As 2024 approaches, many will be considering upgrading their IPTV subscription to take advantage of new features and channel offerings from providers. With the industry constantly evolving, selecting the right service is crucial for an exceptional viewing experience in the new year and beyond. This guide examines the top options for 2024 based on key evaluation points.
Programming Package
A comprehensive channel selection will remain central to any premium service in 2024. Leaders like promise well over 100,000 global channels by next year across live TV, VOD and PPV categories. Evaluating providers' channel roadmaps is wise to ensure your favorite networks and specialty offerings will continue expanding over the next 12 months.
Device Compatibility
Seamless access across a wide range of devices from any location will still define top IPTV experiences in 2024. Premier providers like 4KIPTVSpot commit to adding new device types and platforms regularly based on customer demands. Their universal compatibility ensures entertainment is always available however and wherever you choose to watch.
Picture Quality Advances
Industry forecasts suggest 4K and 8K live streams will become far more commonplace in 2024. 4KIPTVSpot pledges to deliver the bulk of its library at minimum 4K quality by next year to satisfy increasing resolution expectations. Their extensive network upgrades ensure customers enjoy cinema-grade entertainment directly on compatible screens at home.
Customizable Features
IPTV subscriptions moving into 2024 that offer high degrees of customization and personalization will satisfy diverse subscriber needs most effectively. Services like 4KIPTVSpot enable highly tailored channel bundles, playback options, user profiles and more for ultimate control. Their innovative feature-sets keep the experience feeling fresh for years.
Reliability Through Upgrades
Keeping pace with growing demands requires networks upgrading constantly. Top IPTV providers dedicate sizable budgets to server improvements that guarantee reliability as channel loads increase heading into 2024 and beyond. Premium IPTV promises redundant capacities to deliver an uninterrupted viewing experience under even the heaviest traffic.
Continued Value
Multi-year plans from reputable suppliers remain the most cost-effective option heading into the new year.4KIPTVSpot great long-term value starting at just $49.99 annually through 2024. Their competitive pricing and consistent feature additions over time make them a leading choice.
Customer Support Excellence
Any issues that might occur with extensive programming require fast responses. 4KIPTVSpot commits to award-winning 24/7 multi-channel support globally into 2024 to solve problems swiftly so the focus stays on enjoying entertainment. Their customer-first approach leads the industry.
In summary, prioritizing these important criteria when selecting an IPTV provider positions you to fully capitalize on all the exciting advancements coming to the industry in 2024 and take your entertainment experience to new heights in the new year. 4KIPTVSpot stands out as the top choice.
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The following is an original work of fan fiction. It will only make sense if you’ve read Corpies and SP4
“Fucking bullshit cock-garglers!” Hannah, formerly known as Hexcellent, uttered louder than she intended.
Luckily, she was sitting by herself in a third floor private room in the brand new wing of the Sizemore undergraduate library. On the main floor, any sound louder than a fart would’ve earned a collective, “shhhhh,” and annoyed stares from half the people studying. And frankly, as difficult as these Gen Chem practice exams were, the former PEERS would be spitting out a few more expletives before she was done.
Hannah glanced at her watch and sighed heavily. It was 4:43 PM. She still had two and a half hours before she’d need to head to the lift to meet Devon and Kacey, two other first year HCP students, for some evening training. Okay, you got this girl. You just fucked up some amped criminal supers, you can handle goddamn mass to mole composition formula and stoichiom-whatever-the-fuck, she thought to herself. With resigned determination, the HCP student began swiping through class presentation slides on her tablet, reviewing problems she had trouble with. For a solid 2 hours her eyes never left the material and she honestly started to feel more comfortable with what she needed to know. Hannah was in the zone. That was until she was interrupted by a knock on the door.
“What. The actual. Fuck?“ Hannah said slowly as she looked up towards the door and the adjacent window.
The summoner saw two boys standing outside, one of whom was a short muscular guy with dark brown hair that she recognized. She was fairly certain his name was Lucas, and that he was another HCP first year. He was in the alternative class though, while Hannah was in combat, so they hadn’t been around each other a whole hell of a lot. The other seemed familiar, but she couldn’t put her finger or on where she’d seen him before. They were each moving their mouths, and pointing a finger at themselves and into the room clearly asking if they could come in. Hannah got up and opened the door.
“Hey, Helen, right? You think that we can study in here with you? All the good tables downstairs are full. I just met Tristan here and he’s in the same predicament as me,” said Lucas before he lowered his voice to a whisper, leaned his head in, and pointed to the boy he referred to as Tristan. “He’s in the same ummm…special program as us. In his 2nd year.”
With that information, Hannah realized where she’d seen that guy. He was at the freshman party hosted by the second years. She remembered thinking that he came off as kind of a douchebag by the way he was standing around, nursing the same drink with a smug look on his face the whole time.
“Yeah, sure, whatever. As long as you guys dont act like complete assholes and make a bunch of noise. I gotta focus for about another 30 minutes then the room is yours. Cool?”
“Cool,” the boys said in unison.
“And it’s Hannah by the way. Not Helen. You’re Lucas, right?” She held out her hand towards him.
Lucas politely shook her hand. “Sorry about that Hannah. I’m terrible at remembering names,” he said with a slight shrug. “Just gonna grab a seat on this side so I can stay outta your way.” He held out his arm towards the opposite side of the table from where Hannah had been sitting and started walking over there.
Tristan walked in and closed the door behind himself. He gave Hannah a simple head nod and smirk but never formerly introduced himself. Very similar to his demeanor at the party; as though he couldn’t be bothered.
Yep, arrogant douche, she thought. Then she pictured the look of surprise on the 2nd year’s face if she were to manifest her big furry friend to accidentally-on-purpose kick him in the balls.
Hannah had often wondered if anyone in the HCP realized her summon was the same giant bunny that helped save Brewster almost a year ago. Titan had told her the DVA would hide any association between the tower-sized rabbit and her PEERS persona but she figured that once classmates saw her summon for the first time they’d make the connection. That didn’t seem to be the case though, at least as far as she knew. It helped that when she summoned Hopcules these days, he was about the same height and stature as Titan. None of her combat training took place outside yet, so no one in HCP got to see her manifestation at his full potential size. He’d also taken on more humanistic facial expressions lately and had been appearing in a variety of different clothes and accessories. Hell, the last time she trained with Kacey, the hulking rabbit materialized in a denim vest, a blue bandanna on his head, metal spiked leather bracelets around his wrists, brass knuckles, and with gold chains around his neck. Kacey couldn’t stop laughing during their sparring session until Hopcules had her bound and hog tied. Even with her enhanced strength, she couldn’t break free of what evidently weren’t just plain gold necklaces. It hadn’t dawned on Hannah until later that, the night before, she’d fallen asleep to an old 80s action flick about a renegade cop taking on a vicious street gang. She wondered if tonight her childhood protector would show up in a lab coat, holding a periodic table. The Sizemore freshman briefly shook her head to snap herself out of her thoughts and sat down to resume her work. She’d gotten fully back into her study mode until…
“Yo, does sound carry out of this room?” Tristan asked.
“Seriously?! You do remember that whole bit about NOT being obnoxious assholes, right?”Hannah asked incredulously.
“Damn girl chill. I just wanted to ask my guy here a question and didn’t want to risk being overheard. You should smile more girl. You know what I mean?“
Relax. Breathe. You don’t want to be seen as a troublemaker. It would not be a good idea to kick this fucker’s ass while inside of the school library. Or would it be? No. No. Definitely not a good idea, she thought to herself.
“Well unless you two were standing outside of here practicing at being mimes as a back up in case you don’t make it to graduation, I’m pretty sure this room is well insulated to sound.”
Tristan grunted in indignation and sarcastically replied, “you’re hilarious.”
“I’m definitely going all the way through. No way I won’t graduate,” Lucas chimed in, seemingly oblivious to the tension that’d just arisen between the other two people in the room. I’ve known I wanted to be a hero ever since I was little. My parents have spent a fortune sending me to an elite training camp for the last seven summers to make sure I’d be as prepared as possible for the HCP. Plus I’ve had personal coaches work with me for years on new ways to use my power.”
“Bro! That’s what I was wanting to ask you about. I saw the logo on on your bag. Holy shit, did you do the SETA training camps?” asked Tristan.
“Yeah, I take it you’ve heard of it.”
“Hell yeah I have. The Super Elite Training Academy. Who hasn’t? I hear those workouts are so intense. No wonder you’re so jacked. You must’ve been in great shape for your first day here. Mad props bro. Is it true you get to fight against human looking robot…”
“Hey! Tweedledum and tweedle-dickless, I honestly didn’t know there was such a thing as a two-man circle jerk, so I really appreciate the show but is there any chance I can get back to work without any more distractions?“
Lucas had mixture surprise and guilt run across his face. He opened his mouth as though he was about to say something, but glanced over to Tristan and stayed silent.
“What? You mad because you’re realizing you can’t stack up against the competition. Guess what. My guy here isn’t the only one who’s been preparing for this program long before he was admitted. I’ve been getting ready for years too. Trained in jiu-jitsu and boxing on top of honing my super abilities. Have you even done anything? Or did you just apply and cross your fingers?”
Hannah could see where this was going in. She decided in that moment to just let it play out. Fuck it, she thought. She was basically done studying. Even if she failed the final, which she was confident that she wouldn’t, she’d still pass the class. She stood up, pressed an icon on her tablet touchscreen and began putting other things away in her bag while she spoke. “Actually, I never had any special training as a kid. To tell you the truth, I shouldn’t even be here. I got into some trouble years ago. The kind of trouble that normally prevents one from getting admitted into an HCP. But, I was on a PEERS team for years and I got to do a lot of…
“Ha! You’re telling us you’re fucking a Corpie. Can you believe this, dude?“ Tristan nudged Lucas, looking for his agreement. To his credit, Lucas appeared visibly uncomfortable and leaned away from the other boy.
“Don’t know what it says about your class if they’re letting Corpies in,” continued Tristan with a sneer. “I guess you really do need to study. Obviously you’re the one that needs a back up plan. And here’s another thing little girl. It’s not just about how much you’ve trained beforehand, it’s also about who you know. And I know people. My mom‘s best friend is related to the Hero, Unseelie. So I’ve actually met a few Heroes who I’m sure will vouch for me when the time comes. Pity you can’t say the same. We all know Heroes don’t give two shits about Corpies.”
For a moment Hannah’s face expressed a flat affect. Then suddenly she burst into laughter. And not just some derisive laugh as though she was trying to convey to Tristan that she didn’t take his comments seriously. But an eye watering, oxygen depriving, honest to the Gods belly laugh. The kind of laugh that would’ve been contagious had she been around friends. She carried on for a minute until her amusement died down to a just a mild chortle. Hannah wiped her eyes. “You know people?“ She started laughing again, even louder than the first time. “Oh my Gods. Stop. Stop. I can’t breathe. Is this your fucking power?” Hannah was bent over at the waist still laughing hysterically, holding out one finger as to communicate, “give me a second.” After another minute, she wiped her eyes again, took a big gulp of air, and collected herself. “Woooh. Now that was some funny fucking shit.”
“Who in the hell do you think…“ Tristan started to say through gritted teeth.
“No no no. Please don’t get me started again. I don’t think my ribs can take it,“ said Hannah still chuckling some. “Let’s see what have I done and who do I know? You know I always knew that eventually I’d tell people about this, I just didn’t think it would go down like this.” The summoner raised her hand, then slowly curled it into a fist. Standing 3ft tall and leaning into the corner so as not to be visible to anyone who happened to be looking into the room at that moment, was Hopcules, adorned in the same armor he’d worn on the day he helped to save Brewster. “Look familiar to anyone?”
“That looks like the giant rabbit that fought robots with Titan. Hare-a-clees or something like that. My little sister has like 5 of its t-shirts,” Lucas responded.
“Wow kid, you really are shit with remembering names. Hop-cu-les is the name I gave him when I was just a child. Surprised the shit outta me that he came out the size of a skyscraper when those robots nearly killed me and my team, ” Hannah stated nonchalantly as she waved her hand and made Hopcules fade away.
With a grudging realization, Tristan began to ask, “wait, you’re not actually saying…”
“Oh look, captain mc-douche-nozzle is catching on. Somebody give the kid a prize. Yes, dumbass, I’m actually saying I fought with Titan, yes, thee fucking Titan, with every other Hero team in Brewster to stop those mechs from destroying the entire city. I’m saying the strongest hero alive is my personal mentor and it was his recommendation that got me into this program.”
Lucas looked back and forth between Hannah and Tristan having already realized that the sophomore might be one of those guys who’d lash out over his perceived inferiority. Lucas was so curious though he had to ask, “but… But, that rabbit is everywhere these days. Not just T-shirts. Toys, a cartoon, and I just read there’s going to be a next-gen console video game based on his character. If you own the rights to that image, you’d be loaded.“
“Eh,” Hannah said with shrug. “Youre leaving out the movie deal Lenny just got for me, but not something I talk about too much . It leaves me enough to be comfortable and to be able to donate a library wing to the university thats giving me a shot at being a hero.” Hannah responded. She gave Tristan a quick wink and glanced over her shoulder towards the door.
Tristan looked in the same direction and noticed something he hadn’t bothered paying attention to before, a small engraving on the center of the door of a bipedal rabbit. This would’ve been the most surprising thing that he’d seen since he set foot in the room if it wasn’t for the photo that appeared on Hannah’s tablet now facing him. It was an image of five people: Graham De Soto, the new head of the DVA, Titan in his iconic Hero costume, Dean Jackson, a large muscular young man with a shit eating grin who Tristan didn’t recognize, and another person in a generic gray mask, presumably female, and wearing a smile of malicious enjoyment, the same as the woman standing before him.
Hannah saw what caught his attention and picked up her tablet. “Oh, did you notice this? I love this picture. Titan called me in for back up as a Temporary Emergency Hero Asset. We beat the shit out of a literal army of enhanced criminal supers and took this picture after everything calmed down. All the other HCP deans were there too. Mr. Desoto actually told me if I ever needed a favor, he owed me one.” Hannah wore a wistful expression as she thought back on that day with fondness.
“Anyway, I gotta get outta here. S’posed to meet up with my training partners. Cause no matter what your background is or who you know, no one is a shoe-in for the final 10. Lucas, feel free to meet us in the combat cells tonight if you want to get a work out in and get tired of hanging out with this fuckwad. Later losers!” Hannah said this last part as she turned around and headed towards door while holding up her middle finger for all to see.
Tristan was obviously livid. His hands had been visibly shaking as he stood and listened to all the ways this 1st year had accomplished more than he’d even thought possible for student. Who does this little bitch think she is? She’s full of shit. She has to be. I’ll show her. From his elbows down, Tristan‘s arms began to darken. In seconds the two appendages looked like small tree trunks, with his fingers elongating into barbed tendril-liked branches rapidly moving towards Hannah.
Although Lucas had worked for years to improve his ability to cast his energy based illusionary environments-referred to by one quirky coach in the past as a “holodeck”- speed was an element that he continued to struggle with. He began to cast a simple illusion of darkness, so as to blind Tristan, but he knew almost immediately that it wouldn’t reach him in time. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw furry white movement. The miniature Hopcules had reappeared and was running towards the back of the chair Tristan had been sitting in. With a parkour maneuver that would make Jackie Chan jealous, Hopcules leapt from the floor to the chair, then from the chair to the rear wall. He torpedoed off of the wall with the force of both hind paws and made contact Tristan’s head, knocking the arrogant second year to the floor. He laid there dazed and confused about what had just struck him as his branches retracted and his arms returned to normal. The summon vanished before he even touched the ground.
Hannah smiled as she exited the room. Thanks be to the Gods. I was hoping that piece of shit would try something so I could have self-defense as an excuse. Kacey and Devon better be ready. I’m already warmed up.

Do you remember Microsoft 3D Movie Maker? A free demo of it came with Windows 95. If you really liked it, you could buy the full version on CD-ROM. Basically, you could make your own 3D movies using preset actors, props, and scenes. You could even add your own dialogue & sound effects using the computer's mic. It was such a hit that it developed its own cult fanbase.
A little-known fact is that if you go to the intro page of the talent book and type in “socrates,” you'll find a live-action featurette on the making of 3D Movie Maker, originally known as “Project Socrates" to the developers. It's a pretty fun watch, and I highly recommend it!
What I do not recommend, however, is “Project Caligula.”
I am (very begrudgingly) going to explain the process by which you can access Project Caligula. To start, you must make a movie, choosing Misty City as the scene, and the small café as the camera angle. As a prop, select the sphere, color it red, flatten it all the way, and put it under the left most table. As actors, select S'kelly and Augustin. Change Augustin's outfit to the tuxedo and put him in front of the café door, between the tables. Place S'kelly horizontally at his feet. You can do this using the adjustment tools in the part of the toolbar that is initially covered up.
Next, change the music to “Geist Evil Theme.” Select the Sound effect “Laugh Maniac" and place it on Augustin. Finally, make his action “At Rest" and have him stay like that for EXACTLY 17 frames.
Conclude by clicking “New Movie.” A prompt will ask you if you want to save your movie. Do so and save it as “caligula” (all lower case, no quotes). When the screen comes up, go to “Open Movie" and select caligula. Unlike other movies, whose preview pics are the first frame of the film, the screenshot will be a 3D graphic of the phrase “Welcome To Hell" in the font Bloody (which is not available in the original edition of the game) in front of a black background.
When you open the movie, instead of the preview pic, you will see a blood red background. Again, this is the first of many things you'll see that are not presets of the game. Clicking play will play 21 frames of the screen with an off-key version of Lacrimosa by Mozart playing on piano in the background. The screen will then spiral wipe to the actor Bongo in front of the black background for 13 frames. Then, his skin appears to melt off quite graphically, followed by subsequent layers of muscle, tissue and even organs, until it reaches the skeleton. This skeleton, unlike the default S'kelly, looks eerily... well…
…like it belongs to Bongo.
The shape, lines, and even proportions, are fitted to Bongo's unique build. The music gradually fades, replaced with a crescendo of tortured screams. The skeleton then opens its mouth and says one of the preset lines:
“Those bullies won't bother me now!”
While this IS a line attributed to Bongo, the line is distorted to sound deep and very demonic.
The final thing you see is a text in front of one of the basic backgrounds from the Nickelodeon edition of 3D Movie Maker. The front is hard to read, not only because the color almost completely blends in with the background, but also because it's in a strange font. When translated, it reads:
“Let all those who see this film beware! For whosoever seeks to make it their own shall suffer a fate worse than death.”
I had heard about a member of the 3DMM community who did try to modify the movie, so I found out where he lived to ask him about it. When I got there, the lawn looked like it hadn't been mowed for days, and there was several days worth of mail & papers present. I knocked on the door, but no one answered.
I looked in a nearby window and saw that most of the house was covered in blood, urine, feces, and various entrails. I opened the door only to have the severed torso of the person I was seeking fall towards me. His skin was gone, as were his legs & hips, he was covered in blood, and I thought he was dead.
Until he grabbed my ankle and gasped:
“Why… why won't he let me die?”
“Who,” I asked.
“E… Edgar…”
I called 911 immediately. The doctors made a startling discovery when they examined him: A piece of his brain was missing. According to some psychologists, this part of the brain…
…alerts the body when it dies.
As to the identity of Edgar, according to my research, he was apparently a programmer for Microsoft working on Project Socrates. He was fired for making horrifically graphic movies and later committed suicide. His suicide note read:
“You'll regret this."
I know I did...

Anyone watching this trial?

This is loosely related, but the Daybell case is turning out to be a great source for a preview of what’s to come.

• Ms. Beaty is one of the prosecutors
• ISP Lab supervisor testimony
• FBI CAST & CSLI testimony from the supervisor in Idaho

I think there’s a decent chance the same ISP Lab Supervisor and/or FBI CAST Supervisor will be the ones to testify on this case, bc their departments are for state of Idaho & supervisors typically closely oversee processes for high-profile cases & are more equipped to testify.

