Sick brain! Bad!

So. I got this nice cold goin' on. Like, runny nose, mild headache and a nasally tone of voice. A classic, absolutely CLASSIC cold.

Problem is, I decided to go to work today too. A bit dumb, I know. But since I made the walk up the hill to work with no problem in the chill, I thought I could handle a whole day of freight and recieveing at the store.

Ugh. It was a loooong day. But I thought during the day, as I as sneezing, I get to Game Master the Barony tonite! Yays! A Pathfinder game based in a small setting around a very medieval idea.

Its new and I love GMing a new game. Its like getting a new puppy or kitten. Its so cute that you forgive it when it feks all over your house. But it doesn't know any better! Leave it alone!!!

So. I get home to my Roommate and hopefully a table of guys ready to game. Er... no game. Oh well.

So now I'm on dA... Again. I might be getting re-addicted to dA. Is that a good thing?

Passage on the Nyx 2

Passage on the Nyx Chapter Two

“Catherine? Hard-wired to sit still like some Earther's doll. Damn, I never thought I'd live to see a Fleshee.” Fai scratched behind one of her pointed ears. One of her servant girls- Alice, a young woman that Fai had hired from off the streets- helped Fai try to activate the unconscious girl.

A Fleshee wasn't a human being. They were grown. Humans grown and owned since they weren't born. Their genomes were designed, their bodies patented and mass produced. Installed with standard cybernetics. The Old Nations on Earth had strict laws that corporations used to create living robots for complicated tasks. Most Dusters think your kind isn't real girl, Fai mused that perhaps Earth really wasn't the Eden most Martians thought it was.

Catherine 97801-08111985A still laid frozen on one of Fai's blush maroon sofas. The pale girl stood out against the bright colors of the room. Her glowing, neon blue hair contrasted with warm crimsons, pinks and maroon silk carpets, curtains and other glorious finery. Fai had dressed the girl in something more comfortable than the trash and gunny sack that she had found her in.

“Madam Fai,” Alice looked up from Catherine. “I can try and get hold of the Datamancer-”

“Hold on Alice,” Fai pursed her lips and moved closer to the face of Catherine. “I think our guest is ready to wake up.”

The hard drives and circuits in Catherine's skull booted up first. Then her eyes opened wide, their bright neon cerulean glow switched on like electric light. Data collection programs ran a quick diagnostic while unconscious background processes went through her startup sequence.

Unlike the last however long she had been on Mars, this time she regained muscle and voice control. This took her an eternity- five seconds for Fai to watch her arise from the maroon sofa. In a mechanical fashion, she looked up at Fai. Unlike before, Catherine awoke to the smell of cinnamon and perfumes, not the harsh stank of fish of the alleys of Utopia.

“Where am I? Is this still Utopia?”

Fai suddenly felt enamored by this voice. It rang of an child-like innocence she hadn't seen she had been a child. She almost died the night her innocence had been taken. But Fai had learned from it and refused to be some common whore in Utopia. She offered something different to her clients, an experience of a type higher than the normal street deal. Even then, her clients were the either corporate dogs of the security corporations or leaders of criminal organizations throughout the solar system.

“Yes. You are in Utopia, the Free City. You are in the Fox's House,” Alice answered her question while offering a cup of hot tea to Catherine. She glanced in Fai's direction, hoping to not offend her by speaking first. “What is your name dear?”

“I am the property of the Earth Legion, LLC. As a near-human biological construct, I am valued and priced very steeply.” Catherine replied coldly, ignoring Alice's question. She stared into space.

“Dear,” Fai bent down and grabbed her hands in a gentle and loving manner. “You aren't property here. Earthers can suck fek. Nuke 'em all. You are under my protection here. Utopia is free from Earth rule. You're a free woman in my House. Everything is Halaal here.”

Catherine, looked in Fai's eyes. Fai noticed how Catherine didn't blink. Her face had no emotion at all. “I meant to warn you. The Earth Legion wants me dead. I have some information they do not want known. Anyone comes into contact with me is taking a risk with their own life.”



