Ham multiband base antennas

Hi everyone,
I'm trying to figure out the length of the cable that connects the RTS antenna to the base of the Luba 2. I've looked through various online resources but can't seem to find this information. Could someone help me out?
Thanks in advance!
Cheers,

At the time of this post 145 thousand people are still without power going on almost 6 days without power. Tornado wiped out our power grid in select areas throughout Texas (I believe the number was about 800 thousand people got hit without power). Here's some things I learned and a situation report of my experience living with a very large family of mixed ages.
Context: We had been getting hit with some pretty gnarly weather however business as usual in Texas. I didn't think much of it usually when our grids down they're pretty quick to respond minus the snow storm years back. So when I heard there was a storm brewing I didn't even flinch I always keep some very very basics, battery's, lights, water, 2 weeks minimum of non perishable foods, self defense protection, and ammo, etc. But I hardly consider myself a prepper anymore, but I know some people don't even have that.
I use to be really on top of my preps overtime, however my stockpile had dwindled, as did my thirst for knowledge and hands on experience/training. I just honestly wasn't on top of my game anymore, and quit taking this as serious years ago. This tornado really brought me back to reality, so this post is mostly for entry level preppers looking at some practical advice from a 5 day experience, I fully regret the fact I quit taking this serious years ago.
First Day: Around 6pm, emergency alert on phone stating tornado in your area, seek shelter immediately. Thought ok let's shelter in the master bedroom closet. Wind rocked the house pretty good, could hear limbs from tree's falling, within about 10 minutes the power shuts off, and glancing outside within a hour the streets flooded. The storm had died down, as did the flooding, and it was time to asses the damage in the immediate area. Got in the car, power had blown out pretty much every store/house within a several mile zone. Found one square zone with a few places that had power, got some fast food but waited about 30 minutes because everyone went there.
What I wish I had on day one/ and general notes:
Rain boots: The streets had not only flooded but was blocked by limbs in the roadway. Luckily our flooding wasn't too severe but had it been I wish I did have rainboots so normal shoes didn't get soaked, or some type of beach sandals, etc.
Chainsaw, electric saw, axes, regular saw: Would of come in handy if the limbs in our area blocking the road were any bigger.
Higher up vehicles: Some vehicles couldn't make it through the flood due to being so low to the ground, so take into account your vehicles.
More variety of quality flashlights: Electric Lanterns came in clutch, but wish I had more handhelds, head mounted, and higher end lanterns.
Battery Inventory checks: Wish I had not only more batteries cause you really do burn through these quick, but wish I had checked all my lights battery condition, and stored new batteries in waterproof containers.
Alternative sources to battery's: Not a huge fan of candles due to fire risk, but some not scented beeswax or soy based candles would of came in handy to help ration battery supply. Maybe glass lanterns as well for safety and ease of transport. Glowsticks would of been great option too.
Car chargers: Believe it or not some of us didn't have car chargers for our cell phones cause we mostly charge our phones at home, although we were able to share, wish we had this on day one for all our phones.
Fully charged portable battery bank, or portable phone chargers: If we had this we wouldn't of been out in our cars late at night charging stuff putting us at more risk for being possible victims to crime.
Quality of cell phone, and cellphone provider: Have a POS phone but keep putting off upgrading it? Don't. Luckily mine was good but some of our cellphone providers carriers had better signal then others, some of are phones were in bad shape and it was noted we wish we didn't put off upgrading it sooner. You can't predict how well your provider will do but maybe do your research, unsure how this works but now I can do my research and learn from it. I had 0 issues with boost mobile but other family members weren't so lucky.
Cash: This is obvious but due to us moving towards a cashless society its pretty uncommon, but this would of came in handy due to how many places didn't have power. You can do so much with cash.
Battery powered or rechargeable camping fans: I did have one of these, it even had a light but wish I had more.
Larger ice chest: Now we had a few, but they were smaller. We lost everything in our fridge/freezer besides canned drinks, I mean everything. We had just bought grocery's too, lesson learned.
OTC sleeping medication: We had melatonin, and Tylenol pm, but it was so quiet you could hear a mouse sneeze a block over, until the generators turned on. First two are OK options but given its only going to be cool at night, and we knew tomorrow would be hot, we took kratom to sleep. Check your area some states it's illegal, not recommending it but it's what we used. I wish I had stockpiled more kratom, I took it when I got the flu on top of C word to relieve body aches and found out it really helped me sleep and ease pain/stress. Usually cycle this 3 days on max, one day off to prevent habit forming.
(This is really for day two + but ill post this here cause I noticed it on day one)
Backup supply of my personal vices or quitting personal vices: I know this may sound stupid but I am fully addicted to caffeine, and nicotine. I picked my poison and know what I signed up for. Caffeine really? yeah really not sure if you know this but for some people caffeine withdrawal can make you really suffer, and I mean really suffer check out decaf. I was in the process of lowering my caff intake to 1 cup of tea a day, and quit soda. Was one month off soda before the storm came in, but had to relapse due to us not carrying high caff tea on supply.
But yeah stock up on your vices so you aren't going through withdrawals during an emergency. Was on 3mg per ml of nicotine and had to dish out 30$ for a disposable vape thats 50mg per ml at a gas station on day two to prevent withdrawals. So I was on way higher dose of nic then usual due to only being able to purchase what I could find, for reference 50mg per ml if you use that in 10 days thats about a pack of ciggs worth of nic per day. So yeah either quit your vice or stock up, I don't advocate hard drugs at all so this isn't for that but this is mainly aimed at coffee/caff use, etc. Instant coffee packs may be great for some people.
Battery powered radio: Can't stress enough how mentally taxing silence can be long term. We had one, but the battery port crapped out. Lesson learned, test your preps.
Backup food for your pet friends: Luckily I was pretty good on pet food but imagine if I wasn't, and this was more severe.
Water situation: Had a decent amount of drinking water, we had running water. If we didn't I would say I wish I had filled up the giant jugs I bought for flushing the toilet/doing dishes or running through a berkey water filter if we ran out of drinking water. I had bought 5 gallon blue jugs specifically for this years back. However I cleaned them out, and didn't refill, Lesson learned.
2nd Day: We were able to cook some stuff on a gas stove, luckily. People at gas stations were stocking up on ice, filling their gas cans up for their generators, and shelves were getting empty at stores with power only on some things though wasn't too bad cause the power outage was scattered some had power, others didn't. Mostly a waiting game at this point, most of the preps I wish I had on this day were the same as day one, but ill toss in some stuff I wish I had. Obtained a portable battery powered radio, the morale boost was real for everyone, even the dogs.
What I wish I had on day two/ and general notes:
BBQ style lighters to light gas stove: We had two but recently tossed em out due to being empty. Realized I had no bics, and only had one box of matches, feels bad man.
Entertainment: Board games like checkers, board games for kids, chess, basic poker set, etc. These would of been awesome and a great way to keep the kids entertained and the adults, the boredom was real. We hit local goodwill's that had power to look for radios, and cheap prep supplies and games, but no luck.
Third day: By then reality set in for most people, neighbors who could afford to do so booked hotels or bugged out to places with power. The generators really started up by day three, everyone was buying gas for them and you could hear them in almost every direction. Pretty sure some people had it from the start but noticed them more by day three. A lot of people were sitting outside the front of their homes trying to escape the heat. Ice from most places were completely sold out, so you had to really shop around to find any.
Finding news about the power outage day 1-3 was kind of hit and miss, KHOU news updates were pretty short and it took us some time to know how severe the storms damage actually was, cause we were focused on trying to get stuff done around the house and conserving battery. I believe at one point CenterPoint's actual website went down. Mostly resulted to local news channels, and nextdoor app. We couldn't watch live news and had to rely on when KHOU posted youtube videos.
Private security company's hired guards and they started patrolling certain stores that could afford the security, obviously to deter looters. Traffic everywhere was insane in every which direction during peak hours more then usual, PD presence was pretty high, more then usual.
What I wish I had on day three/ and general notes:
Generator: Pretty obvious why, had no experience with them but wish I did, and wish I bought one pre-blackout when I was more into prepping and took time to learn about them and how to use and maintain them properly.
Ham radio: Or something to pick up on local freqs to monitor radio comms for information regarding the storm and local activity if any. I think this may of been better then waiting on local news to post videos.
Day Four: Buddy had power so he dropped off his generator and gave me quick instructions on how to run it, how far away to place them, etc. By day four the temps really ramped up, and this thing definitely kept us cool. When you think of bartering you think of some post apocalypse stuff, but no. In reality you can barter during any emergency, buddy dropped it off free of charge but was able to offer some booze as a thank you. So even if you don't drink stock up on booze/ciggs to barter, never know what you might trade it for. Times are tough in this economy and I honestly didn't have much money to spare, family had to pool our funds together to get last minute preps to survive this, cause we didn't know how long this would really last. In certain areas they said it could be weeks. However the alcohol was a small thank you that I could afford and he was happy so all worked out.
Gas cans were sold out, and extension cord supply's were looking extremely low at local hardware store. From what I overheard they also completely sold out of generators. Honestly wish I knew more about electrical stuff but my buddy gave me a small crash course in wiring everything. You can't just plug it in and pray for the best. Bought the best gauge extensions cords I could afford for our needs, and the distance and hooked it up.
We ran one bedroom AC unit, fans for the dogs, wired a light, and a charging station. Also don't cheap out on gas cans it's not worth blowing your face off or starting a fire, or having it leak. If you get a generator do your research on how to properly run it, and safely fill it. Crime in this area can be fairly high we've had a few drive by shootings and other not so good police involved things. Read this book along time ago about post collapse security, so I blacked out our windows so when we turned lights on no one knew we had power. You may hear the generator, but from the street we look like we don't have anything going for us. My biggest fear was looters from people who were less fortunate or really down bad. We near a common site for homeless people as well so they foot traffic the area.
Generators are very loud, between that and listening to the radio 12 hours a day, I was beginning to audio hallucinate lyrics that weren't there with the radio off, and suffered from heat exhaustion. That and the fact we had homeless in our area and tweekers who might loot I was running off adrenaline a bit. 24 hours almost that night without sleep, and didn't even feel tired. Slept near my firearm until my family woke up at daylight and when daylight hit I knew we were in the clear and I passed out.
What I wish I had on day fou and general notes:
Knowledge of generators.
Knowledge about electricity/wiring them safely.
Security: Some type of physical alarm bell to put on the door like metal door knob alarm bells so it jingles if anyone enters to alert the dogs, had to keep the door slightly cracked so the wires hooked up to the generator would fit. So we couldn't lock the door, which is probably where my anxiety of tweekers coming in came from.
Day Five: Same shit different day, power came on that evening.
Conclusion: Just cause it doesn't look like societal collapse or WW3 prep your shit for emergency's native to your area or go beyond, idc but prep. They ain't coming to help for awhile, or at all if it's very severe...so it's up to you and your community to pull through. This was a wake up call, thanks for coming to my prep talk.

I was thinking about a flag pole with a weighted 50lb base since the little spikes the rtk comes with don't give me confidence. Would it be ok if i get a 20 feet flagpole and just mount the rtk antenna to that?

