank-top, it’s time to tunnel.

Claustrophobic Comfort

Shovel in hand, Askjem descends into a layer cake of dirt: black topsoil to brown-colored clay to telltale ash to a use layer containing treasure.

“Generally, I go deep to find old items in quantity. The earliest bottles were used to the last drop by farmers and thrown out empty. Therefore, when they froze in brutal Dakota winters, the glass didn’t break from liquid expansion.”

As Askjem extracts glass vessels from the dirt and grime, his encyclopedic knowledge registers with each find. He recognizes the type, manufacturer, and age. Ink bottles, hygiene bottles, medicine bottles, beer bottles, soda bottles—and far more spill from the holes.

“I find patented medicine bottles across the country, but my favorite are soda bottles because they are unique to their locale and have character. The old soda bottles are usually marked with the bottler and town name because they were returnable.”

The outhouse pits are typically 6’-deep at home sites, with an average size of 6’-by-4’-by-3’. “I’ve dug ghost towns, dug saloons, train depots, and pool halls that were 12’ long, 4’ wide, and 8’ deep. I remember a hotel pit that was 20’-by-20’ and 8’ deep. There was a military fort with pits behind the barracks that was 12’ long, 4’ wide, and 13.5’ deep: That was a week’s worth of digging.”

Askjem’s subterranean realm provides no comfort to the claustrophobic. At 8’-9’, he braces the holes with woodwork. “I’m in a solid clay base that doesn’t cave, but I have a healthy respect for the ground’s limitation. Sometimes, it looks like I’m digging a rabbit hole.”

Preserved in nature’s freezer, the artifacts unearthed by Askjem often are in phenomenal condition.

“Pieces of newspaper can still be read; bottle labels are legible; white lime used in decomposition is visible; and undigested seeds are everywhere. Even 120-year-old human waste sometimes is perfectly preserved and still smells like hell. I wear a hydrogen sulfide respirator in those cases.”

“It’s all there; almost like it was dropped yesterday.”

Ghosts in the Ground

In 2022, Askjem began chronicling his digs via a YouTube channel, Below the Plains, and soon captured millions of views. At two posts per week, he gins footage at a steady rate to feed the algorithm, a tough task considering the ground in his geography is frozen from mid-November to mid-May.

Additionally, Askjem has written two in-depth books (Nebraska Soda Bottles 1865-1930 and A History of North Dakota Bottling Operations 1879-1930) and has more on the way. “I put the bottle prices in the books because they can sell for a whole lot and I always tell the landowners. Listing prices draw criticism, but that’s important to me because it helps preserve the item, and preservation of history is what drives me.”

Covered in dust or mud at the end of each day in digging season, Askjem is highly respectful of what he finds—almost reverent after 1,800 digs. “I appreciate everything I uncover because it represents a part of someone’s daily life and existence. There’s nothing wrong with coveting bottles, but I’m really in those holes for the moment of discovery.”

Even when not digging, Askjem is on the move, surfing on the coasts or river diving for lost cargo. In the decades to come, will he continue burrowing into the past? “Twenty years from now, I hope I’m still digging and there’s nothing I’d rather be doing right now.”

“There’s not an infinite amount of lost bottle sites, but there’s certainly an incredibly high number,” he continues. “There were 300,000 homestead farms in North Dakota with a minimum of one well, one outhouse, and one trash dump. And that doesn’t include towns where most of the population lived. There are millions of these sites in North Dakota and far more in other states.”

Respect to a freewheeling hunter like no other. Bottles draw the eye, but ghosts draw the heart: “The moment never gets old when you uncover a bottle and find that history,” Askjem adds. “Never.”

By CHRIS BENNETT.

#Lost and Found: Bottle Hunter Digs Extraordinary Farmland Treasures #Tom Askjem #glass #glass bottles #ancient glass #ancient artifacts #archeology #archeolgst #history #ancient history #history news #treasure #treasure hunter #antiques #bottle hunter #long post #long reads

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keyrey · 5 months ago

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Jujutsu Kaisen characters & Industrial revolution (AU) Pt.1 – Nanami Kento POV, the hopeless blacksmith. A multi part series.

I fear the time has come when my work has become rendered useless by the people, and I am unappreciated simply because I am 'less' than a machine. Yes, I may produce 'less,' but what I 'lost,' people used to gain in value and sentimentality. The Industrial Revolution, lasting around 80 years, significantly reduced the demand for hand-made goods and services such as tailoring, irrigation, and sword-making, which happens to be Nanami's specialty. (Check your history and economics textbooks, kids.) During this period, most blacksmiths were deemed ‘redundant,’ as replacing items when broken became more reasonable and cheaper than repairing them. Yet in the quiet, these sacred skills persisted, anticipating every moment, counting down its return to the world.

I fear the silence has enraptured me, drenching my soul to the thousandth degree.

My eyes darted around the room, taking in the sight of tools strewn around the mountain of unfinished projects. The decline of clients sapped my motivation and the acrid flames from the crucibles dusted my nostrils in a haze of ash. I walked towards the chair at the other side of the room that had served me well all these years, its wooden frame as worn as my spirit. Stuck in this monotony of life. I traced my fingers over the well-worn instruments, their familiarity a stark contrast to the world of chaos beyond these four walls that I’ve surrounded myself in. I wonder how long I can hold on.

The clang of metal on metal, the hiss of steam, and the heat of the forge used to be the heartbeat. Now, a deafening silence enraptured the place like a heavy cloak, broken only by the distant humming of automated machinery. As times change, I struggle with doubts, even within myself, questioning the longevity of my lifestyle. If I wish to retire, I must adapt to the times and conform to the ebb and flow of humanity.

I have found something to busy myself with, assisting the locals in their financial decisions, though my own, in turn, have been questionable. As I watched them, their careful budgeting and pragmatic choices struck me. Each decision they made, each penny saved and spent wisely, seemed to carry a weight of survival that I could only admire from afar. Farmers transition to tractors, coachmen to bus drivers, caterpillars to butterflies. Am I falling behind?

As I attempted to clear my weary head, I observed the jasmine I planted long ago had found the courage to bravely spread its vines, tangling itself in the depths of the rusty metal trellis perched against the bricked wall. Meanwhile, my osmanthus and chrysanthemum have taken their final drops of water, signaling the end of my tea supply. Even my possessions seem to be slipping away.

Laughs and giggles echo regularly from the speakeasy across the street, where actors, actresses, singers and dancers gather, filling the bar with a reservoir of talent. A reminder of how I used to live, on a hunt for fame and popularity. I had succeeded once, too. The crackling timbre of gravel against tires revealed a car, sleek and shiny, its engine purring like a contented predator. I expected it to pass by like all the others, yet its passengers bearing gold and medallions happened to be seeking a temporary escape. I don’t like to admit it, however, I used to be like that once.

