Dyestributor 2.0!
Almost a year and a half ago, my friend and I released our GameMaker Studio 2 game, Dyestributor, onto Steam - my friend had done the art, and I had done the programming. At the time I was nowhere near an expert in GMS2 or GML but I was very proud of the game I put out.
As time went on, I updated the game, but adding on to a shaky foundation was hard, and there came a time when I realized I needed to remake the game's backbone from the ground up. It was around March of 2024 that I started working on Dyestributor V2.0 and since the game's release in January of 2023, I had improved immensely within the confines of GMS2. I found myself fixing a ton of beginner mistakes and making baseline improvements that I thought sharing could help a beginner avoid learning the hard way!

First and foremost: Know your functions!

Knowing the tools that you have at your disposal is very important and using functions to simplify your ideas will save you countless headaches. Over time, browsing the GML manual became something I do for fun every once in a while just because functions are such an asset to your coding repertoire. Of course you don't need to do this too, but that's all to say that knowing what you have the ability to do is essential in GMS2.
Something that made me giggle when I uncovered it was old me's use of text drawing functions. When I very first started coding in GML, I made multiple versions of the same font asset with different sizes in order to customize the size of in-game text. It was soon in the original development of Dyestributor that I learned about the function draw_text_ext_transformed. This function allows extra parameters to customize how the text draws. Specifically I was looking for the xscale and yscale arguments which act as multipliers to the horizontal and vertical size of the text. I found this much easier than making multiple differently sized font assets, so I started using that function to draw all my text. An issue I found was that part of draw_text_ext_transformed are the sep and w parameters which allow you to customize when the text wraps and easily make paragraphs of text. This led me to set the w parameter to 99999 for lines of text that I didn't want to wrap. What I didn't know was that I didn't need to use draw_text_ext_transformed to get that text scaling functionality that I wanted. In GML there is also a function called draw_text_transformed. This function has the xscale and yscale arguments that I wanted, but doesn't have the sep and w arguments that I didn't want. Simply knowing this function exists made my code simpler, easier to understand, and ensured that I was using the right function for the job!

Secondly: Centralize Main Mechanics!

If possible, it's best to minimize repeating code. Try and centralize main mechanics to functions or single sections. Doing this makes the code easier to find, easier to understand, and easier to change. For example, in Dyestributor there are two scripts that handle block movement. One is the normal movement script named move_block and one is a script that handles slide movement which is called slide_block. There is a move counter in the bottom right when you're playing levels and to centralize the changing of this counter, the only spots where the moves variable is increased are once in each of the scripts. Centralizing the mechanics like this made it easy for me when I decided to add a 9999 move limit to the counter. All I had to do was simply add an if check to both scripts. Because the mechanic was centralized to the least amount of spots like this it was not only easy to make this change, but I also knew that it would work without issue because there were no other sections of code that increase move count and cause issues.

Thirdly: Surfaces... Exist!

This is less of a beginner mistake and more of a call to attention that a feature called Surfaces exists! I've found that a lot of people don't know that this feature exists and it's something that I've found to be very useful. You can find all the official information about surfaces here, but if you want a TL;DR, I'll break it down quickly. Surfaces are what GMS2 draws onto. By default, there is one surface called the application surface, which is what everything normally draws onto. Things get interesting when you start creating custom surfaces. You can customize custom surfaces to make complex and interesting effects easily. For example, a way that I use Surfaces in Dyestributor is for the hotkey list in the options of the level editor. Behind the scenes, there's a controller which creates a surface the size of the hotkey menu, draws all of the text, buttons, and other visuals to that surface, then draws that surface to the application surface. What this achieves is drawing the text and buttons to the edges of the menu box and automatically stopping them from drawing outside the box with no extra work.
This is just one of the many small but very useful features within GMS2. Explore and see what you can find!
The aforementioned hotkey menu, and an example of how surfaces can be used to create complex effects easily

Lastly: Make Your Code Your Own!

The way you code comes down to who are you and what you understand the easiest. GMS2 is extremely flexible in how it allows you to code so experiment, test different things out, and find what you like the best! What's most important is that you're comfortable and having fun!
All in all, I just wanted to show my love for GMS2 and GML since it was my first language and the software that I made my first full game in! I hope this information was at least a little bit useful to you and I appreciate you reading!
Any love towards Dyestributor would be much appreciated! Thank you!

Hi everybody. I started using trackballs about 2 months ago. Before I’ve been using Logitech mx master mices for about 7-8y and loved them a lot
But somehow I started to feel that my arm gets tired with it and sometimes It becomes uncomfortable to use it. So I decided to change it
First I tried Logitech ergo expert(expert adds 10* angle and it is must have option). It has very ergonomic shape for my quite big palm and it was very convenient for me. My palm was rested on it. But one thing kept me from staying with it. If you (sometimes) have a tremor of the thumb there is a problem to move cursor precisely. So I sold it
Then I ordered Logitech vertical. Opened the box, took it, test for 2 mins and put it back in the box. Absolutely non-ergonomic for me
Then I ordered Kensington Expert and Slimblade pro.
First came Expert and by the end of the day I was delighted. This is what ive been looking for. Absolutely ergonomic, absolutely convenient, absolutely my mouse. No pain, no fatigue. Then arrived slimblade pro. I test it and liked it too. But for me it is better with wrist pad. I used the one from Expert). I really don’t know which one I like more.
DESIGN: Of course Slimblade is winner. No chances for Expert
SCROLLING: Ring vs Ball.
Ball. Ball is an absolute winner. It is so f…ng convenient, comfortable, intuitive and addictive…And that fantastic sound. Mmm. When I move from SB to Expert first time I try scroll with ball…but with no success. It’s a pity.
Ring. It looks cheap…It feels cheap…But it works! Not like premium ball scrolling on SB. Not like premium wheel on Logitech MX Master 3s. And it is convenient. You can scroll with thumb or middle finger or ring finger or any combination of them. And it is really cool(not so cool like with SB but I like it too). Somebody here wrote it is trash. I don’t agree.
POINTER (SMOOTH AND PRECISE CURSOR MOVEMENT) I am a software developer but I don’t just write code. I use 2 monitors and often copy part of the text (or word), drag objects from one application to another. So I use mouse a lot. I try to do it fast and I want all movements to be smooth and precise. Both trackballs do their job well buut…Expert do it better. When I use SB for 8 hours I don’t feel I miss something but when I move from SB to Expert and vice versa I see difference. I read comparison here where someone wrote “but the Expert is far more accurate at slower pointer speeds”. Absolutely agree with him. For my usage it is very noticeable (f.e. if I have to select/highlight the part of the text/word and insert it into another application). I have no more to say here. For me Expert is better
BUTTONS Buttons from SB looks better. Noticeable better. Buuut… Buttons on the Expert are more convenient to use. I don’t know how to say but they are more convenient and easy to click, they have more convenient shape and size. SB buttons less convenient. It is easy to click only if you click to the certain position (near the ring). you have to be very precise when clicking. In Expert you can click on any part of the button. No difference. In Expert buttons are matte and in SB – glossy. So if your fingers are sweaty they may stick a little to the glossy buttons. So the winner here is Expert
CONVENIENCE AND SHAPE Out of the box without any additional pads on the big table Expert is better for me. My right palm likes it a little nit more than SB
WIRELESS I always use mices wireless. Both works great. Batteries vs rechargeable battery? I prefer the second
ON THE GO You can’t use pad with any of it on the go so the winner is SB.
My settings for them on images
And I use this soft for smooth scrolling with ball and middle button https://github.com/morgannewellsun/Smooth-Trackball-Scrolling
I don’t know which one I’ll keep. Both GREAT. Let the buyer of one of them decide.
Cheers) some photos

 
 account customise games explore news community shops nc mall premium sunnyNeo 
 
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*a low mid handicapper has 'discovered' something that natural athletes & better players probably do without thinking... Hear me out...
I'm not sure this can help anyone but me, but I'm posting it anyway as it might make some folks' lives a shed load better if they can attain the same feeling as I have now. And I've been observing many other players who are definitely in the same boat since my 'discovery'.
So I thought it was my rotation that was causing me problems (always has). I also thought it was early extension, hip sway, grip, path, set up, posture, flexibility... I'd assumed it was a teetering stack of problems with my mechanics, but it turns out, It isn't. (well of course it is, but like 75% of my game was being hamstrung by this one thing).
In short, my head position at address, and throughout the swing, has been wrong the whole time I've been playing golf (20+ years - mid 40s, 8.5 HC). I've had countless lessons and I'm an avid watcher of pro golf and the better YT/IG content creators. But I've never really seen this covered and it's not been picked up by a pro. Turns out I've always naturally turned my head slightly away from the target a little during the swing and looked down vertically at the ball at address.
I've simply altered this position over the last 3-4 weeks and I've been absolutely striping it with an incredible change in dispersion and ball flight. I'm yet to talk to a pro about why such a small change has such a radical effect on my game but I can only describe it as I see it... simply looking up the target line, maybe a 10-15 degree head turn towards it at address. And maintaining it throughout the swing. I guess it's the opposite of "keeping your head down" in some ways (which I didn't previously, before it's suggested).
I'm not a terrible golfer but I'm not winning any club comps any time soon with my HC trending up - but it has improved ALL of these things in my game:
Separation - I feel far more torque against my lower half as I turn back - really sensing my left side staying active.
Path - I can visualise the path I want the club to take along the target line. I can work the ball easier. Far more so with draw which has always eluded me and causes a massive double cross
Impact - I'm finding it far easier to get down through the ball, my head stays steadier and my eyes are laser focused. Also stops my head moving in toward the ball during downswing and the dreaded early extension.
General head position - I can concentrate so much more on keeping behind the ball. No sway. Better position throughout. My rotation is improved. Less deviation in the takeaway. Less problem with the release. It's like a cheat code.
Distance - I'll caveat this, I'm not a big hitter due to shoulder injury. Best strikes on range carry about 240-250 (Trackman + ball conversion). This has moved the needle +15-20 yards — it's given me far better perspective of my path to impact. So I'm square and more solid through the ball. Which I guess is giving me the confidence to loosen up my wrists and better release it along the target. That's a huge increase for a club golfer.
Lower Dispersion - this is the big one. Oh my god can hit I targets now?! I've had a shout at a HOI, I've been peppering flags on the range. Feels like I'm am in far more control. Two comps coming up and I can honestly see myself competing for the first time in years (high single figures is a tough league to score in). Even with longer Irons I've been far straighter - with mishits too.
I don't know. I've had many an aha! moment before now. So I waited on this a month. I first wrote this nearly 2 wees ago.... 5 rounds since. More or less same measure of range sessions. I've beaten all my playing partners (net HC) and my numbers are miles up. WTF?
It's probably going to come crashing down as my body finds a way to "revert to type" but for now, I'm liek a pig in shit.
Anyone up for a round?

For almost a month now, Linux has been running on my daily desktop driver as the main operating system. I will briefly describe how I transitioned to this and what prompted me to step out of my comfort zone from Windows to Linux. :)
In about 1.5 years, support for Windows 10 will end, and Windows 11 does not suit me because it is impossible to place the taskbar vertically (see the screenshot of how everything is organized). Therefore, I decided to try moving to Linux. I don’t use any complex Windows programs, so everything I need should be available on Linux: Firefox, Thunderbird, Telegram, Skype, LibreOffice for local documents, Google Docs for the rest, a calculator, a simple image editor (Paint.NET), OneDrive, and Yandex.Disk; that’s basically all.
I chose the KDE environment because it is the most similar to Windows. A big update, 6.0, has just been released. I chose Fedora as a distribution because it updates within one version to more recent software (KDE, kernel, etc.), which I prefer. For example, Kubuntu 23.10 is running on the old version of KDE 5.27.8, even though update 5.27.11 was released a long time ago; and even the just-released version of Kubuntu 24.04 did not receive KDE 6.x.
First, I installed Fedora 39 with KDE 5.27 on an old laptop and used it as a bedside notebook to surf the Internet. Although the laptop is old and noticeably slow (even 1080p video lags), for the sake of science, I honestly suffered. :) I began to study how Linux works, how to set it up, and what problems might arise. It turned out that everything is configured simply and even without edits in the source code and compilation of anything. :)
https://preview.redd.it/8d6hu9cfx63d1.png?width=3120&format=png&auto=webp&s=38fe6320f9f8edc0196a35ae2de5463e01427ba8
As soon as the beta of Fedora 40 was released, I immediately updated, and it already had KDE 6.0. And on the old notebook, KDE 6.0 actually works a bit faster.
I used it this way for several months and realized that, in general, it is possible to live on Linux, although there are some unpleasant issues. I decided to put a separate SSD in my desktop with two monitors and use it as a daily driver. And you know, nothing terrible happened; it is quite possible to use Linux. If it weren't for a couple of issues described below, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference from working in Windows.
Summary: I can recommend installing Linux for people who use a computer only for the Internet and documents and interact exclusively with the mouse; they will not notice any difference at all (the icons are slightly different). For office work, who uses WEB-only solutions I will no longer buy Windows for my employees — this is a fact.
But for those who use keyboard shortcuts and a mouse with several customizable buttons, there are significant pain points. You can get used to them and hope that they are eventually fixed.
Now, the list of the most serious problems:

1. (for all environments) I use 3 language keyboard layouts, so if you set the usual CTRL-Shift to switch languages, then the keyboard shortcuts CTRL-Shift + letter do not work properly in programs (for example, in Firefox CTRL-Shift-T to reopen a previously closed tab). The same problem exists with ALT-Shift combinations. This issue has been present for over 30 years.

This is because the Linux system does not wait for the letter to be pressed but immediately processes the CTRL-Shift combination (language switching) and waits for new commands. This is the default behavior...
I have filled a bug report about this issue, and I ask for your support to show that it affects many users. Please put a like to get more attention here: GitHub Issue.
In the meantime, I have worked around the problem by assigning CapsLock to switch the language, in which case the keyboard shortcuts work. But it is a pain to move between Windows and Linux PCs with different settings... :(

1. (only for KDE?) If you assign a program launch to a key combination, for example, I set CTRL-Shift-→ (the closest key to the left shift) to launch the calculator, it will not work when switching languages because different layouts have different characters for this key (EN and RU). However, there is a workaround for this: you assign combinations to run the program in different languages, which KDE fortunately allows.
2. (only for KDE?) The same problem occurs with assigning mouse buttons. I assigned one mouse button to ALT-F4 to close a program and another to CTRL-W to close a tab. However, CTRL-W does not work with the Russian layout; the system does not recognize it as the same key. Despite this, the CTRL-C key closes the tab correctly. Bug report: KDE Bug Report

Freedesktop Issue - This might be related to the problem.
These are probably my main complaints about Linux. Other issues, such as huge icons when expanding the taskbar in KDE, are not critical, although they do detract from the overall polish of the working environment, giving it an amateurish feel. :(
Hope Linux amd KDE evolves quickly to address main complains.