• . - * . - * . - * . - * . - * . - * . - * . - * . - *

FBI CAST / CSLI Supervisor - Day 22

(just ended about 45 mins ago at the time I’m posting this)

• He’s disclosed a lot but most of the info is with more abundant data to work off of.
• Google location history is the main source of the precise locations we saw pertaining to Alex Cox’s movements. > — I wonder if that means Alex Cox had a Droid (anyone know?), or if we might see something like this data come out with this case. > — being logged into Gmail gives them very precise location points, you could see Alex Cox move around Walmart based on phone location
• {For anyone interested in the Delphi case, the 100m range is explained}.
• I find it very interesting how willingly and easily the CAST team at FBI cooperated with this Daybell case, in contrast with subpoenas and the Touhey process being employed in the Kohberger case
• There are a lot of overlapping coverage zones in Idaho > (but this case is based on the opposite corner of the state, so it didn’t show the maps they use near where this investigation is based)
• he goes over AT&T drive test data
• a lot of the data presented is specific to AT&T {insights useful for Kohberger, Delphi cases} > — a lot from Verizon too.
• Random fact learned: Verizon doesn’t store location details in the data & analytics log on phones when texts are sent and received like other carriers do

Note: he’s not shown on screen & is likely using an alias.
Hot take: my guess on why they don’t have the cooperation from the FBI CAST / CSLI team on Kohberger case seems likely to be that they misrepresented or cherry-picked info, which the FBI CAST team isn’t willing to limit their statements to in testimony, & are going back & forth about providing a report limited to that, rather than FBI just stonewalling their request for the data.

^{That’s ^ my wild guess, not evidenced directly, just a personal opinion on what I think is likely}

• . - * . - * . - * . - * . - * . - * . - * . - * . - *

ISP Lab Supervisor Ms. Dace - Day 20

• Her testimony did not help the prosecution at all IMO, but they did provide some interesting insights into their processes
• They didn’t find a single hint of Chad’s DNA on anything they tested > — despite 18 of the items being tools he owned & presumably has used…. > — They assumed ownership and that his DNA would be present (apparently neglecting to consider that someone else’s DNA being present could be exculpatory for the defendant) > huge risk from this testimony: conspiracy to commit murder + 1st degree murder —> just conspiracy}
• There was essentially no unexpected or incriminating DNA anywhere (Lori’s was mixed with Tylee’s in some places but she’s already convicted so that rly makes no dif)
• She gave some insights that help to understand the super high #s given in this case. — They assume mixture but test for a unique profile among it. — {they expected DNA from soil, decomposition fluids from both victims, and ashes <-interesting}
• They got reference samples from all the main players and, using using atypical methodology, did not test for any outside contributor’s identities > — “Atypical” bc thats how they did it “for this case,” she clarified (unique instructions or circumstances apparently)
• For all cases, they only test exactly the items & places on the items that police or prosecutors instruct them to, or things they’re instructed to test by court orders
• in this case, she saw potential blood on 10 items which they only determined was consistent with blood, but didn’t test whose it was on any of them.
• Their policy is not to run consumptive testing without approval. > — And apparently didn’t seek, or weren’t granted approval, despite nothing testing positive for the defendant’s DNA

I was pretty shocked at how much DNA they opted to preserve rather than consume. In this case, what could they possibly need to save it for that would be more important than THIS investigation & trial !!!? - no one wants to clone this dude & taxpayers prob aren’t hoping for a re-do - and especially given that they don’t have even one tiny HINT of Chad’s DNA on anything….!..?..!.? - Yikes - (no fault of Ms. Dace though; she just tests what she’s told to).

• they assume it was on tool handles since he owned them, but that also bases the choice not to confirm, on the assumption that no one else’s would be present…. we’ll see if the jury accepts that….

(For clarity: I think he obviously played a key role in the kid’s deaths & is guilty of at least conspiracy to commit murder, just now question the strength of the first degree murder charge, not his actual guilt)

• . - * . - * . - * . - * . - * . - * . - * . - * . - *

Ms. Beaty - special prosecutor from the Kohberger case is on this trial too.

• she’s more effective on the Daybell case IMO, watching has guven me a better impression of her
• it might be just bc she has better arguments to use to lay out a clear picture, or it might be that she has a dif role in the Kohberger case > — She seems to get stuck with a lot of long-shot requests, likely bc she has a higher rank
• She seems confident, calm, & precise
  Side-note: Prosecutor Wood’s performance is a lot more mild than what I expected. Pryor is coming off as more thorough and inquisitive, but both of them come off as very kind and reasonable - very courteous & cooperative with each other, too; they have a lot of sidebars, like, “Your honor, may I have a brief moment to discuss with Mr. Wood?”, and come to quick, joint-agreements or suggestions. Pryor’s been given an extremely difficult task to undertake single-handedly - facing what seems impossible. He’s missed a few key opportunities to question some things, but I think he’s matching the performance of the prosecutors thus far, from the days I watched.
  
• Beaty seems most harsh / stern from the bunch, but more likable than she’s come off in the Kohberger case IMO
  
• . - * . - * . - * . - * . - * . - * . - * . - * . - *
  

Anyone else watching this one?
— If not, honestly, I do not recommend. This trial is dominated by soft-spoken, slow-speakers lol.
Any other take-aways?
Or questions? (I watched more than most ppl prob have the patience for - it’s kind of like a long version of those old Clear Eyes commercials, but with lots of dead silence in between statements - so I’d be happy to answer if I can)

• anyone know whether Alex Cox had a Droid?

There are some older lutris install scripts/documentation floating around for running Pathos on Linux. While those work if you just want to try out the game, each of them results in forced software renderer and overall sub-optimal experience (higher cpu usage and possibly unstable varying on zoom level framerate, bad 1%). Below is a protonfix example for running game with DXVK and proton-ge, esync/fsync also works (you can translate these steps to winetricks instead with whatever wrappers you use, for barebone wine you would probably need to also add dxvk and install corefonts as listed in lutris, proton ships with all of these by default).

# Just a helper function, append this function to your proton-ge's protonfixes/util.py def protontricks_proton_legacy(version,verb): version = "Proton " + version if not checkinstalled(verb): try: pass except FileNotFoundError: log.warn('The protonprefix folder was not found') lookups = [os.path.join(os.path.dirname(element),version) for element in os.environ['STEAM_COMPAT_TOOL_PATHS'].split(":")] try: protonvpath = next(el for el in lookups if os.path.exists(os.path.join(el,'dist','bin','wine'))) except StopIteration: log.warn('{0} was not found'.format(version)) return log.info('Using {0} at '.format(version) + str(os.path.join(protonvpath))) env = dict(protonmain.g_session.env) env['WINEPREFIX'] = protonprefix() env['WINE'] = os.path.join(protonvpath,'dist','bin','wine') env['WINELOADER'] = os.path.join(protonvpath,'dist','bin','wine') env['WINESERVER'] = os.path.join(protonvpath,'dist','bin','wineserver') env['WINEPATH'] = os.path.join(protonvpath,'dist','bin','wine64') env['WINETRICKS_LATEST_VERSION_CHECK'] = 'disabled' env['LD_PRELOAD'] = '' winetricks_bin = os.path.abspath(__file__).replace('util.py','winetricks') winetricks_cmd = [winetricks_bin, '--unattended', '--force'] + verb.split(' ') process = subprocess.Popen(winetricks_cmd, env=env) process.wait() # This goes into your custom protonfix at protonfixes/gamefixes-steam/SOMEUNIQUENUMERICID.py from protonfixes import util def main(): util.protontricks_proton_legacy('6.5GE','dotnet48') # dotnet4.8 has issues installing on anything newer, before running download proton-ge-6.5 and unpack to 'Proton 6.5GE' next to this proton-ge's folder util.protontricks('win7') # dotnet4.8 defaults to older versions util.protontricks('d3dcompiler_47') # fix for renderer failure when running outside renderer=gdi util.protontricks('renderer=vulkan') # unnecessary, but forces preferred backend util.set_environment('WINEDLLOVERRIDES','dxgi,d3d9=n') # also just to assure consistency between versions 

Then if you would be to run proton-ge directly from command line you could do something like this.

# Minimal example of proton environment export SteamAppId=SOMEUNIQUENUMERICIDFROMSTEPABOVE export SteamGameId=$SteamAppId export STEAM_COMPAT_APP_ID=$SteamAppId export STEAM_COMPAT_DATA_PATH="/path/to/foldefonew/steam/pfx" export STEAM_COMPAT_INSTALL_PATH="/path/to/game/folder" export STEAM_COMPAT_CLIENT_INSTALL_PATH="$HOME/.local/share/Steam" export STEAM_COMPAT_TOOL_PATHS="/path/to/proton-ge" # Setup prefix mkdir -p "$STEAM_COMPAT_DATA_PATH" '/path/to/proton-ge/proton' run wineboot --init # Setup patches and run the game (no to error windows if any shows up) cd "$STEAM_COMPAT_INSTALL_PATH" '/path/to/proton-ge/proton' waitforexitandrun 'PathosGame.exe' 

Mangohud won't work, but you can confirm dxvk being used via nvidia-smi or any other tool that lists gpu card utilization (PathosGame.exe should now show up), overall lower strain on CPU and better framerates in diagnostic tools overlay of the game.

Previous Update discussion All Update Threads
 
New official Wiki at https://spaceengineers.wiki.gg/wiki/Space_Engineers_Wiki
 
Hello, Engineers!
The new Signal update is here! “Signal” lays the foundation for a new era of Space Engineers. 2024 will be a year of exploration, battle, and survival. This update focuses on our framework for a new standard in player versus environment.
Signal adds new choices to your creative arsenal with new blocks, specifically created for this occasion. With this new set of blocks, your remote automation can act with an entirely new level of autonomy. Where the wildly popular “Automatons” update added remote mining operations, automated drones, welding assistants and so much more, “Signal” empowers these systems to communicate! Reactive updates, straight-to-chat, as well as complex systems communicating over multiple ships, stations, or any combination are now possible!
Get live chat updates from your remote satellite array, mining drone fleet, or automated defense sentinels in Signal!
Please join us in 2024 as we explore Space Engineers like never before. We can’t wait to see what you create!

• Marek's Blog post: https://blog.marekrosa.org/2024/05/space-engineers-signal.html
• Broadcast Controller / Transponder Guide: https://www.spaceengineersgame.com/broadcast-controller-action-relay-guide/

Update 1.204 - Signal trailer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4Me_6tcxLw)
 
Features

• Scenario selection menu overhaul for Steam Version and XBOX/Microsoft Store
• New Red Ship Starting Scenario (Quick Start) / Quick Start button in Main Menu
• Death and Respawn improvements (A Reason for your death, Cryopod death message)
• Added reload bar for static weapons
• New NPC Grid Claiming
• Reputation System Rebalance
• Improving performance of NPC Grids
• Improvements to Cargo Ship flight paths
• Added warning notifications when grinding Components to Scrap
• Block info/stats improvements (charge efficiency, production blocks)
• Cargo Container Destruction improvements, Temporary Containers
• Disabled scrap item spawning from damaged blocks by default in new Worlds
• Non-unique items can be stacked in the inventory
• Adjustment to Tree collisions
• Lightning damage disabled by default for worlds
• Improvements to F1 help screen
• Npc changes, modding (possibility to spawn paired loot in container), Drone Spawning Improvements, New Loot Container Options

 
Added new Blocks - Base Game

• Broadcast Controller (1 block, L + S grid)
• Action Relay (1 block, L + S grid)
• Additional Round Armor Panels (4 blocks, L grid + 4 blocks, S grid)
• Compact Antenna (1 block, L grid)

 
Added Content to existing DLCs:

• Scaffolding (4 blocks, L grid) (added to Deco Pack 3 )
• 9 music note sheets, concert version of in-game soundtrack (added to Deluxe Edition)

 
Signal Pack

• Official Store
• Steam
• PlayStation
• Xbox

 

• Truss Set (7 blocks, L grid + 2 blocks S grid)
  • Truss Light - S + L grid
  • Truss Pillar - S + L grid
  • Truss Pillar Diagonal - L grid
  • Truss Pillar Offset - L grid
  • Truss Pillar T - L grid
  • Truss Pillar X - L grid
  • Truss Decoy - L grid
• Corridor Blocks (8 blocks, L grid)
  • Corridor - L grid
  • Corridor Corner - L grid
  • Corridor Double Windowed Sides - L grid
  • Corridor Light - L grid
  • Corridor T Intersection - L grid
  • Corridor Windowed Roof - L grid
  • Corridor Windowed Side - L grid
  • Corridor X Intersection - L grid
• Narrow Corridor (1 block, L grid)
• Narrow Corridor Stowage (1 block, L grid)
• Narrow Door (2 blocks, L grid)
• Inset Walls Set (6 blocks, L grid)
  • Inset Wall - L grid
  • Inset Wall Corner - L grid
  • Inset Wall Corner Inv. - L grid
  • Inset Wall Diagonal - L grid
  • Inset Wall Light - L grid
  • Inset Wall Pillar - L grid
• Decorative Console Blocks (5 blocks, L grid + 5 blocks, S grid)
  • Console Module - S + L grid
  • Console Module Buttons - S + L grid
  • Console Module Corner - S + L grid
  • Console Module Corner Inv. - S + L grid
  • Console Module LCD - S + L grid
• Bay Windows Set (5 blocks, L grid + 4 blocks, S grid)
  • Bay Window - S + L grid
  • Bay Window Corner - S + L grid
  • Bay Window Dome - S + L grid
  • Bay Window End - S + L grid
  • Bay Window Railing - L grid
• 9 Tracks added to Jukebox
  • Approaching the Start [concert version]
  • The Dust
  • A New Dawn
  • Liftoff [concert version]
  • Uncharted Territory [concert version]
  • Fight Like One [concert version]
  • Warfare Trailer [live]
  • Out of Early Access [live]
  • We Are Engineers

 
Official Blueprints

• Official Blueprints: https://www.spaceengineersgame.com/community-hub/
• Weaver Shipping Platform
  • https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3242490483
  • https://mod.io/g/spaceengineers/m/weaver-shipping-platform
• Buddy Bot
  • https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3242722188
  • https://mod.io/g/spaceengineers/m/buddy-bot1
• Signal - Guide Grid
  • https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3242724302
  • https://mod.io/g/spaceengineers/m/demo-grid

 
Fixes & Improvements

• Changed ModAPI behavior for mechanical blocks to accept Attach/Detach only once per tick
• Fixed an issue where pixelated flickering would appear near large amount of light sources
• Fixed a crash when grinding down a parachute hatch at the moment of it being deployed
• Fixed an issue where clicking View (Camera block, etc...) when remotely connected to a grid beyond sync distance would kick you to spectator
• Fixed an issue where NPCs would fall through the planet upon death
• Changed Admin teleport behavior using Ctrl+Space when seated in a station. Character will be unseated and then teleported. Dynamic grid and character behavior unchanged
• Fixed an issue where "Target is out of range" would appear even to other players not currently trying to lock a target on DS
• Fixed an issue where trees would fly away after cutting them down
• Changed hand drill behavior so that at most 15 floating ore objects spawn from single voxel change, floating ores over this number are combined into bigger chunks
• Fixed an issue where the first world in the list would get published instead of the one selected by controller
• Fixed an issue where the deployed parachute would still slow the grid down even after the block was ground down into construction stage
• Fixed an issue where the AI Offensive block would get stuck in an unresponsive state while shooting
• Fixed an issue where a drone would forget "Flee to" GPS on DS
• Fixed an issue where a conveyor line to Hydrogen Tank would not get interrupted even when part of it was ground to construction stage
• Fixed an issue where a Hydrogen Tank would not fill up when the conveyor connection was built in Survival
• Fixed an issue where an alarm in Space Standoff would remain active with a dead enemy character in the area
• Fixed an issue where the removal of an item from Build Planner queue was prevented by the selection of an N/A blockvariant
• Fixed an issue where a Sensor block would fail to detect manually placed asteroids
• Fixed an issue where a Connector status would get desynchronized and appear unlocked for some and locked for others on DS
• Fixed an issue where copypasting Body location GPS would try converting the date and time into coordinates
• Fixed an issue where player would get kicked from DS after trying to weld projection too fast
• Fixed an issue where spherical safe zones would fail to identify what is and what isnt contained in the field
• Fixed an issue where ModAPI IMyTurretControlBlock.Target returned itself
• Fixed an issue where graphical artifacts appeared when weather was present due to precision loss
• Fixed an issue where safe zone would reject and continue rejecting a grid, accelerating it to max speed
• Fixed an issue where Idle movement would not work for Searchlight in MP
• Fixed a crash when attempting to crush a grid with another grid
• Fixed an issue where a turned off Sensor would still visualize the Show sensor field range
• Fixed an issue where a character would jump low and near in low artificial gravity
• Fixed an issue where the Day duration slider and description in Advanced world settings would break visually
• Fixed an issue where the info about Help keybinding would not change on the HUD when key was rebound
• Fixed an issue where NPCs would not be able to follow player onto a ramp of sufficient height and elevation
• Fixed an issue where NPCs would get stuck on steep surfaces or could not follow player near trees
• Changed NPC behavior when they cannot reach a target to wander around instead of stopping and waiting
• Fixed an issue where turning off Saberoids/Spiders on DS would not make them despawn
• Fixed an issue with Z-fighting on the small grid oxygen tank
• Fixed an issue where a copied Rocket turret in combat would continue actively shooting after pasting without having a target
• Fixed an issue where block's destroy particles would not scale with its dimensions
• Fixed Enable drones and Enable voxel hand toggles in Advanced World Settings not having a tooltip
• Fixed an issue where lootable NPCs would not be displaying their names when highlighted
• Fixed an issue where the muzzle flash particle would look as a 1 pixel wide line above the iron sights when in that mode by adding support for ironsight particle
• Fixed an issue where NPCs would stop their AI after reloading a save
• Fixed an issue where a ship would have trouble orientating itself along recorded path in gravity
• Fixed an issue where a server could start with a 3rd party generated or incorrect password salt causing connecting Clients to crash on join
• Fixed an issue where one of the Mission Briefing datapads in the Space Standoff would contain old version of the text
• Fixed an issue where the Space Credits icon would not be displayed in economy screens on PlayStation
• Fixed an issue where the direction of shooting would follow the decoupled crosshair in 3rd person and not the direction the character and weapon was facing on DS
• Fixed an issue with Z-fighting on the Inset Bed block
• Fixed an issue where all Barrel blocks would be under Block Weapons tab. Explosive Barrel moved under Warheads, others moved to Cargo section
• Fixed an issue where Assault turrets would continue to spin after being turned off during idle movement
• Fixed an issue where LCDs would be too bright, causing the text to be harder to read
• Fixed an issue where UI opacity could be set too low, preventing the player from seeing completely
• Fixed an issue where Willis Duct Light would have incorrect research dependency
• Fixed an issue where Small grid Railgun collision models would be too large
• Fixed an issue where ModAPI for IMyExhaust, IMyPowerProducer and IMyReactor interfaces would extend the in-game variants
• Fixed an issue where h2/o2 Generator would mirror incorrectly
• Fixed an issue where a newly added item to a Jukebox playlist would advance the Jukebox UI to the last song but still remain playing the current one
• Fixed an issue where Event Controller would forget assigned blocks on paste on DS
• Fixed an issue where ModSDK tools ModelViewer and BehaviorTree would produce an exception on startup

