Gentle Reader,
In the last year, I've come to some pretty hard realizations. One of them is how much depression has stolen from me. I once painted as a hobby. It has literally been six years since I picked up a paint brush and sat down at a canvas. I once was something of a sketch and portraiture artist. It haven't done an actual portrait of a person or a still life in over a year, prior to that it was almost six years.
Now, writing is depression's target. I'm going to apologize for the dark tone that this blog is going take. But, I'm not writing the darkest material here. That is going into my therapy work. And it has been arduous work. Still, I am going to fight this thief as hard as I would if someone physically broke into my home. It was just really demoralizing to see how my anxieties had moved from what if I put the horrors I have kept secret and tried to just 'manage' the life consequences into pictures (because gods forbid if I actually made art to begin with) and someone found out.
Depression is only part of the battle that I am waging in my head. I've posttraumatic stress disorder and a laundry list of anxieties that go together with what caused my PTSD. I will not, however, give this up. As a child, I promised my great-grandmother that I was going to grow up and be an author. I promised her I wasn't going to give that up on her deathbed. I was eight at the time. And when my grandfather was dying, I made the same promise approximately three years ago. Same promise to my grandmother before dementia had its way with her.
I have been asked how I lived through so much trauma. It was simple, I saw no other option. Depression fooled me into thinking that giving up things I love was an option for survival. I realized now, just this last week, that is a slow death. So, I'm doing my therapy work and that includes looking at things like picking up the paint brush again. Because I don't die. Depression is not going to kill me. It is not going to kill my spirit.
If I must, I will paint and write and sing out of spite. I will pound out every letter in fury. I will not let depression steal THIS from me, what has been my life long dream. And, I will take back everything that it has stolen. The only thing I can't reclaim is time. So be it, I don't need it. I'm going to live a long life anyways because when I expire, it will be because I've accomplished all of my dreams.
Tuesday, August 28, 2018
Monday, August 20, 2018
Writing while depressed sucks.
Dear Reader,
I have literally lost count the number of times where I have sat down to post and decided that anything I was going to write was going to come out as garbage. I then promptly gave up and stared at the dishes, attempting to summon the will power to go wash them. Depression lies to me and it tells me that I'm terrible at everything. Tying my shoes? According to depression I'm no good at it. Self care? Depression tells me that I haven't earned that and I need to WORK HARDER. At the same time, I am so exhausted that doing the bare minimum required of me as a mom and household manager/cook/etc. I struggle to see where I have time to write.
I've been forcing myself to write. It's been painful and nothing good has come of it. I suppose there is some strange catharsis to it that I can make myself string together sentences even when my brain chemistry is severely out of whack. I mean, if I can put together a sentence, I can still write something. Most of my writing has been therapy writing and it's been ugly going. Depression tells me that the therapy and all of that sort of stuff is a waste of time because I'm just lazy/stupid/broken/etc.
I kinda want to find depression and work 'em over with a baseball bat a few times until it learns to sit down and shut up. Unfortunately, violence is not the answer here. Persistent effort is the closest I get to breaking knees and handing depression's teeth back to 'em in a plastic baggie. I'm not giving up. I'm just struggling really hard on a bunch of different fronts. And we're in the last few weeks of summer with the kids finished with summer school and officially on vacation. It's going to be a long couple of weeks.
I'm working together with my care team and my family to manage this bipolar business. This depressive episode is lasting longer than usual and may be tied to other things. We're still sorting that out. If I seem a bit weird in my posting, I'm in the midst of a medication change and may pop up into mania. Or something. I'm never quite sure how my brain is going to respond to medication changes because my sense of reality goes a bit funny in a not so amusing way. I assure you, the horror in what I write is easier for me to handle than the horror in my head and my past.
Still, I'm not going to give up. As Horace said in antiquity: Nil desperandum - never despair. Also, my motto upon adversity: Tu ne cede malis sed contra audentior ito - Yield not to misfortunes but advance all the more boldly against them. That one's from Virgil.
Monday, August 13, 2018
Technical glitches, migraines, and bees, oh my!
Dear Reader,
I know it doesn't fit the pattern of "lions and tigers and bears, oh my!" but that's a big part of what has been interfering with my writing time. I am not sure what eldritch horror I need to sacrifice to which infernal creature to magic my laptop into charging properly. Beloved says it's probably the cord but I'm sure that some form of demonic pact is required. This beast is running Windows after all. Windows is run by demons. Don't believe me, all I have as proof is this *gestures towards the updates, Excel, and Clippy *. Even as a necromancer, I won't go looking for more evidence of this because I'm not as fearsome as the infernal technomancers that work for them.