I still remember when I received my first paycheck. I got cocky, lazy, unknowing of the repercussions that lied beyond the surface. Blinded by the allure of fame. How my father’s blacksmithing passion burned in the ashes right before my eyes, how he disappeared from the face of the earth, not remembering the name of his own son.

The door swung open, and a polished shoe touched the pavement with deliberate grace. Slowly, he emerged, straightening to his full height, his tailored suit catching the light just right. His eyes, hidden behind dark circular sunglasses, stood tall as if he owned the world—or was about to. His pearly white locks swayed with the gentle gusts of wind. His peculiar outfit left no room for misinterpretation, reminding me of a secret society member, those in the Edo period from way back when. Three consecutive knocks interrupted my pensive train of thought. Clearly, the man hadn’t seen the ‘closed’ sign on the door. I silently screw myself for only writing the text in Danish. “I am closed, go home, Gojo.”

I knew him, mostly as the piercing icy blue eyed man who had been loitering around the shop for three days in a row now. I half expected him to add to the collection of the ‘no swords, no shields’ signs that were attached on the notice post by hammer and nail. Ever since the mass blacksmith boycott, he found an opportunity to speak out against the ‘old school’ way of fighting, promoting ‘Jujutsu Sorcery’ as an alternative. I had considered it once, learning how to harness this ability to visualize cursed spirits that I was entrusted with, but I try to ignore them as best as possible due to bad experiences on the field in my younger years.

The Jujutsu corporate world holds far too much ambiguity as we were blind to laboring in pyramid schemes. Just stooges to a bigger picture. Much to my dismay, the green glasses I wear are not only for blacksmithing but also for avoiding eye contact with dehumanized figures of various colors, shapes and sizes. They also irritatingly slide down my nose bridge.

"Sir Nanami! I'd love to have your expertise back in the wondrous field of Jujutsu training. I've got- I mean, I have acquired three new recruits who would benefit from your mentoring."

Despite our history, his tone carried a forced formality. It was a sound that echoed from a child's mouth—squeaky and awkward—from behind the door.

"M-Mister Nanami?" The voice stuttered. I heard Gojo's quiet instructions to the kid, coaching him on what to do next. An eager student, I mused to myself. "Look at this!" His fists glowed with luminescent streaks of black and blue, untamed cursed energy. I couldn't deny it was the start of something unique. This pink haired, pure spirited boy that Gojo had brought in... he was unlike the others.

“Gojo, you don’t understand. I have a life here. Depleting or not, it’s my duty to remain.” I argued, coming up with every reason to deny his offer. Though he seemed to know that I have no sufficient meaning to stay here.

“Nanami, I-” Gojo interjected. Suddenly, a loud crash reverberated through the shop as Yuji’s cursed energy surged uncontrollably, knocking over a shelf of tools. My senses heightened immediately, recognizing the distinct energy signature. This was not just an accident. The outside air grew heavy with a palpable tension, as if the atmosphere itself was holding its breath. I glanced at Gojo, who was already on alert, his playful demeanor replaced by a serious intensity.

“What did you do, kid?” I asked Yuji, my voice calm but edged with urgency.

“I-I don’t know!” Yuji stammered, eyes wide with panic. “I think I might have accidentally triggered something…”

Before he could finish, the ground beneath us rumbled, and a low, menacing growl echoed from outside. A wave of cursed energy, darker and more malevolent than anything I had felt in years, washed over us.

“Get ready,” Gojo muttered, his eyes flickering with anticipation. “It’s here.”

Reflexes honed from years of experience kicked in. I grabbed my blunt sword, its blade wrapped in bandages. In a fluid motion, I positioned myself in front of Yuji and Gojo, my protectiveness kicking in instinctively. No matter the level of skill the two had, I will always put myself at the forefront.

"Sorcery never goes away from your body," I thought, the weight of the moment grounding me. "It's your prerogative to use it in times of need or hide it away. And for the first time in years, I have chosen the former."

The door shuddered under a heavy blow, and I braced myself. The silence before the storm had ended.

And this is merely the beginning.

👏End of Part one 👏 Goodness, that was a wild ride, I'm almost sad to be leaving y'all on a cliffhanger like this! Hope my second ever fan fiction was enjoyable.

Thank you to my beta readers: Panda and JuwelPK! Part two coming soon. Coming from the POV of Yuji Itadori.

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highlordofkrypton · 6 months ago

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batman equalizer au // the knight from nowhere - chapter 1 & 2

Read on AO3.

SUMMARY: Bruce Wayne is dead. In the wake of his death, he leaves a trail of bodies and the ruins of a city. He can’t do this anymore; he can’t be a man who uses justice as an excuse for violence, so he leaves it all behind. Now, a nobody in a nowhere town, he starts to like his mundane life—no heroism, no villains and no pain—until one day, injustice finds him. Heroes aren’t real, but sometimes, all people need is a knight.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: It's basically just the Equalizer but with Bruce Wayne with fun cameos!

Chapter 1 & 2

Every day, eight o’clock on the dot, the employees of Home Depot file into the massive warehouse on North Avenue, right on the big intersection near the highway. Not quite in the middle of the city, it has the perfect balance of busy and calm all at once. Just enough clients to make the day go by, but not enough for them to overwhelm the staff.

You’ve got Erica at the front cash. She’s been here for years, so much that she runs the customer service section better than any of the managers. Her hairstyle’s old, perpetually stuck in the eighties and teased into the stratosphere, but her heart’s as big as the ‘do. For every person that squeezes into the not-quite open doors, she flashes a gum-clenched smile—always classic bubble gum flavour.

Geronimo and Juan always come in at exactly the same time. They’re cousins and live on the same street. They’ve also both got the same snoozing habits, which make it a real wonder whenever they come in early on a day like today.

“Hey, Mister Kane! Bright and early as always?”

“Yeah, he’s old. He ain’t got nothing better to do.”

The two teens stop in front of the older man. Mister Kane came out of nowhere one day, applying for a job just like anyone else. The city’s big enough for them to not recognize him, and though he keeps to himself, everyone thinks of him as part of the family. They’re comfortable enough to tease him, at the very least.

With an elegance unbefitting of such an unassuming man, he uncrosses his leg and sets the newspaper down. He cocks a slender dark brow in their direction, questioning. On his lips, an amused smile greets them.

“How old do you both think I am?”

“Old enough to ride dinosaurs!”

“Old enough to live before the internet.”

“That’s not even that old, tonto.”

Mister Kane laughs, a low smooth sound, and folds his arms across his bright orange apron. “C’mon, you two. You’re on time for once, don’t wanna be late punching in ‘cause you were fooling around.” He shoos them along.