 
Support Site Fixes

• Fixed a crash when deleting a cargo filled with non-stackable items
• Fixed a crash when splitting a grid with an LCD in a construction stage
• Fixed a crash when Event Controller was set up to attach/detach a mechanical block top part at the same time
• Fixed a crash when a Connector would try to repeatedly attach or detach while already attaching/detaching
• Fixed an issue where the upper parts of an o2/h2 Generator would not have mountpoints
• Fixed an issue where the collisions of small grid Autocannon and Assault cannon turrets would be too large
• Fixed an issue where the Custom Turret Controller would forget assigned weapons and settings after grid split/merge
• Fixed an issue where the Pirate Base on the Moon would spawn drones with Atmospheric thrusters
• Fixed an issue where an LCD with too long of a text would freeze or crash the game. Now text max 65k characters long. Title max 512 characters.
• Fixed an issue where a CTC powered rocket launchers would not lead a target
• Fixed an issue where small grid Small Connector was able to connect from the sides
• Fixed an issue where an assigned toolbar action would work even through a physical connection like Landing gear instead of logical like Connector
• Fixed an issue where it was possible to receive an invite dialog from a multiplayer game other than SE, resulting in an error
• Fixed an issue where CTC selected weapons would not persist through save/restart on DS
• Fixed an issue where an AI offensive block with intercept would be prevented from retargetting by collision avoidance
• Fixed an issue where an AI recorder would not trigger setup actions at the waypoints
• Fixed an issue where the time to target lock was too long. When the target is a grid, the locking time is 5 seconds down from 10 seconds.
• Fixed an issue where purple texture would get used on voxels after changing graphics settings
• Fixed an issue where Alt+mouse camera control would not work when controlling CTC
• Fixed an issue where Preserve aspect ratio would not work on curved LCDs
• Fixed a crash when entering a cockpit with specific toolbar setup
• Fixed an issue where it was impossible to access interactive elements of other blocks obscured by the Holo LCD
• Fixed an issue where it would spawn players under the ground if the spawn point was embedded in voxel
• Fixed an issue where AI offensive block would lose assigned weapons on grid split
• Fixed a crash when a missile type projectile hit a door subpart while mid open/close
• Fixed an issue where the Flare launcher had an incorrect dummy
• Fixed an issue where the the Safezone would incorrectly determine if something was in or not
• Fixed an issue where a character in jetpack on a DS would start copying rotation of a nearby spinning grid
• Fixed an issue where the small grid Rocket turret would have a hole in its model
• Fixed an issue where the displayed mass of a grid would not update on change due to the calculation not taking multipliers into account
• Fixed an issue where the UV textures on the ladder block decals would not be correct
• Fixed an issue where small grid Landing gear collision models would be too large
• Fixed an issue in the Industrial cockpit model
• Fixed an issue where large grid Connector collision models would be too large
• Fixed an issue where small grid Ship drill collision models would be too large
• Fixed an issue where Oxygen farm collision models would be too large
• Fixed an issue where small grid Rotor collision models would be too large
• Fixed an issue where small grid Advanced Rotor collision models would be too large
• Fixed an issue where Ship Welder model would have a see-thru seam around the conveyor port
• Fixed an issue where {player_count} in server Motd would count NPCs as players
• Fixed an issue where the Medical room block had incorrect mounpoints
• Fixed an issue where the grid would explode after attaching it to a fallen tree with a Landing gear
• Fixed an issue where the large grid Ship welder was not able to touch the conveyor with its conveyor port
• Fixed an issue where the Oxygen farm model was not able to touch the conveyor with its conveyor port
• Fixed an issue where hydrogen would not flow through sorters in the opposite way
• Fixed an issue where the AI blocks would not calculate with the mass of subgrids as well
• Fixed an issue where NPCs would attack through closed doors
• Fixed an issue where a Beacon would interfere with Remote control and remote connection to a grid
• Fixed an issue where the base of a large grid Antenna was not centered
• Fixed an issue where Large oxygen tank conveyor port models would intersect with conveyor lines a bit
• Fixed an issue where large grid Large cargo container conveyor ports would not touch with other connected blocks
• Fixed an issue where the small grid Gyroscope would appear to levitate above the surface
• Fixed an issue where Jump drive had holes in its model
• Fixed an issue where smal grid Small cargo models would not visually connect
• Fixed an issue where Ion thruster models did not visually connect
• Fixed an issue where Atmospheric thruster model would have a gap in it
• Fixed an issue where Programmable block API for Laser antenna was not working
• Fixed an issue where the Offset door collision models would be too large
• Fixed an issue where filled gas Tanks would show damage effects after being ground below functional
• Fixed an issue where the Chat spam protection would time out even Admins
• Fixed an issue where the scrollable server Player list would not fit all players
• Fixed an issue where Aquarium bubbles would show and animate in projections
• Fixed an issue where Inset couch would mirror incorrectly
• Fixed an issue where the Sensor block would not be able to detect players laying in beds
• Fixed an issue where the small grid Beacon did not require radio components to be functional
• Fixed an issue where the Pillar model construction stages were rotated by 90 degrees
• Fixed an issue where the player would not be informed that they are unable to spawn outside of the world size limit
• Fixed an issue where Alt+MMB would allow for items to pass through sorters the wrong way
• Fixed an issue where Solar panels either worked when they shouldn't or did not work when they should
• Fixed an issue where left CTRL would get ignored for crouching in localised languages, right CTRL would always be ignored when key was bound to it
• Fixed an issue where small grid Blast door edge collision models would be too large
• Fixed an issue where AI blocks would be ignored in the power priority rankings and lose power
• Fixed an issue where a multiplayer lobby would fail to download specific mods
• Fixed an issue where control of a remote grid would not persist through save/restart of a server
• Fixed an issue where a Piston would not allow other Pistons being placed around it
• Fixed an issue where a Drone collision avoidance would try to avoid its own subgrids and refuse to fly to Waypoints
• Fixed an issue where there would be less planetary boulder spawning
• Fixed an issue where AI Offensive block would continue shooting even after target was destroyed
• Fixed an issue where it would not be possible to place a block onto the top part of a piston placed horizontally on a surface
• Fixed an issue where sounds would be almost inaudible in the right channel of a Stereo setup
• Fixed an issue where a leftover Debug Draw would appear when target pattern was set to hit and run on AI Offensive block
• Fixed an issue where AI recorder would name waypoints differently in the Detailinfo than in the Waypoints list
• Fixed an issue where Offensive word filter would try to protect player even in non-shareable areas of the UI

 

• Official patch notes (PC)
• Official patch notes (PlayStation)
• Official patch notes (Xbox)

 
Hotfixes will be listed in a reply comment below:
 

OpenAI continues its mission to democratize AI by introducing a slew of impressive enhancements and new offerings designed to make our interactions with AI not only more efficient but also more intuitive and seamless.
Key Highlights:
Desktop App Launch: OpenAI is rolling out a new desktop application, ensuring that powerful AI tools are just a click away, directly from your desktop environment.
UI Overhaul: As models become increasingly complex, OpenAI has revamped the user interface. This refresh ensures that the focus remains on productivity, allowing users to interact with the AI effortlessly without getting bogged down by a complicated interface.
Introduction of GPT-4o: The launch of GPY-4o is a game-changer. This new model is not only twice as fast as its predecessors but also comes at half the cost. Moreover, it offers five times the rate limits of GPT-4 Turbo. Over the next few weeks, OpenAI will deploy this model iteratively to ensure robust mitigations against misuse.
Widening Accessibility: Over 100 million users are now leveraging the capabilities of ChatGPT. With the extensive efficiency and accessibility of the new GPT-4o the wide functionality is available to a broader audience.
Enhanced Functionalities:
Vision: The new vision capabilities allow users to upload documents and visuals or even utilize their camera in the mobile version. ChatGPT can now interpret these inputs directly.
Memory: ChatGPT can remember details from earlier conversations, enhancing continuity and context.
Browse: The AI now has the ability to perform browsing tasks.
Charts: Advanced data analysis is now more dynamic with charting capabilities.
Multilingual Improvements: The updates bring enhancements in both quality and speed across 50 different languages, making the AI more versatile globally.
Real-Time Demo:
Mobile App Innovations: The mobile app now sounds more natural and human-like. Users can interrupt the AI to pose new questions, and the model responds in real-time without the usual 3-5 seconds lag. Additionally, it can mimic various emotions through voice, with options like a dramatic robot voice or a (creepy as hell) singing voice.
Real-World Interaction: Demonstrating its advanced vision capabilities, the model can now interact with physical objects. For example, Barret Zoph wrote an equation on a sheet of paper, and ChatGPT could "see" this through the phone camera, guide him through solving the equation, and add a dash of digital emotion to the interaction.
Desktop Enhancements: The desktop app is not just a static tool; it can interact with what's displayed on your screen. Users can drag and drop code snippets into the chat window, and ChatGPT will analyze and explain the code, effectively assisting with problem-solving.
Additional Features: The app can now interpret emotions via the camera and perform real-time translations—features that enhance user interaction and accessibility.
As for a neat conclusion—forget it). But here’s the take: AI is advancing at breakneck speed, dragging us along whether we’re ready or not. It’s a stark reminder that we must evolve swiftly or risk becoming like those who think dinosaurs didn't exist 6 million years ago simply because "we're only in 2024."

Link to original nosleep post:
https://www.reddit.com/nosleep/comments/1arh0e8/has_anyone_heard_of_the_maze_below_the/
I don't know exactly how it happened.
Everything was going great. It was Valentine's Day. My wife had just left for work. And I had just put the second batch of her favorite cookies in the oven for when she returned home.
The only catch is, after I put them in the oven...
...I completely forgot that it was Valentine's Day.
Maybe I was distracted by all my work calls.
Maybe I'm just getting old.
All that matters is, when I emerged from my home office a little while later...
...The entire kitchen had gone up in flames...
...And a few hours later...
...My entire house had burnt to the ground.
—
When my wife finally got home, after racing back from work, it immediately didn't matter to her that it was Valentine's Day anymore.
She was just glad that I was alive.
"Are you okay?" She asked, tears in her eyes, as she ran over to me, as I stood outside, shivering, wrapped in a blanket beside a fire truck.
"Yeah I'll be ok. Can't say the same for the house." I joked, gesturing to the destroyed building.
We both looked over at our home of nearly ten years, as firefighters put out the last of its smoking embers.
She couldn't help but laugh. "Were you able to salvage anything?"
"Oh!" I replied, before reaching into the pocket of my sweatshirt and pulling out a large, sealed plastic bag full of cookies. "Forgot to tell you. I was able to grab the first batch on the way out."
"Aww." She said.
"Want one?" I offered, reaching to open the bag, but she stopped me.
"No, I don't have an appetite right now, after all this. But maybe later."
"No worries." I said, putting the bag of cookies back into my sweatshirt pocket.
"What now?" She asked.
"Hotel I guess?" I proposed.
"Well we could stay with my mom, but that's a two hour drive. After this, that sounds like a lot."
That's when a firefighter overheard us, and interjected.
"Sorry to eavesdrop, but if you don't have anywhere to go. I've got a spare bedroom at my house, down by the harbor. If you're too tired to drive tonight." He offered, with a sympathetic look on his face.
"Thanks, I really appreciate that." I replied, "But we couldn't. It's a really kind gesture, though. Seriously."
"Thank you though, it means a lot." My wife added.
"Oh, of course." The firefighter replied, "No pressure at all. Just with you here like this, I wouldn't have been able to sleep tonight knowing I didn't offer."
He turned away, took a few steps, and then doubled back. "You sure? It really would be no bother to me at all."
My wife and I each looked at each other, exhausted.
"I suppose it beats paying for a hotel." I reasoned.
"Or a two hour drive." My wife said.
—
A couple hours later, we were sitting in the firefighter's kitchen, eating a dinner that he had made for us.
"Seriously though, we'll forever be in your debt for this." I said, slurping pasta.
"Are you kidding?" The firefighter replied, as he did the same. "After what you've gone through today, it's the least I could do."
"You really saved us a long drive to my mom's place." My wife said, after taking a bite.
"Can I ask you a question, though?" The firefighter asked, putting his fork down.
"Of course." I replied.
"What was it about me, that earned your trust?" He continued.
"Our trust?" My wife asked.
"Yeah, like was it the uniform? Or my charm?" He said.
"Uh, I don't know. Why?" She replied.
"Just curious what exactly lowered your guard enough to come back with me, to my house. A stranger's house." The firefighter continued.
I couldn't tell if he was joking, or was looking for a straight answer. So I went with the latter. "Uh, maybe a combination of both? But if I had to pick one. Maybe the uniform? Everyone trusts a firefighter."
"Really? Thank you! That's what I thought, but the others, they all said it was my charm, and I’m really starting to think that the uniform alone really seals the deal." He said.
"The others?" I asked.
"Yeah, the others. Downstairs." The firefighter replied.
"I'm sorry, I'm not following. There's other people downstairs?" My wife asked.
"Yeah, like you." He said nonchalantly.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"Like people I found, in desperate situations, like yours, that needed help." The firefighter explained.
"And... what are they doing down there?" I added.
"Oh, there's a whole dungeon down there." He said, with a completely straight face.
"A... dungeon?" I asked.
"Yeah, like with torture devices, and a maze and everything. It's actually really cool, do you want to see it?" He offered.
My wife and I both looked at each other, then back at the firefighter...
...And suddenly burst out laughing…
...As he, too, began to roar with laughter.
Eventually, the laughing subsided, and the kitchen got awkwardly quiet, so I tried to change the subject. "Anyways, great pasta sauce. Is that cumin in there?”
But he ignored me, and picked up right where he left off. "No, but seriously, you've gotta check it out. Like literally, you have no choice."
I just played along, hoping he would change the subject. "Yeah, yeah, okay, fine, fine, we'll check it out. After dinner."
But he wouldn't let it go. "No. Now." He commanded, his facing turning from jovial to menacing.
The joke was growing old, and starting to get a bit creepy, so I stood up from my seat and gestured for my wife to get up. "Come on, let's go."
"Go? I'm afraid that's not possible." The firefighter replied, "The doors and windows are locked from the inside out, and only I can open them."
That's when I decided that he had crossed the line, so I puffed up my chest, and started to move closer to him in a threatening fashion.
"Dude, seriously? I'm a firefighter. I'm in the best shape of my life. And you, no offense, look like you don't even work out."
I couldn’t help but take offense, but I still thought he was joking, so I just smiled back nervously.
"Oh, and I've got an ax." He added, removing a firefighter's ax from under the table and holding it up before us.
He was not joking.
Seeing the weapon, my wife jumped up from her seat, and we both ran to the door, only to find it locked from the inside, just as he had told us.
"Told you."
—
A few minutes later, we were standing at the foot of his basement, having just descended a rickety flight of stairs.
The firefighter must have noticed me walking nervously down them, as he had followed behind us.
"Oh, please excuse the stairs." He apologized, "I really need to get them replaced. But with all of the construction I've been doing in the dungeon and all, they just haven't been a priority."
I didn't know what to think of any of it. I was just hoping it would end.
But it didn't.
"Ok, so here's how it works." The firefighter began, pointing his ax toward the entrance to what, literally, looked like a dungeon. "I'm gonna give you a five minute head start, during which time I'd suggest you run as fast as you can. Now, at the end of the maze, there is an exit. And if you make it there, I promise I'll let you out. But for full transparency, no one has ever made it that far. Cause, you know, they don't know the maze, and I designed it, so I kinda have the upper hand. But maybe you'll be the first?"
My wife and I just stared at each other with a look of horror, as it became clear that this was actually happening.
"Anyways, you're gonna see a lot of fucked up shit in there. People are gonna beg and plead for you to take them with you. But whatever you do, do not give in. I know in the moment you're gonna want to do the right thing but, trust me, based on how it's gone in the past, they're just gonna slow you down, and you're gonna need every second you can get." He then turned to us, as if to make sure we were listening, and asked, "Got it?"
To which I, unsure of what to say, just replied, "Uh... yeah.".
That's when he pulled out a stopwatch, put his thumb to the start button...
"Ok ready... get set.... go!"
...And clicked it.
I looked over at my wife, whose eyes had grown wide with fear...
...And, without hesitation, grabbed her by the hand, darting off with her into the dungeon.
—
Five minutes later, we were running through the maze below the firefighter's house, uncertain of our exact progress but confident that we had made it pretty far into its depths, when we stumbled onto a man, locked up in a cage, his body emaciated from what must have been starvation.
"Help me!" He called out, "Take me with you!"
My wife stopped for a moment, a look of sadness in her eyes, and began to reach out to him, but I intercepted her hand and led her past him, further into the maze.
"We have to keep going!" I called out.
"I feel terrible leaving another behind." She replied.
He wasn't the first we'd seen. In fact, in just that previous five minutes alone, we'd encountered many of the countless others that the firefighter was referring to, and what seemed like a hundred unspeakable horrors.
But we had stayed strong and forged ahead, and as a result, I felt like we were getting close to the end of the maze.
"We're no use to them unless we get out of this place, and call for help." I assured her.
"You're right." She replied.
"We must be getting close to the exit."
"If there even is one."
She had a point. There was a possibility that the firefighter had lied to us, and there was no exit at the end of the maze.
But there was something about the way that he talked, something so honest and direct, that made me think there actually was a way out at the end. And the more I thought about it, I was confident that without an actual exit, for us to potentially reach, there'd be no fun in the game that he'd created for himself.
"Trust me." I said.
"I trust you." My wife replied.
That's when we heard it. The unsettling sound of someone whistling, coming from behind us in the maze, and approaching quickly.
"Run!" My wife said, her sense of hopelessness now transforming into one of survival.
—
By the time we finally made it to the end of the maze, the firefighter had caught up to us, still whistling. But when he turned the corner and saw us, standing at the door, tugging at its locked doorknob, he dropped his shoulders. "Aw, man. Seriously?"
I tried to bring myself to speak, but my body was frozen in fear.
Finally, I let out the words, "Seriously, what?"
"You beat me to the exit. You're the first ones to do it." He said.
He started running over to us, ax still in hand, as I closed my eyes, bracing for impact and fearing the worst...
...But rather than feel pain, I felt...
...A hug. A gentle, warm, embrace...
...Before I opened my eyes and saw him hug my wife as well.
"Congratulations! That is no easy feat." The firefighter said, "I mean, that is one disturbing, and distracting place. Luck was on your side. Wait, no, sorry, I shouldn't assume luck. You did make it to the end so skill must have been a factor. I don't want to take that away from you."
My wife and I just stood there, waiting for him to get to the point.
"So, um..." My wife said, gesturing to the door. "Do we still get to leave?"
"Get to leave? Get to leave? How dare you!" He said, in a serious tone… before cracking a smile and patting us both on the back, "I'm just fucking with you, of course you get to leave! I am a man of my word, and you did play by the rules and win."
The firefighter walked over to the door, removed a key ring full of keys from his pocket, and began rummaging through it, "Let's see here..."
Until he finally picked one and held it up.
"...There it is!" The firefighter continued, "But can you imagine if I forgot the key ring upstairs and had to go all the way back through that maze?" He said with a chuckle, opening the door from the basement into his backyard.
My wife and I both looked outside, into the darkness, and immediately started walking towards the exit, before the firefighter put his hand out and said. "Not so fast. I said I'm a man of my word, and I am. I told you earlier that if you made it to the exit, I'd let you out. However..."
I suddenly realized there was a caveat.
"...There's one slight caveat." He continued, "When I do let you out, there just so happens to be two dogs out there, that I keep extremely hungry for this very occasion. So when you get out there, I just want to warn you, it's highly probable that'll tear you both apart. Actually, scratch that, it’s one hundred percent probable.”
Between the fire and the maze, my wife and I were both so exhausted, that we both looked at each other, nodded in agreement, and walked out into the backyard, ready to accept our fate.
Then, we looked back at the firefighter, who said, "What? Don't look at me like that? I can't just be letting people escape from here so they can go and tell the cops about this place. Anyways, it's been fun. And sorry I had to make an already bad day even worse. On Valentine's Day no less. Anyways, goodbye."
And like that...
...He slammed the door behind him, leaving us out there in the backyard, standing there in the dark.
—
A few minutes later…
…We suddenly heard the sound of dogs growling.
And as my eyes adjusted to the light, sure enough, I saw two sickly pitbulls, drooling and howling as they approached us, hunched over, and ready to attack…
...Until it hit me...
...The Valentine's Day cookies!
Without hesitation, I reached into my sweatshirt pocket and removed the plastic bag of cookies that I had offered my wife when we were standing outside our burning home, just a few hours earlier. To be precise, the first batch of the very cookies that had set said home ablaze, thus setting off a chain of events that led us to that very moment.
As the dogs got closer and closer, I carefully, and quietly unzipped the plastic bag, turned it upside down, and dropped the cookies on the ground...
...And like that, as soon as the dogs got a whiff of the cookies, they charged over to them and started devouring and fighting over them, in the process completely forgetting about my wife and I.
Together, we slowly walked past the pitbulls, turned around, and backed away slowly, until we eventually reached the fence at the far end of the backyard and, one by one, my wife going first, hopped the fence and ran to safety.
—
Later that night, while we sat in the police station, waiting to tell them everything, my wife, still in a daze from what had happened, asked, "What flavor were they?"
"Huh?" I replied, still in a daze of my own.
"The cookies. What flavor were they?"
"Your favorite of course. Peanut butter and chocolate chips."
"Fuck."
"You know, when I saved that first batch from the house. I was like, if these things are gonna burn my house down, we've at least gotta taste them. But you never got to."
"It's the thought that counts."
"I suppose so."
"Happy Valentine's Day." She said.
"Happy Valentine's Day." I replied.
And then, we both leaned in, and kissed, in a way we hadn’t done in years. Like when we first met, over a decade ago.
We may not have had a home anymore. Or any faith left in humanity. But we had each other. And sometimes, that's enough.
That was last night, and today, while the police hopefully raid that motherfucker's house, you better believe that I'm gonna be at my mother-in-law's place, baking another batch of those cookies.