I have been having problems with migraines over the last several days, I blame the weather. I also blame the weather for the fact that the heat has been leaving me utterly brain fried. It is really hard to write when you can barely string together a sentence. In my defense, my kids are still on summer break and I am getting run ragged by them. But school starts on Sept. 6th. And yes, I am counting down the days.
We're also having issues with a lot of spiders. I clean up spider webs and they're back the next day. Tons of baby orb spiders all over the place is really getting to me. I have a touch of arachnophobia and it's gradually getting worse. I would be less upset by the spiders if they didn't do stuff like randomly drop down on me as I am sitting on the couch. Yes, I screamed like a girl and I threw what I had in hand at it. No, it was not my laptop or my coffee. It was just some clothes I was mending. But still, a freaking spider LANDED ON ME! It was lucky it wasn't a big huge book, like my unabridged dictionary.
Now we're having problems with bees out the back deck. A pest removal company is coming by in two days to look at stuff and solve the problem. I am so fed up with this business. It's getting to be like I'm living in a bad episode of some nature channel program crossed with something like Survivor (which was a terrible program and I hope it has gone off the air). Laughably, I have made zero progress in transcribing notes into a larger notebook because of ALL THE DAMN SPIDERS in that corner of the room.
Lesson: Do not abandon your projects lest there is literal cobwebs on it and you have to do your best karate impersonations to get them off with out the spiders getting on you.
I know it doesn't fit the pattern of "lions and tigers and bears, oh my!" but that's a big part of what has been interfering with my writing time. I am not sure what eldritch horror I need to sacrifice to which infernal creature to magic my laptop into charging properly. Beloved says it's probably the cord but I'm sure that some form of demonic pact is required. This beast is running Windows after all. Windows is run by demons. Don't believe me, all I have as proof is this *gestures towards the updates, Excel, and Clippy *. Even as a necromancer, I won't go looking for more evidence of this because I'm not as fearsome as the infernal technomancers that work for them.
I have been having problems with migraines over the last several days, I blame the weather. I also blame the weather for the fact that the heat has been leaving me utterly brain fried. It is really hard to write when you can barely string together a sentence. In my defense, my kids are still on summer break and I am getting run ragged by them. But school starts on Sept. 6th. And yes, I am counting down the days.
We're also having issues with a lot of spiders. I clean up spider webs and they're back the next day. Tons of baby orb spiders all over the place is really getting to me. I have a touch of arachnophobia and it's gradually getting worse. I would be less upset by the spiders if they didn't do stuff like randomly drop down on me as I am sitting on the couch. Yes, I screamed like a girl and I threw what I had in hand at it. No, it was not my laptop or my coffee. It was just some clothes I was mending. But still, a freaking spider LANDED ON ME! It was lucky it wasn't a big huge book, like my unabridged dictionary.
Now we're having problems with bees out the back deck. A pest removal company is coming by in two days to look at stuff and solve the problem. I am so fed up with this business. It's getting to be like I'm living in a bad episode of some nature channel program crossed with something like Survivor (which was a terrible program and I hope it has gone off the air). Laughably, I have made zero progress in transcribing notes into a larger notebook because of ALL THE DAMN SPIDERS in that corner of the room.
Lesson: Do not abandon your projects lest there is literal cobwebs on it and you have to do your best karate impersonations to get them off with out the spiders getting on you.
Friday, August 3, 2018
Book Review: The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola
Title: The Spiritual Exercizes of St. Ignatius of Loyola
Author: St. Ignatius of Loyola Translator: Anthony Mottola, Ph.D.
Publisher: Image Books/Doubleday Date: Feb. 1964
I started reading this back in September [04] and became facinated with it. It is ponderous reading at times. So, I took a break and read the Thousand faces of the Virgin Mary. Now that I am mentally refreshed, I'll start again. I believe I'll even re-read the biographical portion and the forward added to this reprint of the text. [Edited to add: The time of this entry is 11/1/04.]
In the introduction to the main text, the story of the life of St. Ignatius is presented. Given the amount of attention he placed on courtly matters and chivalry in both before and after his entry into a clerical life, I'd judge he was a contemporary of the beguines and the author of the Cloud of Unknowing.
His martial background and the emphasis he placed on the chivalric code are reputed to have colored all aspects of his life as clergy. St. Ignatius is the founder of the Society of Jesus, also known as the Jesuites. Apparently, this event took place in Paris when he undertook to lead several of these early member in one of the first retreats based in these exercises. The martial influence arises in the colloquial way the Jesuits refer to themselves, the Soldiers of Christ.