“Sighter! Where in the Nine Hells of America-” Silva looked away from the fifteen or so orange floating holoframes in front of him. Like any standard Minuteman model, the Nyx had no windows whatsoever. Holocams and holoputers had to be rigged so the pilot could see what was going on outside. Silva was watching Benjamin Savka nearly fall on his face. The entire Hemera Nyx shook from whatever external force making itself known.

“C'mon Amig, take a seat!” Silva turned back to the controls and started to pull levers and make course corrections. “Them haraam Raddies are here- I think.”

“You think Sil?” Benjamin took a seat in one of the lawn chairs behind Silva that had been soldered and duct taped onto the floor. “Was it the Nyx shaking or just a gut instinct?”

“I get stomach rumbles from them. Makes me feel a bit ogish. Now get to the Sightering, Sighter.” Silva smirked. Gravity in the cockpit went out for a moment. It kicked back in, but brought a G or two pull to the right on them as the entire Hemera Nyx dove starboard.

The intercom buzzed. Amy grumbled through the vox. “Nuke Sil! You trying to kill me? At least try to warn me when you decide to take a wild turn!”

“Not now!” Silva pulled out a chunk of wires. The entire vox system went dead. “Sighter! Use that second sight of yours!”



“Nuking pirates,” Hao Bajaj growled. The Reformed Asian Dominion freighter pilot had enough to worry about on the RAD Trade Circuit without having to deal with every haraam fekhole that decided to come along. These damn American privateers, Hao pondered, when will the nukin UAD just finally admit we're better than them?

He spun his little freighter on a hard right. The little ship was at least two years old, small and cramp, but at it least it wasn't like the flying faraj his privateer target were in. His was a converted Dragon-class bomber, its old bomb bays outfitted with freight clamps to attach a freight container.

Hao set another forium charge and launched it in the direction of the Hemera Nyx, or at least that was the name that was brightly painted on the side of the minuteman-class freighter. He moved the freighter downward, and began to aim his cargo clamps toward the freight container that the Nyx had pinned to its side.

If he was quick about this, the RAD freight container would be back where it belonged. Hao also hoped to pull hard enough to rip a hole in the hull of the faraj ship. His more updated ND-78 clamps and winches were ten times more powerful than anything he guessed the minuteman freighter could have. That and his military grade ion induction drive should help yank a nice big gapping hole in the side of the faraj Hemera Nyx.

Let those nukin' pirates suck vacuum.



Benjamin Savka sat still. The Hemera Nyx vibrated around him. His lawn chair in the cockpit shook. He concentrated. His mind needed to be calm in order to activate his telesenses or Second Sight.

The Second Sight. It cost him a college scholarship at Zimbabwe University. Once it 'appeared' his family betrayed him. They alerted the United American Democracies Government. The Nation he was born in detained him, canceled his visas and gave him a nukin exile statement. A little slip of data that shipped him off Earth and permanently prevented him from 'contaminating humanity with illicit mutation'.

Benjamin pushed through the bad memories. His inner eye opened and it moved from his body. It first moved into the cockpit, but then he pushed it outward, through the silksteel walls of the cockpit. He moved it beyond the wiring and tubing that served as the Nyx's veins and arteries.

“There. I am now outside the hull.” Sighter murmured.

“Sighter thats halaal, amigo.” Silva slammed his fist on a switch with a '69' sticker. “Mind giving me a haraam location?”

“Oh right...” Sighter looked around the outside of the Nyx.

The Hemera Nyx was a minuteman-class freighter, which meant it was nothing more than a silksteel box built around a Ion Induction Drive engine. The bottom of the Nyx's hull had a freight container strapped to it. Thick nylon straps held down the container. And there it was. A smaller sleek single seat bomber hovered a little too close below the belly of the Nyx.

“He's right beneath us.”

Silva blinked. “I guessed as much. But the cameras down there should see something-”

“He's practically touching us, Sil.”

“Fek. Halaal then. Perfect as a triangle.” Silva smirked. “Lets get this relationship up to the next level. I like my dates to be a little more intimate.”