Breston Boobilay
Breston Boobilay meandered his way along the sprawling New York sidewalk, stifling a stagger as he lurched forward. He was on a drunken mission like so many others he’d set out on before, and this mission, like all others, entailed the timely acquisition of cheap, night-time cooze. Air to the vast Boobilay Meat Pie fortune, Breston rarely had trouble sniffing out hole. But, out there, gripped in the chill of the brisk winter wind, he found himself with his balls as blue as his icy fingertips.
Breston rubbed his palms together and shuddered, watching the breath escape him in thick, swirling plumes. That’s when he noticed the flickering red neon through the gloom ahead, and he couldn’t help but smile as he felt himself instantly become warmer. He lit a cigarette in an effort to restore his sobriety, however briefly, as he thought about what potentially awaited him beyond the door he now found himself in front of. Pussy, and more booze, and maybe even a plug that wouldn’t turn out to be just another irritating, time wasting dipshit. Breston took one last satisfying drag from his smoke before tossing it in the slush on the curb as it sizzled and died. Then, he opened the door and went inside.
Breston Boobilay 2: Electric Boobilay
Breston came inside and a thick fog of lingering smoke whipped by his head out into the icy chill of the New York City winter he’d just left behind. The door slammed through the force of an incoming gust and Breston shivered as a conglomerate of weary eyes turned to meet his reddened, eager face. The patrons of the bar were hardly the fresh meat he’d been hoping to encounter in a shithole like that. The collective weathered faces, likely habitual fixtures of the place, turned back to their drinks and their dull, mumbled conversations as Breston made himself at home on a stool at the far end of the bar, ordering a J&B on the rocks. Breston reached into his coat pocket and retrieved a new cigarette, lighting it and inhaling deeply. The smoke escaped him, and as it dispersed across the room he noticed the only remotely fuckable woman there as she eyed him with intrigue from the other side of the bar. Breston clutched up his drink, drained it, and moved in for the kill.
“Got a light?” She asked, seductively, after he had closed the distance having brushed his way through the decaying bodies of the scant Tuesday night crowd.
“No,” Breston replied smoothly, “But I have an eight-point-five inch long penis.”
Her bleach-blond bangs ruffled in excitement, the way a cat’s fuzzy face might if you were to hold a fishy treat up to it. There was only one kind of pussy that Breston was interested in, and only one type of fishy treat.
“Is that right?” The pussy purred, her blue green-flecked eyes brightening. “You wouldn’t lie to a lady now, would you?”
Breston felt his four-point-eight inch long member stiffen in his jeans and he readjusted his posture to conceal it.
“How about that light?” Breston murmured sensually, offering up his burning tip for the lady’s smoke.
“My, my,” She said, the words passing her lips in slow rolls of erotic delight. Pouting them around the slender filter, she moved in closer to Breston, taking her sweet time before finally allowing the cigarette to burn. “what a gentleman…”
“How old are you, by the way?” Breston interjected flirtily, “Like thirty, or something?”
“I’m twenty-eight…”
“Good enough,” Breston didn’t usually bang out grandmas, but in a drought like the one plaguing him, he knew it best to seek out any port possible to wait out the storm of pussilessness until the opportunity for a half-decent fuck with a youthful lay presented itself like that sword in the stone, or whatever the fuck it was. The thought occurred to Breston as if a crotch lightbulb had lit up around his midsection: ‘Perhaps she has a younger, hotter roommate…’ “Your place or mine? I have to warn you, though, my shitter is all backed up.”
“I… guess… we could go back to my-” The pussy stammered.
“Great, Let’s go.” Breston interrupted, sexily.
“Aren’t you at least going to buy me a drink first?” The pussy pleaded, motioning towards the disinterested bartender presumably getting ready to close up.
“Sure, we can stop at a liquor store on the way and grab some forties. If we move fast, we can make it before they stop selling booze. Come on, hurry!” Said Breston, throwing up an arm in the direction of the door like some mad conductor in the throes of a beautiful symphonic din.
And so Breston and the cheap night-time cooze bounded out into the darkness from whence they’d came, moving swiftly, lest the hour evade them and Breston be forced to grunt atop the relatively sub-5 geriatric female in the midst of returning accursed sobriety. An outcome which, he knew, simply wasn’t an option.
Breston Boobilay 3: Curse of the Cooze
“We have you now, Mr. Boobilay!” Malphus Mephistopheles cackled menacingly, relishing in his imminent, long-awaited triumph over renegade superspy Breston Boobilay, who lay helpless, strapped to the long metallic table as the laser beam drew ever closer to his bulging crotch. “Tell me, how does it feel to know that you will never get pussy again? Bwahahahaha!”
Breston could feel the billion-degree heat running along his exposed thighs, threatening his tighty-whitey clad dick and balls with extinction. That’s when he remembered; the tabs of flunitrazepam contained in the secret toe compartments of his shiny black loafers, of which Malphus’s underlings had neglected to remove along with his tuxedo pants. Breston began to chuckle a cackled laugh of his own, drawing the ire of his bedraggled captor.
“You know what your problem is, Malphus?” Malphus moved in closer, slamming a pale, thin palm down on the table by Breston’s head. Breston didn’t even blink. “You never got pussy. That’s why you hate me so much.”
“That isn’t true!” Malphus shrieked, the remainders of his long scraggly hair standing on end. “I’ve got pussy, lots of times!”
“Oh, yeah?” Breston replied coolly, “Who from?”
“You wouldn’t know her. She goes to a different school…”
The laser beam was just a few inches away from destroying Breston entirely, the distinctive burning stench of singed pubes beginning to fill the small subterranean chamber. He knew that he had to act fast.
“You wanna know a secret, Malphus?” Breston half-whispered.
“What?” Malphus replied, leaning in.
“SURPRISE ROOFIE!” With a flick of his loafer, Breston discharged a fleet of small pills into Malphus’s’s shocked, wide open mouth. He began to gag as they became lodged in his throat. ‘Bullseye’, Breston thought to himself smugly as he smirked, reaching out his hand and snatching the insane scientist's keys from his belt beneath his stained lab coat. In a flash, Breston was free and on his feet. By the time he was straightening his tie, Malphus Mephistopheles was passed out on the cold, metal floor; drooling.
Breston laughed, dropping his underwear and proceeding to teabag the unconscious man. Breston’s laugh erupted into a cackle surpassing that of any villain he had previously encountered, loud enough to alert Malphus’es’s throng of penguin-like minions. They gasped in horror as they witnessed the violation of their master.
“Who’s next!” Breston roared, the weird little penguin freaks fucking off in abject defeat, screaming as they went.
“I’m unstoppable! Do you understand that! I’m a god! I’m Breston Boobilay! Look at my work, and tremble!”
All of a sudden, Breston felt that familiar dreaded feeling begin to rear up from inside him. It stabbed at him with doubts and the incessant pain and the anxiety that made his body tremor. In an instant, he felt the power drain from him, replaced by something else. Something terrible. He looked down at his quaking hands, and saw that they were dripping with blood.
Breston awoke with a scream, as did the cooze he’d shacked up with. She hissed at him, still very cat-like in her manner.
“What the fuck, dude! Are you okay?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Breston sighed, rubbing at the beading rows of sweat dangling from his manly brow. “Just another night terror…”
“Why is my bed all wet?..” The girl questioned hesitantly, “Is that… is that piss!”
“No!” Breston felt himself beneath the sheets, soaked to the bone. “No, it’s just sweat! See?”
Breston removed his hand from his soiled groin, lifting it up to her face so that she might smell that it was in fact only sweat. She screamed, penguinishly, as she fled from the room in hysterics. Breston stood and began to put his clothes back on, eyes never moving from the large dark stain covering the pink bedspread. It was a stain as dark as his soul, and Breston knew that he couldn’t hide from it deep in a pussy hole for very much longer…
Breston Boobilay 4: The Quest For Peace
Breston glared into the steam rising from his coffee cup, the sinuous curves of its alluring dance making his dick twitch minutely in subtle arousal. The hangover was debilitating, but he told himself that it would pass with the caffeine and the shower he longed for back at home. However, to his despair, Breston knew better. How many times had he been there before, like that? Not in that exact diner, in that exact situation, mouth dry as an old nun’s cooze and smelling faintly like urine, but simply infirm, haggard, and desperate for some kind of meaningful relief? Breston knew, in that uniquely lonely moment, that he’d never find it.
The waitress breasted boobily across the diner floor, carrying Breston’s pie aloft in the air towards him. He couldn’t help but take notice of the way that her uniform hugged her body as her bosom heaved heftily as she walked, and, yet, Breston’s manhood remained as limp and placid as a premature baby’s pinkie. She reminded him of her, when they first met. She set the plate down, wrinkling her nose in disgust as she smelled Breston’s undying shame.
“Will that be all, sir?” She said, already preparing to turn and leave him there, all alone. Just like she did.
Breston wanted to scream ‘No!’. He wanted to yell at her and spew out all the things that he should have said, before it was too late. Breston wanted to spring up from the booth and grab the woman by the knockers and say ‘Were they worth it! Does he love them better than I did!’, but, he didn’t. Instead, he said nothing. The waitress was already gone, along with Breston’s will to live. The coffee’s steam had diminished down to small, dwindling whisps. He scooped up the mug and finished its contents, focusing on the lukewarm liquid as it spilled down his throat as if it might quell the shaking in his hands. Breston knew that only one thing could do that. He glanced at the clock behind the counter. It was eleven-thirty AM. Time to hit the sauce, he thought, grimacing.
Breston Boobilay 5: A Long Way Down
The chilly afternoon stung at Breston as he brought the bottle back up to his lips for another sickening hit of brandy. The shakes had left him, but his despair had only grown. It had calcified, made clear in his mind in a way that was truly unignorable and utterly undeniable. Everything good that Breston had ever had; his wife, his upper management job at the Brooklyn meat plant, his youth. It had all gone away so quickly. Breston thought of his parents, and the beginnings of a tear began to form before being swept away across his temple by the incoming wind. He thought about the last thing his father had said to him before he had stormed out to go drinking the previous weekend: ‘Breston, you're forty-two-years old. It’s time you moved out of the house.’, and he remembered how angry he’d been; yelling and cussing him out as a ‘frigid dinosaur’ who refused to take the time to understand Breston’s ‘alternative lifestyle’, and he couldn’t help but laugh. Father could never understand.
Breston tipped the bottle over his mouth and gulped down the remains of the liquor as he savored every last, overpriced trickle before shambling over to the guardrail at the rooftop’s edge. He eyed the distance between the two buildings, then he took the drop into account. After a moment, he took a step back, raised the bottle over his head, and launched it. It arched high over the street below before clattering against a tall windowpane of the office block opposite the building he was on.
“Bullseye…” Breston said aloud, to no one.
Suddenly, he got a flash of the dream he’d had the night before when he blacked out in that cooze kitten’s piss pad, and the urge to run and jump doubled in intensity. Breston didn’t like to remember. He didn’t want to. But, even in his nightmares, Matty was still there. Matty was always there. He was their favorite. Always was. It was always, ‘Breston, why can’t you be more like your younger brother?’, ‘Why can’t you be more like Matty?’. Always so perfect, with his good grades and mommy’s constant approval. Breston hated him. Oh, how he hated Matty with every fiber of his being, and he made that clear when Matty reached highschool. Breston was supposed to look out for Matty, protect him. But Breston did anything but. Matty was shy, and insecure about himself, but, most of all, Matty was ashamed of the fact that he’d never had a girlfriend before. Breston would make a big show of bringing whatever hoe-bag he’d seduced with daddy’s money back home so that he could flaunt her around like some prize that Matty could never earn, which crushed him, but not nearly as much as when Breston began spreading the rumors around school about how his dick didn’t work. By the end of the week, Matty was little more than a laughing stock and an emotional, broken wreck, and by the end of the month, Matty was dead.
“It wasn’t my fault, you stupid fuck!” Breston screamed into the dispassionate, gray New York sky within which no God could ever dwell, flashes of his mother screeching, ‘You did this! You!’ tearing at him like sharpened, savage claws ripping their way ravenously through a model’s skimpy lingerie. “I could have helped you! I could have made it all okay again!”
Breston fell to his knees and began to sob like the sad little boy he’d always known he was, feeling more alone than he ever had been before in his entire life. He had made so many mistakes. So many people hurt, and for what? His passing, childish amusement? His bottomless desire for gratification? A cover to hide from the hurt of it all? Breston didn’t know anymore, and he didn’t want to. He couldn’t think about it anymore. He couldn’t take it.
Standing on trembling legs, Breston tentatively put both hands on the railing before gripping it firmly, whimpering as if it produced some sort of electric shock with his touch. He tried to remember when the last time he had felt scared like that was, but he realized that there was nothing even remotely comparable to hold onto. Before another thought could pass through Breston’s head, he took a quick, deep breath, closed his eyes, thrust one foot over the waist-high metal railing and allowed himself to fall. The wind whipped him with the force of a jet engine as he soared towards the ground, half-screaming, half-choking as it knocked the air out of him. Despite the unimaginable terror, and all the regret and the shame and the misery and the abject disappointment that was his nothing of a life, Breston couldn’t help but feel at peace now that it was finally all over. For a fraction of a second, Breston opened his eyes, and he never closed them again…

I have just reinstalled a GoDaddy wildcard certificate on my Fortigate and using it for SSLVPN.
Windows/mac clients appear to accept this certificate, presumably because they have the "Go Daddy Root Certificate Authority - G2" preinstalled in their certificate stores.
However, if I run openssl s_client connect from a Linux machine to check the certificate, openssl returns that it is unable to get the local issuer certificate or verify the first certificate.
When I got the new GoDaddy certificate, I also got a .crt file named gd_bundle-g2-g1 which I installed on my Fortigate, and under System-Certificates, I can see 1 Local Certificate (the wildcard) and 2 Remote CA Certificates (GoDaddy):

1x Local Certificate

* CN=*.mycompany.com which is signed by "Go Daddy Secure Certificate Authority - G2"

2x Remote CA Certificates

* "Go Daddy Secure Certificate Authority - G2" which is signed by "Go Daddy Root Certificate Authority - G2", and * "Go Daddy Root Certificate Authority - G2" which is signed by "The Go Daddy Group, Inc"
So, it looks like my Fortigate has the wildcard cert and the intermediary CAs installed.
However, openssl connect cannot see them (redacted openssl output below).
Note that I installed the gd_bundle-g2-g1 GoDaddy certificate bundle after I installed the wildcard certificate. Maybe I should have installed the bundle first?
Any thoughts as to whether this is a bug/problem, how to proceed?
Thanks!

john@JOHNPC:~$ openssl s_client -connect mydevice.mycompany.com:7788 CONNECTED(00000003) depth=0 CN = *.mycompany.com verify error:num=20:unable to get local issuer certificate verify return:1 depth=0 CN = *.mycompany.com verify error:num=21:unable to verify the first certificate verify return:1 depth=0 CN = *.mycompany.com

verify return:1

Certificate chain
0 s:CN = *.mycompany.com i:C = US, ST = Arizona, L = Scottsdale, O = "GoDaddy.com, Inc.", OU = http://certs.godaddy.com/repository/, CN = Go Daddy Secure Certificate Authority - G2 a:PKEY: rsaEncryption, 4096 (bit); sigalg: RSA-SHA256

v:NotBefore: May 9 15:46:23 2024 GMT; NotAfter: May 28 12:58:29 2025 GMT

Server certificate -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE----- -----END CERTIFICATE-----
subject=CN = *.mycompany.com

issuer=C = US, ST = Arizona, L = Scottsdale, O = "GoDaddy.com, Inc.", OU = http://certs.godaddy.com/repository/, CN = Go Daddy Secure Certificate Authority - G2

No client certificate CA names sent Peer signing digest: SHA256 Peer signature type: RSA-PSS

Server Temp Key: ECDH, secp384r1, 384 bits

SSL handshake has read 2908 bytes and written 783 bytes

Verification error: unable to verify the first certificate

New, TLSv1.3, Cipher is TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 Server public key is 4096 bit Secure Renegotiation IS NOT supported Compression: NONE Expansion: NONE No ALPN negotiated Early data was not sent

Verify return code: 21 (unable to verify the first certificate)

Post-Handshake New Session Ticket arrived: SSL-Session: Protocol : TLSv1.3 Cipher : TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 Session-ID: 1A2345678ABCDEFABCDEF Session-ID-ctx: Resumption PSK: FFFF567867867 PSK identity: None PSK identity hint: None SRP username: None TLS session ticket lifetime hint: 300 (seconds) TLS session ticket: 0000 - 80 16 8b 76 3e f4 b5 11-b7 fe 5f 5c b1 78 1c d2 ...v>....._\.x.. ...... 00d0 - 37 60 d5 f0 48 66 a1 26-cd 6f ca 46 16 e8 6c 73 7`..Hf.&.o.F..ls
Start Time: 1715604372 Timeout : 7200 (sec) Verify return code: 21 (unable to verify the first certificate) Extended master secret: no

Max Early Data: 0

read R BLOCK

Post-Handshake New Session Ticket arrived: SSL-Session: Protocol : TLSv1.3 Cipher : TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 Session-ID: BBBB76547654 Session-ID-ctx: Resumption PSK: AA44667788 PSK identity: None PSK identity hint: None SRP username: None TLS session ticket lifetime hint: 300 (seconds) TLS session ticket: 0000 - 80 16 8b 76 3e f4 b5 11-b7 fe 5f 5c b1 78 1c d2 ...v>....._\.x.. 0010 - 95 10 50 33 83 66 7d 2a-13 77 ac 9a 97 cf 9e df ..P3.f}*.w...... .................... 00d0 - 47 c9 8c fb be 15 e2 e6-25 12 6d 70 dd df 07 95 G.......%.mp....
Start Time: 1715604372 Timeout : 7200 (sec) Verify return code: 21 (unable to verify the first certificate) Extended master secret: no

Max Early Data: 0

read R BLOCK

I have long wanted to say this and raise this topic. The whole problem is that people know or don’t know whether malicious software, loggers, and the like are found in the next injector. If you have a weak computer with less than 16GB of RAM, you may not even continue reading this, it is of no use to you. But I have an option below that will partially help people even with a weak computer. However, if your computer is quite powerful by modern standards, I suggest a simple and well-known option. However, despite all the obviousness of this option, there are 12-year-old unreasonable and stupid creatures who download everything that comes to hand.
Virtual machine (less optimized, more secure)
That's all I want to suggest, I don't want to suggest you fuck with antiviruses and look for a safe injector - you can forget about it and download just everything that comes to hand. There are many guides on the Internet on how to properly install Windows via an iso file, properly ISOLATE and configure the characteristics of your machine. I recommend choosing VMWare as a virtual machine engine, since VirtualBox has become disgusting and impractical, with constant interruptions in the Internet connection, and the interface leaves much to be desired. What about VMWare - download the crack version with keygen, if you are in a country where this is prohibited, you MUST use a VPN for such purposes. Once you have downloaded VMWare, enter in the key window one of the keys that is listed in the text file that you should also download. After which everything will start correctly. I won't tell you how to install the system and the like, but I indicated what is best to use for this option. After all, the chance that a logger or virus will penetrate the shell of a virtual machine is incredibly small, especially because the developers of such injectors are extremely stupid. Then everything is simple - install the injector, launch it and play, you don’t even have to worry about the security of your main system - you are protected. Why is everything so confusing? Yes, simply because this is an excellent security measure against any software in the injectors and it will save you from reinstalling your entire system in order to get rid of the viruses.
BlueStacks (less secure, more optimized)
Yes, this is a simpler and faster method, but your safety is hardly guaranteed. But why then did I list this as an option? Why do you need an emulator? It's simple: bluestaks can run on extremely weak systems. But what’s also interesting is that by emulating the Android system, you will have access to many free working injectors for Android. Many viruses and loggers for mobile injectors are made for the Android system, but not Windows, so your main system is still safe to some extent. However, correctly setting up binds, etc. is also time consuming, but it is at least some kind of alternative.
I hope I helped you. You can indicate any questions or suggestions in the comments.