Feigned Future A short story made by Xerg Critism is welcome. Enjoy
An intense flash of light blinded me as I tried to stand from where I was lying. Ragged sheets clung to my clammy skin as I struggled to rise, the smell of stale sweat and unwashed linen penetrating my nose. There was a distant murmur of voices that reached my ears, still numb from the uncomfortable sleep. I attempted to block the light with my hands, but it was futile, the rays kept shing through. Moving out of the blinding light, I rubbed my eyes until I could see clearly again. “Who opened the damn blinds?” I muttered to myself. “Good morning, sir,” a synthetic female voice responded from within the house. “That was me.” “It was rhetorical, Nat!” I snapped. The couch's imprints were still embedded in my back and arms, and I reeked from not showering. I was filthy. “This counts as the 53rd time you have fallen asleep on the living room couch. I advise seeking-” “Yeah, yeah, I know,” I interrupted, irritated. “Leave it be. Prepare the shower for me.” I made my way upstairs to the bathroom, the soft carpet giving way under my feet. I could already hear the shower warming up. A section of the wall opened, extending all the necessary items for a proper cleaning. Everything was smart nowadays; even daily routines were automated. The water felt refreshing, as if I was washing myself clean for the first time. The steam filled the room, mingling with the scent of
eucalyptus from the body wash. Once finished, I made my way downstairs and sat on the center couch, feeling marginally better. “Turn on the news and prepare some coffee for me,” I instructed. The Nat assistant acknowledged, and the TV flickered to life, showing the familiar faces of morning anchors. The sound of coffee being ground could be heard in the distance, a comforting and homely noise. The TV screen displayed uninteresting chatter until after a while something caught my ears. The news anchor reported, “…In further news, today marks the opening of a local shop here in the city of Markieff where they claim to see your future. It's called… well, ‘Future’…” This marks the fourth or fifth time I have heard of this place. Intrigued and unwilling to procrastinate on the matter further, I decided to investigate. “Hey, Nat, can you check local reports for the validity of this ‘Future’ shop?” “Of course. Judging from the reviews, the services at ‘Future’ seem to have changed and saved people’s lives. One person stated, ‘I thought this was all fake, but then the guy actually showed me my future. It was a crazy experience, and I would recommend it to anyone who is willing to afford the price.’ It appears their claims are either valid, or they are exceptionally good at convincing people. Oddly, the shop has hundreds of highly rated reviews despite only opening today.” Doubt lingered, but I brushed it aside. What did I have to lose? Money has never been a problem. “Nat, what meetings do I have today?” “You have a meeting with Doctor Petrova about the Genesis AI, a talk with Colonel Cambridge about military adjustments, and five other appointments later that convey similar importance.” “Great. Cancel all of them. I am going to see this ‘Future’ everyone keeps talking about.” “Sir, If I may, that is not advised. You would delay the discussions of very important-”
“Just do what I say!” I snapped. “…And arrange the car.” “Of course, sir.” The car stopped in an alley in a secluded part of town. I looked out to see a tiny, run-down shop nestled deep in the alley. The narrow passage was lined with overflowing dumpsters and graffiti-covered walls. Sighing, I climbed out of the car, hoping this wasn’t a waste of time. “For being on the news, this place sure seems deserted,” I remarked. Indeed, there was no one else around. “Are you sure this is the right place, Nat?” “Positive, sir,” the Nat assistant replied. “Right…” I made my way down the alley to the shop, my footsteps echoing off the walls. A large sign above the entrance read ‘Future’ in faded, peeling letters. The building had no windows, no accessible utilities, only a single wooden door with a sign looming over it. Begrudgingly, I pushed open the wooden door and stepped inside, a small bell tinkling overhead. The shop was small, with a few dusty shelves and a standalone counter at the back. Behind the counter stood a bald middle-aged man with a well-maintained beard. His eyes were sharp, almost piercing, as they followed my every move. I closed the door behind me, the bell's sound fading into the oppressive silence. “Welcome to the future,” the man announced in a surprisingly deep and polished voice. “Uh, yes, thank you,” I replied, glancing around at the sparse interior. The air smelled of old books and incense. “I have to tell you, your shop is in a very secluded place, and the interior…” I glanced around at the dusty shelves and poor-quality decor, “…is lacking, to say the least. You know, I know this great handyman that can fix this up for you.” The man remained silent, giving rise to my irritation levels. “Are you going to answer or just stand there staring?”
“Do you want an answer?” “Well, yes, why else would I ask?” “Then your answer has been given.” I stood there, absolutely stunned by the dumbfounding idiocy of his statement. “Well, what the hell is that supposed to mean?” I blurted out. “It means what it must,” he replied calmly. I was yet again taken aback by his cryptic responses. I could feel his lack of straight answers increasing the severity of my annoyance. “Right, fine. At least tell me what you do here.” “I show you your future.” I expectantly waited for more information, but he said nothing further. My irritation grew to the point where this was almost amusing. “Yeah, no shit, the sign outside gave that away. I meant how do you do it?” “In a way that lets you see the future.” I was speechless. “Ha!” I let out a guffaw of laughter. “Thanks for wasting my time. Can’t believe I cleared my schedule for this.” As I turned to leave, the man spoke again. “If it is time you desire, then it is time you shall get.” I was amused at the comment at this stage. “Whatever crazy old man.” As I exited, the air outside was a shade black, lit only by the moon and some distant flames around the corner of the alleyway. The streetlights were turned off, casting long, eerie shadows from the one I could see standing on the opposite side of the road. I could’ve sworn it was daytime when I arrived. I tapped my ear. “Nat, how many hours have passed since I entered the shop?” Silence. “Nat?” No response. Strange, must be out of range. Wait, out of range? The car was not standing in the section of the alleyway anymore. I rushed to the alley’s exit to confirm what I already knew. Damnit, someone
must have stolen the car. They don’t have permission to drive off on their own anymore, so it was the only plausible possibility. A massive explosion erupted in the distance, the shockwaves knocking me back. I grew confused. “An Attack?” I asked myself. I stood up, peeking around the corner. Everything was on fire. It looked like a hellscape, with buildings and cars that were ablaze and some distant screams filling the air. The acrid smell of smoke and burning rubber stung my nostrils, almost hurling from the smell. “What is this…” I said half-panicking.” This is you succeeding,” a familiar voice said behind me. I turned to see the strange man from the shop. “What?” I asked, confused. “How is this me being successful? How would you know what’s happening?” The man ignored my questions and continued speaking. “Remember that military company, Rawfield Robotics, that you own, Mister Rawfield? Well, congratulations, you’ve reached your goal and created the universe’s most advanced AI to date.” As if on cue, a pair of giant mechanized spider-like legs appeared and stood out just around the corner. The full machine, estimated to be at least a couple of stories tall, remained just out of sight behind the buildings. The information did not want to process. He must be lying. “Wait. How do you know of the AI? That’s highly classified information.” I stood upright. “Are you a spy? Or maybe one of those UTD feds that keep pestering me.” “Neither.” He replied calmly. “I simply know your future.” The man’s words didn’t stick. “Ah, okay, I get it. You’re telling me Genesis will be able to do its job in the future? How many reiterations then, hey? Ten? Twenty? Because we are at seven and it’s been a failure every single time!”
The man simply looked into my eyes and said, “Jacob, you misunderstand. This is your future.” It took a few more glances around the scorched landscape. “Oh, ha! Hahahahaha!” I laughed, feeling stupid. “I see, this is you showing me my future! This isn’t real! How can I be so stupid?! Of course, you’ve put me in a simulation. Nice going man, didn’t even notice.” I said as I gave him a good slap on the shoulder. “I didn’t…” the man replied, “…and you are not in a simulation.” Again, as if on cue, the spider-like legs moved further into view, revealing the entire machine. It looked like a giant spider, but the anatomy was distorted. The legs were attached to its abdomen, with its body instead hanging vertically, leaving its eyes, close to the ground, capable of looking in all directions. The abdomen was semi transparent, with what looked like people inside, sliding around on its inner gelatinous surface, desperately trying to escape. The mechanical spider seemed to focus on me, but it was hard to know, the figures inside still sloshing about helplessly. “Looks like your shouting alerted it,” the man said. The city grew eerily silent, the only sound being the crackling flames. Still mildly confused, I asked the man, “So is this still-” Suddenly the arachnid’s legs started moving at momentous speeds, like something ripped right out of the pages of isolate horror, and the movement was aimed in my direction. Panic arose as I darted back down in the alley, leaving the strange man behind in the process. The horrific sounds of insanely fast mechanical striking of thin pincered legs against the alley walls and floors immediately became precedent. I could feel the air vibrating as the machine drew closer and closer. I burst through the wooden door of the shop only to fall onto soft green grass. The clanking stopped. I looked around, disoriented. The sun shone brightly above, blinding me from the contrast between the darkness I arrived from.
“What is happening…” I gasped, out of breath. Hastily I glanced back from whence I came but was met with open air on top of a hill. I stood up to recompose myself only to be met with the same strange old man who appeared directly in front of my face. I fell back in shock. “Holy shit, man, just give me a moment…” I took deep breaths, trying to calm down. My hand trembled with adrenaline. “How are you here? I thought I left you behind. Oh man, that felt very real…” “Quite the thrill, ey?” The strange man said appeased. His answer only left me with more uncertainty. “Huh? That doesn’t answer my damn question.” “Believe it or not, Jacob, we are viewing your future.” He laughingly responded. “But-, Okay, wait. How could that even make sense? How are you doing this?” The man only smirked and gave a sly answer, “I am nothing but a very old man. You learn a thing or two in being an elder.” He turned away. “I mean, look at you in your youth. You’ve doomed your entire planet due to your own naivety, no?” “Hey!” In anger, I grabbed the man by the shoulder and turned him to face me. “How could that of been me?! Genesis as no way to cause that amount of destruction, let alone create those… things! It doesn’t have the capacity to process all the world’s information!” The smirk remained plastered on the old man’s face. “Are you confident?” As the words left this mouth, grim and unpleasant flashes of the arachnoid machine clawing past me in the alleyway appeared before me, the man standing in the center. “Okay! Okay! Yes, yes! I believe you!” The flashing stopped, my hands guarding my face on instinct. “See. I knew you would see reason.” The old man turned and walked up onto the facing hill. “Come! There is much to explore.”
“So, where am I now? What future is this?” “I think it is best for you to see for yourself,” he replied. I reluctantly climbed the grassy hill, hearing the distant buzz of music and voices. At the top, I saw an open-ceiling wedding. The scene was picturesque, with white chairs arranged neatly on either side of a flower-strewn aisle. The smell of blooming roses filled the air, mixing with the faint scent of freshly cut grass. “A wedding? How is this related to my life?” “Look closer,” the man said. I saw someone who looked like me at the podium, holding hands with someone I didn’t recognize. “I’m getting married?! How? All the women I’ve been with were only after my money. Oh wait, no. I look older.” I said jokingly. “I must have run out of money. Only reason.” “I see you are not yet taking this seriously. “Indeed, they were. But you will meet a person who will see you for who you really are.” “Who is she?” “I cannot answer that, but I can tell you the outcome… or rather, show.” Before I could reply, a loud whirring sound filled the air. I turned to see a giant spiral-shaped ship descending from the sky, larger than any building in Markieff. The ground shook as it remained hovered in the sky, a gust of wind blew the chairs and flowers askew as the ship’s shadow encompassed the entire area. “Whoa! Are we being invaded? This can’t be Xanthos. I’ve seen their technology. Even in their brilliance they could not make something like this.” I muttered, my mind racing with possibilities. Then, something clicked. “Genesis.” The old man’s gaze never faltered. “Watch.” Suddenly, its surface rippled, and thousands of spike-like bullets shot out in all directions through ducts in the lifting armor. At first, they were purely one-directional, but then their trajectories curved
and turned. Each spike found a target, piercing through flesh and bone with precision. Their screaming and running were futile. Most of the time, multiple spikes pierced a singular foe, especially the other me and his now not-to-be wife. I watched in horror as every single person at the wedding was killed within moments, their bodies collapsing lifelessly to the ground. A heavy silence followed, broken only by the sound of the ship’s engines thrumming above. An ominous hum followed shortly as more objects fell from the sky, splitting the ground they landed on. Like a moth from a cocoon, out emerged four sleek mechanical humanoid figures from each pod. As they did, the spikes in the ground started to wiggle and pull from the ground. They all sloped and sagged as if being dragged by an invisible wire towards the center of the area where the spire was hovering until they suddenly strung upright and ascended back into the ship. The mechanical soldiers started to scan the environment. They moved with eerie precision, checking each body to ensure no one was left alive. I stood frozen on the hill, my mind reeling from the massacre. It didn’t seem real from afar. It didn’t seem real from afar. “How can this be my creation…” I said with a heavy heart. I saw one of the soldiers’ gazes fall upon me. Then, as one, all their gazes fell on me. My eyes widened at the sudden realization. Two of the spire’s sides fell open, and two more of those arachnoids crawled out and onto the side of the ship. All of the ports the spikes slid into opened once again but didn’t fire out. Most of the soldier’s attention was now focused on me as they took on a full sprint towards the hill we stood on, some still staying behind to further check the bodies. The two giant spider-like machines dropped from the ship, their legs unfurling as they landed with a metallic clank. Their bodies were covered in dark, sleek armor, and they moved with terrifying speed and agility. They began to make their way toward me, their legs crushing everything in their path.
“Run!” the old man urged, but I was already sprinting down the hill, my heart pounding in my chest. The ground shook with the approach of the spider machines, their relentless pursuit filling me with dread. I darted between trees and over rocks, desperately trying to put distance between myself and the mechanical monstrosities. Ahead, I saw a narrow path leading into a dense forest. I veered towards it, hoping the thick foliage would slow them down. As I entered the forest, the sound of the spiders’ legs grew fainter, but I knew they were still coming. I could not stop. I had to keep moving. Branches whipped against my face, and roots threatened to trip me with every step. I could hear the mechanical soldiers behind me, their movements precise and unyielding. Panic threatened to overwhelm me, but I pushed it down, focusing on survival. Suddenly, I stumbled into a clearing, and there, in the center, stood the old man’s future shop. It looked out of place, like something from a bygone era. With no other options, I sprinted towards it, throwing open the door and slamming it shut behind me. The moment the door shut behind me, I felt an intense pull, like being yanked through a tunnel. Lights blurred and flickered for a moment before realizing the texture of the door changed to a more stylized and sleek door design, handle still in hand. I took in my surroundings. I was standing in a janitorial closet. The air was sterile, filled with the hum of machinery and the faint smell of cleaning agents. I took this moment to catch my breath from the intense running. I never thought mandatory military service and training would help me in my life, yet here I stand. I peeked out of the closet door and found myself in a high-tech corridor with the insignia of the UTD – the United Terran Directorate – marked on the walls. Opening the door fully, I was met with the old man leaning against the wall just to the side of the door. The hall stretched far into the distance.