The bell rings for the start of the shift, and the boys sprint across the backroom to get their aprons. Mister Kane hops to his feet and heads right over to the building materials section of the warehouse. There are a few wood orders from yesterday he didn’t get a chance to finish, and he likes the calm that comes with working with power tools. He can’t hear anyone over the sound, and there’s a nifty boundary that keeps clients away from him while he’s handling machinery.

Sneakers squeak from across the aisle, and it can only be one person (because the two late bloomers are already in).

For the life of him, Barry cannot show up to work on time, but he’s a good kid, and his family situation’s tough, so management gives him a pass. It helps that no one complains; everyone goes out of their way to give Barry a hand.

“Morning, Mister Kane—I mean, uh, Bruce,” the young blonde flusters in the face of his friend. “Good morning, hi, hey.” His windbreaker hangs over his shoulder, along with his lunchbox which are hooked by two fingers. “I,” he breathes heavily from the running. “Overslept. Was studying.”

And to think, Bruce was just going to ask about his night.

“Sounds rough,” he muses politely. “Hurry up, you just missed the bell. Time’s a tickin’.”

“Ope, right on, Mis—Bruce! I mean, Bruce, not miss Bruce.”

Bruce squeezes his shoulder, reassuring that there’s been no harm and no foul. He told the kid not to call him Mister Kane. The teens, sure, but he’s not that old. At least, not on paper. The aches in his body, the old injuries that didn’t heal right and his horrible blue plaid short-sleeved button up and pleated khakis say otherwise. Funny, how style choices can really age a person. Actually, it has to be orthopedic shoes. (What? They’re comfortable.)

“Go on, Bar,” he reminds, steering his friend in the right direction—towards the break room.

Barry waves, and Bruce can just hear the sounds of the young man mumbling to himself. “Right on? What was that, Bar? Who are you?”

The people here are good and the life he has built for himself is good. Bruce is kind and polite, speaking when spoken to and helping whenever he can. He’s a man who’s been given a second chance, and he’s making the best of it, however he can.

He puts on his safety glasses and a pair of gloves, then gets to work on trimming the various pieces of wood. Some are long and flat boards, while others are basic two by fours. Around his third order, Barry comes back around wearing his apron. His glasses and his gloves stick out of his pocket.

“When’s your exam?”

“Three weeks. I’m alright on most of the core competencies, like collaborator, communicator and leader, but I’m stuck on the medical expert section. The, um,” Barry clears his throat uncomfortable.

Bruce tips his head, lifting a brow curiously. “Which part?” His tone is gentle, encouraging. This place is a safe space, there’s nobody around to judge. “If you’re going to be a forensic scientist, you might as well get comfortable with the job.”

“It’s the medical examiner portion. I’m alright with the science, but it’s more the cause of deaths and offering a hypothesis? I just can’t really imagine… murder.” Barry’s voice drops low. Well, he can, but there’s a knot in his chest, and a wall that keeps him from staying objective. He looks away, throat bobbing with an uncomfortable swallow. “I just want to help people, you know. I want to make sure I’m getting it right, but the thought that a person—,” he pauses.

“You have to think of the people you’re helping. It’s difficult to face death, and there isn’t a way to undo it, but the next best thing is what you can do for the living.” He offers a reassuring squeeze and loads in the next piece of plywood for trimming.

The sound of the saw offers both of them a moment of reprieve to think about death. Bruce runs the vacuum that seems to echo across the entire store, and shuts it off, handing the piece for Barry to transfer into the ‘pick-ups’ rack.

“I think you just need to find the line between using your imagination to connect the evidence, and letting it go too far where you put yourself in a victim’s shoes. Once you get into the habit, it’ll be muscle memory.” But for Barry to learn, he needs experience. “Do you have any combat training? Or have you ever fired a gun? It might help you get insight on the way the body moves, and how projectiles work.”

“Oh, no, Bruce. I-I couldn’t.” Barry holds his hands up in surrender. The thought of a gun feels like a violation against everything he is as a person. He is politeness incarnate, and he can count on his hand the amount of time he’s ever been in a confrontation. (Twice, and both times his—adoptive—big brother Carter got involved, which meant that his adoptive father Jay would also come to the rescue. Of the person who caused Barry trouble, of course. Carter is known for his… excessive force.)

“It’s not as bad as you think. You busy this weekend? I’ll take you to the range. And look up some martial arts classes. It’ll help.” If it doesn’t help with understanding physical struggles, then at the very least, it’ll help Barry find an outlet for his stress. “You don’t have to shoot if you’re not comfortable. You can just watch and jump in whenever you like.”

“Do you have a gun?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Oh.”

Barry seems to think about it for a long while, but he doesn’t inquire further about it. Instead, he bounces on the balls of his feet, eager to help and making sure that he does all the heavy lifting, not Bruce. He seems to buy into the thought that Bruce is older, even if his hair has barely started graying at the temples.

It has to be the orthopedic shoes. No one over seventy wears orthopedic shoes.

Before long, the two of them are easing back to their routine with Barry chatting away about his day and asking Bruce if he’s up to anything new. Bruce never is; his routine is simple, contained and quiet—just the way he likes it. They have lunch together. Barry’s adoptive mother, Joan, always packs a sweet note on Mondays wishing her son a good day. (For the rest of the week, the kid’s on his own.) Bruce’s lunches are always simple, but the ingredients are treated with great care. Today, he has sautéed green beans in garlic butter, and a simple roasted chicken breast. In the afternoons, he’ll also have an Ensure and Barry always checks to see the flavour of the day. Strawberry, ooh, nice, he’ll say even if there are only three choices.

The people here are good and the life he has built himself is good, yet at the end of the day, once warm farewells are exchanged along with pleasant smiles, his expression slips into nothingness. As soon as he is alone, he becomes no one and he is empty.

… or that’s how he thinks he should feel.

It was like that at first; this life felt painful and underserved, but it’s grown on him. He has friends and even if it’s built on a lie, he’s found a peace he’s never known before.

Maybe—

Maybe he can finally start to forgive himself.

***

Oasis Apartments are exactly nine minutes away from North Avenue, except during rush hour where the light have an added two minutes to them. It’s situated right by the highway and drinks up all the sounds of rumbling vehicles through the building’s too-thin walls. Bruce can tell when an eighteen wheeler drives by from the faint rattle of the windows.

The only thing even faintly resembling an oasis is the dirty pool in the centre courtyard with its peeling palm-tree lining. He can even make out tiki torches trapped somewhere in the overgrown greens.