Did you know that a superior Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) could increase your property's value?
As the UK housing market continues to evolve, Catherine Storer, Executive Director and construction industry expert at Essential Site Skills, is emphasising the significant impact that Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) have on buying and selling homes. With the UK’s firm commitment to reducing carbon emissions, EPCs are not just regulatory requirements but key factors in maximising property value and ensuring sustainable living.
“Whether you are selling your home or in the market to buy, understanding the EPC of your property is crucial,” said Catherine Storer. “These certificates do more than outline energy costs; they provide a blueprint for enhancing energy efficiency, which can substantially increase property value and appeal in today's eco-conscious market.”
An EPC rates a property’s energy efficiency, from A (most efficient) to G (least efficient), and includes detailed information on a home’s energy use, typical energy costs, and tangible recommendations for improvements. This information is invaluable for homeowners looking to sell, as a higher rating can attract buyers looking for an energy-efficient home. Likewise, buyers benefit by knowing the potential energy costs and savings associated with their new home.
Energy Efficiency Improvement Tips
Heating and Ventilation: Upgrading your heating system can significantly enhance your EPC rating. Specialists in modern and efficient heating technologies can install new boilers, heat pumps, or more efficient radiators tailored to your property's specific needs.
Renewable Energy: Integrating renewable energy sources like solar panels, biomass heaters, or air source heat pumps can greatly improve your home’s energy efficiency. Experts in these technologies provide installation services and advice on the best options for your property.
Insulation: Effective insulation is one of the most cost-efficient methods to boost a home's energy efficiency. Professionals specialising in loft, wall, and floor insulation can significantly improve your home’s heat retention.
Windows and Doors: Installing energy-efficient doors and windows, such as double or triple-glazed options, can also markedly enhance your home's thermal performance.
“As the property market becomes increasingly competitive, a good EPC rating is not just a nice-to-have, but a crucial component of a property’s marketability and long-term value,” Storer added.
For homeowners interested in selling their properties, or buyers wanting to invest wisely, understanding and improving an EPC can be a game-changer.

About Essential Site Skills
Founded in 2013, Essential Site Skills has become a leading authority in construction and property-related services, known for its commitment to enhancing property value and promoting sustainable living practices through professional EPC assessments.

For More Information
Discover more about how Essential Site Skills can assist in preparing your property for the market by visiting their website.

All my Doom posts so far, with descriptions. Lots of HQ content you may have missed. Some posts of the most value to me have their descriptions highlighted in bold.
Seek for high-resolution art by keyword "HQ" and image resolutions in square brackets "[]". Enjoy!
​
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/1cfpmfl/running_doom_using_only_spinda_patterns/ — Running DOOM Using Only Spinda Patterns
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/1c4ghk5/doomhtop_running_doom_using_htop_console_utility/ — doom-htop — running Doom using 'htop' console utility.
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/18exqwy/doom_at_30_the_best_doom_mods_to_celebrate_three/ — DOOM at 30: the best DOOM mods to celebrate three decades of destruction Stuff
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/13gccc5/this_is_for_my_cake_day_doom_3_box_inside_cove — This is for my cake day — Doom 3 box inside cover art, retouched by me [4096x2939]
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/126gqeo/d3themed_uac_pda_locked_amoledsized_1920x3420/ — D3-themed 'UAC PDA LOCKED' AMOLED-sized (1920x3420) wallpaper by me. In case you've been looking for something like this.
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/11krwgu/discussing_the_new_gog_release_and_redux_21_news/ — Discussing the new GOG release and Redux 2.1 news
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/11gxz17/early_doom_4_trailer_from_2012/ — Early Doom 4 trailer from 2012
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/zo0addoom_christmas_bauble/ — Doom Christmas Bauble
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/xwvjxd3themed_uac_pda_amoledsized_1920x3420_wallpape — D3-themed 'UAC PDA' AMOLED-sized (1920x3420) wallpaper that I made based on another web-found image
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/xu6t76/eating_doom_3_imp_fanart/ — Eating (Doom 3 Imp fanart)
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/xtscj3/infinity_machine_the_most_advanced_cheating/ — Infinity Machine (the most advanced cheating utility ever) in PC Gamer 1995-05
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/wlp2do/doom_is_infinite_a_page_of_an_article_in_pc_game — Doom is... Infinite! A page of an article in PC Gamer (USA), 1995-05
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/wfdbce/doom_3_has_turned_18_big_boy_now/ — Doom 3 has turned 18! Big boy now!
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/wa1b49/doom_2022_a_movie_made_of_cardboard/ — DOOM (2022) — A movie made of cardboard
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/w515k0/found_it_doom_3_roe_box_inside_cover_art/ — Found it! Doom 3 RoE box inside cover art, retouched by me [6192x4494]
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/vy7gfl/only_the_n64_could/ — Only the N64 could...
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/vvi1we/doom_64_ad_in_nintendo_official_magazine_63/ — Doom 64 ad in Nintendo Official Magazine #63 (1997-12) [5090x3507]
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/vsk37e/another_original_official_d3_screen_in_hq/ — Another original official D3 screen in HQ [4000x3000]
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/voynii/doom_fanart_by_trycon_3840x2160/ — Doom fanart by Trycon [3840x2160]
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/vo5yvg/doom_64_reloaded_for_the_doom_64_remaster_steam/ — Doom 64 Reloaded for the Doom 64 Remaster (Steam, GOG, Bethesda.net, Game Pass)
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/vir5adat_bitch_5120x2880/ — Dat bitch! [5120x2880]
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/vi1e28/d3modded_pc_case_presumably_all_of_these_pictures/ — D3-modded PC case. Presumably, all of these pictures were taken in 2007 at the Maker Faire in California.
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/v7hthf/hq_original_d3_screenshot_used_for_wallpapers_and/ — HQ original D3 screenshot used for wallpapers and arts [4000x3000]
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/v6596t/just_an_art_3256x2035/ — Just an art [3256x2035]
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/v4gymw/d64_fanart_by_cynder_024/ — D64 fanart by Cynder_024
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/v35vh5/how_bout_doom_64s_mother_demon_reboot_based_on/ — How' bout Doom 64's Mother Demon reboot based on this art by Markus Neidel?
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/v2cfyo/does_anyone_have_this_art_in_hires_maybe_original/ — Does anyone have this art in hi-res? Maybe original D3 RoE box to scan from and share? [Found: https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/w515k0/found_it_doom_3_roe_box_inside_cover_art/]
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/v2afqk/tsundere_demon_gf/ — Tsundere Demon GF
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/v0w9bd/doom_poster_by_ambientflush/ — Doom poster by AmbientFlush
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/uusyjs/my_take_on_the_doom_3_icon_of_sin_3068x1536/ — My take on the Doom 3 Icon of Sin [3068x1536]
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/utnxrk/hell_demon_skull_art_by_kenneth_scott_retouched/ — Hell demon skull art by Kenneth Scott, retouched and with brightness equalized by me in order to make it look the closest to the release version while keeping the maximum detail.
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/uqm64h/doom64_icon_of_sin_from_the_d64ifier_mod/ — Doom64 Icon of Sin from the D64ifier mod
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/upesmd/jpeg_version_of_my_earlier_post_pcgamer_127/ — JPEG version of my earlier post — PCGamer #127 09-2004 inside cover retouched by me [4532x3160]
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/up8twa/d3_imp_author_unknown_1255x1673/ — D3 Imp, author unknown [1255x1673]
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/uomzsthis_is_for_my_reddit_cake_day_pcgamer_127_092004/ — This is for my Reddit cake day — PCGamer #127 09-2004 inside cover retouched by me [4532x3160]
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/ul3c14/doom64_poster_from_nintendo_power_95_of_april/ — Doom64 poster from Nintendo Power #95 of April 1997, my restoration attempt [1783x3867]
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/ujgxi9/doom_the_movie_2005_behind_the_scenes/ — Doom The Movie (2005) Behind The Scenes
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/u94wj5/d64_mancubus_poster_gamepro_096_september_1996/ — D64 mancubus poster, GamePro #096, September 1996 [3000x3600]
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/u8hhxj/cacodemonomania/ — Cacodemonomania
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/u7qkja/doom_bloodfall_dlc_art_3058x4000/ — Doom Bloodfall DLC art [3058x4000]
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/u5ferq/the_ultimate_3d_virtual_reality_game/ — The Ultimate 3-D Virtual Reality Game
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/u0heb6/doom_3_hellsign_upscaled_3480x3480/ — Doom 3 Hellsign upscaled [3480x3480]
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/tng2ds/pda_1260/ — PDA 1260
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/sdzof6/ai_textures_version_10_addon/ — AI textures - version 1.0 addon
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/rtmi78/happy_new_year_from_russian_videogames_magazine/ — Happy New Year from Russian videogames magazine GameLand!
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/rnjz1k/dial_in_make_new_friends_and_kill_them/ — Dial in, make new friends… and kill them.
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/r7rt3w/birdman_for_doom3_addon/ — Birdman for Doom3 addon
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/qs5l3a/the_ultimate_master_wad_guide/ — The ULTIMATE Master WAD Guide
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/qqz516/dum_by_rhomita_fan_doom_remake_demo_using_unreal/ — DUM by Rhomita (Fan Doom remake demo using Unreal engine)
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/qqsuvs/doom_3_fan_art_homage_remaste — DOOM 3 Fan Art / Homage / Remaster
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/qj00ai/ultimate_retro_pc_gamer_collection_free_ebook/ — Ultimate Retro PC Gamer Collection free ebook (Doom, Quake II, Half-Life, System Shock, Deux Ex, etc.)
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/qgm5mdoom_poster_by_johanborg/ — Doom poster by johanborg
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/qfg5km/hq_scans_of_the_book_of_id_download_link_in/ — HQ scans of the Book of id (download link in comment)
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/qerb4b/doom_ii_manual_erro — Doom II Manual Error
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/qemgo3/just_a_black_doom_slayer_mark_wallpaper_adapted/ — Just a black Doom Slayer mark wallpaper adapted to 4K (original art by Michael Rhodes, link in comments)
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/qd9znm/doom_key_art_1878x2531/ — Doom key art [1878x2531]
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/qcv0ko/building_the_foundation_for_the_future/ — Building the Foundation for the Future!
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/q9sz9c/doom_3_tribute_by_tse10/ — Doom 3 tribute by Tse-10
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/q95w06/ultra_hq_doom_eternal_logo_6823x5055/ — Ultra HQ Doom Eternal logo [6823x5055]
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/q8mtol/alien_doom_print_ad/ — Alien Doom print ad
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/q6dmh5/art_by_petur_arnorsson_3500x3500_to_mods_this_is/ — Art by Petur Arnorsson [3500x3500]. To mods: this is not a repost. None of the 40+ iterations of this image here on Reddit are of a comparable size and quality.
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/q5d96e/prepare_yourself_for_the_second_coming/ — Prepare yourself for the Second Coming.
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/q5d7lu/dooms_day/ — Doom's Day
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/q3xsaf/da_big_boi_art_by_petur_arnorsson_3500x3500/ — Da big boi (art by Petur Arnorsson) [3500x3500]
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/q2iqfk/4k_doom_slayers_collection_backgroundwallpape — 4K Doom Slayers Collection background/wallpaper from PS store
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/q0bre1/to_hell_with_you/ — To Hell With You.
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/pz2opt/doom_slayer_statue_series_by_prime_1_studio_these/ — Doom Slayer Statue Series by Prime 1 Studio. These are incredible! (Link in comment)
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/pxpure/the_doom_slayer_symbol_official_transparent_png/ — The Doom Slayer symbol — official transparent PNG from bethesda.net
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/pxcj1k/mark_of_the_doom_slayer_wallpaper_4k_png_an/ — Mark of the Doom Slayer wallpaper, 4K, PNG — an artistic interpretation. Just because why not.
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/px8u9v/clean_mark_of_the_doom_slayer_wallpaper_4k_png/ — Clean Mark of the Doom Slayer wallpaper, 4K, PNG.
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/pue8zl/doom_3_pinky_model_by_terressa_cook_based_on/ — Doom 3 pinky model by Terressa Cook (based on concept by Kenneth Scott)
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/ps0lpyes/ — Yes!
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/prr8jf/fanart_and_concepts_by_brandon_chen_link_in/ — Fanart and concepts by Brandon Chen (link in comment)
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/pped9t/a_take_on_doom_3_spider_mastermind_by_martin/ — A take on Doom 3 Spider Mastermind by Martin Holmberg (original concept by Kenneth Scott)
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/pmqxd0/a_take_on_classic_cyberdemon_by_evgeniy_pyrch/ — A take on classic Cyberdemon by Evgeniy Pyrch
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/pie0ep/doom_3_remastered_in_unity_5_tribute_by_raihan/ — DOOM 3 Remastered in Unity 5 (Tribute by Raihan Erviansyah).
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/pgyrze/art_by_billie_cake/ — Art by Billie Cake
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/pejllj/missing/ — Missing
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/peja80/kenneth_scott_is_remaking_birdie/ — Kenneth Scott is remaking "Birdie".
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/peebb0/snapshot_form_doom_3_legacy_reel_at_0459_what_are/ — Snapshot form Doom 3 Legacy reel at 04:59. What are those? Look pretty much like xenomorph eggs.
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/pdxlbw/the_ultimate_doom_european_poster_4136x6201/ — The Ultimate Doom european poster [4136x6201]
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/pdnhnb/a_scan_of_a_one_page_article_titled_the_doom_boom/ — A scan of a one page article titled "The Doom Boom" that appeared in the July 1994 issue of Wired magazine. [5305x6406]
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/pd8z7k/and_they_told_you_windows_95_would_make_your_life/ — And they told you Windows 95 would make your life easier.
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/pb6gvm/just_a_random_doom_pic/ — Just a random Doom pic.
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/pa5p94/who_wants_some_huh/ — Who wants some, huh?
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/p9v2wg/worthy_doom_3_content_is_so_hard_to_find_nowadays/ — Worthy Doom 3 content is so hard to find nowadays (Doom 3 appreciation post).
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/p9r5cx/czech_video_games_magazine_cover_level_iss_116/ — Czech video games magazine cover (Level, iss. 116, August 2004)
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/p96xgk/hi_there_guys_some_worthy_content_to_temper_the/ — "Hi there guys!" Some worthy content to temper the memes hell. Spanish Official Xbox Magazine, 2005.
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/p6ustd/hunters_moon_monsters_adapted_for_doom_remake_4/ — Hunter's Moon monsters adapted for Doom Remake 4 (Link in comment)
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/p57qjv/join_forces_against_the_horrors_of_hell_doom_3/ — Join Forces Against the Horrors of Hell! [Doom 3 for Xbox ad, 2308x3136]
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/p4nhwl/ok_here_is_our_redhead_boy/ — OK, here is our Redhead boy!
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/p4nc53/the_fight_continues/ — The fight continues.
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/p469l3/custom_textures_for_notakeg_type_barrels_in_d3/ — Custom textures for not-a-keg type barrels in D3 RoE. I also improved their normals for higher-res look.
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/p3isc6/doom_eternal_poster_by_nekomanhd_from_deviantart/ — Doom Eternal poster by nekomanhd from DeviantArt [2480x3508]
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/ozql6g/doom_3_pinky_redesign_concept_by_vincenzo_de/ — Doom 3 pinky redesign concept by Vincenzo De Cesaris
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/oxmoco/happy_17th_birthday_doom_3/ — Happy 17th birthday Doom 3!
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/owxq6e/yet_another_classic_doom_texture_i_made_compute1/ — Yet another Classic Doom texture I made [compute1]
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/ovrdsq/whatever_happened_to_peace_love_understanding/ — Whatever happened to Peace, Love & Understanding?
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/ov7714/doom_3_roe_quick_reference_card_2826x1420/ — Doom 3 RoE Quick Reference Card [2826x1420]
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/ougliw/my_custom_texture_pack_addon_for_classic_doom/ — My custom texture pack add-on for Classic Doom based on DHTP Alterations [details in comments]
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/otop1q/you_guys_might_like_this_4000x6000_author_unknown/ — You guys might like this [4000x6000]. Author unknown.
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/os25ee/you_know_nothing_about_dying_yet/ — You Know Nothing About Dying. Yet.
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/or914k/custom_doom_3_poster_from_russian_pc_games/ — Custom Doom 3 poster from Russian PC Games magazine
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/oomz1f/japanese_tv_doom64_commercial/ — Japanese TV Doom64 commercial
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/omp1bn/doom_3_pistol_highpoly_rende — Doom 3 Pistol High-Poly Render
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/ojaayi/a_masterpiece_of_the_art_form_4600x3155/ — "A Masterpiece Of The Art Form" [4600x3155]
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/ogzbg7/doomguy_dressup_doll_from_a_russian_gaming/ — Doomguy dress-up doll from a Russian gaming magazine
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/o9k3r8/nvidia_geforce_bfg_10000_graphics_cards_art_by/ — Nvidia GeForce BFG 10000 graphics cards (art by Andrew Collins)
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/o6z4u7/doom_3_shows_us_damnations_lookin_damn_good_from/ — "Doom 3 shows us damnations lookin' damn good" (from CGW 01/2004, restored by me) [3083x2085]
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/o39jxt/nice_huh_found_in_the_depths_of_the_internet/ — Nice, huh? Found in the depths of the Internet Archive
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/o20pqc/general_hayden_from_doom_3/ — General Hayden from Doom 3
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/nypg71/doom_3_concept_art_showcase_from_xbox_360/ — Doom 3 Concept Art Showcase from Xbox 360 Collectors Edition
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/nvrtyx/team_up_by_ardat/ — Team up! by Ardat
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/nsx8gt/doom_comic_by_tcannoncomics/ — Doom comic by TCannonComics
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/nplly0/want_to_have_an_exciting_summer_try_going_to_hell/ — Want to have an exciting summer? Try going to Hell.
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/noy02o/doom_ii_review_title_page_in_pc_zone_mag_from_1995/ — Doom II review title page in PC Zone mag from 1995
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/nm2ygg/the_ancient_gods_part_ii_doom_eternal/ — The Ancient Gods Part II DOOM Eternal FraminPoster by THEGALATF on DeviantArt
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/nj8eyu/original_doom_3_demon_skull_hell_sign_2003/ — Original Doom 3 demon skull (Hell sign) 2003 concept by Kenneth Scott
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/nimqnd/doom_4_cancelled_concept_art_by_matthew_burke/ — Doom 4 (cancelled) concept art by Matthew Burke
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/nhy0xm/union_aerospace_progress_takes_sacrifice_poste — Union Aerospace "Progress Takes Sacrifice" Poster Scan [7016x9922]
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/ndgrad/all_the_doom_3_highres_texture_packs_combined/ — All the Doom 3 high-res texture packs combined together
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/nb8b7g/so_you_want_to_paly_some_fckng_doom/ — So you want to paly some fckng DOOM?
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/n88gr0/doom_2_screensave — Doom 2 screensaver
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/n5cn1w/doom_3_print_ad_in_gamestar_germany/ — Doom 3 print ad in GameStar Germany
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/n3r8kk/rare_doom_3_print_ad/ — Rare Doom 3 print ad
https://www.reddit.com/Doom/comments/j4v4ql/great_custom_doom_series_posters_and_album_covers/ — Great custom Doom series posters and album covers