Perhaps this was exploited and this was why the Jesuits had such a high count in the Inquisition. For what I've seen of the text and everything presented about his life, it appears that Ignatius advocated a personal crusade against the evil in one's own heart. Much like the more peaceful interpretation of the Islamic term jyhad. If this is true, then I'd suspect that he'd advocate violence only as a last resort and to be used out of unhappy necessity.
The First Week
- The method of examining one's own conscience reminds me strongly of the self-monitoring used to help some one note triggers for anxiety attacks, to break bad habits, and to eradicate unhealthy habitual self-denigration of various people with poor self-esteem.
- A subtle emphasis is placed on self improvement and recognizing the success of the retretant.
Venial sin = contemplation/fantasizing of a mortal sin
Mortal sin = the planning and/or enacting of evil
The exercizes of the first week appear to place emphasis on being in the correct mindset and recognizing one's own errors. The contemplations seem to focus on Christ's sacrifice and the magnamity of one so divine to mke such a sacrifice. As well as an emphasis on what was the reason for said sacrifice and the thing it preserved us from.
A part of me finds the abasement and call for increased grief over one's errors a morbid thing. But perhaps this is a tool to strip away false pretences and self deception. I see a great potential for the exhortations of the exercises of the first week to be abused. I suppose a genuine accounting for one's actions and a genuine acceptance of responsiblity does require a feeling of remorse. But is it necessary to abase oneself to feel remorse?
Second Week
-Fealty to God. Not uch more can be said to describe the prelued of this section or it's emphasis.
- It is interesting to see an important made as to the type of contemplations engaged in.
The first three days focuses on the life of Jesus as a child and the context of such. Ignatius appears to be stating that this is an example of how one may live. The oobedience to moral and religeous law and fealty to family as well as civil obediance seems to be the basis of a healty spiritual life. Or atleast a correct one.
The fourth day's focus on the two standards is an apparently self explinatory choice. One must recognize the decision being made between God and evil. Then one must choose, being honest with themselves as to the reason for their choice, the extend to their commitment and the effects of said choice. The fifth day could not only be a proverbial example in contemplating Jesus's life up to the baptisim, but also a recognition of the choices one had made and the transition.
The sixth day gie an example of how to hold fast to your decision as would the seventh day. The eighth to eleventh day are lessons and exhortions to follow God. The twelfth day is an embracing of God in entirety. The modes of humility are in many ways a discussion of intent to adhere to one's decision. The choice of way of life is a formal discussion of how it's been alluded to earlier. And Ignatius give a method of how to make a clear headed decision on such a major point.
The reasonsed directions on making a choice and the exhortation to give full and careful consideration of all aspects, including implementation, can be applied in other areas of one's life. It is interesting to see the methods of decision making my father taught me in a medieval religious text.
Third Week
The contemplation of the Last suppera dn the Passion are the focal points of this week. The retreatant is encouraged to feel grief for the suffering of Jesus. At the same time, self monitoring and exercising moderation in various areas, such as eating, is used to assist in maintaining the focus on Jesus's life. Also, the retreatant is including the effects of sad events on the players in Jesus's life (i.e.: Mary, the Apostles, etc.).
Fourth Week
Where the emphasis of the third week was on self control and understanding the events leading up to Jesus's death, the emphasis on the foruth week is on the Risen Christ and building a healthy relationship. There is a tie-in to the third week in recognizing the effect of Jesus's life and the sacrifice Jesus made on humanity and your life. I'm inclined to argue that Jesus's sacrifice was in living a human life and accepting the constraints placed on divinity. Murder as a loving sacrifice is questionable, unless one does not imply divine concet to it. But that is an oxymoronic statement, for the sacrifice is to appease God.
I question if sacrifice is to appease God or to make us feel we have appeased God, when that isn't waht is needed. It makes me uncertian. Did Jesus truly die for our sins, our crimes against God? Or, did Jesus live as a man to expitate sin through the temporary forsaking of divine perogitive?
Originally Published: 8/23/06 (all grammar and spelling errors intact)
Author: St. Ignatius of Loyola Translator: Anthony Mottola, Ph.D.
Publisher: Image Books/Doubleday Date: Feb. 1964
I started reading this back in September [04] and became facinated with it. It is ponderous reading at times. So, I took a break and read the Thousand faces of the Virgin Mary. Now that I am mentally refreshed, I'll start again. I believe I'll even re-read the biographical portion and the forward added to this reprint of the text. [Edited to add: The time of this entry is 11/1/04.]