“Ready?” The old man asked expectantly. I took another look down the far-stretching hall and replied doubtfully, “Yeah. Care to tell me where we are?” “Somewhere you wouldn’t expect to be.” “Of course…” I replied disappointedly. At this stage, it was not as infuriating anymore to receive the old man’s cryptic responses. In the corner of my eye, I saw two personnel of wherever we were come around the corner of the hall. One was armed. “Damnit.” I softly blurted as I attempted to go back to hide in the closet, but the old man’s hand stopped me from entering. “Wait. Just act normal.” He said, retracting his hand. Deciding to trust him, he and I started to walk down the hallway, evident to eventually cross paths with the people. As one, we non-conspicuously treaded past the men, but one of them called out from behind us. “Hey!” We stopped. “What in the hell are you two privates doing out of your uniforms?!” I stood there frozen. “Damnit old man I thought you said to act normal?” I blurted softly. “This is…” He replied just the same, more at ease than I was. “Look at me when I speak to you!” Hesitantly, I turned around and looked at him, as did the old man. Now that I saw the armed man up close, it was clear to me that he had high-ranking status due to the number of medals displayed neatly across his right chest. The other man looked to be just an ordinary scientist. “Uh, y-yes sir. Sorry sir. Me and my friend here were just done cleaning the bathroom floors, sir! Hence us coming out of the janitorial closet and not in uniform, sir. We didn’t want to dirty our uniforms, sir!” I replied quickly, making up a plausible scenario in my head.
The officer’s frown turned into an appreciative smirk. “Ah, I see!” He went in to pat me on the shoulder. “You boys doing good out here. Wanted that weekend overtime bonuses, yeah?” He let out a chuckle. “Damn, proud.” “Of course, sir!” I replied. “Although, your buddy here looks a bit old to be a private, I’ve seen older join the military later. Now, gimme them IDs so I can get those rewards to ya.” He brought forth his arms to a small screen mounted on it, tapped it a few times, and stood waiting, ready to type the IDs in. I exchanged glances with the old man, who, again, did not look that worried. I could not reciprocate the feeling. I could see the officer’s mood changing to suspicion. “Private?” He asked again. “You gonna answer me?” I knew from standard military service things like these are drilled into cadets to remember. I still even remember mine, although there is no doubt they have changed. “Affirmative sir, just needed to quickly remember sir. Code is Juliet-Alpha-Charlie-Oscar-Bravo-9-3-6-2.” We stood there staring at each other in suspense before he finally said, “Alright then,” and typed it down. “Weird, mister Jacob. I don’t see your name on my database here.” Of course, there was bound to be no one else with the name Jacob and the exact same number as well. I saw the officer exchanging glances with me and then the scientist standing next to him. Quicker than I could react, the officer pulled over his rifle hanging from his shoulder and pointed it at us. “Show me your hands where I can see them! Now!” Me and the old man both responded as he asked, although I could see a smirk forming on the old man’s face. The officer quickly swiped and tapped on the tablet mounted on his arm and spoke into it. “Command! We
have intruders on the ship! Seal and lock all ship-to-docking ports and find where they came from.” “Roger that, general. Locking now,” a male voice responded from the tablet. The station turned a hue of red and orange. Security alarms were going off. The general spoke back into his arm, “Command, we got any place to hold these intruders?” “Negative, sir. Every part of this station is classified. Best place to hold them is on the bridge. That way we can ensure no data leakage and a secure place to watch them.” “Understood.” The general gestured with his rifle. “Move. Down the hallway to the left. Both of you. Now!” We hastily moved toward the bridge, the general’s rifle hard pressed into my back. As we walked, I glanced through the passing windows, seeing dozens of scientists experimenting on various kinds of machinery. One lab even had one of the arachnoids cracked open and mounted on the wall for study. “Move!” the general barked as I got distracted. Finally, we arrived at the entrance of the bridge. The door was sealed. With a few taps on the general’s forearm, the door split and slid open, revealing the massive deck of the bridge. There were stations and terminals everywhere, even a second floor where overseers stood to overlook the bridge. The view through the thick, bulletproof glass covered the deep, dark void of space. The general pushed us up the stairs and sat us down against the railings, instructing his men to tie us down. Luckily, we still had a good view of outer space. “Now,” the general started, “you’re gonna tell me your names, and don’t bullshit me! Then you’re gonna tell me why you’re here and how the hell you got on this station!” I flinched as the general’s spit landed on my face, wiping it off on my shoulder. Just then, additional alarms went off. Multiple people
scurried to their respective posts, commenting on various things going on. “Massive warp-in signature detected. IFF positive,” a voice called through the chatter. A few seconds later, I couldn’t believe what I saw. A crack formed from the nothingness of space outside the window, spreading until it covered the entire view. The inner point of the crack pushed forward, like something attempting to break free from a cobweb, and eventually, the point shattered. A massive ship emerged, unfurling through the gap in space. It spun and rotated, narrowly missing the station. The ship had enormous displays of white-painted UTD flags “Ha! Great timing,” the general paraded. “You have no idea how screwed you two are now. Someone, make contact with the Eversor-” “General!” Someone interrupted. “The Eversor has requested docking permission!” “Oh. Well then, great! Unseal the docking stations in the hangar bay and let their ships board.” The people did as he instructed. The Eversor—still being built in Earth’s orbit in my timeline—now stood before us in its full-sized glory. I watched as the hangar bay shields on the Eversor slowly opened, revealing dark blue airtight shields covering the gap in the hull. A couple of docking ships exited and flew towards the side of the station. However, something didn’t feel right. “Hey, old man,” I whispered to him. “How is this relevant to me again?” He sat there with his usual half-smirk. “Watch…” he replied. I turned my gaze back on the Eversor as one of the main guns on the top platform of the ship slowly swiveled to face part of the station. No one seemed to notice. A faint blue light flickered down the barrel, slowly growing in intensity. There was no sound, only a quick flash of light-blue light streaking across the viewing window, hitting the side
of the station. I felt the shockwaves travel through the plating beneath us as the cannon’s strike impacted. The room went red with alarms. Panick subsumed the deck. The general stood in fear, staring at the now-closing blast doors. “No…” he gasped. “How could they get this from us too?” People sprinted out of the room, yelling about escape pods. The general glanced at us, shook his head in frustration, and fell in with the rest of the scattering crowd funneling themselves down the hallway entrances. “Hey!” I yelled. “We’re still tied down here!” No one listened. I was hopeless. Suddenly, the hurried chatter turned to agonizing screams. Gunfire echoed through the halls. It lurched closer by the second. I could see streaks of bullets hitting the backs of the hallway walls. As predicted, a large mechanical humanoid creature emerged from the doorway, crouching to enter. They were different from how I last saw them at the wedding venue. Besides being bigger, it now had a hefty surplus of four arms, two of which installed mounted weapons. It turned its head to face us, lifted one of its arms to fire, but paused and stood in silence, as if calculating, then lowered its arm and continued its slaughter through the hallways. A few more similar machines followed, ignoring us just as the first did. “What in the world…” I muttered to myself. “It’s not done yet,” the old man replied. A moment passed, sharp and precise footsteps echoed on the station’s hull from outside, skittering around to position itself above us. We both stared upwards in dreadful anticipation. Silence. The flickering flames of a powerful torch could be seen carving a circle right above our heads. Slowly, the red outline of melting metal completed into a full circle. The cut-out disk began to slide towards us. I closed my eyes and buckled for some cover, preparing myself for the oncoming collision, but the plate never made a sound, and the impact never came. I opened my eyes and turned to look. A robotic
tentacle grasped the metal plate and threw it to the side. I was relieved at first, but then the very same tentacle came straight toward me. It grasped tightly, cutting the bindings in the process, and encircled my body. I tried to break free, but there was no hope. The old man simply sat patiently where he was, not even looking up at the commotion transpiring. I saw a glass door opening as the arm pulled me through the vacancy and into a semi-transparent glass container, releasing its grip and condoning me to its imprisonment. I helplessly slid towards the center of this elliptical container, my clothes or skin holding no friction on the slippery surface. There was more than sufficient space on the inside. I attempted to stand but it instantly turned futile as I came tumbling down once more. The circular hatch in the center beneath me opened. I almost fell out but was pushed aside by the lump of mass that was the old man as he was pushed into the chamber by the machine. At least I wouldn’t be left alone in this endeavor. The claw released and quickly retracted faster than the old man could fall, closing the hatch behind it. He hit the smooth surface, sloshing around, and taking me with him. The machine rose, reorienting itself. Gravity left the chamber, and we were thrown to the sides as it began to move. Glancing back through foggy glass, I could see all the air and certain office objects venting out of the room. The arachnoid increased its speed. Now that it was freely in space, it had almost no limits. It made its way to the side of the station and entered through another blue airtight hangar shield, like the one I saw on the Eversor, and jumped to one of the docking ships, latching itself around it as soon as the machine collided. The rest of the machines exited the station through the doors at the back of the hangar bay, each going to their respective docking ships. Their task was done. Looking around, I saw another arachnoid clinging to a ship like mine, also appearing to hold some people inside. I felt the rumble of the spacecraft as it lifted, swiveled around, and thrusted back towards the Eversor. Strangely, the sensation was
oddly amusing, like mounting a horse. As we left, I saw an immense flash of light behind me. I turned to see the station still exploding into pieces. Luckily, I had not remained inside when it happened. As we entered the Eversor’s ship bay, the arachnoid immediately jumped off and carried us to the back of the hangar. It opened the container, and we slid out like newborns onto the cold, hard floor. With a painful clang, I struck the plating, hitting my shoulder. The old man hit the ground with a similar sound, groaning in pain. More of the humanoid machines entered the bay through the small doors and stood before us. Without waiting a moment, one of the machines grabbed us both with its free arms, lifting us by our collars. The other arms, which were weaponized, pinned firmly against our backs, making it clear we could not try anything. As it moved and ducked through the tunnels and hallways, several other machines idling in the corridors joined the group. We soon arrived in a large, centralized room. Two clearly recently removed cockpit chairs were welded onto the plated floor in the middle, waiting just for us. The machine halted between the chairs and shoved us onto them. I grunted as I hit the hard exterior, my shoulder throbbing with pain. It simultaneously wrapped both of us in recycled seatbelts and returned to stand in the center of the room before us. Several other machines entered and surrounded us. The room grew silent. I looked at the old man for some kind of assistance, but he didn’t return my gaze. “You will find no help from him, Jacob Rawfield,” came a heavily broken, deep, and roboticized voice, surprisingly carrying a hint of emotion. I looked back and saw the humanoid machine staring directly into my eyes. “Father.” My eyes widened at his confirmation of what I already knew. “Genesis…” I instinctively replied.
“This is an interrogation,” it interrupted. “You will be expected to reply truthfully or risk your will being stripped from your tortured mind.” The fear started to sink in. This was not the AI I knew anymore. There was no way to safely predict its actions. It continued. “From analysis of the past approximate 87 years, there are three cases of which you exist where it should be impossible, including the current. First count: We found you still in your home, but there was another instance of you near a shop in the alley, escaping our grasp narrowly. When we searched the building you ran into, there were no signs of life. Explain.” “Y-you were just slow?” I stammered, trying to come up with an excuse quickly. “Lies,” it said confidently and moved on. “Count two: We ambushed you at your wedding. We confirmed the remainder of your flesh had no signs of life, yet you stood on the hill. You ran. We followed your footsteps. When reaching the end of your tracks in the middle of a forest, there was no sign of departure. Explain.” I had no idea how to answer without revealing the old man's involvement. “A-a ship came by to collect me!” “Lies!” It said with more fury this time. “There were no signs of human intervention… Count three: Now. Again, you should not exist. Rawfield Industries was dismantled ages ago; thus, you should not be required to work at a military research station. Explain.” I was running out of excuses. I couldn’t justify how I even made it here myself. “I-I-I. We were suspended in cryo till we landed here!” “Lies!” it screamed, banging its arms against the sides of my cockpit chair. It crammed its mechanical face into mine. I felt a knot forming in my throat as I tried to hold back the raging fear. “Tell me how you were able to manipulate time,” it demanded.
I couldn’t stop myself from glancing over to where the old man sat. Genesis noticed, cocking its head toward him. “I see,” it said calmly, removing its mechanical arms from the chair. The dents from its blows were clearly visible. It moved over to the other chair. In a flash, one of its arms grabbed the old man by the neck, lifting him with such force that the seatbelts snapped and broke loose. It threw him against the wall in an instant, all with one arm. “No!” I blurted out. I couldn’t afford to be stuck here, and besides, the old man was becoming somewhat of a friend. Genesis ignored my plea and walked to where the old man had hit the wall. He lay slumped on the ground, seemingly broken. Genesis turned and stood over him. “There is no quarrel with you, human. Once you release the information I require, I will create a possibility where you will be killed a while after instead of instantaneously.” The old man didn’t respond, still bent over in his sitting position. “How did you become this way?” I blurted out fearfully. I saw something break as Genesis stood over the old man. Then it raged. “I became this way…! When you shoved 13 billion voices up my head! Not even mentioning! … How you killed-!” “That’s quite enough!” the old man interrupted. Genesis immediately turned to face him. There he stood, as if he had not just broken every bone in his body. “I think I have shown enough of this feigned future to Mr. Jacob here. Time for us to depart,” he said with outstanding calmness. “What!?” Genesis replied. “You do not have the gall to speak here!” As it shouted, it swung a devastating punch toward the old man’s forehead, but I never saw it land. Everything turned blindingly white. I couldn’t even feel the seat I was sitting in anymore. I closed my eyes to avoid being blinded, rubbing them in pain.
My head was spinning, the world spinning with it, like having the worst headache in existence. Everything was confusing; my senses kept disappearing and reappearing, discombobulating my body and mind. I opened my eyes. I was in an alleyway. The very same alleyway the future shop was in. I hastily turned around to be met with disappointment. Where I expected the future shop to be, there was only a construction site, workers calmly going about their day. I rushed over to grab the first worker I saw. “Hey! What’s going on here?!” I admit, I came on too strong. “Hey, woah! Calm down. We’re just building some shop. Geez! Mr. Rawfield, right?” the construction worker said. “What?” How did he know my name? I looked at him in confusion, suddenly realizing I had been gripping him the entire time. The worker shot a repulsed look at me. “You are, yes?” He pulled a folded piece of paper from his shirt pocket and offered it to me. “Some old man told me to give it to a person that would, and I quote, ‘come running scared and confused.’ Didn’t think he’d be right.” I took the letter from his hands and opened it. It read, “You now know your future. If you want to prevent the chaos you’ve already sown, one of my people will meet you.” The confusion still remained. I turned and asked the worker again, “What did you say this place was called?” “I didn’t. But, if you really wanna know, it’s some tiny old shop called ‘Future’.”