In today's digital age, YouTube has become an integral part of our lives. Whether it's for entertainment, education, or staying updated with the latest trends, YouTube offers a vast repository of videos catering to diverse interests. However, one common frustration among users is the inability to download entire playlists for offline viewing or archival purposes. This is where YouTube Playlist Downloader comes into play, revolutionizing how we interact with YouTube content. YouTube Subtitle Downloader
YouTube Playlist Downloader is a handy tool designed to simplify the process of downloading entire playlists from YouTube. Gone are the days of manually downloading each video separately or relying on unstable third-party apps. With YouTube Playlist Downloader, users can effortlessly download entire playlists with just a few clicks, saving time and ensuring a seamless viewing experience.
One of the key advantages of YouTube Playlist Downloader is its versatility. It supports a wide range of formats, including MP4, MP3, AVI, and more, allowing users to choose the format that best suits their needs. Whether you want to download videos for offline playback on your mobile device or extract audio for a music playlist, YouTube Playlist Downloader has you covered.
Another standout feature is its batch download capability. Instead of downloading videos one by one, users can add entire playlists to the downloader and let it handle the rest. This is especially useful for users with large playlists or those looking to archive content for future reference. YouTube video downloader
Moreover, YouTube Playlist Downloader offers customization options, allowing users to specify video quality, download location, and other preferences. This level of control ensures that users get the exact content they want, tailored to their preferences and device specifications.
From a practical standpoint, YouTube Playlist Downloader enhances convenience and accessibility. Users can download content while connected to the internet and access it later without relying on a stable internet connection. Whether you're traveling, in a low-connectivity area, or simply prefer offline viewing, YouTube Playlist Downloader empowers users to enjoy their favorite content on their own terms. YouTube to MP4 Converter
In conclusion, YouTube Playlist Downloader is a game-changer for YouTube enthusiasts. Its user-friendly interface, format versatility, batch download capability, and customization options make it a must-have tool for anyone looking to enhance their YouTube experience. By streamlining the process of downloading playlists, YouTube Playlist Downloader puts control back in the hands of users, ensuring a seamless and enjoyable viewing experience.

PvZ 2 PAK by JiangNanGame: https://github.com/jiangnangame/PVZ2PAK PvZ Paint Pack by knuxchux: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1L9Ql... PvZ Diablo Version by... honestly I have no idea. But here's the download: https://drive.google.com/drive1/fo... PvZ Hard Mode by Playalexf: • Plants vs Zombies: Lawn of Hell 2.2 C... PvZ Delta by AniqNazmie: https://www.pvzhome.com/resources/79/ PvZ Deluxe by Chaoskeif: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fq2m... PvZ Travel Around Time: http://pvz.booen.vip/infoPage.php?inf... PvZ The Cursed by Peridot Ciocîrlan: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1O8Hk... PvZ Real Life Edition by Pato Pato Studios: http://www.mediafire.com/file/6fi3bv5... Anime Mod by... I'm not sure actually: http://www.mediafire.com/file/0ruhgkp... PvZ Homestrrr Rooner Edition by Epic Shroom: https://gamejolt.com/games/homestarru... PvZ AX by AX 901: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1npx-... PvZ Whitman by... another creator I don't know. I just found it in Boiled's Mod Repository: https://drive.google.com/drive1/fo... PvZ Heart Attack by Penguin6750 Studios: https://www.mediafire.com/file/w09f0d... PvZ Into the Comedy-Verse by Anderson Miguel Favian Caceres: https://mega.nz/file/oslzWAqT#EhhFo7z... PvZ Legacy by JacobAwesomeness: https://drive.google.com/drive0/fo... PvZ Revoked by Ayban and MadManMatthew: http://www.mediafire.com/file/9hzv2t4... PvZ Lawn of Hell by Playalexf: https://drive.google.com/drive/folder... PvZ Recreation by Samen: https://www.mediafire.com/file/dqwb0m... PvZ Ma Balls/PvZ MA by Ayban(I think): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EMqJ... Also I don't have the link I got it from but I think this is the same thing, I will check later when it's not past midnight. PvZ Repainted by sttiS Tunes: https://gamejolt.com/games/PVZRepaint... Expanded and Enhanced: • Plants Vs. Zombies Expanded and Enhan... GhTr: https://mega.nz/file/TdMg3Jaa#KajeCtE... Tower Defense: https://drive.google.com/drive0/fo... Angry Birds: https://drive.google.com/drive0/fo... Plants vs Memes: https://gamejolt.com/games/plantsvsme... PvZ ρ/rho: https://drive.google.com/drive1/fo...

~Bauxite market~ is anticipated to grow at a moderate CAGR of 2.5% during the forecast period (2024-2031). Bauxite is a rock mineral composed mainly of aluminum hydroxide minerals, aluminum oxides, and clay minerals. It is the primary source of aluminum globally and is widely used in various industries such as transportation, construction, packaging, electrical, and machinery
Get Free Sample link @ https://www.omrglobal.com/request-sample/bauxite-market
The ongoing urbanization trend worldwide is fueling the construction industry. Aluminum's properties like durability, recyclability, and ease of fabrication make it a popular choice for building facades, roofing, doors, and windows. This translates to a continued rise in demand for bauxite, the main source material for aluminum. As cities expand and require more infrastructure. In the 2024-2025 budget announcement, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced an allocation of Rs 11.11 lakh crore ($134 billion) for infrastructure development worth 3.4% of the GDP. This was up from Rs 10.0 lakh crore assigned in 2023-24. The growing infrastructure budget is further anticipated to create lucrative opportunities to the market demand.
full report of Bauxite Market available @ https://www.omrglobal.com/industry-reports/bauxite-market
· Market Coverage
· Market number available for – 2024-2031
· Base year- 2023
· Forecast period- 2024-2031
· Segment Covered- By Source, By Product Type, By Applications
· Competitive Landscape- Archer Daniels Midland Co., Ingredion Inc., Kerry Group Plc, Cargill
· Inc., and others
Market Segmentation
Global Bauxite Market by Grade
o Metallurgical-grade
o Refractory-grade
o Other Grades
Global Bauxite Marketby Application
o Alumina Production
o Refractory
o Cement
o Other Application
Regional Analysis
o North America
o United States
o Canada
o Europe
o UK
o Germany
o Turkey
o Norway
o Russia
o Rest of Europe
o Asia-Pacific
o China
o India
o Japan
o Australia
o Rest of Asia-Pacific
o Rest of the World
o Latin America
o Middle East & Africa
Company Profiles
o Australian Bauxite Ltd.
o Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinée (CBG)
o GRAFIT MADENCILIK SAN. TIC. A.S.
o Iranian Aluminium Co.
o LKAB Minerals
o Norsk Hydro ASA
o Possehl Erzkontor GmbH & Co. KG
o Queensland Alumina Limited Ltd.
o Hindalco Industries Ltd.
o Emirates Global Aluminium PJSC
o Alcoa Corp.
o Alumina Ltd.
o Aluminum Corporation of China Ltd.
o NALCO India
o Norsk Hydro ASA
o Rusal
o South32
The Report Covers

• Market value data analysis of 2023and forecast to 2031.
• Annualized market revenues ($ million) for each market segment.
• Country-wise analysis of major geographical regions.
• Key companies operating in the global bauxite market. Based on the availability of data, information related to new product launches, and relevant news is also available in the report.
• Analysis of business strategies by identifying the key market segments positioned for strong growth in the future.
• Analysis of market-entry and market expansion strategies.
• Competitive strategies by identifying ‘who-stands-where’ in the market.