First Chapter. Link for all the chapters available here: Engines of Arachnea on Royal Road
They made for the hillock that Rene had seen earlier that day. It was the closest bit of high ground they had seen, and it had hatched the beginnings of a cruel idea in his mind, one that he wished to turn into reality.
“Stay close to me,” he told Zildiz as they strode, “We stand a better chance of living through this if we act as a unit.”
“A unit of what?” she inquired, puzzled by his use of the word, “Weight, length or time?”
“No, it means that we should work together,” he tried to explain, quickening his pace to a light jog. The hunting parties had gone silent—they hadn’t the talk of their drums in ages. The quiet was somehow more unnerving than the screams.
“We watch each other’s backs,” he continued, running along a fallen log, “It’s a sort of code we Pathfinders have. No man or woman dies alone.”
Try telling that to Lethway, said a snide voice in his head.
“I have no wish to die alongside you, Fleet-man.”
“That’s not what I…ah, never mind. Here,” Rene handed her back her severed blades, “As promised.”
How had these people ever managed to survive this long? Zildiz wondered as she held her weapons again, manually sheathing them in her arms. It was like taking sugarcane from a baby.
The fog was thinning noticeably. They had forded the river and reached the base of the hillock when they heard another shout from the southwest, sounding much closer this time. The drums began to speak again, the music almost keeping time with Rene’s triphammering heartbeat. Rene led them round the flank of the rise into a deep gully, trying to use the terrain to hide their movements.
“How’s their sense of smell, Zildiz?” he asked her as they picked their way up a pebbly, bone-dry creek. Rene hopped across the boulders and offered her his arm for assistance.
“Depends on the Leaper and their grafted organs,” she told him, leaping past him and pointedly ignoring his efforts at playing the gentleman, “But they are all excellent trackers. They will find us. It is inevitable.”
“Aye, but we’ll be ready for em by then. Hopefully,” Rene added with certain lack of conviction, “To be frank, I don’t know a power on this earth that can stop that horde we saw earlier.”
“They will not use the creatures of the jungle against us. The warband that is hunting us now cannot be larger than thirty to fifty braves.”
“And you know this how?”
Zildiz said nothing. She was under no obligation to tell a child of the Betrayers of the Vitalus’ capabilities. The more creatures the Leapers involved in this secret hunt, the greater the chances that the Vitalus would discover their violation of the truce. It would be a small and private war, and that suited her down to the ground.
She felt stronger now and surer of her footing, as if the chase had breathed new life into her muscles and lungs. Why, she felt as if she could fight a dozen Leapers. Either her innards had adjusted to the workload or her exomorph was regaining some of its functions. She dashed ahead, rejoicing in the steel-spring action of her sinews. The weak-spined Rene, on the other hand, was dawdling below her in the creek, up to some foolishness as usual.
He had stopped to gather fistfuls of gravel which he stuffed into his socks and pockets until they bulged. He even opened his kit and crammed pebbles in the loose corners of the case.
“Hurry up,” she called to him, speaking softly now that danger was close.
“I’d have to agree with Zildiz here, tovarisch,” Exar chimed in, “Now’s not the best time to be gathering mineral samples.”
Rene shook his head and refused to explain. After some minutes of the uphill marching, he spoke to Exar, saying:
“This high enough for you?”
“Ten more meters above sea level should do it.”
They were almost at the summit of the landmass, in a grove of benguet pines and thin pygmy dipterocarps growing amid a hardscrabble sand. On the right shoulder of the hill were the clusters of fire gourd trees whose seeds he had mistaken for cannon fire, the ground plastered with dried-up foam. Beyond this stretched a scorched and blasted hellscape of blackened, dead trees.
“We don’t have ten more meters,” Rene said, “That is, unless…”
He craned his neck to see the tops of the pines, which had straight smooth trunks and sported no lower limbs to grab onto. Most were stunted and malnourished by the poor soil, but at least one of the adults looked like a good candidate. It would be hard climbing.
“It’s times like these that I wish these commercial kits still came with thruster packs,” Exar said regretfully, “But all those models got phased out. Budget cuts, whatcha gonna do, eh?”
“What’s a thruster pack?”
“Never heard of one? That’s funny,” Exar paused as if he had come to a sudden realization, “That’s real funny, you sayin that…”
Rene unsheathed the monomachete and emptied his kit of all gear except for the panel and the allcomm antenna. He cut out some footholds with the monomachete and began his ascent. Rene nearly made it to the top without making the mistake of looking down. As it was, he risked a peek at Zildiz gawping up at him all the way down there and nearly swooned, his scrotum tightening round his pearls like the jaws of death. He clamped the sword of the ancients between his teeth and bit down hard to steady himself.
“Join the Pathfinders, they said,” he growled around the bare metal, “See the sights and look pretty for the girls, they said. What was I flipping thinking?”
He swung up to the slender upper boughs and carefully wedged the solar panel amid the branches, angling it so that it caught the weakening gaze of the suns. Then he balanced the allcomm antenna and its tripod on the uppermost twigs and hooked up the cabling.
“Good work, bhaisap,” Exar said when it began to rotate, “I’ll start transmitting our coordinates to any and all stations while getting a fix on our position.”
“Splendid. Say, you’ve got some nice sight lines up here, Exar.”
From where he stood Rene could see for leagues around in all directions, and he kept his eyes peeled for movement.
There! Specters gliding above the murk, twenty or so klicks out and moving fast. A hoarse scream from the east confirmed his worst suspicions: the Leapers knew exactly where they were. The cannibals were hemming them in, herding Rene and Zildiz they had done with the army of beasts. He could imagine them spreading out in a wide crescent whose horns would envelop the hill from both sides.
Rene estimated that he had little more than an hour to prepare.
“Exar, could I ask you to be our lookout from up here?”
“Thy wish is my command. A la mi presente, al vostra signori, as they used to say.”
As who used to say? Rene thought. Much of what the sphere said tended to be incomprehensible. Rene unfastened the sphere and Exar extended his spike legs to fix himself in place.
“But wouldn’t it be safer for you to stay up top with me?” Exar pointed out.
“Yes, it would. For them,” Rene replied with as much false bravado as he could dredge up. Scattering pines and bark shavings, he slid back down and ran over to the stand of fire gourds. To his relief some of the fruit on the outlying trees furthest from the blaze had not gone off. Rene reached up and picked as many of the gourds as he could fit in his arms. He carried them back to the pines, making several trips to amass a sizable collection.
Zildiz had her swords out and was cooly sharpening them one against the other.
“So they’ve finally run us down,” she said in a flat tone, “Are you ready?”
“Not quite,” Rene said shortly.
He began the project by arranging his other components. Spool of webbing, check. Socks full of pebbles, check. Gauntlet, check.
“Exar, how much longer till our rescue gets here?” he hollered up at the sphere.
“I’ve hailed a shuttle from one of the toroidal stations. ETA 128 minutes.”
“You’ll have those minutes,” Rene promised him, then spoke to Zildiz, “Heads up, Gallivant. From this moment on, our sole objective is to hold off the enemy for at least two hours. We live or die on this hill. Get me?”
“Brave words. And how do you intend to back them up?”
“With the help of a little friend I call firepower,” Rene said, getting right to work. He wound the silk around one of the sloshing gourds until it was sticky all over, then took fistfuls of gravel from his socks, densely studding the fruit with them. Rene held up the finished prototype and grinned evilly. All in all, it had taken him less than five minutes to put it together.
Defensive tactics required careful selection and preparation of the ground. Half the battle was won if one could dictate where the fighting took place.
Pathfinders were scouts above all else and did not specialize in fighting sieges. Rene tried his best anyway, choosing a spot among the pygmy pines and with a deep ravine on his right and a spread of open ground some twenty meters wide and sixty long on his left where nothing grew but itchy buffalo grasses. At his back was a sheer bluff, only four meters tall or so, but still a solid feature upon which to anchor his defense. He placed the prototype in the center of the field and ran back, going prone behind a shallow bank of earth and taking up his gauntlet.
“Come on,” he pleaded with it, training the beam on the gourd’s hard shell, “Sing for daddy…”
Nothing happened for a long moment. Rene blinked; the gourd had abruptly disappeared. In the next instant, shards of shell and rock and specks of foam lacerated the air above his position, ricocheting off the hard cliff face. Rene clapped his hands to his ringing ears and got up. Inspecting his position, he found the bank of earth studded with his improvised shrapnel and arrowhead-shaped seeds.
“Pop! Goes the weasel!” he shouted, overjoyed by the result, “That ought to ruin someone’s day.”
Link for all the chapters available here: Engines of Arachnea on Royal Road