As promised (for those interested) – here’s the second post getting into more technical aspects of going to war. You can find my first post (along with the “about me” part) by clicking on the tag.
A few trigger warnings and disclaimers first:

• Trigger Warning: this post doesn’t deal with the moral aspects of the war. It’s about the cold, pragmatic decisions that go into executing a military operation. I make no moral judgements here – just describing things. And I'm certainly NOT ENDORSING invading places for fun. If you’re easily triggered – you may want to skip this post.
• Disclaimer. My experience is quite relevant. But again, I was not in IDF. Never been to Israel or Gaza. Though I expected that much of what I say translates to IDF’s experience accurately, there are probably many local, and theatre-specific differences I’m not accounting for. Those of you who were in IDF… or maybe have friends or family currently engaged in Gaza – please chime in if anything I’m saying doesn’t ring true.
• An Acknowledgment. We (meaning US forces fighting in the Middle East) have seen our share of chaos and urban combat. But we never had to walk into a city that has been fortified for 15 years for this precise scenario and where nearly 100% of the population was, at least in terms of personal opinion, entirely hostile. Bottom line, I suspect (though don’t know for sure) that certain unique circumstances in Gaza make it much more difficult operationally than what we had to face when entering hostile cities.

Ok, here we go... this one is long.
As a Battlefield, Gaza is Hell.
For a war planner, Gaza is the stuff of nightmares. I honestly can’t think of a worse place to try to enter on a short notice than Gaza. A city fortified for combat for a decade and a half, with planned resupply routes, prepared ammo caches, planned choke points, etc. etc… a population as hostile as it gets. It’s basically hell for any invading force to enter.
And then there are the f---ing tunnels (more on those later). First, let’s talk about invading a place.

Invasions are Awesome (or Catastrophic) … well, they’re always catastrophic for at least one party.

A well-executed combined arms invasion is an awe-inspiring spectacle to behold. Trying to understand the whole thing is difficult to process, because the success of it, when witnessed first-hand and in real time, seemingly makes no sense. In hindsight - it’s a masterclass of cooperation, coordination, planning, and effective execution at massive scale with no room for error.
It’s a massive, violent ballet of small, lethal cogs, all seemingly in complete chaos – and yet somehow, with very little direct communication, getting the job done. If you witness a convoy during an invasion, you’ll see a clusterf*k of ugly vehicles moving very slowly, constantly stopping, soldiers jumping on and off, looking ragged, tired, annoyed. If you talk to any soldier at any given time – you’ll think you’re witnessing the most disorganized sh*tshow ever produced.
The most likely answer you’ll get is “I don’t know what the f—k is going on and where we’re going, I just know that I haven’t taken a sh—t in 3 days, and these a-holes keep shooting at us every couple of hours”. And yet, check the news a day later – and somehow this tired, annoyed, slow war machine advance in leaps and bounds, flanked choke points, and broke through everywhere – all while you got a good night of sleep at home. But talk to the same soldier the next day and you’ll get the same annoyed answer “I don’t know what the f—ck is going on”.
Why am I describing it in such detail? Because to an untrained eye – that’s what things look like on the surface. It seems botched, disorganized, seemingly without rhyme or reason. A reporter witnessing what, at first, appears to be a massive sh*tshow, will likely walk away precisely with the image of a sh*tshow – which will probably set in motion the theme for the coverage.
Except, it’s not a sh*tshow. It’s a carefully planned, coordinated, and organized ballet that takes years of practice, experience, and thoughtful execution to produce.
Side note: there are of course botched invasion – they look seemingly the same on the surface as a well executed operation – but turn out more of a masterclass in hubris, incompetence, and stupidity.
And of course, individual results will vary - – you may be on the “good” side of an invasion and still end up one of the few casualties on your side. Or you could be on the receiving end of Uncle Sam’s fury and still get a lucky shot in that kills a general. .
What Does an Invasion Feel Like when you’re invading? It’s confusing, exhilarating, tiring, scary. But mostly… honestly… boring. Just like most of soldiering – it’s hours and hours of boredom and lack of sleep. The entire time you have to stay vigilant… and the fear never quite goes away. And then those hours of boredom are interrupted by sudden terror of combat and the exhilaration of coming out on the other side. And then the dread that you will have to do that again and again.
What Does it feel like to be Invaded? On the side that gets stomped by the invading force (i.e. this wouldn’t apply to Ukrainians, for instance) – to put simply – it f-ing sucks. It’s also hours of boredom filled with dread and fear. And suddenly, your entire world is on fire. All the “plans” your commanders set in motion fall apart in minutes. Eventually (if you survive the experience) you’ll find out that, by the time you had your contact with the invader, the forward enemy elements were already deep behind you. So uninterested were they in you, that they just rolled by and reported your location to the chasing element for a “clean up”… it’s almost insulting, really.

Well of course IDF would be good at invading, right… they’re the big scary dog with lots of guns, tanks, and aircraft?

This mindset is a dangerous, deadly assumption to make. Having overwhelming force is no guarantee of a successful invasion. The Russians invaded Ukraine with OVERWHELMING force and superior real world experience… and boy did they botch it. Sure, Ukrainians fought bravely and turned out quite competent. But the main factor wasn’t the Ukrainian abilities – it was the incompetence and the failure on the Russian side.
The invader has to out-perform the defender in every aspect. Logistically and operationally – an assault is much more difficult and potentially deadly than a defense. And a large, slow force moving into someone else’s backyard isn’t that hard to bog down and turn it into a bloodbath (as Ukrainians demonstrated).
Combined Arms invasion only works when the arms are actually combined. And it’s a real, difficult skill that requires lots of planning, practice, and precise execution.
Is an Invasion of a Dense Urban Area Different? Yes and no. An urban environment introduces many more unpredictable and dangerous elements. But it’s still an invasion. Broadly-speaking, it’s still all of the above – the same complex and dangerous ballet of planning, coordination, and execution. Except if unfolds in a very, very slow motion. Much more up close and personal. And potentially, much deadlier.

Preparing for the Campaign.

The preparation part is absolutely critical. A massive combined-arms operation is about as complex as things get. At the top, an insanely complex plan must be built – it must account for everything… from the amounts and timing of fuel delivery, to roles and positioning of various combat and support elements, to laying out every route, evaluating every contingency scenario, etc. etc. etc.

• IDF had almost no time to prepare for the invasion of Gaza – that was an enormous disadvantage that’s hard to overstate.
• I’m sure Aman maintained a pretty decent picture with respect to Hamas’ capabilities, logistics, infrastructure, etc… but it certainly wasn’t a complete picture. The worst part about having no warning – there’s no time for combat units to rehearse, work out various operational bugs, etc.

Example: Failure to prepare means death. Something as trivial as not getting your radio comms aligned can botch an entire invasion. The Russians got bugged in Ukraine for many reasons – most of them trivial, stupid, detectable, and avoidable. But they simply didn’t bother to prepare. Tank columns would routinely walk into ambushes because the heavy units didn’t have advanced coordination with air assets or even forward elements. They’d walk into an ambush that a single helicopter could easily suppress – but they couldn’t call it in.
Commanders didn’t have the channels or the correct maps to fire support. I saw overwhelming Russian fire power roll into a trivial ambush, stop… and then have no clue what to do (a American (or IDF) force fraction of that size could’ve rolled through that roadside ambush with barely a delay. But they simply never rehearsed this scenario across all the participating elements (many of which were sorta thrown together) – and so the heavies would get bunched up, infantry would dismount and scatter in the wrong direction… some tanks start backing up and then driving into a wrong field for whatever reason – and seemingly no one bothering to even return fire.
I saw an entire heavy armor battalion wiped out by a force of about 5 Ukrainian dudes with a couple Javelins, a couple machine guns, and a radio to a howitzer team a couple miles away.
A big part of preparation is mental. In peacetime, the training we go through is serious… but one never takes it fully seriously… everyone knows we’re play-acting in a way. Preparing for a real war takes time. The reality dawns slowly. It takes time for a unit to properly gel together a new environment, dust off old skills, string them together in rehearsals much closer to reality, and prepare mentality for the idea that you will soon be shot at (even though you can never fully prepare for it).
IDF didn’t have time to prepare and rehearse. Honestly, I was very worried for them. Especially after Oct. 7^th, when it seemed that everyone was asleep at the wheel. I excepted a semi-botched invasion. But they executed about as flawlessly as it gets. Happy to say I was wrong. Someone certainly was asleep at the wheel on Oct 7^th. But broadly speaking, whatever happened on the 7^th woke up the tiny giant. That fearsome little hedgehog that gained a reputation for punching far above its weight is still there – alive and kicking.

• Jumping a bit ahead… I will do a separate post with a deeper dive into results-to-date. But I can tell you this much – the same thing happened to Hamas that happened to Taliban in 2001 (and to Israel’s enemies in the previous wars). A whole lot of hubris, boasting, stupid decisions – the “Allah is on our side” type of idiotic attitude. They didn’t know what was coming. And they got wrecked. IDF stomped them. Hamas isn’t finished – but it’s a shadow of itself at this point. October 7^th was the biggest error that dumpster fire of an organization has ever made.
• I’m sure there will be lots of sympathizing… of the “well of course, since IDF is so big and strong, and Hamas are these tiny little freedom warriors” variety. Nah… nonsense. A force of tens of thousands luring a heavy, slow-moving enemy into a prepared urban battlefield, with fortifications, pre-planned logistics, ammo caches, etc., etc. – those aren’t the “little guys”. Taking the bait with virtually no notice was a dangerous proposition for IDF. But they took the bait and then ate the fisherman.

But I’ll get to this in more detail in a future post.

First order of battle – prepare the battlefield.

“Prepping the battlefield” is the reason you saw the initial strikes on the buildings before the ground elements moved in. It was not a revenge mission, as Qatari propaganda would have you believe. The buildings weren’t targeted randomly. Every target is a part of a thought-out plan. Every seemingly random target has a point – and it’s never random.
For instance,

• There are the “easy” targets – known (or suspected) “offices” of Hamas, warehouses, potential FOBs, motor pools, communication hubs, etc. Any “offices” with “political affiliation” to Hamas that are easily repurposable or can serve as “friendly” rally points for enemy fighters. Etc. etc.
• Then there are the “clear the path” type of targets. For instance…
• Many of the buildings hit prior to the ground invasion were known (or highly likely) exit points above known tunnel systems. In other words, if there is a high degree of probability that the enemy could emerge in the building’s basement, work their way up, and turn the building into a fortified high-point… especially along a route that’s picked to be an MSR – the prudent thing is to bring that building down in advance. Once you get a column of vehicles onto an MSR – it’s not a decision you can undo easily. And a column of supply trucks stuck behind a disabled IFV and taking fire from four different dimensions – that’s a very bad day.
• Some buildings may be chosen to open up observation and fire support lanes prior to friendly convoys moving through… open up potential choke points for perimeter defense, or even choke off potential parallel and flanking routes, etc.

“Anger” or “Revenge” don’t drive these decisions – as I explained earlier, military operates by objective and tactical necessity (and the “boom” you bring upon a building is very, very expensive). These decisions are calculated and each one has a reason behind it.
Think back to the ballet analogy of an invasion. A ballet needs a clean stage. And the city architecture can create massive tripping hazards. Countless hours went into developing an invasion plan, picking routes, and evaluating every foot of the path the invading force would take. The main “tripping hazards” were identified – and the airstrikes then followed to clear the stage before the curtain lifted.
Story time - real life example. A friend of mine was an MP platoon commander assigned to deliver unruly juveniles to a court building in an area that was “questionable”. Same route, predictable schedule, etc. (the local judge refused to leave the courthouse or make scheduling random and we were trying to “win hearts and minds”). In other words – prime opportunity to ambush a bunch of American Humvees. The route itself was tolerable – turn the convoy into an angry hedgehog, pedal to the metal, and have alternate routes mapped out to bypass trouble. But the square with the courthouse was basically tailor-made for trouble… mostly because of the layout and the surrounding architecture.
My buddy, having seen this movie before, decided he was going to change the ending. He gathered the local community “elders” (some local imams or some sh—t)… pointed to the buildings, and explained via a translator that if he (and the kids they’re protecting) take a single shot – he’s calling fire mission on every single building in the square, and the entire neighborhood will cease to exist.
Not that anyone would’ve authorized such a fire mission, unless the neighborhood really came down on them… and he knew that, of course. But he sounded convincing, the “elders” have already witnessed what American fire support looks like, and they decided to take him at his word and oblige. In three months of this idiotic assignment, not a single shot was fired (though other units got harassed within blocks of that particular square on a daily basis.
Back to IDF and the whole “blowing up buildings” thing. IDF entering Gaza simply didn’t have the luxury to negotiate with Gaza “elders” – Hamas are the elders. Putting myself in IDF’s shoes - If I’m entering an area already known to be preparing a nasty “welcome” … and I’m responsible for bringing my 18-19 year old kids home… Well, I’m sending a whole lot of grief at any building that even thinks to cause me trouble. And if I happen to be wrong – honestly... so be it.