He didn’t pick the Oasis for its amenities or its comforts. In a place like this, no one asks questions. Either they’re too shitfaced to care, or too worried about how to make ends meet before the next rent is due. He doesn’t even care that it’s close to the Depot; he’d applied for the job after signing the lease and paying (in cash).

Bruce walks the steps up to the third floor where his apartment is. There’s an elevator in the building, but he’s pretty sure it hasn’t worked for over a decade. Swinging his lunchbox in hand, he thinks about Barry’s plight and how to help and he pays no mind to the sounds of living filtering in through the various apartment doors.

His thoughts come to a halt as his gaze travels towards a boy sitting at the top of the steps of the third floor. His gray eyes drink in the child’s appearance—his ever ratty clothes, never combed hair and worn shoes—before setting on the open textbook on his lap.

“Cheezus Christ, Mister Bruce! Took you look enough,” the kid grins, flashing his missing tooth—his right lateral incisor.

“Language,” Bruce clips, too tired to put on a smile. Not that his unsociable personality would stop Jason from coming over. He’d explicitly started showing up in Bruce’s life regardless of how welcoming he was.

“What? It’s not like I said ‘fuck’.”

Bruce stops in his tracks and levels the kid with a deadpan stare.

“What?”

Some battles just aren’t worth fighting. The saying has never quite rung true for Bruce until this very moment. He prays to the gods above for the strength to do good in this child’s life, instead of pointing out the obvious: Jason swore to prove his point, thus defeating the purpose. The kid would argue, and they’d go round and around until someone relents. It was by the fourth encounter that Bruce realized Jason was doing it on purpose—trying to pick some kind of mundane argument so that he could stay, if only to finish up the conversation.

Bruce has also long learned not to ask for the boy’s mother anymore. A curious gaze slides towards her apartment, the one right next to his, and her voice comes through: loud, flirty and most importantly, slurred. He sighs softly.

“Yeah,” Jason agrees, looking down at his math book. He doesn’t need to know what Bruce is looking at.

“What about the other one?” Bruce swiftly changes the subject, nodding his head at the apartment across from theirs.

This time, Jason wiggles his bum to turn and look at their neighbour’s place. You know, to make sure that they’re on the same page. His mood lightens up considerably, happy to have an answer for Bruce.

“Oh, Mister Kent got a big break at work. He’ll be out late. I think he’s nervous ‘cause he baked us pie.” Jason jabs his thumb towards Bruce’s door where a foil-wrapped pie awaits him. “Mom already took hers.” And she’s probably having it with whatever client she has with her.

Bruce sighs, again. “Did you eat?” He asks, as he climbs the last handful of steps and picks up the pie.

His keys jangle before they slide into the lock, and the door opens to reveal the most unimpressive apartment in the city. It’s clean, but it’s also empty. Only the bare minimum of furniture are present, and the only reason he even has a second set of cutlery is because of Jason, so they can eat together.

“Well, if you were any slower, I would’a eaten your pie. Count yourself lucky.” Jason trails after him, textbook tucked against his chest and his schoolbag perilously hanging over his shoulder. The zipper’s still open, and its contents threaten to spill across Bruce’s floor. Maybe that’s intentional, too; he can never know with this kid, and in a way, he finds that pleasantly amusing.

“I am truly blessed,” he replies, flatly.

Jason knows the routine by now. He takes off his shoes and sets them by the door. The first time, his socks had holes in them, and he had fought and rebelled against the idea of revealing his poverty to Bruce, even if it was already obvious. This apartment is free of judgement, and it’s a truth that Jason clings to. He’s also prouder now because Bruce got him a whole six-pack of white socks that he washes carefully in the bathroom sink.

If he has a jacket, he’ll stand on his tiptoes to hang it on the coat rack, but he’s only got a light sweater today. He pads over to the kitchen, slings his backpack on the spine of his chair and places his math book on the table. There’s enough place for exactly two people to eat comfortably, and maybe three if Bruce ever invites Mister Kent inside. Maybe then, the googly eyes will stop.

“What do you want?”

Bruce wraps a plain white apron around his waist, and opens the fridge to show Jason his choice of ingredients.

“Grilled cheese!”

“I can make you other things, you know. Things with vegetables.”

Jason sits up a little straighter and cranes his neck to get a better look inside Bruce’s sparse fridge. There’s food, but it’s always the bare minimum for the week. Maybe a little more these days because Jason practically lives here.

“And tomato soup!”

“But—”

“Grilled cheese!”

“I—”

“Tomato soup!”

Well, not much point in arguing anymore.

They both get quiet, focused on their tasks. Bruce gets the soup going, and despite its simplicity, the ingredients are treated with care to achieve perfect richness. It also helps that his palate has not changed in this new life, and his groceries are of the highest quality. He takes great care in disposing of the labels, and making it look like he’d picked them up just down the corner. He takes great care in arranging everything in his home to perfection.

The grilled cheese is the last, made with sourdough and three kinds of cheeses. While he prefers to cook the bare minimum for himself, Jason deserves… more. Bruce slices chives to sprinkle across the perfect crust, adding colour to the golden brown, and swirls a whip of cream across the top of the soup. He cleans the plates and the bowls, ensuring the best possible presentation.

He would be proud—

Bruce shoves that thought out of his mind, but it’s too late. The pain and the grief begins to set in. He has to stop for a moment, staring past the two plates of food, until he can settle his heart and return to baseline.

I am no one,

I come from nowhere,

I feel nothing .

He repeats his mantra as many times as required. When he gets a hold of himself, Bruce breathes in, and carries the food over to his guest.

Jason closes his book, and hops off his chair to wash his hands. He also grabs the cutlery, and brings it over. The two of them? They make a great team.

The food—it’s the best thing Jason has ever tasted. After his first bite, he hums, swinging his feet and wiggling his body to an invisible beat. Good food makes his entire being sing. He smiles to himself and takes a bite of the sandwich. It’s also fucking amazing. Naturally. Everything this weird old man does is kind of… awesome? Not that he’d say it.

“This slaps! How do you make food so good?” He asks with a half-chewed bite in his mouth.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full.”

Jason swallows, and takes a big gulp of water. “When my mom makes it, it’s good, but this feels like something you’d get on your birthday at a fancy restaurant.” Don’t get him wrong, he loves his mom’s food, but this feels special and they’re just having dinner at home on a monday.

“You wanna learn?”

“Um, f—friiiiiiick, yeah!”

“Alright, but you’ve got to help me with a project in return. Think you can swing by on the weekend? Not this one, but the one after? I’m trying to help a friend.”

“Depends,” Jason muses, tapping the spoon on his chin and taking a bite of the sandwich. He keeps talking with his mouth full. “What’s the project?”

“You’ll see.” Bruce smiles. “How good is your acting?”

“So good, it’ll make Timothy Chalamet eat his shorts.”