First of all, I wanted to thank everyone for their kind words and support from the last post. A lot has happened since then, and a bunch of context is needed, so I hope you'll bear with me as I explain the details.
***
Back during the peak of the blinking crisis, I remember having a lot of difficulty sleeping. It was common for me to average only four or five hours a night, and the little sleep I did get was marred by terrible nightmares. One in particular recurred many times.
I was only eight, but somehow I was in the driver's seat of our family's old SUV. My arms were long enough to steady the wheel, but my legs didn't quite meet the pedals. It didn't matter though, since the car seemed content to continue on at a constant pace. I looked over and saw my mom in the passenger seat. Her face was a blurry likeness pieced together from the dozen or so picture's I'd seen of her over the years. I tried to bring her into focus, not only because I missed her dearly, but because she was speaking—pleading, even. She waved frantically at me, then brought her leg up and slammed it down on the floor mat several times. I didn't understand what had her so upset until she pointed out the front windshield, and I saw we were hurdling directly toward a giant tree that had fallen in the middle of the road.
Panicking, I stomped for the brake, but my seatbelt protested and pulled me back like an invigorated dog on a short leash. I sat up and tried clicking it off, but it wouldn't budge. My breaths became hollow cries, and I felt my heart beat against the bars of its bony prison. I grabbed the steering wheel and pulled it to the left, then right, attempting to swerve off the road, but it was as if whatever kind of glue was locking up the seatbelt was also fixing the steering wheel in place.
"Mom! what do I do!?" I yelled, tears streaming from my eyes. She was yelling back at me, but it was as if there was a divider between us, and neither of us could hear each other. I turned back just in time to see the giant Oak tree meet the front bumper, and then I jolted awake with a piercing pain in my chest that radiated up through my throat in the form of a giant scream. My little legs kicked under the covers and tears rained down on my pillow until my dad ran in and knelt at my bed.
"Lauren, are you okay? Did you have a bad dream?"
I grabbed my pillow and hugged it so my face was covered, then effused a "Mmm-hmm" in a long wheeze while rocking to either side.
"Oh, honey," he soothed and brushed my hair, then the tears from my face when I would allow it.
Time would pass in silence, and when I began to get the sense that my dad was ready to leave, I'd chirp out, "stay" in that way children do when they're embarrassed about wanting something.
"Always," my dad would reply; then he'd post up on the floor with my large tomato plushie as a pillow.
One night in particular, it was deep in the night, and I had woken to a tapping sound outside my window. I was so afraid that a monster had snuck into my room while I wasn't looking that I made him lay next to me and face outward. I'd peek my eyes open every minute or so to check and make sure my dad was there, staking out the room. Eventually, he rolled in close and said something that I still remember to this day.
"Hey, baby, guess what." he whispered.
"Mmm" I mumbled.
"I think you scared the monster away."
I tried to picture this through the fog of my fatigue. Something seemed off about the statement, like it wasn't logically possible, but before I could piece together the words to express that, my dad cut back in.
"It was scared because it realized you're a superhero. And you know what your greatest superpower is?"
I shook my head, making sure to rub my forehead against his shoulder so he could sense it in the dark room.
"You're greatest power is that you get to tell the monsters what to do. Because the monsters are only as strong as the stories you tell about them. And there's all kinds of stories. Happy ones. Sad ones. Scary ones. Tell me, this monster you think snuck in, would you say he's part of a scary story?"
"I don't know," I said, confused. "Maybe"
"Hmm," he hummed, contemplating. "Well, I want you to remember this. You have the ability to tell any kind of story you want. Maybe there are monsters, but that means there's heroes and angels, too, right?"
I was beginning to doze off to the comforting sound of my dad's deep voice, but I gave another affirmative "Mm-hmm".
"So, if you're ever scared, honey, just dream up a better story. A story that will bring you peace. Do you understand?"
But I was already out.
***
I woke up the next morning to the feeling that someone was in the hotel room with me. The drapes were drawn and the only sound was the AC unit blowing cold air, but when I looked toward the dark corner of the empty coat rack, my mind conjured the face of my dad, smiling at me, chanting that same, awful line—Oh, Lauren… you know who we are.
I was no longer a child, but it took a couple minutes of cold focus before I muscled the courage to ascend from the safety of my covers and flick on the lamp light. The small amber radius extended to where my dad's feet would have been if he was standing there. But there was no one. I let out a sigh and collapsed back onto the mattress, thinking back on all those years growing up. The same man who had helped me conquer my fear of the dark was now the monster hiding in its shadow.
I looked over my shoulder and saw the clock read 10:15. My meeting with Trent was in three hours. I moaned and stretched my arms back until they knocked against the headboard, then I collapsed back onto the mattress, meditating, gathering energy like a compressed spring. All at once, I jumped up and glided over to the drapes, opening them in a single, fluid motion. I grimaced at the sunlight, but the warmth felt good against my face. I stopped by the nightstand and gulped down the final few swigs of a bottle of Mello Yello that I had purchased from a vending machine the previous night, then undressed and hopped in the shower.
The warm water wasn't enough to wash away the previous night's memories. When I closed my eyes to lather my hair, I was back in my living room, standing opposite the demon that had taken on my dad's form. His smile. His laugh. It was like someone in my head was flipping a switch between the man I loved growing up and a terrible monster. But the fear was more powerful. I heard something drop onto the tile floor on the other side of the curtain. The noise made me gasp, and I opened my eyes while shampoo was still streaming down my face. I swiped the shampoo out of my now burning eyes and squinted at the curtain, trying to see through it, but I couldn't make anything out. "I-is anyone," I started, trembling, afraid to finish the sentence. I reached out and pinched the end of the curtain. My heart was in overdrive. I swallowed, then pulled it toward me and peeked out. I scanned the room, but I couldn't see anything out of place.
It wasn't until after I finished showering and wound myself up in one of the hotel's too-small towels that I saw what had made the noise. I bent down and picked up the stub of a razor blade that had fallen onto the tile right next to the puffy, gray shower rug. It wasn't mine, and I was pretty sure hotels didn't keep unguarded razor blades just laying around. When I held it up, it occurred to me that if it had simply fallen a few inches to the left, it would have been buried in the rug, and perhaps I would have stepped on it. I stared at myself in its steely reflection. Cold. Lonely. Small. What if I—was all I was able to think before the blade blinked out of my hand.
I threw on some clothes, packed up the few belongings I had into my purse, then checked out of my room. I didn't feel safe going back home after what happened, but I also didn't want to go anywhere else. I got in my car and drove aimlessly up and down the town's streets, focusing only on the car ahead of me. Anytime I started to travel down an avenue of thought, I'd make a turn, or speed up, or hit the brakes: anything to keep my mind distracted. It was sweltering outside, but I'd turn the heat on for minutes at a time until I felt drenched, then toggle max AC until I was cool, then back to heat. I repeated the basic driving tenet "10 and 2", "10 and 2", "10 and 2" like a mantra—a chant to focus my attention on a single point, and then I pictured that point disappearing. I began to think that maybe I wanted to disappear.
I fully intended to keep going that way until 1:00, but after about thirty minutes, my meandering route had led me to St. Mark's Catholic Church, where a large group of people were gathered around a long line of tables in front of the building. I slowed down. At the front of the venue was a large, white cardboard sign which read, "Plant a Seed, Share the Joy". I wasn't sure what that meant, but my boredom had come to a head, and I rationalized that if there's any place on God's green earth that would be safe, it was this one. I parked along the closest side-street, then walked over to the church.
Rows of white tables were covered with cardboard boxes filled with small plants that were wrapped up in individual paper pots. I watched from a distance as people behind the tables carefully removed the plants, one by one, and offered them to passersby. I continued down the line, a sheep in the herd, and allowed myself to sink into childhood memories. I had somehow made it out the other end near the Narthex when I heard a woman's voice call to me.
"Hey, deary, have you gotten one yet?"
I turned and saw a small, gray-haired lady with rose-colored glasses. "Oh, no," I started, attempting to decline, then paused. The old lady grabbed one of the plants and held it out for me.
"Here," she said. "Come on, I won't bite."
As far as you know, I thought, and stumbled forward with a sigh. "Thanks," I said and took the plant. "What is this all for, anyway?"
"It's a giveaway," the old woman responded. "Staff have been growing these plants—tomatoes and garlic, mainly—so they could offer them to members of the Parish. The idea is to have the members grow the produce, then donate it to St. Mark's Food Pantry to give to those in need."
"Oh, that's actually pretty cool." I replied and inspected my plant which was at present nothing more than a small green stem. "So which kind is this one?"
"That one is—" the old lady stopped and inspected the other plants near where she had grabbed mine—"tomato."
"Tomato," I repeated. "Well, thanks again."
"Of course, dear." the old lady beamed. "We're all responsible for each other."
I nodded, then continued back through the crowd toward my car when, through the large vestibule windows, I saw a Priest speaking to a young couple. It had been a little over a decade since I had attended a service (I stopped going during High School when I started studying other religions), and I didn't recognize this Priest. He was short (just over five feet tall), bald, and African American. He wore the customary black robe and white collar, and there was something in his smile and the way seemed to be affirming the couple that made me yearn to speak with him. I considered for a moment, a bit embarrassed to be stepping back into church after all this time, but the thought of being able to burn ten minutes talking with someone who might have some insight into my situation was too tempting to pass up.
I waited near a portrait of Mary Magdalene, my tomato plant in hand, staring off at the pristine series of stained glass images portraying the death and resurrection of Jesus. About a minute in, the Priest met my eyes; he smiled, his way of telling me he knew I was waiting, then finished up with the couple and made his way over. He had a bit of an accent when he spoke—it was Ugandan, from best I could tell—and a proclivity for laughing at the end of his sentences.
"Hello, Miss, I don't believe I've had the privilege," he said and held out his hand. He leaned in as he spoke, and his smile tugged on the corners of his eyes which were already marked with use.
I shook his hand and returned what I'm sure was a weak smile. "No, I don't think so. My name's Lauren. I used to come here when I was little. It's—been a while."
"Well, I see you picked a good day to visit. If you're into gardening, that is." He remarked with a laugh and gestured toward the plant. "It's nice to meet you, Lauren. My name's Martin—Father Martin, if you prefer."
"Father Martin," I repeated, "I have a friend named Martin. It's a good name."
He laughed and said, "Thank you, I'll pass that one along to my mother. She loves the praise."
I laughed back. He carried himself in such a carefree way that I was put immediately at ease. Almost to the point where I forgot what I wanted to talk to him about. "Um," I started, attempting to word my question in a way that didn't sound like I needed psychiatric help. "I have a couple of religious questions for you, if you have time."
"That's what I'm for. Ask away."
"They're about… miracles. Like the ones in the Bible. I was wondering, do you think that miracles still happen today?"
"Miracles, huh," he started. "You mean like water into wine?"
"Kind of, yeah,"
"Hmm…" he contemplated. "Well, I haven't seen them, myself. You know, I may be a Priest, but I also have a degree in Physics. I think God made the world according to laws, right? But I do think God has the power to intervene. Yes. I just have never seen it… like … you know, the biblical type of miracles. To me, there are miracles happening all around us—miracles we can't see."
"Exactly," I responded, thinking about how no one else could see the blinks, "those kinds of miracles. What are those miracles we can't see?"
One of Father Martin's eyebrows raised and he rubbed his chin. "Well, I think the greatest miracle is the miracle of God's love which was perfected in Christ and offered to each of us. It's his power to heal even the most troubled mind. By coming into alignment with God's will for us, we can see the true purpose of this existence."
No, he's not getting it, I thought. I scrambled to my other entry-point. "What about the story of Job? God made a bet with the Devil that Job would stay faithful to him no matter what the Devil did to him. Do you think that kind of situation is possible?"
Father Martin's expression drooped into a concerned frown. "There's quite the difference between miracles and the story of Job. I suppose I see what you're getting at, though. Job's suffering is in some ways the antithesis to positive miracles. In this life, we are tested, sometimes to the point of losing everything, but even that person who has more reason to hate God than anyone else can once again find peace and eternal happiness through faith. In fact, it's often the person who is lowest in the pit of suffering that needs the Light of Christ more than anyone else."
I thought back on the first night that I prayed. It was in my moment of greatest helplessness that I reached out to God, and I thought I had found my answer in Him. But now, after what happened last night, after all these years of chaos—not merely losing things that were important to me, but my very sanity—I needed more than just blind faith. I couldn't just sit idly by and hope things would get better. I smiled at the Priest and said, "Thank you, Father, this has been very insightful."
"Of course, sister. I'm sorry if I couldn't have been of more help."
"No, I think I understand now. I've been… wrestling with something, and I think God wants me to confront it. I think I've been running away and hiding from it for so long that I'd convinced myself it disappeared."
Father Martin nodded in understanding. "Well, in that case, will you let me leave you with a prayer?"
I was a bit taken off guard by the request, but I accepted. "Sure, Father."
I watched as he made the sign of the cross, then he lifted his hands and closed his eyes. "Dear God, I am so happy to have had the privilege of meeting with Lauren today, especially on a day such as this where we are offering gifts for those who need them. You have heard her desire to confront the things that are troubling her. I ask that you bless her with strength and peace and a clear conscience, that she may overcome these challenges. God, bless us with your spirit, that we may see your hand in our lives. Amen."
"Amen," I said.
As I was leaving, Father Martin called out to me and said, "Oh, just so you know, this Friday at 7 we are having a barbecue at the Parish Center. I would love to see you there, if you're able and wanting."
Turning back, I smiled and said, "Oh, ok, thanks Father. I'll think about it."
The priest nodded, and with a smile, he sent me off.
***
I walked into the Deli at 1:00 on the dot. The customers who had arrived for the lunch rush were already cleaning up their trash and heading out. I dodged past a few of them on my way down the long, narrow path leading to the front counter. While I waited behind a couple of elderly folk who were picking which soup they wanted to pair with their Ultimate Grilled Cheese, I looked around for Trent. He hadn't sent me a picture or any way of contacting him throughout the day, so I wasn't sure what I was looking for, but I figured I'd see some man half-hidden behind a newspaper, scouting me out. Maybe I watch too many movies, I thought.
"Ahem, ma'am. You're up." croaked the teenager behind the register.
"Oh, right, sorry" I replied and stepped up to the counter. "Uhh," I muttered, scanning the menu for something that looked edible. "Could I just get…" I made sure to mouth every syllable as they were words of their own.
"We have a deal—the try two combo. Sandwich and a soup for $9.99." the cashier repeated for what was probably the fiftieth time that day.
"Yes, that sounds good. I'll do the Italian sandwich and potato soup. And a drink, please."
After I paid for the food, I wandered around the tables, hoping to find someone who looked like a Trent. I was picturing a short guy, runner's build, with long brown hair, tucked somewhere neatly away in the corner. So I was not prepared when the Hulk's stunt double growled my name from a table smack dab in the middle of the restaurant. He had a pale, square face that was spotted with freckles and a sinking property that comes with the lethal combination of stress and age. His hair was relatively short. Probably it was brown or auburn, but since it was slicked back, it looked almost black. And he wore what looked like janitor coveralls. There was even a cloth tag pinned to his chest which read, "Trent".
"Lauren?" He repeated.
"Yes, that's me." I said and took a seat across from him. I saw a brown tray on the table in front of him, and on the tray was a large, white soup bowl. It was empty and beginning to crust along the edges. He must have been here for some time already. "I didn't know where you'd be, so I was worried we might miss each other. I'm glad you found me though." I said while looking over Trent more thoroughly. His large hands were stretched out in front of him on the table. He wasn't wearing a ring, so he probably wasn't married. And his face, it was stern. He seemed like a no-bullshit kind of guy. Then I saw his eyes. They were sapphire blue—probably the most stunning I'd ever seen.
"We only spoke on the internet, so I hope you don't mind, but I usually run a preliminary test on anyone I meet who claims to have abilities such as yours." Trent said while reaching into his pocket and removing a device that had the size and shape of an electric razor. "All you have to do is look into it. It takes maybe five seconds. Ten at most."
"Oh, um, sure," I said reluctantly. "Do I just—" I asked while reaching for the device.
Trent clicked a button and released the cylindrical head which opened, revealing a glass circle about the size of an iris. "I'll hold it, just look into the center. A red cross should appear, then it'll take the picture."
"Okay…" I replied and did as he instructed, leaning my head forward to look into the device. Sure enough, a red cross appeared. "Is it…" was all I got out before the light turned blue and I saw a gray fog disperse and billow throughout the inside of the tube, extending for what I perceived to be miles. My jaw went slack and I couldn't breathe for maybe five seconds. Then Trent reshuttered the device and turned it over.
"Damn, 72." He said with a hint of shock. "That's the highest I've scanned to date." He looked back at me, more relaxed now, and muttered to himself. "How have you been able to function for this long? At this level, you should basically be half in, half out."
I rubbed my forehead, feeling a mixture of pain and frustration and fatigue and impatience which all poured out at once. "Listen, Trent," I said as sternly as I could, "I came here because you said you knew what was wrong with me and that you could help me. I get you have to make sure I am who I said I am, but now it's your turn to pay up. How do I know you know anything about my condition? You said my mom might still be alive. What does that even mean? I saw her die right in front of me. I want answers."
I waited for Trent to respond, but he only lifted his head. I turned around and saw a girl holding a tray of food.
"Um, hi, sorry to interrupt. I have an order 36 for Lauren."
"Oh, yes, thank you." I said. The worker placed the tray down on the table in front of me, and when I saw the food, I suddenly realized how hungry I was. Trent must have also realized this, because he folded his arms and said, "go ahead and eat. I'll explain while you do."
I wanted to protest, but my salivating mouth made other plans. "Fine," I said. I grabbed the metal spoon off the tray and started on the soup, bracing against the steaming heat of the potato chunks.
As I ate, Trent moved all of the items on his tray off to the side, then he flipped the tray over so it was raised slightly off the table. He took his cup and placed it face down in the center, then he rolled up a few of his used, blue mayonnaise packets and charted a track across the tray.
"What are you doing?" I croaked out between bites.
Trent ignored me and continued by ripping up a napkin into strips and placing them alongside the mayonnaise packets. Finally, he snapped ten toothpicks in half and stuck them in the tomb of a dozen overlayed napkins. "It's your diorama," he said at last.
"It's my what?"
"From the story you sent me. Your diorama. When I read about it, it gave me a good idea of how to explain the 'blinking'."
I pointed at the cup in the center. "Is that supposed to be a pyramid? Because I'm pretty sure you're in the wrong geometric neighborhood with that one."
"It's an analogy," he said.
"Of an analogy," I quipped back.
"Look," he picked out one of the toothpicks and held it out in front of me. "This could be a person, an animal, a crowbar—whatever you want. The point is, this diorama is a stand in for our universe. This is everything that exists, that we can see. Okay?"
"Okay,"
"Now, me," Trent placed a hand over his heart. "I'm not in the diorama. I don't exist in the universe."
"In the universe where a cup is a pyramid, or the actual universe?" I said, unable to control myself.
Trent grimaced.
"Sorry, keep going. I get it."
"Things pop into," Trent threw the toothpick back onto the tray, "or out of," he picked the toothpick back up, "our universe at will, based on forces," he patted his chest again, "that exist in other realms" he gestured to the room, "that are connected to our universe," he tapped two fingers against the tray. "These things could be objects, like, say, a toothpick, or entities, like the one you encountered yesterday. The blinking experience that you described aligns with the typical experience of a moderate Antenna. That's what I call people like us—Antennas; because we can pick up on signals others can't."
"We—you mean you see the blinking, too?"
"Yes, but not to the same extent as you. If all the blinks are gathered in a giant picture that you can see, I'm traversing the image through binoculars, maybe even a microscope, depending on where we are."
I thought about this. I guess it was possible there were other people like me out there, but since I had never met anyone, I didn't really consider the idea until now. And then for him to say my ability was somehow much stronger than his… "But," I started, "I haven't even seen that many blinks since I was a child. It's just more focused and malicious now."
"Yeah," Trent scratched his head, "that's the thing that got me really interested in you. Somehow you seem to be able to control it without gear, just by praying. And, look, that's all well and good, but I don't want to give you the false impression that I'm some kind of religious leader. I like to look for logical, scientific explanations for things. So that's the frame I'm coming at this from."
I took a sip from my drink. "That's fine," I said, "the truth is that's why I reached out to you in the first place. I wanted an explanation I could understand. An explanation that was directly related to what I'm going through."
"Then we should get along just fine."
I was scooping out the last potato that was stubbornly gliding along the bottom of the bowl when, out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of the old man from the line shooting up from his bench and standing in army-erect form. I felt a tingling sensation tickle the back of my neck. I didn't want to turn toward him. I knew what I'd see if I did. "Trent," I whispered, trying to tip him off.
"Huh?" he grunted. Then when he saw my expression, he snuck his right hand under the table and said, "Do you see it? Is it here?"
I cocked my head to the left, signaling toward the old man that was now facing us, but Trent didn't seem to notice him: his eyes just kept scanning the entire front of the restaurant. Then I saw the old man take a step in our direction.
"Lauuurennnn, oh Lauuuurennnn, I've been looking for you, Laurenn." The old man said in a low, gravelly voice that gave the impression he was gurgling liquid tar. I turned and saw his face. It was cold and expressionless, and a butter knife was poking out of his left fist. When I met his eyes, he smiled that horrible smile."You're a slippery bitch, you know that?" He spat. "Why can't you just stay put? Don't you get tired of running from your old friend? Or have you forgotten about me?"
"Trent," I mumbled out. "Right there."
"And this guy. You think he can help you? He's only here to help himself. If that's not clear, you really are a lost little lamb."
"Quick, give me your hand," Trent instructed.
I was silent, my eyes still pinned to the old man.
"Tsk-tsk-tsk," the demon possessed senior wagged his finger at me, taking a step, then another step, shortening the distance as much as he could while I was entranced. Then, suddenly, he sprinted forward at a speed that shouldn't have been possible for a man his age.
"Trent!" I screamed.
"Lauren, give me your hand!"
I spun around and grabbed Tren'ts outstretched arm just as the old man lifted the butter knife over his head like a pickaxe. Then I saw Trent pull out what looked like a toy gun from under the table and point it at the demon.
"Got you," Trent remarked. I braced for a gunshot, but there was no noise. After a couple seconds, I looked back and saw the old man sitting in the booth opposite his wife, his hand tremoring as he reached for his large drink.
"What did you?" I asked, but Trent was already pulling me out of my seat. "Come on, we have to go," he said, "the effect is temporary, he'll be—"
Before he could get out the last word, I saw the cup-pyramid on Trent's tray blink out of existence. The sound of a plate shattering rang out from a table up ahead. The lone woman standing there slowly turned around, smiling, with a fork in one hand and a piece of the broken plate in the other. Trent shot her with the toy gun as we ran past and then barreled through the front door.
"Where—are we going?" I asked between gasps.
"My van. It's loaded with kit."
"And then where?"
"Your house" replied Trent who stashed his gun back in his pocket and took out a key fob.
"My house? But that's where he—it appeared."
"Yeah, and that's where you banished it."
Trent waved me into the passenger seat of his RAM 3500 Promaster. I noticed right away the dash which looked more like it belonged in a new limited-edition EV than a cargo van. The ignition kicked on automatically, and I heard the beep of a sonar ping precede an English woman's voice calling out like some auxed-in GPS saying, "scanning for anomalies". Trent shifted the van into gear, and I heard the wheels sputter as we accelerated backward and whipped out of the small parking lot.
"What's your address?" Trent asked. I gave it to him, and then speaking to his dash, he said, "Car, take us to ****."
"Redirecting to ****," replied the British woman. "Currently detecting 31 novel emergences. Updating pings every 300 milliseconds. Chance of contact: 0.23%"
"What does that mean?" I asked.
"The van has sensor equipment which can detect blinks. It's much more accurate than either of us."
"And it sees 31?"
"Yes, that's not as many as it sounds." Trent said and tore past a car that blinked out of existence right as we turned onto the main street.
We drove on for another couple minutes, the Englishwoman updating the number of novel emergences every ten seconds or so. Her constant babbling eventually became a comforting background noise, and I was able to think again.
"In the message you sent me, you said my mom may still be alive." I looked at Trent to see if he would react to me bringing her up, but he remained stolid. "What did you mean by that?"
Trent thumbed his steering wheel. "I shouldn't have sent that." He said at last.
"Shouldn't have… What do you mean? You can't just say that now."
Trent took one hand off the wheel and turned toward me. "Look, we're going back to your house because we need to determine your origin point. All Antennas have them. It's a place of high energy where many realms intersect, kind of like a station, and it's the place where you first acquired your abilities. Based on everything you wrote, I'm guessing that place is where the forest where the accident happened when you were a young child. But I need to confirm it. Once I confirm that that's the place…" Trent hesitated.
"Then… what? You want us to go back there? To the place where my mom died, or at least where I think she died until you told me she might be alive but are now taking it back? That place?"
"It's the only way to—"
"Now detecting novel agent," the Englishwoman interrupted. We both perked up as she gave another update. "Net anomalies: 437. Novel Agents: 1. Chance of contact: 78%."
"Shit," Trent muttered. "Car, course correct."
"Attempting course correct to avoid collision. Attempts made: 10, 50, 75, 79… No alternate route detected. Chance of contact: 96%."
"Time until contact?"
"Time until contact: 13 seconds."
I shuddered. Looking out the front windshield, I saw cars pop out of existence left and right, opening up a clear path to the four way intersection ahead. In a blink, the streetlights all turned green, and then they vanished completely. It was as if the entire world was being stripped down bare, and all that remained was the road, boxed in by the rows of buildings along either side. In the distance I could see a large tanker barreling toward us.
"Trent,"
"I know," he replied and clicked a different button on the console which opened a new toggle for the shifter labeled "TD". He pushed the stick forward, engaging the new mode, then pressed the accelerator all the way to the ground. "You're going to want to hold on."
"What are you doing!?" I yelled, grabbing onto my seatbelt.
"No time to explain. Car, release phase lock."
"Phase lock released."
I watched in horror as the color drained from the road and buildings and sky, transforming it all into a dim tunnel, with only the headlights of the oncoming semi-truck visible up ahead. I had the sudden thought that this was all a dream, just like the ones from my childhood. I looked over and no longer saw Trent, but my mother. And then I realized this wasn't a dream. This was hell. I was being forced to relive the worst moment of my life, over and over again. Just when I thought I had escaped, I was pulled right back into that car, helpless as we approached but never arrived at our impending fate. I closed my eyes right as the lights engulfed the windshield and braced for the usual pain in my chest, for the feeling of breaking.
But it didn't come.
"Shift" was the last word out of Trent's mouth, and then I was infused with the sensation of being at the pinnacle of a roller coaster. I was suspended there for what felt like hours, but somehow I knew that not even a second had passed. Everything inside the van: the dashboard, windows, ceiling, doors, even Trent himself began to radiate enigmatic particles. They were a mass of constant motion, like raindrops falling through the air but never landing. I looked down at my hand, but it was gone. Diffused into an unknowable number of untraceable particles. The world outside, once devoid of color, was now nothing but color. When I tried to focus on a particular spot in the infinite geometric folds of whatever realm we were traversing through, I could sometimes detect a trace of our world.
The old lady from the church. She appeared as if through a window, standing behind a table, holding out a plant. Only this image was so much brighter. And the plant she was holding was pure gold. Then I'd catch a glimpse of the razor blade. It was large, many hundreds of times larger than the van, and surrounded by darkness. These ghostly images appeared like holograms or reflections that caught the light at just the right angle, then dissipated.
I stayed there, looping between the archetypes of my life for a long, long time.
***
I knew we were returning when I felt the first sense of motion. Breath filled my lungs for the first time in what felt like a day. I blinked. And then we were back in town, driving down the same road with the blue sky above. People were jogging on the sidewalk past the little street shops. The streetlights were active. I checked the side mirror and saw the tanker had just passed by.
I looked over at Trent, who met my eyes. We shared a look of knowing, and unknowing. For some reason, that was enough, and we continued on in silence.
***
We agreed to stay the night at my house.
Trent had parked a couple blocks away in front of a couple vacant houses so as not to arouse suspicion from the neighbors. Then he lugged a large duffel bag with his equipment in and set it up in the living room. He scanned the scrapbook which contained the newspaper clippings from the accident several times and confirmed that was likely my 'origin point'. I simply nodded and then went back out onto the back porch. I sat there for hours, basking in the sun. Something had changed in the past day, but I couldn't pick out what it was. Too much had happened. I had too little time to process any of it.
When the sun set, I went inside and Trent told me about his plans for the next couple days. He said he needed to run a few errands in the morning, then meet up with a couple of his associates. After that, we could begin our drive to Southern Illinois. He said it was likely that the entity that was chasing me had first tied itself to me during my childhood accident. For whatever reason, we came into contact, and now it didn't want to leave. Trent would help me get rid of it. He didn't go into many details regarding how that was to happen, but I don't think in my tired state I would have been able to understand much anyway. He had a plan, and that was enough for me. At least for a while.
After our meeting, I made sure Trent had enough pillows and blankets like a proper host, then I retired to my room. I laid down on my twin bed and stared up at the cream-colored ceiling. Then I turned and saw the participation awards for my junior soccer league stashed on my dresser. I pictured myself on the field, running with the ball, out ahead of everyone except the goalie. I took a shot, but it was blocked. Then I ran back to defend. How can such a simple game be so much fun? Was the last thought I had before drifting off to sleep.
I woke up only once during the night. It was still dark out. The room was warm despite the small, flower petal fan churning away, shifting the hot, humid air from one pocket of the room to the next. I waited in apprehension, sensing that something had disturbed me. I saw the tomato plushie peeking out at me from the slightly ajar closet door where I had stashed it so many years ago. I felt like I was missing something. Something important.
And then I heard it.
There was a tapping at my window.