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About Orion Market Research Orion Market Research (OMR) is a market research and consulting company known for its crisp and concise reports. The company is equipped with an experienced team of analysts and consultants. OMR offers quality syndicated research reports, customized research reports, consulting and other research-based services. The company also offer Digital Marketing services through its subsidiary OMR Digital and Software development and Consulting Services through another subsidiary Encanto Technologies.
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By what means the papers out of which I have made a connected story came into my hands is the last point which the reader will learn from these pages. But it is necessary to prefix to my extracts from them a statement of the form in which I possess them. They consist, then, partly of a series of collections for a book of travels, such a volume as was a common product of the forties and fifties. Horace Marryat's Journal of a Residence in Jutland and the Danish Isles is a fair specimen of the class to which I allude. These books usually treated of some unfamiliar district on the Continent. They were illustrated with woodcuts or steel plates. They gave details of hotel accommodation, and of means of communication, such as we now expect to find in any well-regulated guide-book, and they dealt largely in reported conversations with intelligent foreigners, racy innkeepers and garrulous peasants. In a word, they were chatty. Begun with the idea of furnishing material for such a book, my papers as they progressed assumed the character of a record of one single personal experience, and this record was continued up to the very eve, almost, of its termination. The writer was a Mr. Wraxall. For my knowledge of him I have to depend entirely on the evidence his writings afford, and from these I deduce that he was a man past middle age, possessed of some private means, and very much alone in the world. He had, it seems, no settled abode in England, but was a denizen of hotels and boarding-houses. It is probable that he entertained the idea of settling down at some future time which never came; and I think it also likely that the Pantechnicon fire in the early seventies must have destroyed a great deal that would have thrown light on his antecedents, for he refers once or twice to property of his that was warehoused at that establishment. It is further apparent that Mr. Wraxall had published a book, and that it treated of a holiday he had once taken in Brittany. More than this I cannot say about his work, because a diligent search in bibliographical works has convinced me that it must have appeared either anonymously or under a pseudonym. As to his character, it is not difficult to form some superficial opinion. He must have been an intelligent and cultivated man. It seems that he was near being a Fellow of his college at Oxford—Brasenose, as I judge from the Calendar. His besetting fault was pretty clearly that of over-inquisitiveness, possibly a good fault in a traveller, certainly a fault for which this traveller paid dearly enough in the end. On what proved to be his last expedition, he was plotting another book. Scandinavia, a region not widely known to Englishmen forty years ago, had struck him as an interesting field. He must have lighted on some old books of Swedish history or memoirs, and the idea had struck him that there was room for a book descriptive of travel in Sweden, interspersed with episodes from the history of some of the great Swedish families. He procured letters of introduction, therefore, to some persons of quality in Sweden, and set out thither in the early summer of 1863. Of his travels in the North there is no need to speak, nor of his residence of some weeks in Stockholm. I need only mention that some savant resident there put him on the track of an important collection of family papers belonging to the proprietors of an ancient manor-house in Vestergothland, and obtained for him permission to examine them. The manor-house, or herrgård, in question is to be called Råbäck (pronounced something like Roebeck), though that is not its name. It is one of the best buildings of its kind in all the country, and the picture of it in Dablenberg's Suecia antiqua et moderna, engraved in 1694, shows it very much as the tourist may see it to-day. It was built soon after 1600, and is, roughly speaking, very much like an English house of that period in respect of material—red-brick with stone facings—and style. The man who built it was a scion of the great house of De la Gardie, and his descendants possess it still. De la Gardie is the name by which I will designate them when mention of them becomes necessary. They received Mr. Wraxall with great kindness and courtesy, and pressed him to stay in the house as long as his researches lasted. But, preferring to be independent, and mistrusting his powers of conversing in Swedish, he settled himself at the village inn, which turned out quite sufficiently comfortable, at any rate during the summer months. This arrangement would entail a short walk daily to and from the manor-house of something under a mile. The house itself stood in a park, and was protected—we should say grown up—with large old timber. Near it you found the walled garden, and then entered a close wood fringing one of the small lakes with which the whole country is pitted. Then came the wall of the demesne, and you climbed a steep knoll—a knob of rock lightly covered with soil—and on the top of this stood the church, fenced in with tall dark trees. It was a curious building to English eyes. The nave and aisles were low, and filled with pews and galleries. In the western gallery stood the handsome old organ, gaily painted, and with silver pipes. The ceiling was flat, and had been adorned by a seventeenth-century artist with a strange and hideous "Last Judgment," full of lurid flames, falling cities, burning ships, crying souls, and brown and smiling demons. Handsome brass coronæ hung from the roof; the pulpit was like a doll's-house, covered with little painted wooden cherubs and saints; a stand with three hour-glasses was hinged to the preacher's desk. Such sights as these may be seen in many a church in Sweden now, but what distinguished this one was an addition to the original building. At the eastern end of the north aisle the builder of the manor-house had erected a mausoleum for himself and his family. It was a largish eight-sided building, lighted by a series of oval windows, and it had a domed roof, topped by a kind of pumpkin-shaped object rising into a spire, a form in which Swedish architects greatly delighted. The roof was of copper externally, and was painted black, while the walls, in common with those of the church, were staringly white. To this mausoleum there was no access from the church. It had a portal and steps of its own on the northern side. Past the churchyard the path to the village goes, and not more than three or four minutes bring you to the inn door. On the first day of his stay at Råbäck Mr. Wraxall found the church door open, and made those notes of the interior which I have epitomized. Into the mausoleum, however, he could not make his way. He could by looking through the keyhole just descry that there were fine marble effigies and sarcophagi of copper, and a wealth of armorial ornament, which made him very anxious to spend some time in investigation. The papers he had come to examine at the manor-house proved to be of just the kind he wanted for his book. There were family correspondence, journals, and account-books of the earliest owners of the estate, very carefully kept and clearly written, full of amusing and picturesque detail. The first De la Gardie appeared in them as a strong and capable man. Shortly after the building of the mansion there had been a period of distress in the district, and the peasants had risen and attacked several châteaux and done some damage. The owner of Råbäck took a leading part in suppressing the trouble, and there was reference to executions of ringleaders and severe punishments inflicted with no sparing hand. The portrait of this Magnus de la Gardie was one of the best in the house, and Mr. Wraxall studied it with no little interest after his day's work. He gives no detailed description of it, but I gather that the face impressed him rather by its power than by its beauty or goodness; in fact, he writes that Count Magnus was an almost phenomenally ugly man. On this day Mr. Wraxall took his supper with the family, and walked back in the late but still bright evening. "I must remember," he writes, "to ask the sexton if he can let me into the mausoleum at the church. He evidently has access to it himself, for I saw him to-night standing on the steps, and, as I thought, locking or unlocking the door." I find that early on the following day Mr. Wraxall had some conversation with his landlord. His setting it down at such length as he does surprised me at first; but I soon realized that the papers I was reading were, at least in their beginning, the materials for the book he was meditating, and that it was to have been one of those quasi-journalistic productions which admit of the introduction of an admixture of conversational matter. His object, he says, was to find out whether any traditions of Count Magnus de la Gardie lingered on in the scenes of that gentleman's activity, and whether the popular estimate of him were favourable or not. He found that the Count was decidedly not a favourite. If his tenants came late to their work on the days which they owed to him as Lord of the Manor, they were set on the wooden horse, or flogged and branded in the manor-house yard. One or two cases there were of men who had occupied lands which encroached on the lord's domain, and whose houses had been mysteriously burnt on a winter's night, with the whole family inside. But what seemed to dwell on the innkeeper's mind most—for he returned to the subject more than once—was that the Count had been on the Black Pilgrimage, and had brought something or someone back with him.
You will naturally inquire, as Mr. Wraxall did, what the Black Pilgrimage may have been. But your curiosity on the point must remain unsatisfied for the time being, just as his did. The landlord was evidently unwilling to give a full answer, or indeed any answer, on the point, and, being called out for a moment, trotted off with obvious alacrity, only putting his head in at the door a few minutes afterwards to say that he was called away to Skara, and should not be back till evening. So Mr. Wraxall had to go unsatisfied to his day's work at the manor-house. The papers on which he was just then engaged soon put his thoughts into another channel, for he had to occupy himself with glancing over the correspondence between Sophia Albertina in Stockholm and her married cousin Ulrica Leonora at Råbäck in the years 1705-1710. The letters were of exceptional interest from the light they threw upon the culture of that period in Sweden, as anyone can testify who has read the full edition of them in the publications of the Swedish Historical Manuscripts Commission. In the afternoon he had done with these, and after returning the boxes in which they were kept to their places on the shelf, he proceeded, very naturally, to take down some of the volumes nearest to them, in order to determine which of them had best be his principal subject of investigation next day. The shelf he had hit upon was occupied mostly by a collection of account-books in the writing of the first Count Magnus. But one among them was not an account-book, but a book of alchemical and other tracts in another sixteenth-century hand. Not being very familiar with alchemical literature, Mr. Wraxall spends much space which he might have spared in setting out the names and beginnings of the various treatises: The book of the Phœnix, book of the Thirty Words, book of the Toad, book of Miriam, Turba philosophorum, and so forth; and then he announces with a good deal of circumstance his delight at finding, on a leaf originally left blank near the middle of the book, some writing of Count Magnus himself headed "Liber nigræ peregrinationis." It is true that only a few lines were written, but there was quite enough to show that the landlord had that morning been referring to a belief at least as old as the time of Count Magnus, and probably shared by him. This is the English of what was written: "If any man desires to obtain a long life, if he would obtain a faithful messenger and see the blood of his enemies, it is necessary that he should first go into the city of Chorazin, and there salute the prince...." Here there was an erasure of one word, not very thoroughly done, so that Mr. Wraxall felt pretty sure that he was right in reading it as aëris ("of the air"). But there was no more of the text copied, only a line in Latin: "Quære reliqua hujus materiei inter secretiora" (See the rest of this matter among the more private things). It could not be denied that this threw a rather lurid light upon the tastes and beliefs of the Count; but to Mr. Wraxall, separated from him by nearly three centuries, the thought that he might have added to his general forcefulness alchemy, and to alchemy something like magic, only made him a more picturesque figure; and when, after a rather prolonged contemplation of his picture in the hall, Mr. Wraxall set out on his homeward way, his mind was full of the thought of Count Magnus. He had no eyes for his surroundings, no perception of the evening scents of the woods or the evening light on the lake; and when all of a sudden he pulled up short, he was astonished to find himself already at the gate of the churchyard, and within a few minutes of his dinner. His eyes fell on the mausoleum. "Ah," he said, "Count Magnus, there you are. I should dearly like to see you." "Like many solitary men," he writes, "I have a habit of talking to myself aloud; and, unlike some of the Greek and Latin particles, I do not expect an answer. Certainly, and perhaps fortunately in this case, there was neither voice nor any that regarded: only the woman who, I suppose, was cleaning up the church, dropped some metallic object on the floor, whose clang startled me. Count Magnus, I think, sleeps sound enough." That same evening the landlord of the inn, who had heard Mr. Wraxall say that he wished to see the clerk or deacon (as he would be called in Sweden) of the parish, introduced him to that official in the inn parlour. A visit to the De la Gardie tomb-house was soon arranged for the next day, and a little general conversation ensued. Mr. Wraxall, remembering that one function of Scandinavian deacons is to teach candidates for Confirmation, thought he would refresh his own memory on a Biblical point. "Can you tell me," he said, "anything about Chorazin?" The deacon seemed startled, but readily reminded him how that village had once been denounced. "To be sure," said Mr. Wraxall; "it is, I suppose, quite a ruin now?" "So I expect," replied the deacon. "I have heard some of our old priests say that Antichrist is to be born there; and there are tales——" "Ah! what tales are those?" Mr. Wraxall put in. "Tales, I was going to say, which I have forgotten," said the deacon; and soon after that he said good night. The landlord was now alone, and at Mr. Wraxall's mercy; and that inquirer was not inclined to spare him. "Herr Nielsen," he said, "I have found out something about the Black Pilgrimage. You may as well tell me what you know. What did the Count bring back with him?" Swedes are habitually slow, perhaps, in answering, or perhaps the landlord was an exception. I am not sure; but Mr. Wraxall notes that the landlord spent at least one minute in looking at him before he said anything at all. Then he came close up to his guest, and with a good deal of effort he spoke: "Mr. Wraxall, I can tell you this one little tale, and no more—not any more. You must not ask anything when I have done. In my grandfather's time—that is, ninety-two years ago—there were two men who said: 'The Count is dead; we do not care for him. We will go to-night and have a free hunt in his wood'—the long wood on the hill that you have seen behind Råbäck. Well, those that heard them say this, they said: 'No, do not go; we are sure you will meet with persons walking who should not be walking. They should be resting, not walking.' These men laughed. There were no forest-men to keep the wood, because no one wished to hunt there. The family were not here at the house. These men could do what they wished. "Very well, they go to the wood that night. My grandfather was sitting here in this room. It was the summer, and a light night. With the window open, he could see out to the wood, and hear. "So he sat there, and two or three men with him, and they listened. At first they hear nothing at all; then they hear someone—you know how far away it is—they hear someone scream, just as if the most inside part of his soul was twisted out of him. All of them in the room caught hold of each other, and they sat so for three-quarters of an hour. Then they hear someone else, only about three hundred ells off. They hear him laugh out loud: it was not one of those two men that laughed, and, indeed, they have all of them said that it was not any man at all. After that they hear a great door shut. "Then, when it was just light with the sun, they all went to the priest. They said to him: "'Father, put on your gown and your ruff, and come to bury these men, Anders Bjornsen and Hans Thorbjorn.' "You understand that they were sure these men were dead. So they went to the wood—my grandfather never forgot this. He said they were all like so many dead men themselves. The priest, too, he was in a white fear. He said when they came to him: "'I heard one cry in the night, and I heard one laugh afterwards. If I cannot forget that, I shall not be able to sleep again.' "So they went to the wood, and they found these men on the edge of the wood. Hans Thorbjorn was standing with his back against a tree, and all the time he was pushing with his hands—pushing something away from him which was not there. So he was not dead. And they led him away, and took him to the house at Nykjoping, and he died before the winter; but he went on pushing with his hands. Also Anders Bjornsen was there; but he was dead. And I tell you this about Anders Bjornsen, that he was once a beautiful man, but now his face was not there, because the flesh of it was sucked away off the bones. You understand that? My grandfather did not forget that. And they laid him on the bier which they brought, and they put a cloth over his head, and the priest walked before; and they began to sing the psalm for the dead as well as they could. So, as they were singing the end of the first verse, one fell down, who was carrying the head of the bier, and the others looked back, and they saw that the cloth had fallen off, and the eyes of Anders Bjornsen were looking up, because there was nothing to close over them. And this they could not bear. Therefore the priest laid the cloth upon him, and sent for a spade, and they buried him in that place." The next day Mr. Wraxall records that the deacon called for him soon after his breakfast, and took him to the church and mausoleum. He noticed that the key of the latter was hung on a nail just by the pulpit, and it occurred to him that, as the church door seemed to be left unlocked as a rule, it would not be difficult for him to pay a second and more private visit to the monuments if there proved to be more of interest among them than could be digested at first. The building, when he entered it, he found not unimposing. The monuments, mostly large erections of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, were dignified if luxuriant, and the epitaphs and heraldry were copious. The central space of the domed room was occupied by three copper sarcophagi, covered with finely-engraved ornament. Two of them had, as is commonly the case in Denmark and Sweden, a large metal crucifix on the lid. The third, that of Count Magnus, as it appeared, had, instead of that, a full-length effigy engraved upon it, and round the edge were several bands of similar ornament representing various scenes. One was a battle, with cannon belching out smoke, and walled towns, and troops of pikemen. Another showed an execution. In a third, among trees, was a man running at full speed, with flying hair and outstretched hands. After him followed a strange form; it would be hard to say whether the artist had intended it for a man, and was unable to give the requisite similitude, or whether it was intentionally made as monstrous as it looked. In view of the skill with which the rest of the drawing was done, Mr. Wraxall felt inclined to adopt the latter idea. The figure was unduly short, and was for the most part muffled in a hooded garment which swept the ground. The only part of the form which projected from that shelter was not shaped like any hand or arm. Mr. Wraxall compares it to the tentacle of a devil-fish, and continues: "On seeing this, I said to myself, 'This, then, which is evidently an allegorical representation of some kind—a fiend pursuing a hunted soul—may be the origin of the story of Count Magnus and his mysterious companion. Let us see how the huntsman is pictured: doubtless it will be a demon blowing his horn.'" But, as it turned out, there was no such sensational figure, only the semblance of a cloaked man on a hillock, who stood leaning on a stick, and watching the hunt with an interest which the engraver had tried to express in his attitude. Mr. Wraxall noted the finely-worked and massive steel padlocks—three in number—which secured the sarcophagus. One of them, he saw, was detached, and lay on the pavement. And then, unwilling to delay the deacon longer or to waste his own working-time, he made his way onward to the manor-house. It is curious," he notes, "how on retracing a familiar path one's thoughts engross one to the absolute exclusion of surrounding objects. To-night, for the second time, I had entirely failed to notice where I was going (I had planned a private visit to the tomb-house to copy the epitaphs), when I suddenly, as it were, awoke to consciousness, and found myself (as before) turning in at the churchyard gate, and, I believe, singing or chanting some such words as, 'Are you awake, Count Magnus? Are you asleep, Count Magnus?' and then something more which I have failed to recollect. It seemed to me that I must have been behaving in this nonsensical way for some time." He found the key of the mausoleum where he had expected to find it, and copied the greater part of what he wanted; in fact, he stayed until the light began to fail him. "I must have been wrong," he writes, "in saying that one of the padlocks of my Count's sarcophagus was unfastened; I see to-night that two are loose. I picked both up, and laid them carefully on the window-ledge, after trying unsuccessfully to close them. The remaining one is still firm, and, though I take it to be a spring lock, I cannot guess how it is opened. Had I succeeded in undoing it, I am almost afraid I should have taken the liberty of opening the sarcophagus. It is strange, the interest I feel in the personality of this, I fear, somewhat ferocious and grim old noble." The day following was, as it turned out, the last of Mr. Wraxall's stay at Råbäck. He received letters connected with certain investments which made it desirable that he should return to England; his work among the papers was practically done, and travelling was slow. He decided, therefore, to make his farewells, put some finishing touches to his notes, and be off. These finishing touches and farewells, as it turned out, took more time than he had expected. The hospitable family insisted on his staying to dine with them—they dined at three—and it was verging on half-past six before he was outside the iron gates of Råbäck. He dwelt on every step of his walk by the lake, determined to saturate himself, now that he trod it for the last time, in the sentiment of the place and hour. And when he reached the summit of the churchyard knoll, he lingered for many minutes, gazing at the limitless prospect of woods near and distant, all dark beneath a sky of liquid green. When at last he turned to go, the thought struck him that surely he must bid farewell to Count Magnus as well as the rest of the De la Gardies. The church was but twenty yards away, and he knew where the key of the mausoleum hung. It was not long before he was standing over the great copper coffin, and, as usual, talking to himself aloud. "You may have been a bit of a rascal in your time, Magnus," he was saying, "but for all that I should like to see you, or, rather——" "Just at that instant," he says, "I felt a blow on my foot. Hastily enough I drew it back, and something fell on the pavement with a clash. It was the third, the last of the three padlocks which had fastened the sarcophagus. I stooped to pick it up, and—Heaven is my witness that I am writing only the bare truth—before I had raised myself there was a sound of metal hinges creaking, and I distinctly saw the lid shifting upwards. I may have behaved like a coward, but I could not for my life stay for one moment. I was outside that dreadful building in less time than I can write—almost as quickly as I could have said—the words; and what frightens me yet more, I could not turn the key in the lock. As I sit here in my room noting these facts, I ask myself (it was not twenty minutes ago) whether that noise of creaking metal continued, and I cannot tell whether it did or not. I only know that there was something more than I have written that alarmed me, but whether it was sound or sight I am not able to remember. What is this that I have done?" Poor Mr. Wraxall! He set out on his journey to England on the next day, as he had planned, and he reached England in safety; and yet, as I gather from his changed hand and inconsequent jottings, a broken man. One of several small notebooks that have come to me with his papers gives, not a key to, but a kind of inkling of, his experiences. Much of his journey was made by canal-boat, and I find not less than six painful attempts to enumerate and describe his fellow-passengers. The entries are of this kind: "24. Pastor of village in Skåne. Usual black coat and soft black hat. "25. Commercial traveller from Stockholm going to Trollhättan. Black cloak, brown hat. "26. Man in long black cloak, broad-leafed hat, very old-fashioned." This entry is lined out, and a note added: "Perhaps identical with No. 13. Have not yet seen his face." On referring to No. 13, I find that he is a Roman priest in a cassock. The net result of the reckoning is always the same. Twenty-eight people appear in the enumeration, one being always a man in a long black cloak and broad hat, and the other a "short figure in dark cloak and hood." On the other hand, it is always noted that only twenty-six passengers appear at meals, and that the man in the cloak is perhaps absent, and the short figure is certainly absent. On reaching England, it appears that Mr. Wraxall landed at Harwich, and that he resolved at once to put himself out of the reach of some person or persons whom he never specifies, but whom he had evidently come to regard as his pursuers. Accordingly he took a vehicle—it was a closed fly—not trusting the railway, and drove across country to the village of Belchamp St. Paul. It was about nine o'clock on a moonlight August night when he neared the place. He was sitting forward, and looking out of the window at the fields and thickets—there was little else to be seen—racing past him. Suddenly he came to a cross-road. At the corner two figures were standing motionless; both were in dark cloaks; the taller one wore a hat, the shorter a hood. He had no time to see their faces, nor did they make any motion that he could discern. Yet the horse shied violently and broke into a gallop, and Mr. Wraxall sank back into his seat in something like desperation. He had seen them before. Arrived at Belchamp St. Paul, he was fortunate enough to find a decent furnished lodging, and for the next twenty-four hours he lived, comparatively speaking, in peace. His last notes were written on this day. They are too disjointed and ejaculatory to be given here in full, but the substance of them is clear enough. He is expecting a visit from his pursuers—how or when he knows not—and his constant cry is "What has he done?" and "Is there no hope?" Doctors, he knows, would call him mad, policemen would laugh at him. The parson is away. What can he do but lock his door and cry to God? People still remembered last year at Belchamp St. Paul how a strange gentleman came one evening in August years back; and how the next morning but one he was found dead, and there was an inquest; and the jury that viewed the body fainted, seven of 'em did, and none of 'em wouldn't speak to what they see, and the verdict was visitation of God; and how the people as kep' the 'ouse moved out that same week, and went away from that part. But they do not, I think, know that any glimmer of light has ever been thrown, or could be thrown, on the mystery. It so happened that last year the little house came into my hands as part of a legacy. It had stood empty since 1863, and there seemed no prospect of letting it; so I had it pulled down, and the papers of which I have given you an abstract were found in a forgotten cupboard under the window in the best bedroom.