“I don’t know who that is, but sure.”

“You don’t know him!” Jason nearly gets up on his seat, throwing his hands up in the air. “He’s the guy! With the movie! Where he does the thing!”

“Alright, alright, if you settle down and finish your food, I’ll see if we can find one of his movies.”

“Fuck yeah!”

“Language.”

“Oops,” but Jason doesn’t seem too sorry about it.

“How was your test?”

Jason gives him a thumbs up, mid-bite. “Aced it!”

“Good boy,” Bruce hums.

He doesn’t need to ask the boy to finish his homework, either. Jason insists on it before doing anything else, which gives Bruce the time to clean up and decompress from work. He patiently prepares his lunch for tomorrow, and tells Jason to bring the leftovers of soup and grilled cheeses back home to his mother. (Or for himself to keep for later.)

About halfway through Dune, Jason falls asleep on the couch, leaning against Bruce. He takes it as a sign that the child feels safe with him; Jason sleeps heavily enough that the sounds of the television or the neighbours through the thin walls never get to him.

Bruce is happy to finish the movie. He’d read the book back in high school, but never got around to watching the film. Time was precious, and he’d spent so much of it trying to be productive. He was one man trying to save the whole world. By doing so, he’d missed the most important parts of it. The people and the experiences who made up his whole world were right there, yet he’d favoured a crusade against an invisible enemy.

No amount of bodies had cured his grief; it’s why he’s trying something new, this time.

Three knocks rap against his door. Bruce is careful when he gets up, replacing his support with a pillow, to answer the door. Jason’s mother, Catherine, glares up at him. Her gaze turns to her son on the couch, and though there is no evidence of foul play, she chooses anger as a defence mechanism.

“This again? What the fuck are you doing with my son?”

Bruce is an even calm in the middle of Catherine’s anger. Her eyes are bloodshot and she’s lost even more weight. Jason had asked him once if he would marry his mother so that she could stop selling herself to the local criminals, even a guy like Bruce would do. He thought about it, but decided against it. People make choices, and they have to live with those choices. The best Bruce can do is give Jason a place to stay so he can have a little peace.

“Jason,” he calls, his voice a low rumble. “Get your things.”

He doesn’t need to ask twice. The kid sits up, rubbing his eyes and drags his feet towards the kitchen. He packs his bag and makes sure to slip the food into it. His mother won’t want to take charity from Bruce. For some reason or other, she hates him. Clark, too. Maybe it’s because they’re nice to him, and they remind her of her failures. Who knows.

“I swear to god, if you do anything to my son, I’ll fucking kill you.” She hisses at Bruce. “I told you not to come here,” Catherine grabs her son’s arm and pulls him away. “There’s something off with that man.”

“Yeah, he’s weird, but he’s nice,” Jason argues back.

#my fics #equalizer #equalizer au #bruce wayne #batman #batfam #jason todd

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workersolidarity · 1 year ago

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I want to remind people of some of the self-destructive behavior we see conducted by giant corporations.

Today's giant US and Multinational Corporations do not exist to produce goods and services people need or want.

Instead, these giant corporations act as passthroughs to funnel money directly into the pockets of shareholders. Corporations will often engage in self-destructive or self-harming policies that bankrupt their companies, but manage to funnel ENORMOUS funds into shareholder pockets in the meantime. Then, we quickly see the govt swoop in and use tax-payer dollars to back the losses of those shareholders, making it so they've privatized the gains and socialized the losses.

These companies's behavior can often seem completely inexplicable when looked at outside the context of dividend payments and dividend recapitalization.

Dividend recapitalization itself is one the greatest examples of ruinous behavior by a corporation that benefits shareholders at the expense of employees and customers both.

A Dividend Recapitalization occurs when a company decides to go into debt with the express purpose of using that debt to pay dividends to shareholders and nothing else. None of the borrowed money is reinvested in the company or its employees.

This can easily result in a company's bankruptcy if it falls onto hard times immediately following a Dividend Recapitalization.

For example, in April 2002, KB Toys went deeply into debt to perform a Dividend Recapitalization, paying tens of millions of dollars in dividends to its shareholders and investors. By January 2004, KB Toys had filed Chapter 11 Bankruptcy, citing its Dividend Recapitalization process as the reason for its bankruptcy.

And you can find endless examples of this throughout recent history. It is unquestionable that Dividend Recapitalization is harmful, not just to the companies in question, but to the millions of tax payers who take a hit every time something like this happens.

The logical answer would be to ban Dividend Recapitalization completely, but our corrupt Neoliberal Govt is only interested in serving the desires of the Ruling Class. They could care less that Dividend Recapitalization often comes at a price for Taxpayers.

It is undoubtable that we need to have democratic control over the economy. At the moment, we barely have any democratic control over any other part of our society, let alone the economy.

It is well past time the Working Class of the US rise up in rebellion against the Capitalist Class and all their various tools of control that allow them to manipulate elections and retain control over the political machinery of the United States.

Dystopia is here and it's not going anywhere until the people take back what's ours.

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uniquecolormagazine · 2 years ago

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#guillotine service #industrial machine repairs #guillotine service repair #lathe repairs #brake press repair #machinery maintenance #machinery and tool servicing #machinery servicing #machinery repairs melbourne #do ability

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peashooter85 · 2 years ago

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The Mass Evacuation of Soviet Factories in Early World War II

1941 was certainly a bad year for the Soviet Union. Within a matter of months after the start of Operation Barbarossa, German forces marched deep into Soviet territory, even advancing to the gates of Moscow itself. Loses were horrific as hundreds of thousands of soldiers were killed and hundreds of thousands more were captured. City after city fell to the invaders making it seem like nothing could stop the German blitz. Worse yet the German military burned, raped, and pillaged it's way across Eastern Europe resulting in hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths and millions of refugees in the first year alone. In the face of such wanton destruction economic and industrial damage might seem unimportant but regardless the loss of industrial infrastructure severely hindered the Soviet Union's ability to wage war as factories which produced war materials and important resources were either destroyed or came under German control. The Soviet Union had a great advantage over Germany because of it's massive industrial base and plentiful access to resources. If the Soviet's wanted to maintain that advantage they needed to enact a monumental plan to ensure that said industries and resources remained far behind friendly lines and out of the reach of Germany.