Part 1
First of all, I wanted to thank everyone for their kind words and support from the last post. A lot has happened since then, and a bunch of context is needed, so I hope you'll bear with me as I explain the details.
***
Back during the peak of the blinking crisis, I remember having a lot of difficulty sleeping. It was common for me to average only four or five hours a night, and the little sleep I did get was marred by terrible nightmares. One in particular recurred many times.
I was only eight, but somehow I was in the driver's seat of our family's old SUV. My arms were long enough to steady the wheel, but my legs didn't quite meet the pedals. It didn't matter though, since the car seemed content to continue on at a constant pace. I looked over and saw my mom in the passenger seat. Her face was a blurry likeness pieced together from the dozen or so picture's I'd seen of her over the years. I tried to bring her into focus, not only because I missed her dearly, but because she was speaking—pleading, even. She waved frantically at me, then brought her leg up and slammed it down on the floor mat several times. I didn't understand what had her so upset until she pointed out the front windshield, and I saw we were hurdling directly toward a giant tree that had fallen in the middle of the road.
Panicking, I stomped for the brake, but my seatbelt protested and pulled me back like an invigorated dog on a short leash. I sat up and tried clicking it off, but it wouldn't budge. My breaths became hollow cries, and I felt my heart beat against the bars of its bony prison. I grabbed the steering wheel and pulled it to the left, then right, attempting to swerve off the road, but it was as if whatever kind of glue was locking up the seatbelt was also fixing the steering wheel in place.
"Mom! what do I do!?" I yelled, tears streaming from my eyes. She was yelling back at me, but it was as if there was a divider between us, and neither of us could hear each other. I turned back just in time to see the giant Oak tree meet the front bumper, and then I jolted awake with a piercing pain in my chest that radiated up through my throat in the form of a giant scream. My little legs kicked under the covers and tears rained down on my pillow until my dad ran in and knelt at my bed.
"Lauren, are you okay? Did you have a bad dream?"
I grabbed my pillow and hugged it so my face was covered, then effused a "Mmm-hmm" in a long wheeze while rocking to either side.
"Oh, honey," he soothed and brushed my hair, then the tears from my face when I would allow it.
Time would pass in silence, and when I began to get the sense that my dad was ready to leave, I'd chirp out, "stay" in that way children do when they're embarrassed about wanting something.
"Always," my dad would reply; then he'd post up on the floor with my large tomato plushie as a pillow.
One night in particular, it was deep in the night, and I had woken to a tapping sound outside my window. I was so afraid that a monster had snuck into my room while I wasn't looking that I made him lay next to me and face outward. I'd peek my eyes open every minute or so to check and make sure my dad was there, staking out the room. Eventually, he rolled in close and said something that I still remember to this day.
"Hey, baby, guess what." he whispered.
"Mmm" I mumbled.
"I think you scared the monster away."
I tried to picture this through the fog of my fatigue. Something seemed off about the statement, like it wasn't logically possible, but before I could piece together the words to express that, my dad cut back in.
"It was scared because it realized you're a superhero. And you know what your greatest superpower is?"
I shook my head, making sure to rub my forehead against his shoulder so he could sense it in the dark room.
"You're greatest power is that you get to tell the monsters what to do. Because the monsters are only as strong as the stories you tell about them. And there's all kinds of stories. Happy ones. Sad ones. Scary ones. Tell me, this monster you think snuck in, would you say he's part of a scary story?"
"I don't know," I said, confused. "Maybe"
"Hmm," he hummed, contemplating. "Well, I want you to remember this. You have the ability to tell any kind of story you want. Maybe there are monsters, but that means there's heroes and angels, too, right?"
I was beginning to doze off to the comforting sound of my dad's deep voice, but I gave another affirmative "Mm-hmm".
"So, if you're ever scared, honey, just dream up a better story. A story that will bring you peace. Do you understand?"
But I was already out.
***
I woke up the next morning to the feeling that someone was in the hotel room with me. The drapes were drawn and the only sound was the AC unit blowing cold air, but when I looked toward the dark corner of the empty coat rack, my mind conjured the face of my dad, smiling at me, chanting that same, awful line—Oh, Lauren… you know who we are.
I was no longer a child, but it took a couple minutes of cold focus before I muscled the courage to ascend from the safety of my covers and flick on the lamp light. The small amber radius extended to where my dad's feet would have been if he was standing there. But there was no one. I let out a sigh and collapsed back onto the mattress, thinking back on all those years growing up. The same man who had helped me conquer my fear of the dark was now the monster hiding in its shadow.
I looked over my shoulder and saw the clock read 10:15. My meeting with Trent was in three hours. I moaned and stretched my arms back until they knocked against the headboard, then I collapsed back onto the mattress, meditating, gathering energy like a compressed spring. All at once, I jumped up and glided over to the drapes, opening them in a single, fluid motion. I grimaced at the sunlight, but the warmth felt good against my face. I stopped by the nightstand and gulped down the final few swigs of a bottle of Mello Yello that I had purchased from a vending machine the previous night, then undressed and hopped in the shower.
The warm water wasn't enough to wash away the previous night's memories. When I closed my eyes to lather my hair, I was back in my living room, standing opposite the demon that had taken on my dad's form. His smile. His laugh. It was like someone in my head was flipping a switch between the man I loved growing up and a terrible monster. But the fear was more powerful. I heard something drop onto the tile floor on the other side of the curtain. The noise made me gasp, and I opened my eyes while shampoo was still streaming down my face. I swiped the shampoo out of my now burning eyes and squinted at the curtain, trying to see through it, but I couldn't make anything out. "I-is anyone," I started, trembling, afraid to finish the sentence. I reached out and pinched the end of the curtain. My heart was in overdrive. I swallowed, then pulled it toward me and peeked out. I scanned the room, but I couldn't see anything out of place.
It wasn't until after I finished showering and wound myself up in one of the hotel's too-small towels that I saw what had made the noise. I bent down and picked up the stub of a razor blade that had fallen onto the tile right next to the puffy, gray shower rug. It wasn't mine, and I was pretty sure hotels didn't keep unguarded razor blades just laying around. When I held it up, it occurred to me that if it had simply fallen a few inches to the left, it would have been buried in the rug, and perhaps I would have stepped on it. I stared at myself in its steely reflection. Cold. Lonely. Small. What if I—was all I was able to think before the blade blinked out of my hand.
I threw on some clothes, packed up the few belongings I had into my purse, then checked out of my room. I didn't feel safe going back home after what happened, but I also didn't want to go anywhere else. I got in my car and drove aimlessly up and down the town's streets, focusing only on the car ahead of me. Anytime I started to travel down an avenue of thought, I'd make a turn, or speed up, or hit the brakes: anything to keep my mind distracted. It was sweltering outside, but I'd turn the heat on for minutes at a time until I felt drenched, then toggle max AC until I was cool, then back to heat. I repeated the basic driving tenet "10 and 2", "10 and 2", "10 and 2" like a mantra—a chant to focus my attention on a single point, and then I pictured that point disappearing. I began to think that maybe I wanted to disappear.
I fully intended to keep going that way until 1:00, but after about thirty minutes, my meandering route had led me to St. Mark's Catholic Church, where a large group of people were gathered around a long line of tables in front of the building. I slowed down. At the front of the venue was a large, white cardboard sign which read, "Plant a Seed, Share the Joy". I wasn't sure what that meant, but my boredom had come to a head, and I rationalized that if there's any place on God's green earth that would be safe, it was this one. I parked along the closest side-street, then walked over to the church.
Rows of white tables were covered with cardboard boxes filled with small plants that were wrapped up in individual paper pots. I watched from a distance as people behind the tables carefully removed the plants, one by one, and offered them to passersby. I continued down the line, a sheep in the herd, and allowed myself to sink into childhood memories. I had somehow made it out the other end near the Narthex when I heard a woman's voice call to me.
"Hey, deary, have you gotten one yet?"
I turned and saw a small, gray-haired lady with rose-colored glasses. "Oh, no," I started, attempting to decline, then paused. The old lady grabbed one of the plants and held it out for me.
"Here," she said. "Come on, I won't bite."
As far as you know, I thought, and stumbled forward with a sigh. "Thanks," I said and took the plant. "What is this all for, anyway?"
"It's a giveaway," the old woman responded. "Staff have been growing these plants—tomatoes and garlic, mainly—so they could offer them to members of the Parish. The idea is to have the members grow the produce, then donate it to St. Mark's Food Pantry to give to those in need."
"Oh, that's actually pretty cool." I replied and inspected my plant which was at present nothing more than a small green stem. "So which kind is this one?"
"That one is—" the old lady stopped and inspected the other plants near where she had grabbed mine—"tomato."
"Tomato," I repeated. "Well, thanks again."
"Of course, dear." the old lady beamed. "We're all responsible for each other."
I nodded, then continued back through the crowd toward my car when, through the large vestibule windows, I saw a Priest speaking to a young couple. It had been a little over a decade since I had attended a service (I stopped going during High School when I started studying other religions), and I didn't recognize this Priest. He was short (just over five feet tall), bald, and African American. He wore the customary black robe and white collar, and there was something in his smile and the way seemed to be affirming the couple that made me yearn to speak with him. I considered for a moment, a bit embarrassed to be stepping back into church after all this time, but the thought of being able to burn ten minutes talking with someone who might have some insight into my situation was too tempting to pass up.
I waited near a portrait of Mary Magdalene, my tomato plant in hand, staring off at the pristine series of stained glass images portraying the death and resurrection of Jesus. About a minute in, the Priest met my eyes; he smiled, his way of telling me he knew I was waiting, then finished up with the couple and made his way over. He had a bit of an accent when he spoke—it was Ugandan, from best I could tell—and a proclivity for laughing at the end of his sentences.
"Hello, Miss, I don't believe I've had the privilege," he said and held out his hand. He leaned in as he spoke, and his smile tugged on the corners of his eyes which were already marked with use.
I shook his hand and returned what I'm sure was a weak smile. "No, I don't think so. My name's Lauren. I used to come here when I was little. It's—been a while."
"Well, I see you picked a good day to visit. If you're into gardening, that is." He remarked with a laugh and gestured toward the plant. "It's nice to meet you, Lauren. My name's Martin—Father Martin, if you prefer."
"Father Martin," I repeated, "I have a friend named Martin. It's a good name."
He laughed and said, "Thank you, I'll pass that one along to my mother. She loves the praise."
I laughed back. He carried himself in such a carefree way that I was put immediately at ease. Almost to the point where I forgot what I wanted to talk to him about. "Um," I started, attempting to word my question in a way that didn't sound like I needed psychiatric help. "I have a couple of religious questions for you, if you have time."
"That's what I'm for. Ask away."
"They're about… miracles. Like the ones in the Bible. I was wondering, do you think that miracles still happen today?"
"Miracles, huh," he started. "You mean like water into wine?"
"Kind of, yeah,"
"Hmm…" he contemplated. "Well, I haven't seen them, myself. You know, I may be a Priest, but I also have a degree in Physics. I think God made the world according to laws, right? But I do think God has the power to intervene. Yes. I just have never seen it… like … you know, the biblical type of miracles. To me, there are miracles happening all around us—miracles we can't see."
"Exactly," I responded, thinking about how no one else could see the blinks, "those kinds of miracles. What are those miracles we can't see?"
One of Father Martin's eyebrows raised and he rubbed his chin. "Well, I think the greatest miracle is the miracle of God's love which was perfected in Christ and offered to each of us. It's his power to heal even the most troubled mind. By coming into alignment with God's will for us, we can see the true purpose of this existence."
No, he's not getting it, I thought. I scrambled to my other entry-point. "What about the story of Job? God made a bet with the Devil that Job would stay faithful to him no matter what the Devil did to him. Do you think that kind of situation is possible?"
Father Martin's expression drooped into a concerned frown. "There's quite the difference between miracles and the story of Job. I suppose I see what you're getting at, though. Job's suffering is in some ways the antithesis to positive miracles. In this life, we are tested, sometimes to the point of losing everything, but even that person who has more reason to hate God than anyone else can once again find peace and eternal happiness through faith. In fact, it's often the person who is lowest in the pit of suffering that needs the Light of Christ more than anyone else."
I thought back on the first night that I prayed. It was in my moment of greatest helplessness that I reached out to God, and I thought I had found my answer in Him. But now, after what happened last night, after all these years of chaos—not merely losing things that were important to me, but my very sanity—I needed more than just blind faith. I couldn't just sit idly by and hope things would get better. I smiled at the Priest and said, "Thank you, Father, this has been very insightful."
"Of course, sister. I'm sorry if I couldn't have been of more help."
"No, I think I understand now. I've been… wrestling with something, and I think God wants me to confront it. I think I've been running away and hiding from it for so long that I'd convinced myself it disappeared."
Father Martin nodded in understanding. "Well, in that case, will you let me leave you with a prayer?"
I was a bit taken off guard by the request, but I accepted. "Sure, Father."
I watched as he made the sign of the cross, then he lifted his hands and closed his eyes. "Dear God, I am so happy to have had the privilege of meeting with Lauren today, especially on a day such as this where we are offering gifts for those who need them. You have heard her desire to confront the things that are troubling her. I ask that you bless her with strength and peace and a clear conscience, that she may overcome these challenges. God, bless us with your spirit, that we may see your hand in our lives. Amen."
"Amen," I said.
As I was leaving, Father Martin called out to me and said, "Oh, just so you know, this Friday at 7 we are having a barbecue at the Parish Center. I would love to see you there, if you're able and wanting."
Turning back, I smiled and said, "Oh, ok, thanks Father. I'll think about it."
The priest nodded, and with a smile, he sent me off.
***
I walked into the Deli at 1:00 on the dot. The customers who had arrived for the lunch rush were already cleaning up their trash and heading out. I dodged past a few of them on my way down the long, narrow path leading to the front counter. While I waited behind a couple of elderly folk who were picking which soup they wanted to pair with their Ultimate Grilled Cheese, I looked around for Trent. He hadn't sent me a picture or any way of contacting him throughout the day, so I wasn't sure what I was looking for, but I figured I'd see some man half-hidden behind a newspaper, scouting me out. Maybe I watch too many movies, I thought.
"Ahem, ma'am. You're up." croaked the teenager behind the register.
"Oh, right, sorry" I replied and stepped up to the counter. "Uhh," I muttered, scanning the menu for something that looked edible. "Could I just get…" I made sure to mouth every syllable as they were words of their own.
"We have a deal—the try two combo. Sandwich and a soup for $9.99." the cashier repeated for what was probably the fiftieth time that day.
"Yes, that sounds good. I'll do the Italian sandwich and potato soup. And a drink, please."
After I paid for the food, I wandered around the tables, hoping to find someone who looked like a Trent. I was picturing a short guy, runner's build, with long brown hair, tucked somewhere neatly away in the corner. So I was not prepared when the Hulk's stunt double growled my name from a table smack dab in the middle of the restaurant. He had a pale, square face that was spotted with freckles and a sinking property that comes with the lethal combination of stress and age. His hair was relatively short. Probably it was brown or auburn, but since it was slicked back, it looked almost black. And he wore what looked like janitor coveralls. There was even a cloth tag pinned to his chest which read, "Trent".
