Have to stop and take stock of what’s going on.

So where are we in the broader sense of my story series. The Company has finally mobilized a newly built and as of yet untested fighting force. Flinging them from the earth’s moon base known as Torus station to head out to UB313 near Pluto Charon. Travel time estimated at nine weeks. The newly developed fire teams and walking tanks are in stasis aboard the Righteous Chord for the entire trip, but are suffering longer and longer migraines and waking nightmares, more often as the trip goes on. Attempts to awaken various types of soldiers has yielded unsatisfactory results.

The final straw to unleash the new fighting force was the mysterious death aboard the Dirty Starling of The Company’s oldest Admiral’s great grand son, also named Mark Garneau. However, there is another Ghost crew member named Mark, ready and waiting to assume the role should The Dirty Starling make its scheduled stop for resupply. A coincidence or something deeper? Conspiracy theory on the ship says brain worms, but the tech guys are looking for answers in the programming code for the nanotech upgrades. Could somebody have altered the code from the originals?

On the base UB313 Dr Jang has suffered a recent upset by finding out at least one of his away teams has failed to secure the asset. Lil Boat Peep has been destroyed, along with its crew, but what of The Mangelo? Rumors from Company moles say that the doctor has been building engineered soldiers from what he’s learned from his decades of unnecessary surgeries on unsuspecting corporate victims. Are they upgraded people or conglomerate monstrosities like the moles have been reporting?

It was also revealed that Admiral Garneau’s great grandson was disappeared by a secret protocol initiated by a tenacious mole aboard The Dirty Starling. How did the UB313 doctor know of the assets appearance out of thin air and where to look is a mystery. Who were the two modulated voices trying to take control of the ghost crew member? Who planted and sent the message out into the ether? What does the message say?

Out in the far flung reaches of the solar system a strange vessel has appeared out of thin air. It seems to move and replicate and change unlike anything seen before. But it knows about humanity with one humanoid artificial intelligence figure on board. The last surviving member of team Theta, named Racquelle, out of UB313, from the now inert rescue ship The Mangelo is still alive and being questioned. We learn that the mysterious android formerly known as Kelvin, is now named Katayna, and has taken on Racquelle’s appearance.

The wheels are in motion as all the forces are drawn together for a battle of the ages. Stay tuned for the remaining chapters of book two of this interconnected series.

I hope you’re having as much fun reading along, as I’ve had writing it all down in these weekly, and sometimes daily installments. After I complete the rough drafts here, I’ll go on to edit book two as a whole, then will make the updated version available on Kindle Unlimited. So stay tuned if you want to read it for free in its earliest form. All the best. Happy Friday.

How much blood does this Blood god need?

Can you satiate a blood god with a bucket of blood? Does he need gallons of the stuff? Would a barrel suffice? Or are we talking like lakes or oceans worth? Where is the power derived from? The iron content, the plasma or the red blood cells themselves? What happens if some of your offerings have sickle cell anemia or blood poisoning? Can you substitute any blood? Like does a bull count as several people due to the quantity, or is it the quality of the blood? Like… is a singular virgin’s blood better than, say an entire herd of cattle? Does the blood god have a preference of species or is it just the amount in the offering that matters. How does the blood god keep all that blood from coagulating into a rock solid mass? Does it exude chemicals or treatments to keep it flowing in liquid form? Would working for a slaughter house be considered cheating? Like do meat packing plants with their waste blood pools out back hold a sweet spot in the blood gods ruined heart? How could you compete with the quantity spilt by these industries. Can you just sort of splash it on the ground. Do you have to get all of it to wash over an altar? Like what’s the practicality of the donation process? Do you just shout the name of your given blood god and let’er rip? Can multiple people involved claim the same massive offering or do you have to divide it into shares or percentages? Could you just farm it like a living blood bank, or can an offering only be made in death? Could you resuscitate an offering to make it again? Asking the big questions here, folks.

Just a thought. Any who – so tomorrow is day 60. I guess I could write about the impending spectacle of The Superbowl. I’m not entirely sure I remember who is going to be in it, beyond the Cincinnati Bengals. I do recall there being a lot of shouting and whooping regarding them not having a Superbowl showing since 1992* or something along those lines. (*I really could just google this to look up the correct answer, but I don’t care enough to double check this sports factoid.)

We will most likely indulge in some pizza and wings to watch the game, and all of the new tent pole movie commercials, and the half time show. Although I’m not aware of who is performing. Prince is dead, so not him. And some of my current favourites don’t have a large enough following to play the Superbowl. I’d love to see Wolfmother or The Blue Stones or even Big Wreck play the half time show, but that’ll never happen. I wonder if we will get any meme worthy material like “the left shark” or Janet Jackson’s boob.

Speaking of meme worthy performances do you remember a few winters ago when Mariah Carrey was to do New Year’s eve and she Diva’d her way out of the sound check, then frog croaked her way into like one song of her set and flubbed the whole thing, looking ridiculously unprofessional the whole time. Yeah – that was good, like watching a slow rolling car crash great, not this is actually great, kind of way. It was pretty cringeworthy.

Alas, today is Friday, so that means more snow and unbearably cold weather for the weekend. Of course – of course. Valentine’s day is on Monday, so if you need to do so, go pick something up for your wife or kids. Not like a Lexus or anything that fucking dumb, but like a book on a topic you know they like, or a movie you know they want to see. Something small but personal. Like you actually love them, or some such. Wow – that sounds preachy. You do you. Do whatever it is you do that shows people near and dear to you that you love them.