The plan was simple, so simple that it can be summed up with this classic Spongebob meme,

The plan that was enacted was to dismantle and uproot Soviet factories in the west and move them east past the Ural mountains, thus recreating an industrial heartland out of the reach of German occupation and even long range bombers. To say that such a movement of people and things was monumental would be an understatement. In 1941 the Soviets evacuated and moved 2,593 industrial and agricultural enterprises, among them were over 1,500 large factories. Buildings were demolished and rebuilt, tools and machinery were packed up and moved, almost everything that was not bolted to the ground was taken and redeployed or rebuilt in the east. This included the people who were needed to work the factories, which amounted to 18 million people. This endeavor required the use of 30,000 trains hauling 1.5 million cars. In addition to the task of moving stuff, new infrastructure had to be built to service these factories. Infrastructures such as railroads, roads, canals, plumbing, electricity, food distribution, medical services, and worker housing. Basically everything needed to run a factory town. Most incredibly most of this was done in less than a year.

By 1942 most of the factories and enterprises that were evacuated from the west were up and running. The result of this endeavour meant that when the Germans advanced deeper within the Soviet Union, they failed to capture the resources needed to keep their own war machine functioning. By 1942 seemingly endless numbers of tanks, planes, and guns would flood out of factories east of the Urals, and there was not a damn thing the Germans could do about it.

#history #world war 2 #wwii #world war ii #soviet union

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writingmochi · 1 year ago

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a terra incognita character introduction

cast: jake ✗ fem.reader

synopsis: as the world entered the middle of the 21st century, many things have changed for the better or for worse in the newly united korea peninsula: the preparation for the succession of the new conglomerates of the past decade, the uprising of deviant androids, and the new layer of life shield by walls of codes. in the middle of it, two beings are trying to understand each other and the situation of the world they live in; an unknown territory

genre: cyberpunk, cyber noir, psychological thriller, science fiction, dystopian future, politics and philosophies regarding artificial intelligence and humanity, romance, drama, angst, mature content (war and revolution, explicit smut)

based on: video game cyberpunk 2077 (2020) and detroit: become human (2018), anime serial experiments lain (1998), and tv show succession (2018-2023)

masterlist

from south seoul

shim laboratories is a korean multinational megacorporation dealing in manufacturers of machinery and artificial intelligence. the company is also one of the largest distributors of androids in the global market, pioneering the creation and usage of androids to be used on a day-to-day basis such as in domestic activities or even as soldiers. prior to the release of their android products, they also excelled in the usage of artificial intelligence in day-to-day life including hardware manufacturing or machinery used for city facilities, home appliances, and military technology such as drones that were used in the cyber war of 2027-2030.

jake

aliases: wolfe (cyberspace)

age: 20

species: human

gender: male

family: dad (alive), mom (alive), yoon (sister; alive)

affiliation: shim laboratories, shim conglomerate

backstory: born in 2030, jake is the eldest of the shim siblings and will succeed his father as the ceo of shim laboratories. a versatile man, he's currently doing a double major in business management and mechanical engineering at seoul national university while also doing training in the labs.

yoon

aliases: gynger (cyberspace), yoon (nickname)

age: 18

species: human

gender: female

family: dad (alive), mom (alive), jake (brother; alive)

affiliation: shim laboratories, shim conglomerate

backstory: born in 2032, yoon is the youngest of the shim siblings and a so-called rebel among the conglomerate children. passionate in humanities, she wants to study anthropology after graduating high school.

park corp is a korean multinational megacorporation specializing in police contracting, personal & corporate security, and security consultancy services. they invest in the military-industrial manufacturing of advanced defence tools in united korea, producing weapons used to help defend the korea soil in the cyber war of 2027-2030. their role is pivotal to protect high-ranking people in united korea, making them successful post-war as their services are also used by people worldwide.

jay

aliases: blu (cyberspace)

age: 20

species: human

gender: male

family: dad (alive), mom (alive), seonghwa (brother; missing), uncle (alive), aunt (alive), chaeyoung (cousin; alive), sunghoon (cousin; alive)

affiliation: park corp, park conglomerate

backstory: born in 2030, jay is the youngest of the park siblings and will succeed his dad to be the co-ceo of park corp, specializing in defence and weapons manufacturing, who works alongside his uncle (sunghoon's dad). studying business management and law, jay was pushed forward in the line of succession as his brother, park seonghwa (b. 2026), is currently missing.

sunghoon

aliases: frost (cyberspace)

age: 20

species: human

gender: male

family: dad (alive), mom (alive), chaeyoung (sister; alive), uncle (alive), aunt (alive), seonghwa (cousin; missing), jay (cousin; alive)

affiliation: park corp, park conglomerate

backstory: born in 2030, sunghoon is the youngest of the park siblings and will succeed his dad to be the co-ceo of park corp, specializing in security services, who works alongside his uncle (jay's dad). studying business management and law, sunghoon was pushed forward in the line of succession as his sister, park chaeyoung (b. 2025), decided to drop out of the line to go and live in aotearoa.

intelee is a korean multinational megacorporation that is working in the manufacture of computer software, information technology, and computer networks. their role is pivotal as they created the cyber wall to protect united korea in the cyber war of 2027-2030, utilizing their intelligence to defend against cyber warfare attacks such as malware and viruses. after the war, they contributed to connecting the technological network of the korean peninsula and recovered the internet after it was shut down during the war. their protective software and platforms are sought after by governments globally as they recover the fastest after the war.

heeseung

aliases: roe (cyberspace)

age: 21

species: human

gender: male

family: dad (alive), mom (alive), jaehee (sister; alive), uncle (alive), aunt (alive), soojin (cousin; alive)

affiliation: intelee, lee conglomerate

backstory: born in 2029, heeseung is the eldest of the lee siblings and will succeed his father as the ceo of intelee. he's currently majoring in business management and computer sciences.

jaehee

aliases: dion (cyberspace)

age: 18

species: human

gender: female

family: dad (alive), mom (alive), heeseung (brother; alive),uncle (alive), aunt (alive), soojin (cousin; alive)

affiliation: intelee, lee conglomerate

backstory: born in 2032, jaehee is the youngest of the lee siblings. passionate about healthcare, she wants to study biological engineering after graduating high school.