"Lauren?" He repeated.
"Yes, that's me." I said and took a seat across from him. I saw a brown tray on the table in front of him, and on the tray was a large, white soup bowl. It was empty and beginning to crust along the edges. He must have been here for some time already. "I didn't know where you'd be, so I was worried we might miss each other. I'm glad you found me though." I said while looking over Trent more thoroughly. His large hands were stretched out in front of him on the table. He wasn't wearing a ring, so he probably wasn't married. And his face, it was stern. He seemed like a no-bullshit kind of guy. Then I saw his eyes. They were sapphire blue—probably the most stunning I'd ever seen.
"We only spoke on the internet, so I hope you don't mind, but I usually run a preliminary test on anyone I meet who claims to have abilities such as yours." Trent said while reaching into his pocket and removing a device that had the size and shape of an electric razor. "All you have to do is look into it. It takes maybe five seconds. Ten at most."
"Oh, um, sure," I said reluctantly. "Do I just—" I asked while reaching for the device.
Trent clicked a button and released the cylindrical head which opened, revealing a glass circle about the size of an iris. "I'll hold it, just look into the center. A red cross should appear, then it'll take the picture."
"Okay…" I replied and did as he instructed, leaning my head forward to look into the device. Sure enough, a red cross appeared. "Is it…" was all I got out before the light turned blue and I saw a gray fog disperse and billow throughout the inside of the tube, extending for what I perceived to be miles. My jaw went slack and I couldn't breathe for maybe five seconds. Then Trent reshuttered the device and turned it over.
"Damn, 72." He said with a hint of shock. "That's the highest I've scanned to date." He looked back at me, more relaxed now, and muttered to himself. "How have you been able to function for this long? At this level, you should basically be half in, half out."
I rubbed my forehead, feeling a mixture of pain and frustration and fatigue and impatience which all poured out at once. "Listen, Trent," I said as sternly as I could, "I came here because you said you knew what was wrong with me and that you could help me. I get you have to make sure I am who I said I am, but now it's your turn to pay up. How do I know you know anything about my condition? You said my mom might still be alive. What does that even mean? I saw her die right in front of me. I want answers."
I waited for Trent to respond, but he only lifted his head. I turned around and saw a girl holding a tray of food.
"Um, hi, sorry to interrupt. I have an order 36 for Lauren."
"Oh, yes, thank you." I said. The worker placed the tray down on the table in front of me, and when I saw the food, I suddenly realized how hungry I was. Trent must have also realized this, because he folded his arms and said, "go ahead and eat. I'll explain while you do."
I wanted to protest, but my salivating mouth made other plans. "Fine," I said. I grabbed the metal spoon off the tray and started on the soup, bracing against the steaming heat of the potato chunks.
As I ate, Trent moved all of the items on his tray off to the side, then he flipped the tray over so it was raised slightly off the table. He took his cup and placed it face down in the center, then he rolled up a few of his used, blue mayonnaise packets and charted a track across the tray.
"What are you doing?" I croaked out between bites.
Trent ignored me and continued by ripping up a napkin into strips and placing them alongside the mayonnaise packets. Finally, he snapped ten toothpicks in half and stuck them in the tomb of a dozen overlayed napkins. "It's your diorama," he said at last.
"It's my what?"
"From the story you sent me. Your diorama. When I read about it, it gave me a good idea of how to explain the 'blinking'."
I pointed at the cup in the center. "Is that supposed to be a pyramid? Because I'm pretty sure you're in the wrong geometric neighborhood with that one."
"It's an analogy," he said.
"Of an analogy," I quipped back.
"Look," he picked out one of the toothpicks and held it out in front of me. "This could be a person, an animal, a crowbar—whatever you want. The point is, this diorama is a stand in for our universe. This is everything that exists, that we can see. Okay?"
"Okay,"
"Now, me," Trent placed a hand over his heart. "I'm not in the diorama. I don't exist in the universe."
"In the universe where a cup is a pyramid, or the actual universe?" I said, unable to control myself.
Trent grimaced.
"Sorry, keep going. I get it."
"Things pop into," Trent threw the toothpick back onto the tray, "or out of," he picked the toothpick back up, "our universe at will, based on forces," he patted his chest again, "that exist in other realms" he gestured to the room, "that are connected to our universe," he tapped two fingers against the tray. "These things could be objects, like, say, a toothpick, or entities, like the one you encountered yesterday. The blinking experience that you described aligns with the typical experience of a moderate Antenna. That's what I call people like us—Antennas; because we can pick up on signals others can't."
"We—you mean you see the blinking, too?"
"Yes, but not to the same extent as you. If all the blinks are gathered in a giant picture that you can see, I'm traversing the image through binoculars, maybe even a microscope, depending on where we are."
I thought about this. I guess it was possible there were other people like me out there, but since I had never met anyone, I didn't really consider the idea until now. And then for him to say my ability was somehow much stronger than his… "But," I started, "I haven't even seen that many blinks since I was a child. It's just more focused and malicious now."
"Yeah," Trent scratched his head, "that's the thing that got me really interested in you. Somehow you seem to be able to control it without gear, just by praying. And, look, that's all well and good, but I don't want to give you the false impression that I'm some kind of religious leader. I like to look for logical, scientific explanations for things. So that's the frame I'm coming at this from."
I took a sip from my drink. "That's fine," I said, "the truth is that's why I reached out to you in the first place. I wanted an explanation I could understand. An explanation that was directly related to what I'm going through."
"Then we should get along just fine."
I was scooping out the last potato that was stubbornly gliding along the bottom of the bowl when, out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of the old man from the line shooting up from his bench and standing in army-erect form. I felt a tingling sensation tickle the back of my neck. I didn't want to turn toward him. I knew what I'd see if I did. "Trent," I whispered, trying to tip him off.
"Huh?" he grunted. Then when he saw my expression, he snuck his right hand under the table and said, "Do you see it? Is it here?"
I cocked my head to the left, signaling toward the old man that was now facing us, but Trent didn't seem to notice him: his eyes just kept scanning the entire front of the restaurant. Then I saw the old man take a step in our direction.
"Lauuurennnn, oh Lauuuurennnn, I've been looking for you, Laurenn." The old man said in a low, gravelly voice that gave the impression he was gurgling liquid tar. I turned and saw his face. It was cold and expressionless, and a butter knife was poking out of his left fist. When I met his eyes, he smiled that horrible smile."You're a slippery bitch, you know that?" He spat. "Why can't you just stay put? Don't you get tired of running from your old friend? Or have you forgotten about me?"
"Trent," I mumbled out. "Right there."
"And this guy. You think he can help you? He's only here to help himself. If that's not clear, you really are a lost little lamb."
"Quick, give me your hand," Trent instructed.
I was silent, my eyes still pinned to the old man.
"Tsk-tsk-tsk," the demon possessed senior wagged his finger at me, taking a step, then another step, shortening the distance as much as he could while I was entranced. Then, suddenly, he sprinted forward at a speed that shouldn't have been possible for a man his age.
"Trent!" I screamed.
"Lauren, give me your hand!"
I spun around and grabbed Tren'ts outstretched arm just as the old man lifted the butter knife over his head like a pickaxe. Then I saw Trent pull out what looked like a toy gun from under the table and point it at the demon.
"Got you," Trent remarked. I braced for a gunshot, but there was no noise. After a couple seconds, I looked back and saw the old man sitting in the booth opposite his wife, his hand tremoring as he reached for his large drink.
"What did you?" I asked, but Trent was already pulling me out of my seat. "Come on, we have to go," he said, "the effect is temporary, he'll be—"
Before he could get out the last word, I saw the cup-pyramid on Trent's tray blink out of existence. The sound of a plate shattering rang out from a table up ahead. The lone woman standing there slowly turned around, smiling, with a fork in one hand and a piece of the broken plate in the other. Trent shot her with the toy gun as we ran past and then barreled through the front door.
"Where—are we going?" I asked between gasps.
"My van. It's loaded with kit."
"And then where?"
"Your house" replied Trent who stashed his gun back in his pocket and took out a key fob.
"My house? But that's where he—it appeared."
"Yeah, and that's where you banished it."
Trent waved me into the passenger seat of his RAM 3500 Promaster. I noticed right away the dash which looked more like it belonged in a new limited-edition EV than a cargo van. The ignition kicked on automatically, and I heard the beep of a sonar ping precede an English woman's voice calling out like some auxed-in GPS saying, "scanning for anomalies". Trent shifted the van into gear, and I heard the wheels sputter as we accelerated backward and whipped out of the small parking lot.
"What's your address?" Trent asked. I gave it to him, and then speaking to his dash, he said, "Car, take us to ****."
"Redirecting to ****," replied the British woman. "Currently detecting 31 novel emergences. Updating pings every 300 milliseconds. Chance of contact: 0.23%"
"What does that mean?" I asked.
"The van has sensor equipment which can detect blinks. It's much more accurate than either of us."
"And it sees 31?"
"Yes, that's not as many as it sounds." Trent said and tore past a car that blinked out of existence right as we turned onto the main street.
We drove on for another couple minutes, the Englishwoman updating the number of novel emergences every ten seconds or so. Her constant babbling eventually became a comforting background noise, and I was able to think again.
"In the message you sent me, you said my mom may still be alive." I looked at Trent to see if he would react to me bringing her up, but he remained stolid. "What did you mean by that?"
Trent thumbed his steering wheel. "I shouldn't have sent that." He said at last.
"Shouldn't have… What do you mean? You can't just say that now."
Trent took one hand off the wheel and turned toward me. "Look, we're going back to your house because we need to determine your origin point. All Antennas have them. It's a place of high energy where many realms intersect, kind of like a station, and it's the place where you first acquired your abilities. Based on everything you wrote, I'm guessing that place is where the forest where the accident happened when you were a young child. But I need to confirm it. Once I confirm that that's the place…" Trent hesitated.
"Then… what? You want us to go back there? To the place where my mom died, or at least where I think she died until you told me she might be alive but are now taking it back? That place?"
"It's the only way to—"
"Now detecting novel agent," the Englishwoman interrupted. We both perked up as she gave another update. "Net anomalies: 437. Novel Agents: 1. Chance of contact: 78%."
"Shit," Trent muttered. "Car, course correct."
"Attempting course correct to avoid collision. Attempts made: 10, 50, 75, 79… No alternate route detected. Chance of contact: 96%."
"Time until contact?"
"Time until contact: 13 seconds."
I shuddered. Looking out the front windshield, I saw cars pop out of existence left and right, opening up a clear path to the four way intersection ahead. In a blink, the streetlights all turned green, and then they vanished completely. It was as if the entire world was being stripped down bare, and all that remained was the road, boxed in by the rows of buildings along either side. In the distance I could see a large tanker barreling toward us.
"Trent,"
"I know," he replied and clicked a different button on the console which opened a new toggle for the shifter labeled "TD". He pushed the stick forward, engaging the new mode, then pressed the accelerator all the way to the ground. "You're going to want to hold on."
"What are you doing!?" I yelled, grabbing onto my seatbelt.
"No time to explain. Car, release phase lock."
"Phase lock released."
I watched in horror as the color drained from the road and buildings and sky, transforming it all into a dim tunnel, with only the headlights of the oncoming semi-truck visible up ahead. I had the sudden thought that this was all a dream, just like the ones from my childhood. I looked over and no longer saw Trent, but my mother. And then I realized this wasn't a dream. This was hell. I was being forced to relive the worst moment of my life, over and over again. Just when I thought I had escaped, I was pulled right back into that car, helpless as we approached but never arrived at our impending fate. I closed my eyes right as the lights engulfed the windshield and braced for the usual pain in my chest, for the feeling of breaking.
But it didn't come.
"Shift" was the last word out of Trent's mouth, and then I was infused with the sensation of being at the pinnacle of a roller coaster. I was suspended there for what felt like hours, but somehow I knew that not even a second had passed. Everything inside the van: the dashboard, windows, ceiling, doors, even Trent himself began to radiate enigmatic particles. They were a mass of constant motion, like raindrops falling through the air but never landing. I looked down at my hand, but it was gone. Diffused into an unknowable number of untraceable particles. The world outside, once devoid of color, was now nothing but color. When I tried to focus on a particular spot in the infinite geometric folds of whatever realm we were traversing through, I could sometimes detect a trace of our world.
The old lady from the church. She appeared as if through a window, standing behind a table, holding out a plant. Only this image was so much brighter. And the plant she was holding was pure gold. Then I'd catch a glimpse of the razor blade. It was large, many hundreds of times larger than the van, and surrounded by darkness. These ghostly images appeared like holograms or reflections that caught the light at just the right angle, then dissipated.
I stayed there, looping between the archetypes of my life for a long, long time.
***
I knew we were returning when I felt the first sense of motion. Breath filled my lungs for the first time in what felt like a day. I blinked. And then we were back in town, driving down the same road with the blue sky above. People were jogging on the sidewalk past the little street shops. The streetlights were active. I checked the side mirror and saw the tanker had just passed by.
I looked over at Trent, who met my eyes. We shared a look of knowing, and unknowing. For some reason, that was enough, and we continued on in silence.
***
We agreed to stay the night at my house.
Trent had parked a couple blocks away in front of a couple vacant houses so as not to arouse suspicion from the neighbors. Then he lugged a large duffel bag with his equipment in and set it up in the living room. He scanned the scrapbook which contained the newspaper clippings from the accident several times and confirmed that was likely my 'origin point'. I simply nodded and then went back out onto the back porch. I sat there for hours, basking in the sun. Something had changed in the past day, but I couldn't pick out what it was. Too much had happened. I had too little time to process any of it.
When the sun set, I went inside and Trent told me about his plans for the next couple days. He said he needed to run a few errands in the morning, then meet up with a couple of his associates. After that, we could begin our drive to Southern Illinois. He said it was likely that the entity that was chasing me had first tied itself to me during my childhood accident. For whatever reason, we came into contact, and now it didn't want to leave. Trent would help me get rid of it. He didn't go into many details regarding how that was to happen, but I don't think in my tired state I would have been able to understand much anyway. He had a plan, and that was enough for me. At least for a while.
After our meeting, I made sure Trent had enough pillows and blankets like a proper host, then I retired to my room. I laid down on my twin bed and stared up at the cream-colored ceiling. Then I turned and saw the participation awards for my junior soccer league stashed on my dresser. I pictured myself on the field, running with the ball, out ahead of everyone except the goalie. I took a shot, but it was blocked. Then I ran back to defend. How can such a simple game be so much fun? Was the last thought I had before drifting off to sleep.
I woke up only once during the night. It was still dark out. The room was warm despite the small, flower petal fan churning away, shifting the hot, humid air from one pocket of the room to the next. I waited in apprehension, sensing that something had disturbed me. I saw the tomato plushie peeking out at me from the slightly ajar closet door where I had stashed it so many years ago. I felt like I was missing something. Something important.
And then I heard it.
There was a tapping at my window.