In the introduction to the main text, the story of the life of St. Ignatius is presented. Given the amount of attention he placed on courtly matters and chivalry in both before and after his entry into a clerical life, I'd judge he was a contemporary of the beguines and the author of the Cloud of Unknowing.
His martial background and the emphasis he placed on the chivalric code are reputed to have colored all aspects of his life as clergy. St. Ignatius is the founder of the Society of Jesus, also known as the Jesuites. Apparently, this event took place in Paris when he undertook to lead several of these early member in one of the first retreats based in these exercises. The martial influence arises in the colloquial way the Jesuits refer to themselves, the Soldiers of Christ.
Perhaps this was exploited and this was why the Jesuits had such a high count in the Inquisition. For what I've seen of the text and everything presented about his life, it appears that Ignatius advocated a personal crusade against the evil in one's own heart. Much like the more peaceful interpretation of the Islamic term jyhad. If this is true, then I'd suspect that he'd advocate violence only as a last resort and to be used out of unhappy necessity.
The First Week
- The method of examining one's own conscience reminds me strongly of the self-monitoring used to help some one note triggers for anxiety attacks, to break bad habits, and to eradicate unhealthy habitual self-denigration of various people with poor self-esteem.
- A subtle emphasis is placed on self improvement and recognizing the success of the retretant.
Venial sin = contemplation/fantasizing of a mortal sin
Mortal sin = the planning and/or enacting of evil
The exercizes of the first week appear to place emphasis on being in the correct mindset and recognizing one's own errors. The contemplations seem to focus on Christ's sacrifice and the magnamity of one so divine to mke such a sacrifice. As well as an emphasis on what was the reason for said sacrifice and the thing it preserved us from.
A part of me finds the abasement and call for increased grief over one's errors a morbid thing. But perhaps this is a tool to strip away false pretences and self deception. I see a great potential for the exhortations of the exercises of the first week to be abused. I suppose a genuine accounting for one's actions and a genuine acceptance of responsiblity does require a feeling of remorse. But is it necessary to abase oneself to feel remorse?
Second Week
-Fealty to God. Not uch more can be said to describe the prelued of this section or it's emphasis.
- It is interesting to see an important made as to the type of contemplations engaged in.
The first three days focuses on the life of Jesus as a child and the context of such. Ignatius appears to be stating that this is an example of how one may live. The oobedience to moral and religeous law and fealty to family as well as civil obediance seems to be the basis of a healty spiritual life. Or atleast a correct one.
The fourth day's focus on the two standards is an apparently self explinatory choice. One must recognize the decision being made between God and evil. Then one must choose, being honest with themselves as to the reason for their choice, the extend to their commitment and the effects of said choice. The fifth day could not only be a proverbial example in contemplating Jesus's life up to the baptisim, but also a recognition of the choices one had made and the transition.
The sixth day gie an example of how to hold fast to your decision as would the seventh day. The eighth to eleventh day are lessons and exhortions to follow God. The twelfth day is an embracing of God in entirety. The modes of humility are in many ways a discussion of intent to adhere to one's decision. The choice of way of life is a formal discussion of how it's been alluded to earlier. And Ignatius give a method of how to make a clear headed decision on such a major point.
The reasonsed directions on making a choice and the exhortation to give full and careful consideration of all aspects, including implementation, can be applied in other areas of one's life. It is interesting to see the methods of decision making my father taught me in a medieval religious text.
Third Week
The contemplation of the Last suppera dn the Passion are the focal points of this week. The retreatant is encouraged to feel grief for the suffering of Jesus. At the same time, self monitoring and exercising moderation in various areas, such as eating, is used to assist in maintaining the focus on Jesus's life. Also, the retreatant is including the effects of sad events on the players in Jesus's life (i.e.: Mary, the Apostles, etc.).
Fourth Week
Where the emphasis of the third week was on self control and understanding the events leading up to Jesus's death, the emphasis on the foruth week is on the Risen Christ and building a healthy relationship. There is a tie-in to the third week in recognizing the effect of Jesus's life and the sacrifice Jesus made on humanity and your life. I'm inclined to argue that Jesus's sacrifice was in living a human life and accepting the constraints placed on divinity. Murder as a loving sacrifice is questionable, unless one does not imply divine concet to it. But that is an oxymoronic statement, for the sacrifice is to appease God.
I question if sacrifice is to appease God or to make us feel we have appeased God, when that isn't waht is needed. It makes me uncertian. Did Jesus truly die for our sins, our crimes against God? Or, did Jesus live as a man to expitate sin through the temporary forsaking of divine perogitive?
Originally Published: 8/23/06 (all grammar and spelling errors intact)
Book Review: The Thousand Faces of the Virgin Mary
Title: The Thousand Faces of the Virgin Mary
Author: George H. Tavard
Publisher: [I failed to note this.] Date: [I failed to note this.]