The General and commander of the E.L.S. Constantine awoke as she always did. Nude, she performed her usual routine, fifty or so push-up reps, several dozen practice shots at the punch bag and eventually getting dressed for her morning run. Her routine was interrupted by a beep boop before she could exit her carpeted quarter's door. Her run was halted before she could start it.

General Diana Gem washed her face. In the mirror, she merely grimaced at herself. Her youthful dark black locks hung in front of her brilliant almost red hazel eyes. Her muscles were still in good shape, despite her not having trained in over a week. Command in the Earth Legion was more than enough to keep her fit it seemed.

Gem didn't like having to fix things, especially somebody else's fek. The fools at the Ceres Facility let the girl go. The little cyborg was loose. They claimed she'd try for Earth. But Gem was laughed at that stupidity. The Cyke would go to Mars. To the one place the general couldn't go.

General Gem dried her face just as the comm beeped for her attention again. The nervous voice of the pathetic communication ensign called out. “General, there is some fighting going on between some transports, less than a million kilometers from here.”

She sighed. The ensign spoke slowly and didn't get to the point. But then again, he'd gotten his job because of a relative, he was a nihilist addition she was forced to live with. The General was always forced to accept the nihilistic conditions of the Security Megacorporations. What the media had dubbed the 'Megsecs': Gigantic quasi-military companies that the Old Nations had administer and privatize the extraterrestrial colonies. The general ignored the temptation to punish the soft handed ensign for his lack of discipline. “Did either ship ask for Earth Legion assistance?”

After a pause, the ensign replied a short, “No, sir.”

“Then ignore them,” Gem was curt and short. When she had been a kick boxing world champion over two decades ago, when she was still in her thirties, she'd would've sprung to the rescue. Gem herself looked to be no older than thirty, but gene therapy as well as the best diets in whole solar system disguised her true age. She was well into her fifties, often getting stares of surprise from her underlings. There were more important issues she need to handle at the moment. The cyke girl on Mars. The Earth Legion needed to stop her.

“Sir, I think one of them might be a pirate ship-” He was cut off in mid sentence as Gem yelled into the comm. Enough nuking pussyfooting around, she thought.

“Haraam it, Ensign, unless one of those ships is a client, ignore them. Those are the nuking rules. Get this ship to Mars ASAP!”

After a pause, the ensign acknowledged her.

“Yes General.”

Then the comm went quiet once more. The youthful general then got dressed and left for the command center. This was her Saint-class carrier and despite some Earther dilettantes, she was going to find what she was paid to go hunt.

Passage on the Nyx 1

Passage on the Nyx 1

The incessant dripping didn't irritate Catherine 97801-08111985A senses anymore. She was cold. But one of her cybernetics must have been skipping. The flesh of a biological replicant had its ups and downs. Cloned and perfected by dozens of years of practice and use, her body was regarded as a industry standard, a human clone with enough cybernetics to be declared a Cyke. Her body never got tired and was ten times quicker than a normal human. But the raw random skips of memory due to wet cold...

If she had could sense her emotions beyond what her inhibitor gave her, the clone of a clone would've hated the Martians and their dirt poor domes. Most of their moisturizers, condensers and other dome technology simply was so far behind, that the entirety of Utopia felt like it was soaking with rain. As she shivered in the trash, she tried again to reboot herself.

Perhaps days went by. Or weeks. Catherine 97801-08111985A couldn't tell. Her body was inoperable. She was a rag doll lying in the trash, wearing a gunny sack for lack of better clothes.

That is where Fai found her. The Genehacked woman walked down the alley to the fallen clone. She cut a sharp figure, covered by a short bright red dress. The genetic manipulations on her were clearly cosmetic. She was the standard cat girl. In Fai's field, most men liked a woman that purred. Whose stamina was modified to be long and hard to stall. With a tail and a smaller body to curl up next to. Plus, the right cybernetics let her rearrange her persona for clientèle.