Hey Engineers,
i recently updated my mod-list and by now i have quite a few mods that add additional experiments. My problem now is, that i still didnt leave the Kerbin SOI and still have thousands of science points, already unlocked a lot of colony and nuclear engine stuff and feel extremely "overpowered" in terms of unlocks and science. I usually like a more gritty playstyle where you have a hard time doing some missions with underpowered technology, because lack of science points forces you to go where no one has ever been, if you know what i mean. Now, my playthrough seems to be quite the opposite. Does anyone have the same problem? How do you deal with it? Are there mods that rebalance the whole science gains? I already play on quite hard difficulty and scaled science gains down to 20% or something.
Here is my modlist:
[x] Science! Continued (xScienceContinued 6.0.2)
Antenna Helper (AntennaHelper 2:1.0.7.7)
Astronomer's Visual Pack (AstronomersVisualPack 3:v4.13)
Astronomer's Visual Pack-2k Textures (AVP-2kTextures v1.13)
B9 Part Switch (B9PartSwitch v2.20.0)
Background Resources (BackgroundResources 1:v0.18.0.0)
BetterTimeWarpContinued (BetterTimeWarpCont 2.3.13)
Breaking Ground (BreakingGround-DLC 1.7.1)
Chatterer (Chatterer 0.9.99)
Chatterer Extended (ChattererExtended 0.6.2)
ClickThrough Blocker (ClickThroughBlocker 1:2.1.10.21)
Community Category Kit (CommunityCategoryKit v112.0.1)
Community Resource Pack (CommunityResourcePack v112.0.1)
Community Tech Tree (CommunityTechTree 1:3.4.4)
Connected Living Space (ConnectedLivingSpace v2.0.2.0)
Contract Configurator (ContractConfigurator v2.9.2.0)
Contract Pack: Bases and Stations Reborn (ContractConfigurator-KerbinSpaceStation 2:3.7.3.2)
Contract Pack: Clever Sats (ContractConfigurator-CleverSats 1.4)
Contract Pack: Exploration Plus (ContractConfigurator-ExplorationPlus 2.0.1)
Contract Pack: Field Research (ContractConfigurator-FieldResearch 1.2.2)
Contract Pack: Kerbal Academy (ContractConfigurator-KerbalAcademy 1.1.10)
Contract Pack: Research Advancement Division (ResearchAdvancementDivision 1.2.1)
Crew Light (CrewLight 1:1.20.1.1)
DeepFreeze Continued... (DeepFreeze V0.31.0.0)
Docking Functions (DockingFunctions v1.0.4)
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Environmental Visual Enhancements Redux (EnvironmentalVisualEnhancements 3:1.11.7.1)
Extraplanetary Launchpads (ExtraPlanetaryLaunchpads 6.99.3.0)
Firespitter Core (FirespitterCore v7.17)
Fuel My Ship (FuelMyShip 1.4)
Harmony 2 (Harmony2 2.2.1.0)
Hide Empty Tech Tree Nodes (HideEmptyTechNodes 1.3.2)
Infernal Robotics - Next (InfernalRoboticsNext v3.1.17)
Infernal Robotics Next - ConnectionSystem (IR-ConnectionSystem v1.0.5)
Karbonite (Karbonite 1:v112.0.1)
Kerbal Alarm Clock (KerbalAlarmClock v3.14.0.0)
Kerbal Attachment System (KAS 1.12)
Kerbal Engineer Redux (KerbalEngineerRedux 1.1.9.0)
Kerbal Inventory System (KIS 1.29)
Kerbal Inventory System - No Fun (KerbalInventorySystemNoFun 1:0.1.11.0)
Kerbal Joint Reinforcement - Next (KerbalJointReinforcementNext v4.2.27)
Kerbal Planetary Base Systems (KerbalPlanetaryBaseSystems v1.6.16)
Konstruction (Konstruction v112.0.1)
Kopernicus Planetary System Modifier (Kopernicus 2:release-1.12.1-197)
KSP Community Fixes (KSPCommunityFixes 1.34.1)
Making History (MakingHistory-DLC 1.12.1)
MechJeb 2 (MechJeb2 2.14.3.0)
ModularFlightIntegrator (ModularFlightIntegrator 1.2.10.0)
Module Manager (ModuleManager 4.2.3)
OSE Workshop Reworked (OSEWorkShopReworked 1.2.14.3)
Parallax (Parallax 2.0.6)
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PlanetShine - Default configuration (PlanetShine-Config-Default 0.2.6.6)
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Rover Science Continued (RoverScienceCont 2.3.5.7)
SCANsat (SCANsat v20.4)
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Scatterer Default Config (Scatterer-config 3:v0.0838)
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Ship Manifest (ShipManifest 6.0.8.0)
SpaceTux Library (SpaceTuxLibrary 0.0.8.5)
Station Keeping (StationKeeping 1:0.2.3.1)
Stockalike Station Parts Expansion Redux (StationPartsExpansionRedux 2.0.10)
The Janitor's Closet (JanitorsCloset 0.3.8)
Toolbar (Toolbar 1:1.8.1.1)
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TotalTime (TotalTime 0.6.9.1)
Trajectories (Trajectories v2.4.5.3)
Universal Storage II Finalized (UniversalStorage2 4.0.1.1)
USI Core (USI-Core v112.0.1)
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VesselMover Continued (VesselMoverContinued v1.12.0)
Waterfall - Restock (WaterfallRestock 0.2.3)
Waterfall Core (Waterfall 0.9.0)