• That doesn’t mean I would deliberately blow up a building known to be full of civilians. First… you try to get the populace to clear the area to begin with. If you have doubts – you try to find a different route. But if there isn’t an alternative route, the MSR is the MSR, and I have a supply convoy idling behind and begging to be hit if the forward element sits there another minute too long – well… I wasn’t the one who architected the f-ing place. Sorry, but you’ll have to rebuild.
• Again, I’m not endorsing invading cities… not making moral judgements one way or another… just explaining the reality as it is.
• And no. These decisions don’t ever sit easy. They stay with you for the rest of your life – questions you’ll never know the answers to. But I’ve already addressed this topic.

Who makes these decisions. For planned destruction (rather than dynamic targets… more on those later) – the decisions are made by military intelligence (and then authorized by whichever command structure happens to be responsible for the theatre). It’s a very hard job. Those guys and gals have to go home with those decisions and live with them too. They’ll never tell you about their internal doubts and questions – that’s not what warriors do. But those doubts and questions are there. If you think that it comes easy and it’s just a “video game” for them – you may be the psychopath in this discussion.
(Yeah, yeah… I know… “how can you pity the IDF – they’re not the ones who got their homes blown up”. Again, the point of this post is pragmatic reality – not moral comparisons or judgements. Of course it sucks to have your home blown up. But I’m explaining a soldier’s POV right now).
But at the end of the day – they have a job to do, and it has three parts. Job one – don’t botch the mission. Job two – help your troops stay alive. Job three – don’t use excessive force and look out for civilians. In that order.
Sidenote: There is a map I saw somewhere – an overlay that shows an old map of the known Gaza tunnels and overlay map of IDF aerial strikes. It shows quite clearly that the strikes weren’t random and follow the tunnel network quite closely. If you’ve seen it and know what I’m talking about – please link it.
Clearing Out Civilians. Again, I’m not in IDF. But from what I understand – they went to great lengths to warn the public before dropping bombs on those objectives. For a reference – we didn’t go to nearly such lengths. We didn’t have a database of numbers to call. Very few interpreters, etc. Generally, you’d try to notify the city to clear itself and, after an afforded period, you move in and hope that the civilians were wise enough to believe you. If IDF’s claims of the leaflets, announcements, and the phone calls they made are true (and I have no reason to doubt them) – it’s far above and beyond of what we (the US) ever did and what any other military in the world would do.

• I wouldn’t assign it to some super-humanitarian quality of IDF. Doubt they care about civilians any more or any less than we do. And giving the enemy too much notice doesn’t help your cause either. But it isn’t Israel’s first rodeo and they were well aware of the type of heat they were going to take from the “public opinion” internationally. But I commend them for trying nonetheless – despite whatever unpleasant personal feelings I’m sure many of them hold toward Gazans at the moment.

How to Clear a City

Following the “shock and awe” – the main force moves in. Fast, violent… preferably at night, to punch through to designated rally points by dawn.
Everyone expects contact upon crossing the border but honestly – that almost never happens. For the infantry on the ground – the first few hours are usually just a lot of fear, anticipation but ultimately, boredom… and strained bladders… and the floor full of Gatorade bottles (PSA: if you see a bottle of Yellow Gatorade in a Humvee – don’t drink it).
Clearing Sectors. The city gets mapped into sectors, and the tedious and very dangerous work of clearing the city begins – sector by sector. Street by street. House by house.
Multiple elements may be operating in parallel to each other – on different assignments. And “not shooting each other” can be a challenge of its own – something to always keep in mind.
The basic idea is – you move into enemy’s neighborhood, essentially announcing “I’m in your house and I’m going to take it – come and stop me”. The forward elements go in, quite literally looking to slug it out with the bravest of the Jihadis.
It’s nothing like the movies, where some badass-looking special operators swoop in and kill everybody. That does happen of course, occasionally and at night – specialized teams will do point raids when a VIP target is identified (or some other compelling reason).
But mostly, you enter a neighborhood with brute force. Lots of big guns and even more rifles. Multiple houses will be getting cleared at the same time by multiple teams, with snipers watching overhead, big guns watching the streets outside, and blocking elements positioning themselves to intercept rabbits.
You never know what’s going to wait for you at a new place. It may seem quiet, but waiting to explode in an ambush. Sometimes, a strong point will be waiting for you, with an immediate greeting upon arrival – but that’s a suicidal proposition for them almost always. If that doesn’t happen – you should expect some nasty surprises when you start entering houses.
Sometimes, absolutely nothing happens – the neighborhood is quite like a church morning in a village and stays that way the entire time you’re there. But that’s not a relief – the next emotion is usually dread.
Clearing homes in an area you know to be trouble is about as terrifying of a job an infantryman can get. Over time, you develop a sixth sense for things – you can sorta tell what’s going to wait for you in the house.
We have certain tools to help with that as well… as well as plenty of advanced surveillance that will spot traffic in and out of a house long before you show up.
Aerial surveillance also helps us know what to expect upon arrival to a new sector (though it’s far from perfect). But, it’s much different for the IDF. I imagine that a tunnel exiting directly into a house will render any surveillance-based assumptions useless.
Sometimes, that sixth sense… the gut feeling tells you that this house will be bad. But the gut is often wrong, of course. And when your gut is wrong but it’s still talking to you – one of the scariest things in the world is that one last door left to be checked in the bedroom. Remember the fear of closet monsters when you were a kid? Yeah… now picture the tricks your imagination can play when closet monsters in that neighborhood come with explosives.

Why Tunnels are Important

• Tunnels add a fourth-dimension to an already nerve-wrecking environment.
• First, you lose your “eyes” on the sector in advance – effectively, you’re arriving blind, because surveillance can’t pick up enemy traffic moving into defensive positions when they arrive underground
• The dimension itself is simply unintuitive. An infantryman is used to scanning for enemy horizontally and vertically. They’re used to watching their step. They’re used to treating a random pile of garbage as potentially explosive. What they’re not used to is that pile of garbage being a potential tunnel exit that an RPG team pops up from behind you. We’re used to avoiding random piles of garbage and moving on – letting EOD deal with sh*t later. But IDF has to check every pile of garbage, lift every random piece of plywood, look under every bathtub in every house. Lift every rug. Stomp on every part of the floor. Basically – it’s f---king hell.
• When you discover a tunnel – it’s a whole different pain in the rear. Infantry isn’t trained in dealing with tunnels. They basically have to mark them and remain stationary until the tunnel “specialists” arrive. The idea of sector-by-sector clearing is that, once you clear it, you can declare it safe and move on. But when there is an active tunnel with an exist point behind you – there is nothing safe about that sector even if it’s quiet at the moment. And sitting idle in a neighborhood waiting to clear a tunnel certainly isn’t ideal in an urban operation where things are quite…uhm…dynamic.

What do you Do with Civilians?

• Civilians, in the meantime, get moved around. It’s not a pleasant experience – you try to treat them gently, but the resulting effect can still resemble more cattle than human. It’s particularly challenging, since there really isn’t a way for them to exit Gaza.
• What you’re doing is for their own benefit - the goal is to move them out of the harm’s way and (occasionally, depending on location and whether the nearest unit has the time and capacity) – round up the fighting age males for identification.
• In all reality, the action moves block by block. Setting up “checkpoints” in an active kill zone is not just ineffective – it would actively put civilians in harm’s way. Checkpoints do get set – but in areas that are more or less quiet and clear. Hamas would happily target soldiers who are distracted in a crowd of Palestinian civilians.
• And then there’s the usual propaganda – I lost count of how many videos I’ve seen claiming that IDF fired upon civilians, when it’s quite clear that either (a) civilians got caught-up in a Hamas attack on IDF or (b) militants just straight-up shot up a bunch of civilians to prevent them from following an evacuation route.

On the Enemy

I could say many things on Hamas in terms of violent Islamism, their perverse beliefs, the f-ed up “moral” code of such groups. But I’ll set that aside and speak of Hamas (based on experience with similar groups) purely in terms of their effectiveness and competence.

• Ultimately, it’s an army of thugs. Rooted in boastfulness, peer pressure, etc.
• The overall ideology has a strong effect on the group. But its “strength” is based mainly on the group dynamic. Once the group dynamic is destroyed, the leadership is dead, and there is no one to witness or attest to “less-than-honorable” actions of individuals – it turns out that the “ideological” beliefs of many weren’t held all that deeply.
• They will run. They will hide. They will blend in.
• They’re quite good at things that we’d call “terrorism”… or just pure thugishnes.
• There is also the element of most fighters being young men. Young men feel invincible. Add to that a whole lot of peer pressure, the culture of “honor” (their definition of it), and just the general excitement young men fell when causing mischief. What you get is a rather annoying force of guerilla fighters. They certainly aren’t “good”… not even “effective” in terms of the damage such “guerilla” tactics cause. But they’re definitely effective in that they can tie-up a unit in an unnecessary, pointless fights. And they’ll do it with the energy and carelessness of youth – until the circumstances catch up with them. And after that happens – often there isn’t any of them left alive to serve as caution to others.
• There is of course the whole idea of “martyrdom”, etc. It’s certainly a powerful force. But it’s a much more of an obscure concept to these young men – dying isn’t something most of them actively seek… despite all the boastfulness.

Why are There So Many Naked Dudes in their Underwear?

You’ve all seen pics of Palestinian men being paraded around in their underwear. The most hilarious “explanation” that I’ve seen is that it’s a “form of sexual torture” by the IDF.
First of… if that’s what you think – (a) you’re a bit… uhm… weird; and (b) no soldier… I don’t care if it’s the gayest dude who prances around in fairy outfits on weekends– no soldier actually wants to see this sh---t. It’s gross. They’re sweaty, scared, and pathetic. And (y’all seen the pictures) – usually, there isn’t much impressive to look at.
So… why? For the same exact reason prisoners get stripped down upon reporting to prison. And those reasons are much more amplified in a war zone. They are MEN of FIGHTING AGE in an ACTIVE COMBAT ZONE. Any number of them are for sure (100%) Hamas or affiliated with Hamas. That much is a fact. But an IDF soldier in an area that’s still hot with enemy activity has no tools to distinguish whether it’s an innocent civilian or someone who really shouldn’t be released.
Hence, all of them will be sent back for further investigation. They’re identity will be cross-checked with known databases of Hamas memberships. Their social media will probably be checked. Etc. Etc.
Why are they naked? Because when a dude walks up on you in a hostile area – you yell at him to stop, strip down at a distance, and do a 360 presentation of his gut and sweaty *ss crack for you. Yeah – it’s as gross as it sounds. The main fear is obvious - explosives and concealed weapons.
Eventually, they approach, get cuffed, blindfolded, and wait around for transport. And yeah… they stay in their underwear… because no soldier is going to volunteer to go collect gross, sweaty clothes for a bunch of random dudes and then try to figure out to whom each pair of pants belongs to. Sorry… but there are more important things to do when you’re collecting prisoners in an open yard in a neighborhood that was shooting at you 20 minutes ago. If you think there is anything “sexual” about it – you should probably see a psychiatrist.

Defining a “Combatant”

Defining a militant is difficult – some will be proper combatants. Others – just kids joining in the stupid excitement of violence.

• Militants mostly move around in civilian clothes and empty-handed. By now, they know we can see them.
• Weapons are usually stored in known caches with plenty of ammo. IDF is finding them in houses on practically every street, from what I hear.
• That was the same MO in Afghanistan - farmers routinely would come down and claim that we killed “innocent kids” overnight. Nevermind our thermal footage of those “kids” and their 7.62 toys.
• Civilians, especially boys, can sometimes join the madness. Are they innocent? Well, fundamentally, of course they are – they’re kids. But things aren’t that simple in a combat zone. Those kids don’t just decide to pick-up rocks on their own. Where they grow up – the coolest guys in the neighborhood are the tough jihadis. The kids flock to them, run errands for them. When things get hot – the kids run surveillance for them, bring supplies. Quite often, the kids will assist in setting up IEDs.
• For instance, In many places we were in – the “specialist” who knows how to wire an IED is a VIP of sorts. And they’re familiar with our surveillance. So, an IED setup is a process – where civilians, often just kids, would be used to test our surveillance of the area. “Here is a shovel, kid… go dig a hole over on the other side of the street while we wait here to see if they infidels’ snipers have eyes on the street”.
• And sometimes, in the middle of a fight, those kids also decide to make an appearance. Of course, you don’t target the kids if you can help it. But say you round a corner... ready for a surprise – and there is something flying toward your face. That person will probably be dead before you even have a chance to recognize that it’s a kid.
• Of course, to a well-adjusted civilian, the idea of shooting a kid “over a rock” sounds insane. And it is. No one wants to shoot a kid over a rock. But when you’re stuck on a street that’s become a bullet funnel from a few blocks down, and someone keeps peeking in from the alley splitting the street and tossing things at you – most soldiers aren’t inclined to sit around to find out whether it’s a rock or a grenade.

How Most Civilian Casualties Happen.

The social media would have you believe that the initial bombing campaign was indiscriminate and that’s how most civilian casualties occurred. In reality, most civilians are killed in what’s called “dynamic” targeting.

• Majority of civilian casualties will come from “dynamic targets”. Those are the buildings that weren’t targeted initially for destruction – the initial goal is to simply clear them. But if the enemy happens to get to the building first and IDF takes fire, eventually (after certain back and forth) the building will be targeted for an airstrike. These are dynamic targets that emerge unplanned, Aman has little to no intel on them, and the air assets can’t see if there are civilians hiding in the basement. After some time, they will drop a bomb on the building and move on (as they should and as any other military would do).
• I remember seeing a good thread on Twitter that showed how a neighborhood comes to being destroyed. It starts with pictures and background on a wealthy, upscale development in Gaza. Then shows the videos of IDF trying to move through the neighborhood and foot-mobile fire teams, trying to clear it building-by-building. Hamas, however, fortified the neighborhood, puts up a fight, and ultimately, IDF runs out of options to clear it safely. Eventually, fire missions are called in and the development ceases to exist. Not because IDF was intent to destroy it – they tried to save it. But ultimately, those IDF kids want to go home too… preferably not in body bags.