Fai enjoyed the claws genehacked into her. It kept those clients who wanted more than she allowed. She wasn't some common whore. On Utopia she was a Queen. An escort. A businesswoman on a planet full of Dusters who lived and worked for men and women they never even met.

“Girl? You Halaal?” Fai was intrigued by her. Lying in the trash, clearly broken. There was a story here. Fai liked a new story. “I said, are you halaal? Can you talk at all?”

Try as she might, Catherine 97801-08111985A couldn't respond. She could not even attempt to even blink. Catherine simply watched as this woman bent over and looked into her eyes. Fai studied her with her own catlike eyes.

“My name is Fai,” Fai stooped down, judging by the glowing blue irises that Catherine had to be a Cyke. Earther designed too. Fai judged that based on her size. This cyke was what? Just over one and a half meters? Fai herself was the average for a Duster woman. She stood over two meters. Martians tended to be huge compared to an Earther, and this little Cyke must have been Earth-born or raised in Earth gravity. “I can help you. Do you have a open Wi port?”

Catherine tried, she really did, to open her Wi port. But another hard drive crash was coming on. Her memory was about to skip again. She blacked out.

Fai gently picked the Cyke up and carried her away from the trash of the dirty, fek-filled streets of downtown Utopia...



The spider spun its web unaware of the eyes that could see it. Extrasensory perceptive eyes studied the small black creature as it crafted a new web. The space spider, for gene hacks had granted the small critters new adaptations to handle the various holes in a gravity field, was one of a dozen or so that lived inside the Hemera Nyx's air vents. Benjamin Savka loved to watch them. They could spin a new web within ten minutes of starting.

He was stirred out of his ESP by the beeping. Beep beep beep. Benjamin rubbed his eyes, and flicked his holoputer to mute. The screaming music coming from it went silent, the seven floating orange holoframe still cluttered the air as he went to the intercom. His quarters consisted of one room, with a door just as wide as the room. Space inside the Hemera Nyx was cramped.
The room's most distinct feature was the yellow rust stains on its grey-blue silksteel walls. They left trails like little rivers where water leaks or just regular condensation had built up. Rivets here and there denoted the seals of the quarters and the fluorescent light above him flickered every once and while. Its unnatural glow did nothing to help Sighter relax. The room felt cold and the lights lacked the rightness the sunlight had on a warm summer day.

The quarters were barely wider than five feet. There was enough room for a bed, a small table and a meager wooden chest that always seemed to be in the way. Every quarter and living space on the Hemera Nyx felt as cramp as his did. Bare metal bulkheads and little room to walk seemed to be a hallmark of the ship and others of its model, the minuteman-class freighter. Cheap and quick to build- no wonder it seemed to lack enough room for one to breathe. Benjamin made his way to the intercom that looked like it was stenciled to his door.

“Yes?” Benjamin pressed down the intercom and tried to sound a bit courteous. Last thing he needed to do so far this trip was be a jerk. Silva and Borecky probably were still pissed on how he messed up the LMA job. Hey, they got away in one piece, even if the entire Gray of the Moon was aware of it. It wasn't like they were going to admit the theft. Who would they go to? No Graybum in his right mind would try to violate their one most holy rule: don't fek where you eat.



Saul 'Reaver' Silva slurped his small mug of mead. It wasn't honeymead or that nice sweet stuff they made over at Nightland- actually he wasn't quite sure what the Graybums on the Moon used, but it gave the alcohol a nice metallic taste. Oh well. He continued his drinking.

Let see, he thought happily, got paid today. Silva flicked one of the multitude of stickers that littered his ship's main controls. Each sticker had sex position from Karma Sutra, a dance move from the waltz or a position from tai chi. All ones he had tried and enjoyed of course. Not real unless you tried at least twice.

Let see, got paid today! Silva couldn't wait to drop off the goods and get to the payment. Two or three payments here and there to get rid of. Not to mention paying off Sighter and Wrecker. Most definitely pay Wrecker. Silva remembered the qikker's promise to haraam his genitalia globally.