Link for all the chapters available here: Engines of Arachnea on Royal Road
“That’s strange,” Exar said a minute later, “I’m not picking up any of the satellite constellations. If it was just one of them knocked out, I’d put it down to a scheduled maintenance. But all of em? Fishy, that’s what it is.”
“I don’t understand,” Rene’s spirits plummeted at the news. He should have known it wouldn’t be so easy.
“Me neither, chief. But take it easy!” Exar assured him, “There’s an easy fix for that. Just hike me up someplace with better reception. Any place where we can get above all these damn trees is good.”
“I’m afraid that’s not exactly an option, noble Exar.”
Rene briefly summarized the situation, filling in the details whenever Exar interrupted him with a question, which was not often.
“Got it,” Exar said after listening attentively, “In short, you’ve got a tribe of devolved humanoids on your tail, also infected by the same parasitoids as our young miss over here. Comms are down, and our closest exfil point is at least thirty-nine klicks due southeast, where our friends, ‘the Fleet’, will be waiting for you.”
“How did you measure the distance so precisely?” Rene asked.
“The T.O.R.U. you were piloting is currently in power cycling mode, but it’s still sending out its mayday message for the repair crews. Judging by the fact that it ejected us via safety pod, the unit must’ve suffered potentially catastrophic damage to its subsystems. Not to worry, though. My inbuilt Geiger counter just gave the all-clear, so there was no meltdown in the reactor core.”
“The most pressing issue is that you have less than 72 hours’ worth of fungicidal doses left, and nothing with which to defend yourself but the monomachete from your kit. In addition, this young lady—”
“Zildiz,” Rene supplied him.
“My bad—Zildiz. I like it, very exotic. Zildiz belongs to a culture which behaves aggressively towards Exodus Industries development projects here on the ground. That everything?” Exar briskly concluded.
Rene nodded. Exar then immediately began outlining a plan of action. Their first priority was to gain altitude and establish communication with ‘Exodus Industries’, an entity which Rene assumed was the ancestor-gods’ equivalent to Fleet Command.
Exar would then signal for help using the spinning bowl (which it referred to as an ‘allcomm antenna’) and an interstellar shuttle would be sent to transport them to the one of the moons.
The moons! Rene was giddy at the prospect of becoming the first man to have returned to mankind’s celestial origin. He tried not to get his hopes too high, however, knowing life’s avowed fondness for ruining every dream a man ever had.
Failing that, Exar would use the high vantage point to triangulate their position using nearby geographic landmarks. Once they had their bearings, it would be a simple matter of hiking over to the nearest hardened base and knocking on the airlock doors.
“I must say, you’re taking all this bad news remarkably in stride, wise Exar,” he told the beeping sphere.
“Oh, puh-leeze! This ain’t my first rodeo, pardner. We E.X.A.R. units have dealt with far worse in our time.”
“Really? Worse than Arachnea?”
“Oh, is that what the kids are calling this place these days? Sure is catchier than 65 Syngman Bb, lemme tell ya. But yeah, this here is nuthin.”
Exar chuckled, a child amused by the backwardness of his senile grandparents.
“Alien plague strains from the thawed-out heart of an asteroid. Cosmophage armadas unleashed by rogue A.I. Not to mention all those privateer raids on the fringes of Pact space. We’ve dealt with them all, helped people survive through the worst the galaxy can throw at them. And with 95% success rate, too, if I may add,” Exar said somewhat immodestly, “Anywho, that’s enough of me jawing. Let’s go mobile, chief.”
“What, right now?”
“The mist’s our best shot, bo-sing. Natural concealment. No telling how long it’ll last.”
Before they left, Rene had Exar explain the functions of all the tools in the kit. The sphere confirmed what Rene had suspected: the slate fed on the radiance of the suns. Exar called it a ‘solar cell panel’. In turn, the pronged cords attached to the solar cell could transfer energy to artefact he wanted to use.
He connected the panel to the mysterious gauntlet with the underslung pipe, which Exar informed him was a ‘laser designator’, a tool meant for guiding in airdropped supplies or flying machines.
“It also doubles as a heat source. Just up the wattage on that sucker with the slide wheel on the edge of the hand. See it?”
Rene put on the gauntlet and activated it by means of a green switch under the thumb. A tight needle of red light shone from the tube, and Rene understood that it was basically like the electrochemical torches that miners used. When he adjusted the slide wheel the needle of light narrowed and grew brighter. Where it touched the granite walls of the burrow there, sour-smelling wisps of smoke rose.
Hot enough to scorch stone? He would have to be careful where he pointed this.
“Go easy on it, though,” Exar advised him, “That kinda power output will drain the juice in a jiffy.”
“The juice?” Rene repeated stupidly.
Exar made it clear to him that the artefacts could store ‘the juice’ from the panel. Moreover, the panel could be mounted on the front or the back of the jumpsuit by means of the same backpack rigging that held the breathing apparatus, allowing the user to collect the juice and charge up to two devices (Exar included) even while on the move. Even the bulky survival kit could be could be fastened to his loadout with a set of clasps at the bottom of the pack which Rene hadn’t noticed.
“As for me, I can hitch a ride on your backpack as well,” Exar told him brightly. And indeed, there was a spherical indentation above the breathing apparatus where Exar could fasten himself in with his stubby spike legs.
Rene whistled appreciatively at the compact nature of the jumpsuit’s design; the entire survival kit was so cleverly put together, a testament to the ancestor-gods’ practical mindset.
He secured his gear, choosing to split the juices between Exar and the gauntlet, and got ready to leave. Rene crouched at the hatch of the burrow like a man in a trench waiting for the shrill whistle that would propel him up and over into the desolate no-man’s land.
Then he noticed Zildiz still huddled in place, not even daring to look at him or the talking sphere. Rene had originally been grateful that Exar’s appearance had shut her up, but this state of catatonic shock of hers worried him.
“Coming?” he asked her.
“I’m not going anywhere with that…that thing!” she stated categorically.
“Was it something I said?” Exar sounded hurt.
“The simulacrum said it would cut me out of my exomorph. That would kill me, Fleet-man.”
“Madame, I got no intention of hurting you!” Exar protested, “But the fact is, you’re sick. The parasite’s attached to so many of the organs in your body, that I fear that it’s totally coopted their functions. Our people have the technology to reverse all that.”
“I will not heed the promises of a slaved intelligence!” she snapped.
Their argument was interrupted by a chorus of hair-raising screams from the jungle beyond. Even in those guttural, inhuman voices there was no mistaking the notes of grief and rage.
“They’ve found Kryptus,” Rene surmised, “Just like you said they would.”
“I take it the natives are restless,” Exar tittered nervously, “Tailo, methinks we gotta go.”
Rene saw Zildiz hesitate, weighing the balance of her fears and forming an internal consensus. He made a move to tip the scales in his favor, and spoke to her from the heart:
“Zildiz. I swear to you that as long as it is within my power to protect you, I will not allow you to come to harm. You are a prisoner of penultimate importance to the Fleet. I’d sooner die than fail in my mission to get you back to civilization. If you doubt my intentions, consider the fact that nobody in their right minds would’ve tried so hard to keep you alive, not unless they have very good reasons to do so.”
“I am not like the Leapers or your people, the Gallivants. I am a soldier of the Fleet, and my priority is the continuation of my species—our species,” he added firmly, “Now, I can’t begin to imagine what horrors and depravities your kind have suffered these past few centuries, or what the Vitalus has taught you to believe. But in my mind, we are all one people under the same god. If that god is the Vitalus, then it is clear that he hates us. Why else would he, in all his supposed omnipotence, condemn us to live in this unending state of warfare and ignorance? Why does he forbid the full use of the human intellect, the sole source of our comfort and security in an uncaring universe? Why must he despise us so?”
“I don’t know the answers to those questions. But I do know this: I do not hate you, Zildiz of the Gallivants. In fact, I would very much like to help you. Will you let me do that?”
Rene stood up and lifted the hatch, turning to offer her a hand.
“Besides! If you come with me, we can go ask the gods in person.”
This is certainly new, Zildiz thought, unsure of what to make of Rene’s offer. His suggestion of a pan-kindred alliance bound together by their shared ancestry was ridiculous, of course. She knew enough of the mathematical models and the general principles of nature to know that such an undertaking was doomed by definition. And yet here was an opportunity unlike any other.
Rene meant to take her to one of the last remaining holdfasts of the Betrayers. Who would have thought that those ancient demons were still clinging on to life, lurking in some nameless abyss, waiting for their chance to wreak one final act of vengeance upon an unsuspecting Arachnea.
And here she was, uniquely placed to destroy them all in one fell stroke. Once she was nestled in that abode of evil, a single transmission from her magnetosynaptic organ to the Vitalus was all it would take to bring Its righteous fury down upon them.
The rewards would be immense. At the very least they would make her a Matriarch. Her gilt helix would live on forever in the generations to come, her legacy enshrined in the undying architecture of the genome. Her children would never go hungry or cold for the rest of their lives. She and her brood could have their pick of exomorph grafts.
Infrared eyes for night stalking, hypo thorax stabilizer tendons for prolonged flight, extra waste ducts, subdermal heat signature regulators, biochemical afterburners to add thrust, not to mention a whole slew of offensive weaponry—nothing would be off the table!
All she had to do was take Rene’s hand.
She did. The Fleet-man lifted her up out of the burrow, trying not to look too surprised at her acceptance.
A very naïve race, she decided. He caught her calculating gaze and must have mistaken it for the beginnings of friendship, for he said:
“Glad to have you aboard, Zildiz. Now let’s get the hell out of here.”
Link for all the chapters available here: Engines of Arachnea on Royal Road