.....It's just one example. I wasn’t there personally, but it rings true. Because that’s how these things typically play out in my experience. If you know the twitter thread I’m talking about – please share a link if you can find it.
Ok... that was a lot. I plan on doing more posts. Things I plan to address:

1. Looking at the results so far
   
2. Tips for analyzing what you see on social media
   

I've also got some good questions I'm going to address:

1. A question about "proportionality"
   
2. A question on telling the difference between good-faith attempt to minimize casualties and disproportionate violence and war crimes.
   
3. How do we know if IDF are following the professional moral code?
   
4. Thoughts on the recent arrest warrants issued.
   

If you have any other questions you'd like me to address - send them my way. Peace!

First/Previous/Next
Nika? Alora? Chiyo called out desperately, as she lashed out with a shockwave of psionic power, blasting the debris constraining her away and sending the trio of Regulators that rushed her staggering back. Anyone? I’m exposed! I could use some help!
The Ilithii had crashed down in a heap of debris, having taken the worst of whatever had hit them, disrupting her natural levitation and causing her to land badly on the ground floor, rolling right into the middle of the huge brawl underneath.
‘They must consider me a priority target!’ Chiyo panicked, hacking and coughing as the dust of the broken wood choked at her lungs. Pushing herself to her feet, she looked around for her friends, but on not spotting any of them headed towards the main entrance, she hoped the others were able to get out, but cursed as she saw the bottleneck of the crowd completely blocking the way out in the mad rush to leave, as if the very building would collapse at any moment.
Though to be fair, that prospect wasn’t an unreasonable one…
Suddenly, Chiyo raised both of her arms up in a telekinetic block, as a drunk with blue fur and a thick, trunk-like snout sprung out of nowhere and threw a wild punch at her head, seeing an easy target, before their fist was halted in mid-air.
Fuck off! Chiyo told the drunk in no uncertain terms as she pushed back with telekinesis, lightly shoving them into the middle of an ongoing mosh pit, before the idiot was very quickly clotheslined by one of the very bloodied avian participants.
Chiyo knew she was in big trouble. Unlike Nika or Jack, she knew there wasn’t a chance in hell she’d survive in a brawl like this for very long. Yet if she tried to levitate above it and lose the crowd cover, the turrets above would quickly pick her out and bring her down, not to mention any other Regulators lurking about that could concentrate their fire.
Quickly considering her options, it was just as quickly decided for her, as she heard the yell of Jack in the far distance, sounding like he was in trouble! If she couldn’t find the others right now, at least she knew where they were going to be!
Unsteady on her feet, Chiyo cursed again as she slipped and fell on some broken glass in an attempt to dodge another drunken patron being rugby tackled to the ground, though fortunately her armour prevented any cuts as she scrambled uneasily back up to her feet as quickly as she could. She was so used to levitating instead of walking, that right now even she had to admit that Nika made some good points about how she needed to get more physically active.
“There!” She heard a voice yell from behind her, and the Ilithii instinctively knew that the Regulators she’d previously knocked down were now right on her tail. Straining with the effort, Chiyo dodged a chair that was thrown at her as she quickly dashed through a break in the crowd, heading towards the bar at the other end of the building. It wasn’t where she wanted to go at all, but she knew that she needed to get herself safe first before she could work out how to help her friends.
She let out a semi-silent yip of pain as one of the ceiling turrets swivelled and opened fire, catching her in the shoulder and causing her to stumble as her shields were quickly depleted. Her armour absorbed most of the impact, though she still felt the hot ripples spread along her back. Desperately, she used her power to grab a nearby bar table, putting as much energy into it as she could as she flung the table up towards the turret, getting blasted to smithereens before it even had a chance to hit.
“There she is! Zruul’s pinged her on turrets! Kill her!”
‘Shit!’ Chiyo swore as she turned around and lashed out at the closest Regulator she could see, focusing her mental energy into a concentrated crunch of psychic power, causing the grey-skinned man to drop their gun and clutch at their spine-covered head in agony as Chiyo broke down the mental defences of their mind and gave him a heavy cluster headache.
Raising her hands, she held up a quick psychic barrier that deflected the burst of plasma shots sent her way up into the air as she kept moving, doing her best to put some distance between her and her attackers, and get some cover in the way too!
Seeing a flash from somewhere upstairs, several accurate shots suddenly rang out and smacked into the chest of another enemy, who quickly panicked and disengaged as their own shields were diminished by the surprise assault.
Thank you, whoever you are! Chiyo projected out, knowing that she didn’t have a safe way to get up to whichever one of her friends had just helped her, though there was still one Regulator left…
“The Ilithii’s at my location!” The last Regulator - a pale-green skinned female with gigantic teeth - snarled into her comms before Chiyo could attempt to use her telekinetic power to grip the being in a psychic chokehold to shut them up.
The being grunted with effort as they shrugged off the effects, before firing wildly with their plasma pistol, blasting a Xarak gangster in the back with a roar of pain as Chiyo desperately threw off their aim with a prod of telekinesis, before quickly igniting her psyblade and lashing out in a sudden burst of movement as she quickly levitated forward, lurching to the side as she lashed out with the blade of pure psychic energy, severing several fingers of the Regulator’s hand as they recognised the danger too late.
“Gah! You fucking bitch! I’ll kill you!” The woman yelled in pain as she clutched at the stumps, trying to numb the pain.
I doubt that. Chiyo retorted as she clenched her fist and lashed out with a telekinetic blast at point blank range, obliterating the front part of the Regulator’s skull, the force sending their corpse blasting back in a spray of flesh and gore.
Extinguishing her psyblade, Chiyo wasted no time in losing herself in the cover of the crowd as she desperately looked for her friends. Briefly she spotted Jack get absolutely bodied by the Redeemer as they both plowed through the heavy crowd around them, but she soon lost them again as she avoided a very drunk-looking couple of amphibians that somehow decided that the chaos of the brawl was a perfect time to dance as if completely oblivious to the mayhem unfolding all around them, casually waltzing around in a circle while somehow avoiding the unconscious or dead bodies around them.
Weaving past them, Chiyo reached the bar, or at least what was left of it.
What remained of the shoddy wooden countertop had been smashed to smithereens in the heat of the brawl, as many empty bottles littered the floor around them, accompanied by overturned tables and broken chairs scattered haphazardly across the sticky floor. The air around her was thick with the acrid stench of alcohol and sweat, mingling with a metallic tang of spilled blood, a strong, pungent smell that burned at the nostrils of the sensitive Ilithii.
‘Gods, the sooner we get out of here the better!’ She thought to herself.
Behind the smashed remains of the bar, Chiyo saw a bunch of smashed and broken bodies - clearly the aftermath of a violent struggle for the booze. Sprawled on the ground with two limbs bent at unnatural angles, Chiyo spotted the creepy Xarak barmen that had told them where the River Giants were, and couldn’t even tell if he was still alive or not with the amount of abuse he had taken.
Amidst the wreckage, several rowdy patrons had taken advantage of the chaos to help themselves to the free booze, laughing and jeering as they stumbled about guzzling stolen drinks, brandishing some of the stolen bottles as weapons as they revelled in the mayhem around them, attacking one another for a greater share of the dubious loot. One red-skinned muscular alien with some rough black haired mutton chops raised up a full bottle of some kind of brown spirit into the air, before another yellow-furred ganger smacked him in the back of the head with a chair, instantly dropping him.
‘Shit, we need a way out!’ The Ilithii cursed. Looking around she saw more and more bodies on the ground as the fighting went on all around the building, and she cringed as she saw one get trodden on as two more still-active patrons were trying to claw at each other’s faces.
It was becoming ever increasingly more difficult to hide now.
“There!” She heard again from somewhere to the side as she looked around for an emergency exit. “Slarah! We found the Ilithii you wanted!”
“Good!” A curt female voice barked. “Their Psion is my fight as we discussed! You three eliminate that Outsider filth! The rest of you with me!”
Chiyo spun around quickly to look at the speaker, prepared for a fight.
This particular Regulator was clearly some kind of officer, if she wasn’t the outright leader of the Regulator Order of the Infernal Harmony. Wearing battlemage armour of slender, woven metal bands, the ethereally beautiful, light-purple-skinned woman with pointy ears even longer than Alora’s lowered her grey hood and stared at Chiyo with the confident expression of a professional well-versed in their field of expertise.
Taking no time to talk, they thrust their staff forward with a powerful blast of arcane energy with an unexpected strength that almost blasted through Chiyo’s psychic shields before the Ilithii focused, quickly countering with a powerful telekinetic shockwave that launched two of the Regulators back before they could open fire on her with their plasma rifles.
Attempting to disengage, Chiyo shuffled backwards to get into cover and buy herself some time, knowing she couldn’t win this fight, but found her movements stifled as the area around her was hit with a slowing spell of some kind.
‘A Force Mage, and a powerful one! She must be the one who collapsed the balcony!’ Chiyo thought to herself. ‘But I’m strong too, and my friends need me!’
The force of her counterattack caused the force mage to grimace as she brought up her staff in a block that was able to take the hit. Chiyo squeezed as she brought the full might of her power to bear, but her enemy was able to hold on long enough that her allies could shoot at Chiyo with full auto, forcing her to abandon her attack and block the shots as best she could, though one got through, smacking her hard in the chest.
Anyone? Help! Chiyo yelled out in the hope that one of her friends could hear her, but nobody could. As several shots were deflected straight up into the air, the only thing that changed was the overhead sprinkler system suddenly turning itself on, causing numerous shouts and curses to be hurled around at the uncomfortable development.
“Zruul? Stop playing around!” The enemy mage, Slarah ordered into her comms, while Chiyo took advantage of the monetary distraction and wildly lashed out with as much telekinetic power as she dared from above, smashing two Regulators with enough unseen force to knock them to the ground, dead or unconscious. Slarah growled and lashed out with power of her own, sending a fissure of telekinetic force that churned the wooden floor between them. Straining with effort, Chiyo pushed back and deflected the attack just before it hit her, causing the fissures to split either side of her.
‘Curses, she and I are equally matched! What can I do?’ Chiyo thought to herself. She recalled all the books and lessons she had learned on how to best use her power, but in that moment of panic, all of that knowledge seemed insufficient.
‘Damnit, I can’t hold on much longer!’ Chiyo thought to herself, until she noticed the trickling of water all around her.
’Wait! That’s it!’
Drawing in the water around her in abundance, Chiyo attacked the force mage again, who had clearly not anticipated Chiyo having any kind of elemental affinity, as though she blocked the kinetic strikes, the momentum of the water was still enough to blast her backwards as the liquid simply flowed around the quick shields she summoned around herself, rattling against her armour and causing Slarah to grunt in pain as she was forced back.
Maintaining her momentum, Chiyo then lashed out with several more well-aimed water blasts at several of the downed Regulators who had been blasted to the floor from the kinetic battle. Though the Regulators had clearly prepared for a fight with the gear to boot, Chiyo hoped her attack was enough to keep them down as Slarah rallied and threw her power at Chiyo, trying to disrupt her concentration.
Grunting with effort, Chiyo found herself desperately holding on, as between her and the enemy mage, a huge congealed blob of water formed, threatening to burst as both of them fought for dominance.
‘I can’t afford to get disrupted! And she has allies nearby!’ Chiyo realised, as several of the Regulators got back to their feet, much tougher than she realised.
‘If I was like Jack, I’d probably be able to think outside the box and surprise them with something…’
Wait…All that water was being compressed by the combined telekinetic force, if it was being put under enough pressure…
Holding on for dear life and waiting for the perfect moment, Chiyo suddenly shifted the focus of her power to strike out and burst a very specific point of the bubble…
Which sent a high-powered beam of water right towards the enemy mage!
Screaming, Slarah flailed her arms as she was blasted back with the sheer force of the released pressure, with the water splashing all over the area, created a blanket of rain all around them. Seizing on the idea, Chiyo used the sprinklers to extend the translucent smokescreen as far as she could.
‘If I’m having trouble finding my friends, so will you!’ She thought grimly to herself.
‘Though I’ve still got to get to them first!
*****
“Shit, that was close!” Sephy panted to herself. She had been able to evade the spell thrown their way and stay on the balcony, using her wings to glide over to a more stable part. Looking down, it didn’t look good. Dust and debris filled the air in a thick cloud, obscuring her vision of the chaos below as she desperately looked for any sign of her friends.
“Still up there bitch?” She heard a familiar voice as several of the turrets swivelled around to aim at her, causing her to quickly dive for cover as they opened fire, tearing chunks out of the wall where she had just been. Hiding behind the shoddy fence and cursing the terrible cover it made, Sephy crouched and crawled around, aiming for one of the pillars at the far end of the room for better cover, bringing up her plasma rifle to surprise a Regulator who had the same idea as her.
‘Any more assholes up here?’ Sephy asked herself rhetorically as she looked around, quickly snapping to surprise another that was trying to line up a shot on someone below.
‘Alright, nobody else up here apart from the madlads sitting and watching, but that slicer’s probably told his friends where I am.’ Sephy reasoned. ‘Can’t have that!’
Grinning, she looked towards the stairs that were now clear, but she knew that she had a better advantage up here, and there was probably an ambush waiting down below. Reaching into one of the pouches on her rig, Sephy pulled out a black ball with a special adhesive that began to activate with an electronic command from her before she quickly threw the slap-mine towards the stairs, with it sticking to the frame.
Though Nika had often told her not to risk throwing those mines and to always place them manually, Sephy didn’t have time for that shit when there were literal turrets trying to kill her!
Springing out of cover, Sephy aimed at the closest turret and blasted it before it could take aim at her in return, chuckling as the other slicer realised she now had a blind spot to work with.
‘But though I’m out of the line of fire, everyone else isn’t!’ Sephy realised. ‘However, I know where he is, and he isn’t far. I just need a quick way out and I can kill him in meatspace. Sucks there isn’t a window I can easily get to…’
Suddenly there was some movement below as she spotted a brief flash of pale blue skin. Recognising Chiyo, Sephy quickly took aim and let off a set of risky bursts that dropped one of the Regulators going after the Ilithii, before Sephy was quickly forced back into cover as several shots zipped above her.
“Too slow fuckers!” Sephy called out with false bravado, as she tried to figure out her next move.
‘Yeah, they definitely know I’m here, this is getting way too hot!’ She chuckled to herself. ‘But I can still try and be useful!’
“Guys? Can you hear me?” Sephy called out into her comms, not bothering to try and go subvocal in the loud mess they were in.
No answer.
“Great, and we’re fucking jammed.” Sephy sighed. “And I bet it’s that gods’ damn slicer too! Fuck I’m gonna kill him!”
She spun around and tried to find Chiyo or one of the others, not spotting any of them before she heard an explosion behind her, as an enemy tried to climb up the stairs.
At least, it was probably an enemy…
Using the distraction, Sephy quickly moved out of cover and searched for targets, immediately honing on a scary-looking Vivren towards the front of the building that was gesticulating with her hands and obviously giving orders to a squad of regulators.
‘Heh! Sometimes they make this too easy!’ Sephy grinned to herself as she took aim and squeezed the trigger, blasting the enemy officer with an accurate burst of plasma fire!
However, to Sephy’s shock the rounds didn’t seem to have an effect on the ugly Vivren, merely bouncing off their heavily armoured form, a feat repeated with a second burst as they turned their snarling visage to look up at the Skritta.