This is a spectacularly facinating book. I should suggest that Sr. Francis Regis add it to her required reading for her Women in Religion class.
[Edited to add: This book was a description of the different ways that the Virgin Mary is viewed thru out the world. It's a very interesting overview of the different cultures and the cultural impact of the Virgin Mary.]
Originally Published: 8/23/2006
Author: George H. Tavard
Publisher: [I failed to note this.] Date: [I failed to note this.]
This is a spectacularly facinating book. I should suggest that Sr. Francis Regis add it to her required reading for her Women in Religion class.
[Edited to add: This book was a description of the different ways that the Virgin Mary is viewed thru out the world. It's a very interesting overview of the different cultures and the cultural impact of the Virgin Mary.]
Originally Published: 8/23/2006
Book Review: The Confession of St. Augustine
Title: The Confession of St. Augustine
Author: St. Augustine of Hippo
Translator: [I failed to note this.]
Publisher: [I failed to note this.] Date: [I failed to note this.]
A remarkably readable book. It is interesting to read about his experiences effectively first hand. I do find myself curious about the life of Monica. Perhaps I'll hunt down something about that at some point in time. Some of the tone of Augusinte's work reminds me of my own journals.
I just couldn't put it down. It was a facinating and pleasureable read.
Original Publication date: 8/23/2006
Author: St. Augustine of Hippo
Translator: [I failed to note this.]
Publisher: [I failed to note this.] Date: [I failed to note this.]
A remarkably readable book. It is interesting to read about his experiences effectively first hand. I do find myself curious about the life of Monica. Perhaps I'll hunt down something about that at some point in time. Some of the tone of Augusinte's work reminds me of my own journals.
I just couldn't put it down. It was a facinating and pleasureable read.
Original Publication date: 8/23/2006
Thursday, August 2, 2018
Some more Science Fiction
I have about half a novella's worth of stuff featuring my cyborg Angel. I'm beginning to think I should just write the damn novel while I am trying to fix plot holes and figure out what the hell I'm doing with e-publishing books one through three. And yes, I'm still stalled on book seven.
Winds of Aeolus
Aeolus monitored the cryosleep chambers as he listened to the star-quakes. It had been a long time since he had heard anything like music. He could recall it. If he desired it, he could have the system play it. But he was no longer a mortal man, he could not actually listen to music. There was no sensory input and Aeolus missed it. But he could hear via the ships sensor array electromagnetic noise. Where the crew complained about the silence of space, Aeolus heard cacophony.
Until they drew close enough to Sol that the background noise of the planets and interstellar sound was drowned out completely. What had been a single deep note was beginning to get static. The note vibrated in uncomfortable ways. It made his solar sail ache like his knees did long ago before rain. Aeolus was uncomfortable in ways that he couldn't describe. Human language had no words for this strange pain that ran through him as electromagnetic waves rolled over him. In the cryosleep chamber, Angel moaned. It was a low strangled noise that she had never made before. Aeolus connected to her through the neural-link.
That was when he saw her struggling with a degrading synaptic pulse modulator. In the architecture of her mind, she was hammering on a gigantic machine with a set of old hand tools. A gear was grinding to a halt and Angel was forcing it to continue to move with a series of blows from a sledge hammer. With a cry of fury, she swung her hammer and the gear twitched forward before turning a few rotations and then grinding to a stop. Aeolus walked up to her.
He took hold of the hammer head as she reared back to deliver another mighty blow. “I'll stabilize the system. We're leaving orbit now. You can't handle the stress of this longer and the star-quakes are getting bigger.” Angel tried to pull the hammer out of Aeolus's hand but discovered that within the theater of the mind linked to the machine, the machine-linked mind is more powerful. Aeolus let go of the hammer and stepped past Angel. He set a hand delicately on the gear and gave it a gentle nudge.
It began to spin freely and Angel began to look healthier. No longer pale and sweating, Angel just looked weary. Aeolus gave the tall cyborg a slight bow. His hair fell briefly into his eyes. His Grecian features were not those of an older man as he had appeared to her before but of someone who perhaps was in the winter of their twenties. He was at least a hundred years old in the uplink system and Angel wasn't sure how much older he was to begin with. She realized as she looked at him that this was how he saw himself, a young man on the verge of beginning the grandest of adventures that life had awaiting him.
“Three hundred and sixty two,” he said, “We'll talk more when we're moving on.” Angel sat down beside the machine that represented her neural-link. Aeolus shook his head. “You should rest.”