The MLA-30 magnetic loop antenna beat my basketball hoop pole antenna (plastic base, not grounded).
But it’s nice to have the basketball hoop as a backup. Stayin’ hoopy. Hoopy frood.
Here’s a link to the hoop manual: https://cdn.spalding.com/manuals/M686948.pdf (Spalding 68 562FR)

Hi there,
I've recently finished SuperSquats just like another fellow gainer u/Runopologist who wrote an extensive post on hist SuperSquats run -> HERE. So i'll let myself skip the fluff ;)
Background & Training History
Almost 40y, M, 187cm/6'2, 97.5kg/215lbs (now) Began lifting in 2019 after 3years fat loss journey (120kg->76kg) started in 2016.
First program i've ever run was GZCLP, after 6m newbie gains pattered out and Covid struck. Eventually i've ended up in my garage building wooden rack to never looked back.
After gzclp i've fiddled with leangains but it didn't stick. Then i've run various 5/3/1 templates for better or worse. Generally i wasn't happy with my progress - lack of muscle mass(although i did gain some) and playing into clean/slow bulk fallacy(imho) caused me to spin wheels. So this year, after winter hiatus (lifting at freezing temperatures of 0C is no fun at all) I've deciced to embrace the bulk and see what happens. After all i KNOW how to stuff myself with copious amounts of food AND how to loose weight. Kudos to u/MythicalStrength and his "fat loss is easy" posts for stating the (now) obvious.
My SuperSquats
I did not run SuperSquats to the T. First change was dropping Rader chest pull - replaced with straight arm cable pulldowns - bonus for finally feeling triceps long head being worked. Second one was running it as uppelower split - due to time constraints(father of 6 did i mention that?)
Diet
Well I never had problem with undereating. So on top of regular 3 meal times (breakfast/dinnesupper) i had 2-3 full fat milka&protein shakes 60g protein each. And my own PBJ: THC, Toasted bread* Ham & Cheese. In general i've been hovering between 4k - 4,5k. I didn't count kcal on purpouse. And avoiding PUFAs as plague.
* I hail from place where bread means "sourdough bread" not the spongy thingie that tastes like cotton wool - thats called "toast bread".
Lifts. I went with conservative weight selection for all the lifts.
squats 40kg x20 -> 92.5 x15 - last workouts were more rest/pause-like. Funny thing is that it's the upper back( bar hold) that was failing not the legs.
bench: 60kg x12 -> 67.5 x12. Worth mentioning because at 3rd workout i've failed 3 straight sets of 12@60 - i had to spread last set over several ones. However during the last workout it was clean 12x67.5kg in 3 straight sets.
btn: Never done this lift so i've been estimating it based on my front/oh press. I've started with empty bar hit plateau at 32.5 rollbacked to 25kg all to 10x 37.5kg in the last workout.
Other lifts were ok - nothing worth mentioning
Results
Weight gain
I've started SuperSquats at 86kg after running 6weeks of PSMF (dropping from 93kg). Now i sit at 97.5 kgs.
Thats 11.5kg which is 25lbs.
The gut got bigger. But that was expected. T-shirts and pants feel tighter in all the right places. But i wont try to guesstimate fat/muscle ratio. Probably more fat than muscle. But remember fat loss is easy!
Future I plan to run the strength program mentioned in SuperSquats book with DanJohn's squat 101 from Mass Made Simple - just to relearn squating. diet wise - dial back to ~2,5k kcals and lass carbs Then it's going to be cutting time - so maybe Jamie Lewis Feast&Famine, PSMF or Velocity diet - not sure which one.
[Edit]
Progress pics:
I dont have pre-supersquats photo. but just for refrence i give you one from weightloss period ~late 2017 where i've weighted 95kg. https://imgur.com/a/2024-97-5kg-FTgO8ed
[edit2] Sorry for yet another edit. But... fck me. I've decided to follow up with trusted 531 with BBS supplementary. So i've decided to casually go for bench TM test to get current one before starting 531 cycle...started from 50kg and 5kg increments climbed up to 5x85kgs(no grinding!) with final set being 3x87.5kgs. My all time PR was 3x80kg and it was ugly grinder. Don't know what kind of sorcery it is but i think i like it.

⟳ f-droid.org from Sat, 18 May 2024 06:27:18 GMT updated on Tue, 21 May 2024 07:00:45 GMT contains 4410 apps.

Added (4)

• Mindfulness Meditation: Selection of audio guides for mindfulness meditation
• Swiss Bitcoin Pay: 1 minute to accept Bitcoin in your business.
• Frigoligo: Keep your links fresh!
• Lab+ for Gitlab: Your unofficial Companion for Gitlab

Updated (68)

• Conversations (version 2.16.0+free): Encrypted, easy-to-use XMPP instant messenger for your mobile device
• BoB (version 1.3.0): Baby on Board is an application of pregnancy tracking that respect your privacy
• Green: Bitcoin Wallet (version 4.0.28): Blockstream Green Bitcoin wallet
• Notesnook - Private notes app (version 3.0.6): A fully open source & end-to-end encrypted note taking app
• Wulkanowy (version 2.6.8): Client for the Polish school register VULCAN UONET+
• Funktrainer (version 1.4.0.1): This app will ask you the official questions of the German ham radio (amateur ra
• wX (version 55892): Weather app geared towards storm chasers, meteorologists and weather enthusiasts
• HTTP Request Shortcuts (version 3.13.0): Submit HTTP Requests from Shortcuts on your Home Screen
• Mill (version 4.8.0): A Mill Game which supports many rule variants, written in Flutter
• Cams (version 2.3): Simple RTSP viewer for IP cameras
• Unciv (version 4.11.13): Open source 4X civilization-building game
• Blazed Cloud - Encrypted Storage (version 1.5.1): Minimal & Open sourced Cloud Storage
• Extirpater (version 1.6): A free space eraser
• Voyager for Lemmy (version 2.10.0): Join the discussion
• Aria for Misskey (version 0.8.1): Dive into the interplanetary microblogging platform 🚀
• Insular (version 6.4-66cd8034): Isolate your Big Brother apps
• Unstoppable Wallet (version 0.38.4): Bitcoin, Ethereum, DeFi
• GPN 2024 (version 1.64.0-GPN-Edition): GPN Schedule
• Quicksy (version 2.16.0+free): JabbeXMPP with Easy Entry and Easy Discovery
• Shattered Pixel Dungeon (version 2.4.0): A roguelike game based on Pixel Dungeon
• droidVNC-NG (version 2.4.0): VNC server app that does not require root privileges.
• Shiori (version 1.31): Android app client for Shiori
• SimpleX Chat (version 5.7.3): SimpleX Chat - e2e encrypted messenger without any user IDs - private by design!
• Flexify (version 1.0.82): Track gym progress, visualize graphs, enjoy offline support & timers
• Orion Viewer - Pdf & Djvu (version 0.92.4): Orion Viewer is pdf, djvu, xps, cbz and tiff file viewer
• Al-Azan - Prayer Times (version 1.17.9): Privacy focused open-source muslim Adhan (islamic prayer times) and qibla app
• Yubico Authenticator (version 7.0.0): Generate OATH codes with YubiKey NEO over NFC
• Asteroid's Revenge (version 0.10.6): Endless survival bulletHell (highscore based).
• Stroke Input Method (筆畫輸入法) (version 1.2.10): A minimalist Chinese keyboard.
• Nextcloud Dev (version 20240515): Synchronization client
• aFreeRDP (version 3.5.1): FreeRDP is a free remote desktop protocol client
• disky - Find your biggest diskspace thieves! (version 1.1.0): A filesystem analyzer that can show you the usage of your storage!
• FairEmail (version 1.2182): Fully featured email client. Neat, intuitive user interface. Privacy friendly
• Immich (version 1.105.1): This is a client app for the self-hostable Immich Server
• K-9 Mail (version 6.803): Full-featured email client
• neutriNote CE (version 4.5.1d): A hub of written thoughts in fast searchable plain text
• My Leaf (version 2.3.2): Remote control and information for your Nissan Leaf
• RE:INSTEAD (version 0.9): Interactive fiction games
• Table Habit (version 1.12.5): Boost your own habit growth with charts.
• VCMI (version 1.5.1): Engine recreation for Heroes of Might and Magic III
• Ricochlime (version 1.4.2): Satisfying monster shooter
• Podcini - Podcast instrument (version 5.3.0): A feature-rich open-source podcast manager and player
• Mattermost Beta (version 2.16.0): Secure, self-hosted workplace messaging
• Kingdomino Score (version 3.2.2): Calculate your "Kingdomino" and "Kingdomino Age of Giants" score easily
• 37C3 Schedule (version 1.64.0): Conference program app for the Chaos Communication Congress
• Petals (version 3.23.0): Take control of your weed consumption
• Clock (version 2.2): Alarm, clock, timer, stopwatch and bedtime mode
• Quote Unquote (version 4.39.0-fdroid): A Quotes / Quotations / Affirmations App Widget.
• Tuner (version 1.56): Musical instrument pitch tuning
• auth (version 3.0.1): None
• Carrion (version 1.19): Block spoofed calls
• freeDictionaryApp (version 1.6.4): a simple app for Free Dictionary API
• mensen (version 1.1.0): Access the menu of Dresden's canteens.
• Kotatsu (version 7.0.1): Manga reader with online catalogues
• Cuscon (version 4.0.2.8): This icon pack adds variety and dynamism to your Home screen
• timeto.me - Personal Productivity Tools (version 2024.05.15): Pomodoro, checklists, goals, tasks, repetitive, calendar, time-tracker
• Tuta Mail (version 229.240514.1): Encrypted email & calendar service - easy to use, secure by design.
• Les Pas - Photo Album for Nextcloud (version 2.9.10): A photo album that saves all your precious memory in your private cloud
• PeerTube Live (version 1.2): Stream your device camera to your PeerTube channel!
• Saber (version 0.23.1): The notes app built for handwriting
• Mercurygram (version 10.10.1.2): Telegram is a messaging app with a focus on speed and security.
• Helio (version 3.13): Music sequencer, designed to be used on all major platforms
• Swatch .beat clock (version v1.2.7): Internet Time clock and converter
• Bimba (version 3.3.0): FLOSS public transport passenger companion; a timetable in your pocket.
• Kepler-App (version 2.1.4): App only in German! - App for the JKG Chemnitz with all important info
• Suntimes (version 0.15.15): Sunlight and moonlight times (and alarms)
• Copy SMS Code - OTP Helper (version 1.15.2): an open-source app that can detect and copy any code for you
• Tailscale (version 1.66.3-teae73f821-g63a2bbc8e71): Mesh VPN based on WireGuard

^{2024-05-21T07:26:29Z}

So I'm relatively young and before you try to get me out of getting a 370z nismo/370z in general my mind is made up. I have a few questions:
How much can I get a 370z Nismo for with ~120k miles?
Is 120k miles too much?
What year 370z should i get?
Where is the best place to look?
What are the exact differences between touring/touring sport/nismo? (I've heard not to get the base as sport is "super worth it")
How much do these things cost you guys? (maintenance, gas, etc.)
This is just gonna be my weekend car so I'm not gonna go ham and fill up gas super often.
And yes, I know insurance is gonna be high lol.
Budget is around 22k which I'm not quite there yet but just planning out.
Thanks!

So I'm relatively young and before you try to get me out of getting a 370z nismo/370z in general my mind is made up. I have a few questions:
How much can I get a 370z Nismo for with ~120k miles?
Is 120k miles too much?
What year 370z should i get?
Where is the best place to look?
What are the exact differences between touring/touring sport/nismo? (I've heard not to get the base as sport is "super worth it")
How much do these things cost you guys? (maintenance, gas, etc.)
This is just gonna be my weekend car so I'm not gonna go ham and fill up gas super often.
And yes, I know insurance is gonna be high lol.
Budget is around 22k which I'm not quite there yet but just planning out.
Thanks!