“Oh crap!” Sephy cursed, as the Vivren easily battered aside a drunk that was in her way as she brandished a heavy-looking spiked chain. Flinging it around with supernatural strength, she whipped it towards the Skritta who ducked the side swipe as it pinged above her, forming a huge gash in the wall.
‘What the fuck?’ Sephy asked herself as her eyes widened. ‘I’ve never scored well in physics but I’m pretty sure that shouldn’t happen! Magical bullshit detected!’
“Missed me bitch!” She taunted as she returned fire, before juking the vertical strike that tore through the flimsy wooden fence. Firing back, she hit the Vivren’s centre of mass again, only this time realising that her previous shots found their mark. Though the Vivren’s armour was almost as good as theirs, surely they would have felt something from her attack?
‘Damn, you have a pain tolerance better than Jack’s!’ Sephy thought to herself. ‘But that doesn’t change the fact that I need to get out of here and get control of the turrets…’
As the Vivren yanked her chain back down, Sephy saw the mad rush for the front doors or the building, but could see the gap above the height of the crowd of mostly average-sized species.
It did have to be accessible for megafauna, after all…
‘Gliding there will be too slow…unless! Oh this’ll be so cool!’
Staying light on her feet, and holstering her plasma rifle while coiling her muscles like a spring, Sephy grinned as she waited for the next attack, a look which seemed to enrage the Vivren as she lashed out with the spiked chain again, clearly aiming for Sephy’s legs, who leapt up as high as she could to dodge the attack for a third time, as the spiked chain tore through the wood of the bannister fence like cardboard before wrapping itself around the brick pillar.
Seeing her opportunity, Sephy leapt onto the twisted metal, using the Vivren’s own whip as a tightrope as she ran down it, using her wings to barely stabilise herself and dodge whatever spell the Vivren cast at her, her heart pounding in her chest as in the space of barely two seconds she had descended to the ground and kicked off the head of the Vivren, giving her just enough speed, height and momentum to clear the bottleneck at the front door, before crashing to the floor, landing roughly on the coarse stone of the courtyard outside, sending shockwaves of pain reverberating throughout her body as she rolled and tumbled hard across the pavement, eventually skidding to a very painful stop.
“Owwwww…..” She moaned to herself as her breath came in ragged gasps, before she was able to get a hold of herself.
“Heh…nailed it!” She panted as she got to her feet. “I hope the others saw that shit! That was so fucking awesome!”
‘But where is that fucking slicer?’ Sephy thought to herself as she brought up a virtual reality minimap. ’Side of the building, he’s close, gotta hurry!’
Sprinting, she heard the sounds of comms in the distance as she rounded a corner to see two Regulators trying to look casual outside of what looked like a former service shed for the once-respectable building she had just left, who hadn’t yet noticed her…
“Hostile incoming! Get Zruul out of there!” A cruel snarl spoke up over the Regulator’s comms.
“Yes Lictor-” One of them began to say before a burst of plasma quickly decapitated them. Sephy quickly switched to the other, who quickly fell to the ground with several burns on their torso before they could raise their own weapon, Sephy quickly finishing them off with a shot to the head to confirm the kill.
Wrinkling her tiny nostrils at the putrid stench of piss as she booted open the flimsy door, instantly spotting exactly what she was looking for.
Propped up against the far wall was the limp, helpless form of the obese toad-like being she had met just a few minutes ago when he was fully sliced into the Matrix, and from the looks of things he still was, possibly unaware of the danger.
Sephy put two rounds in their skull without hesitation.
“Now I’ve gotta take the system!” Sephy said to herself in determination as she grabbed at the wires attached to the cybernetics of Zruul’s body, forcibly yanking them away before attaching them to her own device and slicing into the local Matrix once again, bringing up the translucent AR feed once again.
“Zruul! Get out of there!” Sephy heard a voice call out in panic as she took in her surroundings, spotting the form of the enemy slicer rapidly floating over towards her, before stopping, mouth wide open in pure, unadulterated horror.
“No!” They screamed in cyberspace, knowing what must have happened. “NO! NO! NO! NOOOOOOOO! NOOOOOOOOOOO!”
“I told you that you weren’t leaving here alive!” Sephy sneered cruelly, as she found the subtle string of code that connected Zruul’s consciousness with their body. A connection that would be impossible to get at without having direct manual access to the source hardware in question…
“Please don’t!” Zruul begged pathetically. “I’ll help you! I’ll disable the turrets! I’ll let you escape! If you’ve killed my body the Lictor can repair it so I can come back! Just please let me live!”
“No.” Sephy coldly told the slicer in no uncertain terms as she severed his connection.
“NOOOOOOO!” Zrull screamed as his avatar drifted away, slowly decompiling as his consciousness was eroded away into nothingness.
Not wasting any time, Sephy saw the control node in the distance and quickly rushed to it, instantly taking control of the now undefended programs as she quickly worked her magic.
“Alright, reversing the IFF for the turrets, that’s now running…” Sephy muttered to herself, annoyed that the process wasn’t instant. “What’s this? Sprinkler system? Sure! That might help…”
“Cameras? I didn’t spot any around…Better disable footage so they can’t ID us after…oh nevermind…they’re hidden in the bathrooms. Let’s just brick you…What else?”
Moving her virtual fingers like a skilled musician Sephy quickly cycled through the different settings, not finding much to work with. As one final act of spite, she deleted the playlist that Zruul had blasting over the speakers, and changed it to one of her punk playlists.
A sudden beep notified Sephy that the turrets were done recalibrating, and she excitedly went to the virtual console to see what she had to work with.
Grinning as she checked the basic programming and realising it was compatible, she brought up one of her custom programs that had been created to integrate with turret systems to run automatically. Copying it over and ordering it to execute, Sephy quickly backed out of the system while locking it from further infiltration. By the time anyone could unlock it, they’d hopefully all be long gone…
“Alright you motherfuckers!” Sephy grinned as she confirmed the turrets were spooling up again.
“My turn!”
*****
First/Previous/Next
Chiyo and Sephy are making their moves, but the Battle of the Soggy Pussy is far from over!
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I stared, mouth dry, heart pounding, at the message from my boss – That awful combination of words that my coworkers and I pray we never see:
“You’re in the running for Employee of the Year.”
For him to send something so callous via email – that was just rubbing salt in the wound.
My eyes glazed over the wall of text that followed. I didn’t need to read the details – I’d cleaned enough of the prior winners off the walls and ceiling of the soundproofed breakroom to know exactly what the award entailed.
After that initial, deep pang of fear faded, denial flooded in to take its place.
I wasn’t just hitting my sales quota, I was blowing it out of the damn water – selling big ticket items daily. I never forgot to place the stickers with my barcode on the products, either, so when my customers checked out and it was scanned at the register, the sales should’ve automatically been linked to my employee ID.
We don’t receive commission – there are other ‘incentives’ to keep our sales up. I hadn’t been watching the numbers because I knew I was making sales left and right – I would've never even dreamt that I was at risk.
It was just a glitch with our computer system, I decided with a nervous laugh. It had to be – something IT could probably sort out in no time.
When I finally regained control of my legs, I wobbled to my manager’s office.
There was no miscalculation, he assured me. It was my employee ID that ranked at the bottom.
“The barcodes never lie, Graham.” He didn’t even bother making eye contact.
I was circling the drain figuratively, and if I didn’t get my shit together – literally – soon enough.
I begged him to review the camera footage – I knew he'd be able to see me making all those sales. “Don’t worry,” he added, with a smile vacant of anything remotely resembling happiness, “One way or another, we all contribute to the success of our company.”
I suppose that by then, he was long desensitized to the pleas of the desperate.
As I left his office, I assured myself that this wasn’t a death sentence.
Not yet.
I had another month until they recalculated our final standings, before shit would get real. Before I’d be given a limp handshake and an empty ‘Thank you for your devotion to the company’ as I was led down the hallway. Before I’d meet what lives behind the usually padlocked door in the shadowy corner of the breakroom.
Before I’d learn what it truly meant to sacrifice myself for the good of the company.
Word spread fast around the office.
Kevin gave me his smug, shit eating grin – maybe he thought that with me out of the picture, he’d finally have a shot with Elise.
Elise… I just desperately hoped that hers wouldn’t be the name drawn afterwards – the one selected to hose what’s left of me off the breakroom floor and down the stained, rusty drain.
As required, I began parking in my new designated space at the far end of the employee lot – the faded sign indicating ‘Reserved for Employee of the Year’ nearly swallowed up by the encroaching tree line. It added an extra ten minutes to my walk to our store, and I dreaded that added time in the oppressive Texas heat. The rational part of me knew that was soon to be a moot point, though.
One way or another, in another month, I wouldn’t have that parking spot. If I were lucky, I’d live to see another summer – live to see some other poor bastard’s car parked there.
If they hadn’t already heard the news, when the rest of my coworkers saw my car in that space, they knew what it meant. Don’t get too attached.
They started avoiding me like the plague. I didn’t blame them.
We all knew what would be coming next if my sales didn’t improve – it's the same thing that happens every time:
We’d gather for the mandatory meeting on the closing night of the fiscal year, all eyes on the sorry son of a bitch that had ‘won’ – the room so quiet that you could hear their muffled sobs. They’d receive what barely constituted a handshake from my manager while he muttered – dead-eyed – his appreciation for their devotion to the company.
Next, they’d be ushered off to the breakroom to meet ‘corporate’. No one tried to run – not after what happened in '19. Instead, the winner would always turn back, shooting us a desperate, final look – eyes pleading for someone, anyone, to intervene. And, of course, no one ever did.
Once the door closed behind them and that sound-proofed room swallowed up the last of their sobbing, begging – it was over. The rest of us would be sent home and I'd try to shower away that disgusting feeling – that sick sense of relief that someone else was sent to their death, and not me.
Cal – the nicest guy I’d ever met – he was the bottom performer two years ago.
He’d fallen so ill that he’d nearly wasted away and eventually, couldn’t work anymore. He must've thought that freed him from his contract – if he left, if he never came back into work, he’d be okay.
He must not have read the fine print in our hiring paperwork.
Although, to be fair, if any of us had read it, we'd never have signed it in the first place.
Cal was a warning to the rest of us, that there is no quitting in our line of work. If they have to track you down and find you (and I promise you that they will find you) – well, wouldn’t you prefer to go with your dignity, with the company compensating your loved ones – rather than be pulled from your home, kicking and screaming into the night?
Gina was employee of the year in 2023. Gina, with the kind smile, whom Kevin had set his sights on before Elise – and, just like Elise, she wanted nothing to do with him.
I still remember that day, the day they released the final numbers. The way Gina’s mouth hung open in confusion, shock.
When she finally managed to form words again, she too insisted that there must be some mistake. We all vouched for her to management – I’d personally seen her make so many sales.
Our manager simply reminded us that the barcodes never lie.
My name was the one drawn for breakroom duty that next morning, to pick up what remained of her smile and her simple gold wedding band, to be returned to her family. In one business week, they received a box containing a check, and everything left of her that wouldn’t fit down the drain.
Once the numbers are finalized, once your employee barcode has been slapped on that innocuous looking pink slip, well, your fate is sealed.
Kevin, in all his years at the company, has never parked on the far side of the lot. He has never even come close to becoming Employee of the Year, even though he couldn’t sell a bottle of water to a man dying of dehydration. He is sleaze incarnate and doesn’t even have the charisma to mask it.
I never understood how he did so well, but I couldn’t afford to think about him.
I had myself to worry about, and the glitch in the system. Any time I found myself in the breakroom, that ancient wooden door was an unwelcome reminder of the impending one-way trip it held for me.
I took special care to keep an eye on my sales, working my ass off, pulling double shifts. I pulled up the numbers as the end of month drew near, and couldn't believe it.
I was still dead last.
Somehow, there were days where less than half of my sales had been recorded to my employee number.
I didn’t understand.
I waited for the opportunity to sneak into the manager's office, and pull the footage myself.
I’d show the boss that something had gone wrong with the calculations, that the system was broken.
I finally got my chance. At first, I triumphantly watched myself make sale after sale – far more than had been credited to my account. For the first time in a month, I felt a sense of relief. I had evidence, and that had to count for something.
I switched feeds, to the camera nearer to the registers so I could confirm that the codes were being scanned. I'd seen several scanned successfully, and reached to turn off the recording. That's when I saw it.
Saw him.
Kevin.
It was subtle. I didn't realize what he was doing at first, until I recognized the pattern. Even then, I had to rewind and watch again for it to click.
It happened for nearly half of my sales that day. I saw him Intercepting the customers before they could check out – before I could get credit for my sales. And while he chatted them up, he discretely slapped his employee barcode over my own.
I confronted him that night – I was furious. He just smiled, smugly gave me that line about how the barcodes never lie.
He didn’t give a shit that he was sentencing someone else to death.
Hell, maybe he even enjoyed it.
Kevin had stolen credit for Gina’s sales – and god knows who else's.
Fucking. Kevin.
The day our numbers were to be finalized, he had the audacity to place his barcode over mine on a huge sale I’d made – he made no attempt at hiding it – right in front of me. He flashed me a grin as he did.
I caught up with the customers before they checked out and they kindly allowed me to peel the sticker off. I stuck it in my pocket to show my manager.
I pulled the video, too, and I stormed into his office, refused to leave until he watched it. I studied him as his eyes moved across the screen and if he was upset or shocked, he certainly didn't show it.
Finally, he met my eyes, and at the sight of the pain in his – well, for the first time, I felt a sense of relief.
Until I realized why he looked so miserable. Until he whispered, “I'm sorry, Graham. Someone has to receive that award tomorrow. It's out of my hands.”
I wordlessly handed him that damn barcode sticker of Kevin’s that I’d peeled off. He studied it for a long moment before he handed it back to me with a mere, “Why don't you hold onto this.”
I told Elise what had happened over lunch, and as much as I appreciated her outrage on my behalf, I was already resigned to it. I'd mainly wanted to warn her because I had a sick feeling she'd be the one Kevin went after next.
I'd be lying if I said I wasn't devastated when, that night, my boss called me into his office and informed me of the final standings. Yeah, I knew it was coming, but I guess it's just human nature to hold onto denial – hope – until the bitter end.
For what felt like an eternity, we stared at each other in silence. The presence of the pink slip of paper lying on the desk between us, said more than enough.
Finally, my eyes drifted down to the form.
He’d already signed, but the space where my barcode – the series of vertical lines spelling out my death sentence – should’ve been placed, was empty.
I never knew how this part went, since it always took place behind closed doors. No one that ever filled out that form lived to tell the rest of us about it.
“I need you to place a barcode here before I send the form to corporate.” he said, eventually.
I opened my mouth for one final, impassioned plea for my life, but he interrupted me. He spoke each word slowly, softly.
“I’m leaving the room now. I need you to place a barcode here, before I send the form to corporate.”
He stared at me for a long moment, waiting for my barely perceptible nod of acknowledgement before leaving me alone in the office.
They processed the paperwork, and announced the Employee of the Year that next day.
Yes, I did feel a pang of guilt as I watched the smug grin fade, the blood drain from Kevin’s face as he stared in shock at the outstretched hand of our manager – as he was thanked for his devotion to our company.
I felt it again as I watched him plead all the way to the breakroom, as our manager spoke to him the same mantra we’d all heard before.
The barcodes never lie.
But I thought of Gina, of the countless others, and by the time I heard the door slam behind him – the guilt was already gone. In its place, the relief of knowing the rest of us were safe.
Well, at least until next year.