“I am resting,” Angel answered tersely, “You should pilot us the hell out of here.”
“Captain,” Aeolus said before giving the half bow. He then withdrew from her neural-link interface, satisfied that the synaptic pulse modulator was stable with the electromagnetic buffer he activated around her cryosleep pod. The star-quake that happened made the photosphere ripple beneath him. Aeolus fired his thrusters and lifted them up on the path towards their next destination, Earth. When the coronal jet came out and struck the solar sail, Aeolus felt exquisite pain. A memory of being uploaded into his first ship slammed into him of all of his senses screaming in agony. A visual sensor's electromagnetic shield failed because the equipment was literally vaporized by the plasma. A moment of terrific white hot pain and then nothing.
In that agony, Aeolus was struck with grief. Had his calculations failed? That was when he realized he was still somehow functional. Aeolus ran a systems check, starting with the life support of the captain's quarters. The electromagnetic buffer was burned out but Angel lay in stasis. Her neural-link remained functional. There was silence on her end of the neural-link but Aeolus could tell that she was observing him through his systems check. Life support was fully functional. Defensive array was suffering from some damage but that was something they could repair. The cooling system for the ship was heavily damaged on the leeward side. Aeolus wasn't sure if they had the means to fully repair it. The data he had been gathering was amazingly still intact. He had the pride of completing his mission, he thought grimly.
“Status report,” Angel's voice came through the neural-link. Aeolus, if he had been still human, would have let out a breath he didn't realize he was holding. Instead, he fed her the visual report of the data on the damage as he ran through his systems checks. “We can repair the cooling system with the core units for the stellar data. We're not going to need it anymore.” Aeolus considered arguing with his captain. “The star is going nova in a few months, if we're lucky. We have to get to Earth to resupply and extract what we'll need to progress forward.”
Aeolus materialized in Angel's mental chamber where she was 'dreaming'. It was no longer the room of machinery that he had found her in earlier. It was a walled courtyard covered in snow with a koi pond and a few gnarled trees. He looked around himself in astonishment. He knew this place but he couldn't place why. “What is this?” he asked.
“A memory of the Creche,” Angel answered, “one of the few pleasant ones. I'd sit here in the snow and meditate. They would watch me and study the data as I built this within. They couldn't interpret it. From here, I'd reach out to the network. And now, to you. Or should I say, we can communicate easier here.”
“The Creche … “ Aeolus mused. Angel sat beside the koi pond dressed in a black kimono with her long hair unbound. She was the image of Japanese beauty, though she was far taller than most women standing at six feet tall. Aeolus was dressed in a man's kimono that was also coal black. “They were developing this from my discovery. I tried to stop them. They framed me for murder. Then tested the technology on me. With each iteration... I was promised release if I cooperated. For a time I thought I was free then I realized it was the system. And now …"
“Now we are bound for Earth. We're going to the Antarctic stronghold facility. I know the plasma weapons are fully charged. I expect that I can get the defense array back on line and the atmosphere will take care of heat exchange off of the hull. I think we can get enough supplies to get the systems fully operational. Last I recall, the facility was a storage locker made to look like a top secret installation. Skeleton crew at best and all of them alpha line rejects. Like me.”
Aeolus heard the bitterness in Angel's tone as she made her final statement. “You are more human than your previous masters,” Aeolus said, “you have taken a ship and plotted a course among the stars for humanity to have hope of survival. All contrary to orders, but you have never followed orders very well. You are too independent.” Angel looked over at him. He straightened and tipped his head slightly to the right as though listening to something.
“The CME is carrying us faster than I anticipated. The plasma temperature is dropping. If we start on repairs now, I think the systems have an eighty five percent chance of holding for the entire flight. If we wait, they may hold until we reach the Martian orbit ring at best.”
“Then let me out of the damn box and lets get to work scavenging their precious data cluster systems.”
Angel opened her eyes to utter darkness. As the cryosleep pod opened, she realized that the lighting in her quarters was off line. “Is the entire ship dark?” she said. A green colored light seemed to form before her eyes. It blinked a few times and then went to blue. Angel blinked again and through the dimmest of light, she could see her way through her quarters to the doorway. She hated the night vision alteration that allowed her to see on the outer limits of the visible spectrum. At the same time, she knew that Aeolus was supplementing it so that she could see well enough to operate in darkness absolute.
She stepped out into the corridor and began walking down it towards the aft section. Visual static began to bother her as she drew closer to where the damage was. She stopped at an emergency hatch. She opened the door and pulled out a kit. Fixing a plasma pistol at her right hip, Angel couldn't help the feeling that something terrible was about to happen. Angel put on the space survival suit and closed her eyes. The head lights flicked on as Aeolus brought her visual field back into normal tolerances. The radio crackled to life. “Captain, the aft cargo chamber's field is damaged. I advise extreme caution.”