OTHER CHARACTERS

soojin

aliases: katt (cyberspace)

age: 21

species: human

gender: female

family: dad (alive), mom (alive), uncle (alive), aunt (alive), heeseung (cousin; alive), jaehee (cousin; alive)

affiliation: intelee, lee conglomerate

backstory: born in 2029, soojin is part of the lee conglomerate as the cousin of both heeseung and jaehee. currently studying business management specializing in finance, she is in the line of succession to replace her dad as cfo of intelee.

jimin

aliases: lin (cyberspace)

age: 20

species: human

gender: female

family: dad (alive), mom (alive)

affiliation: kim conglomerate

backstory: born in 2030, jimin is the only child of the kim conglomerate who controls the current largest media company in united korea. she's currently studying communications and business management and will succeed her mom as ceo.

taglist: @raeyunshm @endzii23 @fluffyywoo @camipendragon @hiqhkey @wccycc @cha0thicpisces @y4wnjunz @yeehawnana @beansworldsstuff @kimipxl @blurryriki @reallysmolrenjun @frukkoneeeeg

#enhypen imagines #enhypen smut #enhypen x reader #enhypen scenarios #enhypen angst #enhypen fanfiction #jake x reader #rsc: t.i.#cr: jake #cs: enhypen #sc: regina

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mariacallous · 9 months ago

Text

Shortly before noon on Aug. 19, 2023, a Russian cruise missile sliced past the golden onion domes and squat apartment blocks of the Chernihiv skyline in northern Ukraine. The Iskander-K missile slammed into its target: the city’s drama theater, which was hosting a meeting of drone manufacturers at the time of the attack. More than 140 people were injured and seven killed. The youngest, 6-year-old Sofia Golynska, had been playing in a nearby park.

Fragments of the missile recovered by the Ukrainian armed forces and analyzed by Ukrainian researchers found numerous components made by U.S. manufacturers in the missile’s onboard navigation system, which enabled it to reach its target with devastating precision. In December, Ukraine’s state anti-corruption agency released an online database of the thousands of foreign-made components recovered from Russian weapons so far.

Russia’s struggle to produce the advanced semiconductors, electrical components, and machine tools needed to fuel its defense industrial base predates the current war and has left it reliant on imports even amid its estrangement from the West. So when Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, major manufacturing countries from North America, Europe, and East Asia swiftly imposed export controls on a broad swath of items deemed critical for the Russian arms industry.

Russia quickly became the world’s most sanctioned country: Some 16,000 people and companies were subject to a patchwork of international sanctions and export control orders imposed by a coalition of 39 countries. Export restrictions were painted with such a broad brush that sunglasses, contact lenses, and false teeth were also swept up in the prohibitions. Even items manufactured overseas by foreign companies are prohibited from being sold to Russia if they are made with U.S. tools or software, under a regulation known as the foreign direct product rule.

But as the war reaches its two-year anniversary, export controls have failed to stem the flow of advanced electronics and machinery making their way into Russia as new and convoluted supply chains have been forged through third countries such as Kazakhstan, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates, which are not party to the export control efforts. An investigation by Nikkei Asia found a tenfold increase in the export of semiconductors from China and Hong Kong to Russia in the immediate aftermath of the war—the majority of them from U.S. manufacturers.

“Life finds a way,” said a senior U.S. intelligence official, quoting the movie Jurassic Park. The official spoke on background to discuss Russia’s evasion of export controls.

Some of the weapons and components analyzed by investigators were likely stockpiled before the war. But widely available Russian trade data reveals a brisk business in imports. More than $1 billion worth of advanced semiconductors from U.S. and European manufacturers made their way into the country last year, according to classified Russian customs service data obtained by Bloomberg. A recent report by the Kyiv School of Economics found that imports of components considered critical for the battlefield had dipped by just 10 percent during the first 10 months of 2023, compared with prewar levels.

This has created a Kafkaesque scenario, the report notes, in which the Ukrainian army is doing battle with Western weapons against a Russian arsenal that also runs on Western components.

It is an obvious problem, well documented by numerous think tank and media reports, but one without an easy solution. Tracking illicit trade in items such as semiconductors is an exponentially greater challenge than monitoring shipments of conventional weapons. Around 1 trillion chips are produced every year. Found in credit cards, toasters, tanks, missile systems, and much, much more, they power the global economy as well as the Russian military. Cutting Russia out of the global supply chain for semiconductors is easier said than done.

“Both Russia and China, and basically all militaries, are using a large number of consumer electronic components in their systems,” said Chris Miller, the author of Chip War: The Fight for the World’s Most Critical Technology. “All of the world’s militaries rely on the same supply chain, which is the supply chain that primarily services consumer electronics.”

Export controls were once neatly tailored to keep specific items, such as nuclear technology, out of the hands of rogue states and terrorist groups. But as Washington vies for technological supremacy with Beijing while also seeking to contain Russia and Iran, it has increasingly used these trade restrictions to advance broader U.S. strategic objectives. For instance, the Biden administration has placed wide-ranging prohibitions on the export of advanced chips to China.

“At no point in history have export controls been more central to our collective security than right now,” Matthew Axelrod, the assistant secretary for export enforcement at the U.S. Commerce Department, said in a speech last September. U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan has described export controls as “a new strategic asset in the U.S. and allied toolkit.”

Russia’s ability to defy these restrictions doesn’t just have implications for the war in Ukraine. It also raises significant questions about the challenge ahead vis-à-vis China.

“The technological question becomes a key part of this story and whether or not we can restrict it from our adversaries,” said James Byrne, the director of open-source intelligence and analysis at the Royal United Services Institute, a British think tank.

In the Russian city of Izhevsk, home to the factory that manufactures Kalashnikov rifles, shopping malls are being converted into drone factories amid a surge in defense spending that has helped the country’s economy weather its Western estrangement. Arms manufacturers have been urged to work around the clock to feed the Russian war machine, while defense is set to account for one-third of the state budget this year.

“We have developed a concept to convert shopping centers—which, before the start of the SMO [special military operation], sold mainly the products of Western brands—to factories for assembly lines of types of domestic drones,” Alexander Zakharov, the chief designer of the Zala Aero drone company, said at a closed event in August 2022, according to the Russian business newspaper Vedomosti. “Special military operation” is what the Russian government calls its war on Ukraine. Zala Aero is a subsidiary of the Kalashnikov Concern that, along with Zakharov, was sanctioned by the United States last November.

Defense companies have bought at least three shopping malls in Izhevsk to be repurposed for the manufacture of drones, according to local media, including Lancet attack drones, which the British defense ministry described as one of the most effective new weapons that Russia introduced to the battlefield last year. Lancets, which cost about $35,000 to produce, wreaked havoc during Ukraine’s offensive last year and have been captured on video striking valuable Ukrainian tanks and parked MiG fighter jets.

Like a lot of Russia’s weapons systems, Lancets are filled with Western components. An analysis of images of the drones published in December by the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security found that they contained several parts from U.S., Swiss, and Czech manufacturers, including image processing and analytical components that play a pivotal role in enabling the drones to reach their targets on the battlefield.

“The recurring appearance of these Western products in Russian drone systems shows a keen dependence on them for key capabilities in the drone systems,” the report notes. Lancets are not the only drones found to contain Western components. Almost all of the electronic components in the Iranian Shahed-136 drones, which Russia is now manufacturing with Iranian help to use in Ukraine, are of Western origin, a separate analysis published in November concluded.