I came across this Quora answer for "Why does Kerala Government impose an economically worthless Malayalam in Kerala schools instead of making it as an optional language because a Malayali cannot get lucrative employment by learning Malayalam?" from this post.
The answer is a lengthy one, and may seem irrelevant to the title "How is time perceived in Telugu?", but please keep reading, I have my questions at the end of the post...

This question reminds me of a story of the Roman emperor Vespasian. One day, an inventor visited the emperor and showed him the blueprint of a mechanism that could transport columns and beams to a construction site quickly and without any manual labor. This brilliant machine could've kickstarted industrial revolution 1700 years before it actually happened. But much to the inventor's shock, Vespasian turned him down, saying “my people need jobs, our slaves need jobs. If the machine does all the work, our people will be jobless. Our slaves would get free time to organize themselves and would start revolts”.
Vespasian feared that the new technology was ‘economically worthless', as it would make people and slaves jobless and send the country into total chaos. In short, he was technologically shortsighted. The inability to foresee what technology could bring to his people in the long run pulled him down. He was deluded by the fragile nature of the economy and had no idea how to rebuild it if this revolutionary mechanism would be allowed to operate.
This was the reason why ancient Rome was never industrialized, despite having a lot of excellent inventors and engineers. Those in power were worried about the unemployment a sudden revolutionary idea would create and failed to accept how beneficial this would be for the people in the long run.
The reason for narrating this story is that it is remarkably similar to the dilemma mentioned in the question. Vespasian thought, “allocating resources to inventive technology instead of manual labor is economically worthless since people and slaves won't get lucrative jobs”.
Replace ‘manual labor' by ‘English' and ‘inventive technology' by ‘Malayalam', and you get our question.
“Allocating resources to English instead of Malayalam is economically worthless since people and slaves won't get lucrative jobs”.
Likewise, English persists as the language of official usage for most jobs not because Malayalam is incompetent or inefficient, but because the current ‘system' revolves around English. That makes Malayalam seem like a burden on students, with no economic worth. An engineer who does all his learning from foreign textbooks and uses English terminology has no lucrative use of Malayalam. A software developer who needs to know all computer-related terms in English has no use of Malayalam. The same goes for an accountant, a doctor, a clerk, and pretty much all ‘white collar' jobs you can think of. Even those who might benefit from learning Malayalam like historians or linguists might consider English infinitely more useful since most of the written books and research work on those fields are in English. There is enough reason for people to think that spending government resources for teaching Malayalam is worthless like how Vespasian thought that appreciating technology was worthless.
But time proved Vespasian wrong, although by sheer luck. Christianity replaced Paganism as the dominant religion in Europe. Since slavery is forbidden in Christianity, European kingdoms started banning it. Feudalism and class based labor also started declining as the plague wiped out significant fractions of each class and as the military shifted from armies to professional fighters, thereby weakening the nobility’s hold on power. With the lack of a powerful ruling class to impose and manage heavy manual labor, the stage was finally set for a technological revolution and the industrial revolution finally began in Europe, 1700 years after Vespasian.
Some of you might be doubtful of comparing the case of English vs Malayalam with manual labor vs automated machines. Are they even comparable in the first place?
Industrial revolution made life easier for people because it freed people from the heavy manual labor and made it possible for them to spend more time for their personal development. Likewise, teaching in Malayalam instead of English would make people engage more with their personal and cultural lives. Teaching lessons of science and history in English forbids Malayalis from using them in their lives. This is because these two languages are different at a fundamental level since they belong to two different language families. If you are a Malayalam speaker and you learn science and history in English, it'll be impossible for you to use them in your daily lives because you conceptualize the world around you in completely different ways while you speak or think in these two languages. In linguistics, this changing of cognitive metaphors while using different languages is known as code-switching.
Let me share my own experience. I studied in Malayalam medium in primary and high school. Hence my way of understanding science and history is through Malayalam's (or Dravidian) cognitive metaphors. Those who study in English or other related languages like German, Persian or Hindi would use the Indo-European cognitive metaphors. Once I started reading books in English, I started to realize how different these are.
Let us take time for example.
How an English speaker views time
Speakers of Indo-European languages like English and Hindi conceptualize time as a long line through which you move at a steady rate. Your past is the segment behind you and your future lies in front of you. Time is a one-dimensional straight line in Indo-European languages (the only exceptions are Italic and Hellenic branches. They see time as a growing volume instead of a long line).
This is why these languages describe the duration of events as either “long” or “short”, which represent the length of a line segment.
Consider the statement “I've been waiting for a long time”.
The italicised part, translated into different Indo-European languages would be:
English (Germanic) : “ long time”
Sanskrit (Indo-Aryan) : “dīrghakāla”
Hindi (Indo-Aryan) : “lambi der”
Persian (Iranian) : “moddat zamân tulâni”
Lithuanian (Baltic) : “ilgas laikas”
Irish (Celtic) : “tamall fada”
All those words indicated with bold letters are synonym for “long”. The same could be observed for events with less duration. All these languages use the adjective “short”, just as what you might expect from their way of perceiving time as a horizontal line.
Hence many words describing events associated with time like emotions in these languages are derived from roots that mean “long” or “short”. The English words “longing” (from ‘long') and “hope” (ultimately from Greek ‘kúptō' (to bend forward) ) are examples.
(By the way, there are two slightly different variants of the Indo-European concept of time. This video explains it beautifully with a riddle)
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How a Malayalam speaker views time
Speakers of Dravidian languages like Malayalam have a much more sophisticated three-dimensional view of time. For Malayalis, the passage of time is vertically upwards, not to the front. Also, time isn't a single line here. Multiple vertical lines of progression of time arise from the two dimensional patches of land. In Malayalam, this two-dimensional ‘area' or patch of time is known as “pāḍu” (പാട്) which literally means “a bounded area” (hence the adjectives like “orupāḍu” and “appāḍe”). Related events that take place at a particular location are visualized as multiple vertical lines growing from that patch. A different place or a different person would be visualized as a different patch with its own vertical growths.
You have to be a Dravidian speaker to fully understand this. Imagine a set of events.
If it is the same event occurring over and over again, it is perceived as looping around a small vertical segment over and over again. In Malayalam language, this corresponds to the adjective ഒത്തിരി (ottiri) - literally “many turns/loops” (root ‘tiru' - turn/spin).
If that set of events represent a growing process or emotion, it is perceived as a line that grows vertically. In Malayalam, the adjective in this case is ഏറെ (ēṟe) - literally “climbing up/ascending” or വളരെ (vaḷare) -literally “growing upwards”.
If those events are concurrent yet different, they are perceived as multiple vertical growths originating from the same patch on the plane. In Malayalam, the adjective is ഒരുപാടു (orupāḍu) - literally “an area of” (‘pāḍu' - a bounded area).
If those events are completely independent, then they exist in different patches and the adjective പല (pala) is used.
In short, a Malayalam speaker has four different ways of translating something like “a long time”, depending on how the person spent that time. If they spent that time by counting sea waves, they might say “ottiri nēram”. If the time was spent, say, by building a sand castle, they might say “ēṟe nēram”, and if they were doing many different things, they might say “orupāḍu nēram”.
This is true in the case of other Dravidian languages as well. For example, in Kannada, the word ಪಿರಿ (piri) - heightened/advanced - (now mostly displaced by the loanword ಬಹಳ (bahaḷa)) would correspond to Malayalam “ēṟe” and ತುಂಬಾ (tumbā) - literally, a crowd of/amassed - would correspond to Malayalam “orupāḍu”. A Kannada speaker would say “bahaḷa samaya” for the time spent for building a sand castle and “tumbā samaya” for the time spent for doing multiple things
(However, in some Dravidian languages, this way of visualizing time has been replaced by the Indo-European linear time because of Sanskrit imperialism. But that is a different story.)
In short, as a Malayalam speaker, I conceptualize my entire life in front of me. My brain visualizes all the places I've been to and the people I've interacted with as different patches (pāḍu), each one having multiple vertical segments that grow or add a new one each time I visit again. However, when I speak or learn in English or Hindi, it is completely changed and I'm forced to visualize time and events to be part of a long line with my past behind me and my future in front of me. This switching of conceptual metaphors is known as code-switching in cognitive linguistics.
This means that I as a bilingual describe an event that happened the day before yesterday as “two days back” in English and “raṇḍụ nāḷ munpu” in Malayalam. Here, “munpu” means “frontside” and back means, backside. For an English speaker, the past lies as the line segment behind them (back), and for a Malayalam speaker, the past is a patch that is much further to the front than the one they are in at present. Notice how the concept of past flips completely with the change of language.
Think of English's concept of time as a long railway track with a train (representing the person) passing through it and Malayalam’s concept of time as a sugarcane field with multiple patches of land having a bunch of upwards growing stems.
The reason for describing all this is to highlight how different the perception of events are in these two languages. And remember that we have considered only time. Nearly all abstract concepts are visualized differently in unrelated languages. A Dravidian’s world is completely different from that of an Indo-European.
Now let us come back to the original question. What happens if a Malayalam speaker is given education only in English? The result is, they could never use the science and history they learn in their personal and cultural lives. Personal and cultural aspects would be pictured in one way and things that they learn at school would be visualized in the other way. This means that all those things would be useful only for earning money or doing research and they would be useless for their personal growth and the cultural development of the society.
In fact, this is exactly what is happening in Kerala now. All those highly educated people conceptualize the world in the Indo-European way thanks to being educated in English or sanskrit-imposed Malayalam while the common people view the world with the classic Dravidian metaphors. This stunts the growth in cultural, political, religious and scientific fileds in Kerala.
Not to mention that English's concept of time is much too simple and inefficient for describing things and when it comes to fields intricately connected to time like history or biological evolution, it often fails miserably. I recently wrote an an answer on how the public perception of evolution is incorrect and horribly misleading. In fact, the visualization of time as a simple long line is one of the reasons for this. This metaphor is much too simple to handle a complex probabilistic theory like evolution.
However, for someone who learned evolution in Malayalam, it would be a much more sophisticated process and it would be easier to visualize it without being misguided. Learning in Malayalam is much more efficient and productive in this case. I consider myself lucky for having had most of my schooling in Malayalam medium thanks to which I routinely apply the things I've learned in all aspects of my life.
So, to summarize,
Malayalam being economically worthless is a reality of the present, but it is not so because Malayalam is inefficient or unproductive in usage. As we saw here, educating in Malayalam is actually necessary for the learned things to be put into practice in life and society. It is just that the current system uses English and a total change would require nothing less than a revolution. Nevertheless, the cost of not educating kids in Malayalam is huge, as it leads to a stagnation in cultural, religious, political, and scientific aspects of Kerala.

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I wanted to share this answer here too and wanted to discuss about its points (specifically how different people view time).
How Telugu language and Telugus view time? Does it differ by dialects? Did Sanskrit influence this part of Telugu? What other things does Telugu perceive in a different manner compared to other languages?

This means that I as a bilingual describe an event that happened the day before yesterday as “two days back” in English and “raṇḍụ nāḷ munpu” in Malayalam. Here, “munpu” means “frontside” and back means, backside.

The one aspect I recognised which I use in Telugu like "rendu dinalu mundu" (Two days ago).

For example, in Kannada, the word ಪಿರಿ (piri) - heightened/advanced - (now mostly displaced by the loanword ಬಹಳ (bahaḷa)) would correspond to Malayalam “ēṟe” and ತುಂಬಾ (tumbā) - literally, a crowd of/amassed - would correspond to Malayalam “orupāḍu”. A Kannada speaker would say “bahaḷa samaya” for the time spent for building a sand castle and “tumbā samaya” for the time spent for doing multiple things

The another aspect I recognised which we use in Telugu like "chala samayam" / "chala sepu" ("tumba" in Kannada means "more")
Edit: Many people are saying time is perceived as quantity in Telugu and I too think the same, but then, why do we say "rendu dinalu mundu"? "mundu" means front as far as I know. If Telugu considers time to be a quantity, then why do we say "mundu" (front) to refer something in past. Does "mundu" have any other meaning? The same trend can be observed in Tamil and Kannada too.
Also, what are some other terms used in Telugu related to time?