“I know, Aeolus,” Angel answered her ship, “The repair kit is where again?”
“Two meters from the entrance on the starboard side towards the prow. The lighting systems are down in that part of the section. If you see light from something other than your equipment, retreat back to the main deck.”
“You say that as if there is a hostile on board, Aeolus,” Angel muttered.
“Some of the cargo in the aft hold is experimental. I have suspicions about the experimental element of it.”
“And you didn't tell me this before now?”
“Do you realize how much processing power it took to chart a stable orbit with out frying?”
“Good point. But we're having a discussion after this is all finished.”
“Of course, Captain.” Aeolus seemed to have a trace of humor in his reply but Angel wasn't sure if she was reading into it.
Angel drew her plasma pistol and opened the manual fail safe for the first cargo hold. She was sure they were off to the beginning of a spectacularly bad day. Of course it had to happen on a Monday.
Winds of Aeolus
Aeolus monitored the cryosleep chambers as he listened to the star-quakes. It had been a long time since he had heard anything like music. He could recall it. If he desired it, he could have the system play it. But he was no longer a mortal man, he could not actually listen to music. There was no sensory input and Aeolus missed it. But he could hear via the ships sensor array electromagnetic noise. Where the crew complained about the silence of space, Aeolus heard cacophony.
Until they drew close enough to Sol that the background noise of the planets and interstellar sound was drowned out completely. What had been a single deep note was beginning to get static. The note vibrated in uncomfortable ways. It made his solar sail ache like his knees did long ago before rain. Aeolus was uncomfortable in ways that he couldn't describe. Human language had no words for this strange pain that ran through him as electromagnetic waves rolled over him. In the cryosleep chamber, Angel moaned. It was a low strangled noise that she had never made before. Aeolus connected to her through the neural-link.
That was when he saw her struggling with a degrading synaptic pulse modulator. In the architecture of her mind, she was hammering on a gigantic machine with a set of old hand tools. A gear was grinding to a halt and Angel was forcing it to continue to move with a series of blows from a sledge hammer. With a cry of fury, she swung her hammer and the gear twitched forward before turning a few rotations and then grinding to a stop. Aeolus walked up to her.
He took hold of the hammer head as she reared back to deliver another mighty blow. “I'll stabilize the system. We're leaving orbit now. You can't handle the stress of this longer and the star-quakes are getting bigger.” Angel tried to pull the hammer out of Aeolus's hand but discovered that within the theater of the mind linked to the machine, the machine-linked mind is more powerful. Aeolus let go of the hammer and stepped past Angel. He set a hand delicately on the gear and gave it a gentle nudge.
It began to spin freely and Angel began to look healthier. No longer pale and sweating, Angel just looked weary. Aeolus gave the tall cyborg a slight bow. His hair fell briefly into his eyes. His Grecian features were not those of an older man as he had appeared to her before but of someone who perhaps was in the winter of their twenties. He was at least a hundred years old in the uplink system and Angel wasn't sure how much older he was to begin with. She realized as she looked at him that this was how he saw himself, a young man on the verge of beginning the grandest of adventures that life had awaiting him.
“Three hundred and sixty two,” he said, “We'll talk more when we're moving on.” Angel sat down beside the machine that represented her neural-link. Aeolus shook his head. “You should rest.”
“I am resting,” Angel answered tersely, “You should pilot us the hell out of here.”
“Captain,” Aeolus said before giving the half bow. He then withdrew from her neural-link interface, satisfied that the synaptic pulse modulator was stable with the electromagnetic buffer he activated around her cryosleep pod. The star-quake that happened made the photosphere ripple beneath him. Aeolus fired his thrusters and lifted them up on the path towards their next destination, Earth. When the coronal jet came out and struck the solar sail, Aeolus felt exquisite pain. A memory of being uploaded into his first ship slammed into him of all of his senses screaming in agony. A visual sensor's electromagnetic shield failed because the equipment was literally vaporized by the plasma. A moment of terrific white hot pain and then nothing.
In that agony, Aeolus was struck with grief. Had his calculations failed? That was when he realized he was still somehow functional. Aeolus ran a systems check, starting with the life support of the captain's quarters. The electromagnetic buffer was burned out but Angel lay in stasis. Her neural-link remained functional. There was silence on her end of the neural-link but Aeolus could tell that she was observing him through his systems check. Life support was fully functional. Defensive array was suffering from some damage but that was something they could repair. The cooling system for the ship was heavily damaged on the leeward side. Aeolus wasn't sure if they had the means to fully repair it. The data he had been gathering was amazingly still intact. He had the pride of completing his mission, he thought grimly.