Early in the war, the Royal United Services Institute analyzed 27 Russian military systems, including cruise missiles, electronic warfare complexes, and communications systems, and found that they contained at least 450 foreign-made components, revealing Russia’s dependence on imports.

One of the principal ways that Russia has evaded Western export controls has been through transshipment via third countries such as Turkey, the UAE, and neighboring states once part of the Soviet Union. Bloomberg reported last November that amid mounting Western pressure, the UAE had agreed to restrict the export of sensitive goods to Russia and that Turkey was considering a similar move. Kazakh officials announced a ban on the export of certain battlefield goods to Russia in October.

Suspected transshipment is often revealed by striking changes in trade patterns before and after the invasion. The Maldives, an island chain in the Indian Ocean that has no domestic semiconductor industry, shipped almost $54 million worth of U.S.-made semiconductors to Russia in the year after the invasion of Ukraine, Nikkei Asia reported last July.

Semiconductor supply chains often span several countries, with chips designed in one country and manufactured in another before being sold to a series of downstream distributors around the world. That makes it difficult for companies to know the ultimate end user of their products. This may seem odd—until you realize that this is the case for many everyday products that are sold around the world. “When Coca-Cola sells Coca-Cola, it doesn’t know where every bottle goes, and they don’t have systems to track where every bottle goes,” said Kevin Wolf, a former assistant secretary for export administration at the U.S. Commerce Department.

While a coalition of 39 countries, including the world’s major manufacturers of advanced electronics, imposed export restrictions on Russia, much of the rest of the world continues to trade freely with Moscow. Components manufactured in coalition countries will often begin their journey to Moscow’s weapons factories through a series of entirely legal transactions before ending up with a final distributor that takes them across the border into Russia. “It starts off as licit trade and ends up as illicit trade,” said a second senior U.S. intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The further items move down the supply chain, the less insight governments and companies have into their ultimate destination, although sudden changes in behavior of importers can offer a red flag. In his speech last September, Axelrod, the assistant secretary, used the example of a beauty salon that suddenly starts to import electronic components.

But the Grand Canyon of loopholes is China, which has stood by Moscow since the invasion. In the first days of the war, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo warned that Washington could shut down Chinese companies that ignored semiconductor export controls placed on Russia. Last October, 42 Chinese companies were added to export control lists—severely undercutting their ability to do business with U.S. companies—for supplying Russian defense manufacturers with U.S. chips.

But as the Biden administration carefully calibrates its China policy in a bid to keep a lid on escalating tensions, it has held off from taking Beijing to task. “I think the biggest issue is that we—the West—have been unwilling to put pressure on China that would get China to start enforcing some of these rules itself,” said Miller, the author of Chip Wars.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) said: “Due to the restrictions imposed by the United States and key allies and partners, Russia has been left with no choice but to spend more, lower its ambitions for high-tech weaponry, build alliances with other international pariah states, and develop nefarious trade networks to covertly obtain the technologies it needs.

“We are deeply concerned regarding [Chinese] support for Russia’s defense industrial base. BIS has acted to add over 100 [China]-based entities to the Entity List for supporting Russia’s military industrial base and related activities.”

Export controls have typically focused on keeping specific U.S.-made goods out of the hands of adversaries, while economic and financial sanctions have served broader foreign-policy objectives of isolating rogue states and cauterizing the financing of terrorist groups and drug cartels. The use of sanctions as a national security tool grew in wake of the 9/11 attacks; in the intervening decades, companies, government agencies, and financial institutions have built up a wealth of experience in sanctions compliance. By contrast, the use of export controls for strategic ends is relatively novel, and compliance expertise is still in its infancy.

“It used to be that people like me could keep export controls and sanctions in one person’s head. The level of complexity for each area of law is so intense. I don’t know anyone who is truly an export control and sanctions expert,” Wolf said.

Export controls, experts say, are at best speed bumps designed to make it harder for Russia’s defense industrial base to procure Western components. They create “extra friction and pressure on the Russian economy,” said Daniel Fried, who as the State Department coordinator for sanctions policy helped craft U.S. sanctions on Russia after its annexation of Crimea in 2014. Russia is now paying 80 percent more to import semiconductors than it did before the war, according to forthcoming research by Miller, and the components it is able to acquire are often of dubious quality.

But although it may be more cumbersome and expensive, it’s a cost that Moscow has been willing to bear in its war on Ukraine.

Western components—and lots of them—will continue to be found in the weapons Russia uses on Ukraine’s battlefields for the duration of the war. “This problem is as old as export controls are,” said Jasper Helder, an expert on export controls and sanctions with the law firm Akin Gump. But there are ways to further plug the gaps.

Steeper penalties could incentivize U.S. companies to take a more proactive role in ensuring their products don’t wind up in the hands of the Russian military, said Elina Ribakova, a nonresident senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “At the moment, they’re not truly motivated,” she said.

Companies that run afoul of sanctions and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, a U.S. federal law that prohibits the payment of bribes, have been fined billions of dollars. Settlements of export control violations are often an order of magnitude smaller, according to recently published research.

In a speech last month, Axelrod said the United States would begin issuing steeper penalties for export control violations. “Build one case against one of the companies extremely well, put out a multibillion-dollar fine negotiation, and watch everybody else fall in line,” Ribakova said.

And then there’s the question of resources. BIS has an annual budget of just $200 million. “That’s like the cost of a few fighter jets. Come on,” said Raimondo, speaking at the Reagan National Defense Forum last December.

The agency’s core budget for export control has, adjusted for inflation, remained flat since 2010, while its workload has surged. Between 2014 and 2022, the volume of U.S. exports subject to licensing scrutiny increased by 126 percent, according to an agency spokesperson. A 2022 study of export control enforcement by the Center for Strategic and International Studies recommended a budget increase of $45 million annually, describing it as “one of the best opportunities available anywhere in U.S. national security.”

When it comes to enforcement, the bureau has about 150 officers across the country who work with law enforcement and conduct outreach to companies. The Commerce Department has also established a task force with the Justice Department to keep advanced technologies out of the hands of Russia, China, and Iran. “The U.S. has the most robust export enforcement on the planet,” Wolf said.

But compared with other law enforcement and national security agencies, the bureau’s budgets have not kept pace with its expanding mission. The Department of Homeland Security has more investigators in the city of Tampa, Florida, than BIS does across the entire country, Axelrod noted in his January speech.

On the other side, you have Russia, which is extremely motivated to acquire the critical technologies it needs to continue to prosecute its war. The Kremlin has tasked its intelligence agencies with finding ways around sanctions and export controls, U.S. Treasury Undersecretary Brian Nelson said in a speech last year. “We are not talking about a profit-seeking firm looking for efficiencies,” the second senior U.S. intelligence official said. “There will be supply if there is sufficient demand.”

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