“Yep. Gotta pay the crazy nukin saob.” Silva took another swig of mead and leaned back in the chair that had been duct taped to the silksteel and rusty floor of the cockpit. The chair was a armchair, except most of the upholstery was long gone. There were no windows of the space outside, and behind his chair was a pair of lawn chairs, bolted to the stained floor. His chair sat in the front of a mess of floating flat holo images, each holo held a variety of images from the cameras from all over the ship.

Also before Silva's “throne” was a mess of wires, fuses, buttons and a variety of levers. Saul Silva himself was not out of place in the narrow cockpit. The right half of the Saul was heavily scarred, something he never talked about. His other half of his body, his 'pretty half' as Saul put it, was tattooed heavily with a variety of beautiful, yet naked women riding various dragons.

Let see, got paid today!

Silva took another celebratory swig, only to nearly choke on it as the ship rocked all of a sudden. Those Raddie soabi! Haraam it! Why can't anythin ever go halaal for me? Just this once, Universe. Make it halaal. Come on.

The Hemera Nyx and its crew did have a reason to be harassed, of course. Silva knew this. Fek, the man had laughed his head off when the crew and he stole the freight container right under the Reformed Asian Dominion or Raddie freighter. The Nyx literally towed the stuff away.

“Haraam nukin' Saobi! Nukin' Faraj! C'mon!” Silva sneered, beating his ship into action. He also needed that Fork of his down here to get some sort of advantage on this.

“Silva? You nukin' og! What are you doing? This isn't lolle you ognuke!” The voice of Rae Borecky, or Wrecker as Silva called her, blared angrily at him over the wireless.

“Sorry, can't chat,” Silva flicked a switch with a sticker that bore the image of the missionary position. The Vox channel with Wrecker went mute.



“Hello? Sil? Borecky?” Benjamin tried once again. Stupid thing seemed to be going og again.

The intercom buzzed this time with a response. Vox-only as usual. The Hemera Nyx never seemed to quite have the right internal functions. None of the creature comforts. No holo-frame intercoms. Just one of the luxuries of being a Class Two citizen.

“Hey, Sighter!”

The voice over the intercom almost sounded like a swagger. Sighter was Silva's nickname for the young Forsaken. That was the slang for having the gift of ESP. People on Earth feared it. Just like they feared Cykes, the Genehacked, the Gor, the Dusters and every other disaster that nature spewed. “Amig, I needja to make a nice sharp jog up to the nukebox. ESP time.”

Benjamin opened his door and stepped out onto the catwalk. The catwalk ran the length of the center of the Hemera Nyx, going over the heart of the thing. Its guts, its engine and the gravity generators sat and steamed underneath it. And it roared.

Benjamin made his way toward the end of the catwalk that led into the Nukebox. He paused when he raised his head. Borecky. Rae Borecky marched her way down the catwalk toward him. Her face was emotionless and cold. She was in her fight mode. He tried his way to avoid her. Or her wrath. Rae Borecky marched on past him, her short Omn-Quebecer Marine training in clear control.

“Sighter, ignore her!” A voice grumbled from below him. Benjamin glanced down at the dark gray and silver furred figure below him. The Gor or Gorilla- they preferred Gor as Benjamin had learned the hard way- was Amatersa. Amy the mechanic. Benjamin still hadn't figured how she managed to handle the machines, but she had a sharp eye and could handle zero gravity like no one else on the crew could.
“She's in a halaal mode. Take as a warning, amig! Doom!” Amatersa gave a smirk at him. Benjamin returned it with a single hand wave. He continued onto the Nukebox. He stepped through the hole in the gravity wells between the catwalk and the Nukebox.

A Rant Against Organized Religion, part One

I dislike large, huge organizations. Large conglomerations of people, driven toward a singular idea with no oversight at all... frighten me. Hence, organizations tell me what spirituality is and means, and what I should believe...

Well. They piss me off. I can stand on Libertarian grounds and dislike Big Government- Anti-Corporatism has a point when it comes to Megacorporations like Disney or whoever. And... Atheism has a point when it comes to organized religion. Big Religion is just as bizarre and retarded as Big Government.

Why? I'll explain later.