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A few days ago, I received a file from a journalist friend who teaches at a private university in Montevideo. I known this person for years now and the exchange with her on our countless bar nights basically made me want to try to study journalism. After I started my career we became even closer and we shared concerns about the evolution of information, social media and the infamous cerebral callosity we acquired to endure the tragedy.
My friend, let's call her Valeria, was part of a public competition to accompany a minor scientific expedition to the Uruguayan Antarctic base. Her thesis was about investigating how information reception behaves in remote and isolated areas.
I barely read it , but basically tries to show that information circulates and is received in a particular way in these circumstances by a group of unfamiliar people living under extreme climatic and isolation conditions, having as an example, life in submarines and in military bases in Siberia. The Antarctic base gave her the chance to observe some of her postulates up close.
Finally, she was chosen and traveled with this scientific group in a commercial flight Montevideo - Santiago de Chile to later arrive at Punta Arenas and fly to the Antarctic base.
The last communication I had with her before she sent me the almost 90 photographic captures of the Journal, was on March 15, 2024.
We talked over the phone about how the weather was in Montevideo, that it does not stop raining and the cars are practically floating on the streets. She told me that the transport that was going to take them back was having mechanical problems and they would probably have to order spare parts for the plane from Punta Arenas. Then She told me that it is freaking cold down there and his colleagues are all very boring. Nobody has whisky for the evenings. We laughed about that part because I told her to bring at least one bottle of Grappa in her purse.
Before saying goodbye, she told me they had spotted some old metal structures south of the base. The soldiers told her that it was safe to go near that part so she was going to explore them. It wasn't there when they first arrived and that the recent and atypical heat wave probably must have exposed it. I told her to be careful and we said goodbyes.
Three days later I received an email. “Valeria shared a file with you.” As I start to see what it was about she calls me.
“Mauro? MAURO!, can you hear me?” She said in a nervous and excited voice.
“I can barely hear you, what happened?”I asked half asleep, while still lying on my bed.
“Listen to me carefully, don't talk, just listen” I could tell by her agitation that she was walking fast or maybe running. The creaking footsteps in the snow could be heard in the background. in the distance, a catastrophe-type siren was blaring.
“Are you alright? What happened? What's that noise?” I said, now sitting on the edge of my bed.
“I sent you a file. Transfer it to a flash drive, delete history and reset your cell phone, the computer and your email address. I'll explain everything later, it'll be worth it.”
“What? What are you talking about Vale?, what for? Tell me what's going on - I started to yell at her, in slide panic.
“Listen, I found something that is not supposed to exist. In the diary he explains everything. I'm going back to the base, I think someone is following me, I set off an alarm or something. Save that file for me until I get there and remember that... “
There were two loud booms and the sound of water invading the transmission. A choked bubbling and cracking sound reminded me of ice collapsing. My friend had fallen into the water, in Antarctica.
“HEY, are you OK?! What happened?!” - I kept screaming hysterically until the call was cut off.
I looked at my cell phone for a second. My hands were shaking, I tried calling several times but the phone went dead. I looked at the compressed file. I jumped up and ran to the dining room furniture, frantically looking for a white flash drive that had to be in a drawer somewhere. I couldn't find it, so I went back to my desk. I pulled the drawer so hard that it came off the rail and fell to the floor. I started to dig through my belongings on the floor, coins, papers, cards, nothing.
I thought, I struggled to remember where I had fucking put it. Finally I saw my backpack peeking out from behind the desk chair, I jumped on it and in the second small pocket from the inside, there was a cheap white 16G flash drive. I put it in the pc, downloaded the file directly there, took it out and fabric restored the entire system on the computer. I do the same with my cell phone as Valeria said.
At the time I didn't even question if those measures really prevented me from being tracked, and the idea that that was the reason made panic run through my body like lightning. Sitting on the floor of my room next to the mess, my body was numb with tension. After a few seconds, I rebooted my cell phone to try to call Lucia, her sister.
“Hello?”
“Lucia, it's that you? I think something bad happened to Vale, I hear her over the phone as if she fell into the water, and some rumbling. I don't know what I heard, I think she got into some trouble or some place she shouldn't have been - I realized that I was mumble and not saying anything clear. For some reason, I didn't mention the file.
“It can't be Mauro, I just spoke to her on the phone. She was at the airport in Santiago de Chile at the boarding lounge, we talked for about half an hour, she told me she was bringing a fancy bourbon to share and…”
I stopped listening, it didn't make sense, how could it be? what the fuck is going on!
“Mauro, are you ok? Is something wrong? it's too early, are you sure you didn't dream it?”
“Did you talk to her? half an hour ago? But...,” I exclaimed without being able to hide my confusion.
“Are you... sure it was her?”
“Yes, of course you moron, it's my sister! Did you smoke pot again on an empty stomach?”
“No, you're right, nevermind, thanks Lucia, talk to you soon.” I ended the call without letting her say goodbye.
Had I dreamt about it? I erased everything now, how will I know if I dreamt it? I hesitated absurdly.
This is surreal, I thought to myself as I looked at the flash drive in my hand. I refocused my attention and went to the attic looking for my brother's old laptop he left me before going to live in Spain. It was practically useless, but it was enough to see the file. I turned it on, waited for the decrepit Windows XP to load, and put the flashdisk in, opened the compressed folder and found two files.
“LabNotes.pdf”
“PersonalDiary.pdf”
I decided to open the journal first. From what I interpreted from the loading order of the screenshots, after reading it, I opened the image of the last page.
I transcribe as is.
Day 243 of the 2nd mission 10: 40 am. March 12, 2019.
I am the head researcher of the Psychological Area at the UN Antarctic base; I'm currently assigned to Project Sisyphus categorized as the highest classified rank.
This is going to sound crazy, but the person living with my family is my clone.
It still surprises me when I say it out loud, but after being able to replicate the brain-muscular history (a perfect copy of our memory) of any person and having mastered replicating every cell of our bodies at any age, it was only a matter of time before the development of social biotechnology would emerge. Now and by worldwide agreement, as a complete secret.
There is absolutely no shame or a shred of ethics in what we do, there is no longer any constraint on what we can do to the subjects for the sake of research. That haunts me every day.
It all went to shit so fast, I doubt anyone will come to our rescue. The protocol says so, the base in the face of an imminent security risk will erase itself. The structure was designed to collapse methodically following a protocol of incineration and sinking. The immediate perimeter has underwater mines that make the ice collapse almost imperceptibly, but deadly to anyone who tries to leave.
No one can escape from the base, neither the research staff nor the subjects. Our place in the world is already taken.
I only hope that this journal along with my lab notes will be found at some point. I managed to construct a small insulating gasket for it so I trust it will survive in case this part of the building collapses as well.
Please use this data to let the world know what happened here and don't let perversity define us once again.
To my family: I love you and miss you every minute.
B.
At the exact moment I ended the reading I received a video call that made me jump with fright, it is...
Valeria.
With my pulse shaking, I answered the call.
“Hi you! The flight was delayed, can you believe it? This one is absolutely in my top three, worst trips of my life. I'm really hungry and everything is so expensive here. What are you up to? Tell me something, please, I'm soooo bored!”
I looked at her with confusion and I couldn't manage to pronounce words. When I was about to modulate an answer she interrupted me.
“What's the matter Mauro?, are you on pause? Is the signal OK? HELLO! Can you hear me? Can you see me?” She started to walk through the boarding lounge looking for better signal
“Yes yes, Valeria I can hear you.”
She laughed and looked at me with a face between sensual and serious, and continued.
“Do you miss me?” while raising the phone jokingly as she typically does in her selfie pose.
“Valeria, don't you remember calling me earlier today?”
“I? called you? Nop. Why? Ah! By the way, did you know there are penguins in Tierra del Fuego? I would have liked to go and see them.” She continued his verbose conversation in a carefree tone, with her typical hand gestures and playing with his hair.
“Well, at last!” She interrupted herself and shouted, jumping up from her chair.
“We are being called to board, see you in a couple hours!” She said goodbye with a smiling sonority, and began to walk towards the boarding gate.
But at the last second, before ending the call, her gesture changed. She looked directly at the camera with a hardened and emotionless face and almost mechanically, she whispered.
“(I'm going to retrieve that diary).”
My stomach dropped to the floor and I could feel as if my blood was running cold with fear. I could not shake the awful and eerie feeling that this person, who was returning, whom I had never in my life called by her full name, was not my friend.
So, the next couple of hours I put everything in to transcribe the rest of important passages of the diary. Something was compelling me to do it, i can't explain it, Some mix between moral duty, and morbid curiosity. Here is my selection of it.
Lab notes. day 96 of 1st mission 08:00 am December 22, 2016.
Subject JON X012:
First physical assessments: Normal, alert and inquisitive, exhibits some alteration to screens.
We place 100 cc of sedative in room air. The subject attentively follows the narrative of scenario B5 “The last mission”.
The subject responds positively to the premises of the story, where he is asked to address an audience threatened by a natural disaster, convincing them to choose a certain path out of the city.
He offers to collaborate but fails to articulate the message with the power to overcome the simulation.
We resort to pouring 125cc of concentrated Psilocybin into the air as stipulated in the protocol sheet.
The vocal frequency and body language reading receptors in the observation room are activated. The subject manages to formulate a series of premises articulately and with discursive power, circulating around the observation room.
Successful reaction.
We move on to the next stage.
Case is filed under the label “Jobs Project.”
Diary entry: Day 96 of the 1st mission 21:30 pm. December 22, 2016.
Today they transferred subject JON X0012 for psychological evaluation, several in the lab were very anxious about this arrival. I was never the religious type, but I can understand why. Truth be told,
I always imagined Jesus would be taller.
*********
Day 106 of the 1st mission 08:00 am January 02, 2017
Today we received a new lab assistant for the night shift. Much needed as I was covering these shifts myself and am really burned out. The underground operates at full power at those hours, the hum of the machinery becomes unbearable. This must be why the rooms have an insulating structure.
********
Day 112 of the 1st mission 19:00 pm January 08, 2017.
The new integration is not very bright. He labeled the transcripts wrong again yesterday and doesn't seem to fully understand the importance of these. I'm going to have to go through the whole method with him again. I don't have much patience lately, it's not his fault, he seems like a nice guy and it's real that I need a second of confidence. Better train him from now on. Maybe start a sketch of a short explanatory document.
*******
Small introductory guide.
When the subjects conclude the incubation and breeding process (pages 19 to 52 of the manual), that is to say, that they have at least remembered speech and with it, depending on the time in which they lived, reading and writing, they generally begin to perceive themselves. Just before situational curiosity is when the psychology department comes into action. Either to run the “stand by” simulation or the main tests.
In each subject's file is the target of their cloning, the era in which they lived, and the recommended scenarios to trigger the desired response. If the file has X amount on the cover, this corresponds to the generation of the subject, whether it is the first or 10th time it is incubated.
Generally, it takes between 2 and 5 attempts to generate the correct simulation, and administer the appropriate drugs.
It took 5 attempts to come up with the correct amount of methamphetamine that subject AH X005 (Hitler) needed to function in the scenario, as the correct amount bordered on overdose.
Simulations are much easier since the implementation of multisensor AI. We managed to generate almost any scenario including temperature, smells, lights and sounds. We tried not to use familiar ones, as human smells are impossible to replicate. We found this out in a complicated way. We tried to recreate a conversation between RR subject X003 (Reagan) and his mother, but he recognized the fakery by the absence of body odor. His mind collapsed and we had to move him to the Underground. The people in Area C (Private Clients) almost lost a very large Chinese account.
After calibrating the subject, we ran both psychological and behavioral tests, scanned retinas, analyzed blood, as well as vocal and body language. But what has really yielded surprising results are the free interviews. It is amazing what some minds are capable of with the right environmental and chemical stimulation. That's why transcription is vital (!!)
Our area develops BC (Behavioral Algorithms) which are then bought by the private sector, and some government agencies.
To give you some examples: Twitter was an idea of subject JO X008 (Orwell).
Bots in social media and the use of big data was an idea of JG X002 (Goebbels) and KM X014`s worst nightmare (Marx) was bought by Amazon.
It is an arduous process and the success rate is low, but when we achieve the goal per subject, well, these results are a mein part of the latest revolutions of mankind.
So follow the lab rules, never refer to subjects by their actual historical name, and always remember, they are assets, not people.
***********
Day 117 of the 1st mission 16:30 am January 12, 2017.
Today is a rest day all over area D. I miss many things from the old world that I thought I would never miss, taking a bus, standing in line with strangers, and today I miss Sundays. We only have one on the month. So as usual we gather in the rest area to listen to a liberated jukebox that tries to lighten the mood. I know, right? Why I wrote about this “Saturday” photocopy, well besides the same nostalgic drunks, I was approached by a person I didn't recognize.
From what I understood he was a rehabilitated alcoholic, maybe that's why I didn't see him on “Saturdays”. He must be in his 50's, he was portly and wore thick black-rimmed glasses, he seemed to have a slight limp, I noticed it when he went to refill my beer.
I am a very reserved person and find it hard to talk to people. Truth be told, I've lost the desire to talk to people here. What can you actualy fucking talk about here, if it's not about the same thing. Everything revolves around work and some inter-area gossip, which never escalates much.
But yesterday was Clara's birthday and to hide the remorse and sadness of only having shared with her the first 3 years of her life, I had a few too many beers.
We chatted about banal aspects of life in isolation, and the things we miss. For him it was going to the stadium to watch soccer with his grandchildren. I think it was loneliness and nostalgia that brought us together that night.
His name was Sigfried, I don't know if I spelled it right, but it was clearly Nordic, i notice because of some of the words he mixed up with English. He works as the underground level security manager. We all know that it is one of the most restricted areas and what we have learned in these almost 10 years in the project, is that the more restricted, the less questions you should ask.
But that day, I think I felt the urge to hurt myself, to go off the rails, so I asked what we all suspected but no one knew for sure. I asked about the blenders. I wish I hadn't.
************
Day 126 of the 1st mission 08:00 am January 21, 2017.
I almost can't express how furious I am today, but I'm going to try because if I don't, I'm going to punch the new assistant in the face. He has nothing to do with this, he's just mildly irritating.
Anyway, in Genetic Mapping or area A, they approved the incubation of another Anomaly. It seems to be an express request from a major shareholder and there is not much to say. Anomalies are very risky to reproduce, nature is wise, and for some reason it placed them in history moments where they had their limitations.
It seems that after the crisis of 2010 with “The Russian Devil” it is no longer scary enough. New school morons... If they had been there they wouldn't even dare to think about it. I AM FURIOUS.
The arguments are that this case lived longer, that the clone would be in his 70s, and that he possessed noticeably more “civilized” traits. As if the court of the last Zar had not been somewhat civilized.
Personally I think this is a big mistake. Since the discovery that some people possess unknown DNA components and with the 2010 background, they should draw the line. There are certain things, still beyond our ability to understand. But it is delusional of me to think that there are limits, someday the absence of them will consume us all.
************
Lab notes day 142 of 1st mission 08:00 am February 06, 2017.
Final free interview with JON subject X012
Scenario B-24 or “The Dinner Party” Result: Normal.
Notes: Subject is grateful, positive, docile and hopeful for the future. Offers to cook next time by asking for spices and ingredients of typical Hindu dishes.
The subject is directed to the Underground area.
Attached audio for transcription.
Case is filed under the label “Jobs Project”.
**********
Day 142 of the 1st mission 21:00 pm February 06, 2017.
Today was the last session with subject JON X012, I managed to extract the last retinal and body language readings, as usual before sending them to Underground level. We ran the dinner scenario, the truth is that is one of the best simulations we have achieved. The subjects are relaxed resulting in the best free interview environment. This one was no exception, I must say I understand the charm of the “messiah” turned out to be quite an entertaining subject. I hope his next generation will be similar.
**********
Day 152 of the 1st mission 19:00 pm February 16, 2017.
I was tasked with the continuous monitoring of subject NT X004. I am not at all happy with this transfer. First of all, I know nothing about area B of engineering and technology. Secondly, I still think this is a really bad idea.
One of the laboratories has been set up with the essential simulation equipment and personnel. Tomorrow we start with the calibration.
**********
Lab notes day 153 of the 1st mission 08:00 am February 17, 2017.
First interview with subject NT X004, we run simulation scenario 54-A, “Signal from another planet.”
Subject is observed to be receptive at first but quickly changes to paranoid. We administer 300cc of MDMA via air, according to protocol.
We introduce the reconstructed figure of a colleague in a cry for help speech.
The Subject laughs and doesn't believe a word, we move to a physical approach plane,
I volunteer myself with a room operator from the engineering area, we show him unfinished plans of an experimental vacuum propulsion engine.
He laughs again and tells us that we are not who we say we are.
We administer 50cc of DMT and move on to the next scenario.
From the screen an astronaut with non-human features sends a distress signal and intergalactic coordinates.
The subject looks thoughtful, reassesses, picks up the blueprints and begins to shout out values and what appears to be mathematical and physical formulas.
Air is charged with percentages of absolute sedation.
Audio recording is attached.
It is filed under the name “Project SpaceX.”
**********
Day 153 of the 1st mission 21:00 pm February 17, 2017.
I'm not sure what happened today, this is the first time in 10 years that a subject overcame the deception of 3 simulations. We had to place absolute sedation in the air, as risky as we know it is. I recommended that we restart the process from scratch, but it was a resounding no, the client is in a hurry.
I need to get more involved in this case to recalibrate the subject. I don't know if I want to. The words before full sedation still resonate with me. “are you still using DC current? interesting...”
**********
Day 154 of the 1st mission 21:00 pm February 18, 2017.
Something happened, I don't quite know what. The rooms have an emergency lockdown active. Outside hear security personnel mobilizing. I tried the intercom but it didn't work. The insulation prevents my screams from being heard from the outside. If this goes on another day I'm going to break the lock. I'm going to set my backpack to the bare minimum.
**********
Day 157 of the 1st mission 21:00 pm February 21, 2017.
Yesterday I heard explosions in the B area. I couldn't take it anymore and broke the lock. Whatever it was I had to go out and see. The corridors were dark, and the underground buzzer went on, at least that worked.
I went right to the north staircase, down the 4 floors in near darkness, the power was failing. The entrance to the underground area was barricaded but I managed to see a figure peeking out from inside as they felt me making noises.
It was Sigfried, he pointed me in the doors direction and I entered through a heavily armored side door. I was surprised by the immensity of this section, it encompassed a large hall below almost all the sectors of the base. In front of us there were 4 large industrial pipes with switches and multiple smaller pipes coming out of their bases. These were repeated like mosaics throughout the area until they disappeared into the distance in the darkness.
Leaning against one of them were 3 officers in formerly white coats and a nearly dead guard bloodied on the floor. Poor guy, his legs were crushed with his flesh in the open. He was lying in a pool of his own blood.
He had a blank stare and was panting, it seemed from the pale of his skin, that his fate was imminent. My asthma began to pound in my chest sharply, so I reached into my bag looking for my inhaler. I told them between visible gasps of bad breath to please tell me what's happened.
One of the doctors had a badge from area B and another from area E which corresponds to bio-armamentistics. The latter burst into tears and said “We deserve it, every one of us, we deserve it”.
I knew the other guy, he is an engineer in area B. I could hear him babbling almost nonsensically about, as why they never thought about it, an issue with electrical power.
He looked at me carefully as if recognizing me and grabbed me tightly by my jacket pulling me close to his face transformed for the panic.
“He let them out, all of them!” but not only that, no no no no... he told them the truth. Nikola fucking Tesla hacked us and told them the truth.”
He began to laugh frantically with a face of absurdity until he burst into a choked cry. At that moment everything went dark. The emergency lights activated, and from far away and getting closer, along with the emergency sirens that began to sound, we heard a large mass of people screaming and running through the corridors outside.
Sigfried looked at me as they started to pound on the shielded door and said.
“We're fucked.”
**************
Day xx of the second mission, month xx of 2017
“()The industrial sounds of spinning blades, the cries for mercy followed by the thunderous, liquid crack, down that big pipe, into the green barrels, with the Monsanto logo, dripped down one side an elongated drop of pink paste ending in the letter E on the chemical label. FERTILIZER.”
**********
After finishing the transcription, my whole body began to want to flee, the walls of my house were tinged with a faint blue light as the cloudy dusk came through the window, the lights turned off by my abstraction at the computer gave way to the dark corridors that began to feel alien. As I gently closed the pc my ears began to ring as if under pressure, my breathing became more present and the vibration of my cell phone interrupted my trance.
A call from the office. It was to tell me that I had a vacation week pending, that by schedule, I had to take it starting today.
Sons of bitches, now they even choose your time off - I thought at first, but at the same time I found the voice on the phone very strange, and to tell the truth, the procedure itself.
The anger turned into confusion that only added to the paranoia. The sounds in the street began to seem erratic, a chaotic and strangely familiar feeling came over me. My senses seemed increasingly acute, and they screamed:
Go away.
I grabbed the old laptop, the flash drive and headed for the bus station. The short trip from my house seemed like a long journey. People on the street looked at me with strange faces, the cell phone kept ringing with unknown numbers on the screen and a strange idea began to formulate in my head that whispered “Them, Valeria is one of Them”.
Already on the platforms I rummaged through my backpack where I confirmed that I had the key to the family beach house in San Luis, 60 km to the east of Montevideo. I turned off my cell phone, got on a bus heading to another and much far away town called Treinta y Tres. Sat near the last seat and slipped my cell phone in my front pocket of the seat in front of me, got off and commented to the driver with a clueless face, “I got confused, I'm going to the coast”.
I almost jumped onto the steps of the correct bus to where I was heading, unable to avoid the gazes of the passengers questioning me for the last minute drop in. I sat in my numbered seat and defragmented in dissociation, trying to understand what I was doing, I was running away, but from what?
The images of the last transcriptions were engraved in my mind, the last paragraph was repeated over and over again making me shake my head from time to time trying to get them away from my thoughts. The road was dark and I lost track of time, the digital clock within sight of the passengers jingling since we left, reading 10:40.
“San Luis Station!” - I heard the guard's shout in low volume.
I staggered to my feet, hurried to get off and with the same impulse I entered the dirt roads.
I zig-zagged through the dark, cold and silent beach town. The moonless night and the smell of the sea calmed me.
When I turned the corner to the gabled beach house of my family, on the steps of the front door lit by a white light, was her. Sitting, waiting for me. I stopped dead in my tracks and a chilling vertigo ran down my torso to my throat. We looked at each other for a short two seconds, until she stopped and started walking in sliding steps towards me, smiling and playing with her hands, crossing and uncrossing her arms. The growing sound of the wind through the trees covered us.
“Darling, how are you? How nice is the summer house, I don't think we ever came here, did we? Is it the one your grandmother left you?”
I felt the adrenaline rushing through my bloodstream, how could such a familiar attitude from such a familiar person transmit such panic to me? I had to answer something.
“Yes, this is it. I came to clear my head for a while, they gave me a few days at work and I wanted to take advantage of it.” I tried to excuse myself with failed dissimulation, since I stuttered in the middle of the words.
“Yes, I know! We arranged it with them, so you can be more relaxed and as a gesture for taking care of the file. Ah! and another thing. I think someone stole your cell phone at the bus station.” She looked at me with a smart-ass smile.
“Anyway, don't worry, they already found it on a bus on the way to “Treinta y tres”. You can get it back later.”
At this point I opened my mouth to ask for explanations, but as terrified as I was I only mumbled a “thank you”.
All this dialogue let us half a body length away, Valeria looked at me now a little more serious and stood at my side. She took my arm petrified and I could feel how a strong smell of neutral soap invaded me, as if she had rubbed herself in it too much.
“Shall we go inside? it's getting cold,” She said, finishing the sentence with a sweet gesture of pleading.
“Emm, shure.” I said.
My trembling hands managed to hit the lock on the 3rd attempt, we entered, turned on the lights and from his backpack she took out a red wine. Our favorite.
“Bring me some glasses, Mauro”. - She said to me as she sat down on the armchair against the window overlooking the gentle hills outside.
She poured wine until he almost filled the ex-cottage cheese glass, looked at me and in a toast gesture said.
“To... Dr. B?”
I slid a little smile and raised my eyebrows. Then I took half a glass in one sip.
“Well!” - She exclaimed, leaning over and resting the glass on the coffee table, and continued.
"You must be very confused, I understand, I saw it many times, the mind trying to adapt to a new, unsuspected reality and in your case all at once. It is not easy. First, make sure that no one is going to hurt you or anyone you know, second, what you read in that file, as you may have noticed, is not intended for public knowledge. Also to tell you”. I couldn't take the stress anymore, I exploded.
“You're not Vale. Who are you?! You're almost identical, but....”
“Ah yes, that one it's a tricky one to explain. Let's try, let's see:
“I'm a version of Valeria that she accidentally gendered when entered the lab. In one of the incubation rooms she touched a scan button that photographs her mind for 48 hours. It contains a micro needle that took her blood and thus generated me.”
“The thing is that we were in a situation of self-destruction of the systems, and that part of the programming code of the protocol was also copied in Valeria's mind.”
“And Valeria? She 's... dead?”
“Well, yes and no. If she tried to leave the base she's probably dead. if she's still there, she's probably frozen to death or killed by the cleanup command, but basically, if I'm here, she's not anymore.”
the coldness with which she answered me made me lose the little calm I had, I got up from the armchair and started to back away with my hands on my head, I couldn't stop repeating,
“this can't be happening, this can't be happening”.
“Hey! Mauro, calm down, it's going to be alright. I'm Valeria too. In every way, I'm still your friend, I know who you are and everything we went through, really, it's me, and when I finish managing the leak, the code, it won't work anymore, it will be erased from my mind and I'll be me. So don't worry. You only have to give me the flash disc and this issue ends here. We go back to normal life and nobody will know about anything.
“I'm not going to pretend that my friend didn't die! Alone, fucking freezing to death, I'm not going to let you take her place, I'm not going to let you!” - She interrupted me.
“Mauro, listen to me” - She came closer to me and grabbed my hands, her big, lined eyes looking at me with sweetness, like so many times before.
“I AM Valeria, I have the same fingerprints, the same blood, the same DNA, the same memories, the same scars, absolutely everything. Are you going to tell my mother that I died? to my sister? Are you going to report me? Nobody is going to believe you at all. If anyone even wants to believe you, how would you prove it? I am an exact copy”. - she told me, smiling with real sweetness and empathy.
I could only cry, for my friend, for the helplessness of the conclusion that she was right. I collapsed on the couch, and watched as the hills swayed in the night.
“Let's have the last glass and I'm leaving.”- she said to me.
“After I give you this, and that part of you disappears, will you remember that you are not... really Valeria?
“No, there is already a simulation on pause about Valeria's last week, she won't remember anything about this situation when she wakes up, because the memory is simply overwritten.”
“So I'm going to be the only one to know about this?”
“Take it as a gift Mauro, a glimpse behind the veil. And if you keep it that way, everything will be fine” - The threatening tone was soft but evident.
“Okay, hand me your PC and the flash drive.”
I looked at her evaluating all possible actions and if this decision was the right one, she stretched out her hand and smiled sympathetically. I gave her the old computer and the black 16G flash drive with the file. She inserted it, typed mechanically fast until the screen went black.
“Perfect, That would be all - She took out the flash drive, threw it on the floor and stepped on it violently with the heel of her shoe, put on his backpack and headed for the door.
“Stop,” I said.
“The things that Dr. B wrote... about the underground…
“Yes, they are true, it was the only way to be self-sustainable and to be able to isolate the complex from the rest of the world. Even the most morally flexible scientists would question the work if they knew where the subjects ended up, and what we were doing with their bodies... Anyway, I'm going home, Lucia called me 5 times already. Talk to you tomorrow.
“Love you,.” - She smiled at me and closed the door behind her. I felt a car slowly drive away from the house.
From my pocket I took out the white flash drive and looked at it. Now I had a decision to make.