“Status report,” Angel's voice came through the neural-link. Aeolus, if he had been still human, would have let out a breath he didn't realize he was holding. Instead, he fed her the visual report of the data on the damage as he ran through his systems checks. “We can repair the cooling system with the core units for the stellar data. We're not going to need it anymore.” Aeolus considered arguing with his captain. “The star is going nova in a few months, if we're lucky. We have to get to Earth to resupply and extract what we'll need to progress forward.”
Aeolus materialized in Angel's mental chamber where she was 'dreaming'. It was no longer the room of machinery that he had found her in earlier. It was a walled courtyard covered in snow with a koi pond and a few gnarled trees. He looked around himself in astonishment. He knew this place but he couldn't place why. “What is this?” he asked.
“A memory of the Creche,” Angel answered, “one of the few pleasant ones. I'd sit here in the snow and meditate. They would watch me and study the data as I built this within. They couldn't interpret it. From here, I'd reach out to the network. And now, to you. Or should I say, we can communicate easier here.”
“The Creche … “ Aeolus mused. Angel sat beside the koi pond dressed in a black kimono with her long hair unbound. She was the image of Japanese beauty, though she was far taller than most women standing at six feet tall. Aeolus was dressed in a man's kimono that was also coal black. “They were developing this from my discovery. I tried to stop them. They framed me for murder. Then tested the technology on me. With each iteration... I was promised release if I cooperated. For a time I thought I was free then I realized it was the system. And now …"
“Now we are bound for Earth. We're going to the Antarctic stronghold facility. I know the plasma weapons are fully charged. I expect that I can get the defense array back on line and the atmosphere will take care of heat exchange off of the hull. I think we can get enough supplies to get the systems fully operational. Last I recall, the facility was a storage locker made to look like a top secret installation. Skeleton crew at best and all of them alpha line rejects. Like me.”
Aeolus heard the bitterness in Angel's tone as she made her final statement. “You are more human than your previous masters,” Aeolus said, “you have taken a ship and plotted a course among the stars for humanity to have hope of survival. All contrary to orders, but you have never followed orders very well. You are too independent.” Angel looked over at him. He straightened and tipped his head slightly to the right as though listening to something.
“The CME is carrying us faster than I anticipated. The plasma temperature is dropping. If we start on repairs now, I think the systems have an eighty five percent chance of holding for the entire flight. If we wait, they may hold until we reach the Martian orbit ring at best.”
“Then let me out of the damn box and lets get to work scavenging their precious data cluster systems.”
Angel opened her eyes to utter darkness. As the cryosleep pod opened, she realized that the lighting in her quarters was off line. “Is the entire ship dark?” she said. A green colored light seemed to form before her eyes. It blinked a few times and then went to blue. Angel blinked again and through the dimmest of light, she could see her way through her quarters to the doorway. She hated the night vision alteration that allowed her to see on the outer limits of the visible spectrum. At the same time, she knew that Aeolus was supplementing it so that she could see well enough to operate in darkness absolute.
She stepped out into the corridor and began walking down it towards the aft section. Visual static began to bother her as she drew closer to where the damage was. She stopped at an emergency hatch. She opened the door and pulled out a kit. Fixing a plasma pistol at her right hip, Angel couldn't help the feeling that something terrible was about to happen. Angel put on the space survival suit and closed her eyes. The head lights flicked on as Aeolus brought her visual field back into normal tolerances. The radio crackled to life. “Captain, the aft cargo chamber's field is damaged. I advise extreme caution.”
“I know, Aeolus,” Angel answered her ship, “The repair kit is where again?”
“Two meters from the entrance on the starboard side towards the prow. The lighting systems are down in that part of the section. If you see light from something other than your equipment, retreat back to the main deck.”
“You say that as if there is a hostile on board, Aeolus,” Angel muttered.
“Some of the cargo in the aft hold is experimental. I have suspicions about the experimental element of it.”
“And you didn't tell me this before now?”
“Do you realize how much processing power it took to chart a stable orbit with out frying?”
“Good point. But we're having a discussion after this is all finished.”
“Of course, Captain.” Aeolus seemed to have a trace of humor in his reply but Angel wasn't sure if she was reading into it.
Angel drew her plasma pistol and opened the manual fail safe for the first cargo hold. She was sure they were off to the beginning of a spectacularly bad day. Of course it had to happen on a Monday.
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