Should be Up and Running Again Very Soon

 So, things got extra busy and stressful at work through the rest of the summer and fall, and I had little energy left over.  But, as the pandemic resurged here in Albany, I was forced to take another leave of absence from work as I am high risk.  So, I've been off for a week or so, and getting my energy back.  I'll reread this mess, and go over my notes and start up again.  Should be at least once weekly, at first.  I'm also planning on working on my memoirs and maybe finishing that last book of the fantasy novel people have been hounding me about for the last fifteen years.  We'll see about that other stuff, but in any case this mess will resume in a week or so, at the latest, and will have at the very least, weekly, if not bi-weekly installments once again.  Thank you for your patience.  Wear a mask.  Be safe.

Best,

Diana

Update: It's Slow-going Here.

 Hey gang.  Just a quick note.  Things have been super busy at work, and I have little energy left over for this project.  I'll chip away at it as I can, and I do apologize for delays.  I'm doing my best, and I hope soon to get more consistent with the posts here.  My best to you all.  Thanks for reading.

Chapter Sixty-Nine: Now, Again, but Backwards...

 

Chapter Sixty-Nine

Now, Again, but Backwards...

 

 

Okay, now, we’re at the part of this jumbled mess of a tale to turn around in a temporal sense, and go the other way, more or less, take another pass at what I’ve already told you, but backwards.

So, we’ll talk more about what happened to prog rock after I left Jackie and Jill back at that party in 1971 with top shelf modern weed strains and quite progressive ideas, in a bit, but first we have to revisit everything that has already happened.

I realized that I had to figure out what exactly had happened: the Secret Society destroyed, the Hero’s Guild in tatters too, Will, the former Golden Speedster, now a deranged assassin out to get me and the people I care about, everything was swirling around in my mind, not unlike the scattered meanderings you’ve been reading.  Retracing my steps seemed like the best way to gain some sort of understanding of what was going on and who might be behind it.  Now that Jackie and Jill were safe, I was able to concentrate on the problem at hand.

This shit was way bigger than Will could be up to on his own, new, shiny Faster-Than-Light speed powers and everything.  I knew Will as well as anyone, and there was no way Will could come up with something as convoluted and brilliant as whatever the fuck was going on.  The only person I knew smart enough to pull off something like this was a dolphin who was already dead, and therefore, probably beyond suspicion.  Though, these days, one couldn’t be completely sure.

Who was left alive?  I couldn’t be sure.  Just because I didn’t see the Prankster and Psychonaut bite the big one, doesn’t mean, they aren't lying in pools of their own blood somewhere.  Zerro was still alive.  He was smart, rich, and now, completely insane.  Could he and Will be working together to take out the last of both the heroes and the villains?

Time to figure this shit out with some old-fashioned time travel.  So, I went backward to see what really happened, but from a slightly different perspective.  First, it was back to the auto parts store to get some clues.

 

 

 

 

© Copyright 2020 by Diana Hignutt 

Chapter Sixty-Eight: Massacre at the Secret Society of Supervillains

 

Chapter Sixty-Eight

Massacre at the Secret Society of Supervillains

 

 

Anton Mirsk was dead.  His corpse, clad in his robotic super suit, crumbled to the floor.  It happened so fast no one knew what was happening or why, not even me.  A nanosecond later, Hocus Pocus went down.  Then Nemo, with his tank exploded around him.  The rest followed before I could blink.  And I blink pretty quickly.

In less than a second, every member of the Secret Society of Supervillains was dead, with three exceptions:  Prankster, Psychonaut, and me.  The other two didn’t come to the meeting, so they were spared.  That left me, as the only survivor of the massacre that was too fast for even me to see.

How was that possible?  Who could have taken out the league just as we were ready to begin our masterplan?  Who would have known where we were and what we were up to?  Someone on the inside, of course.  Now the absences of my two colleagues made sense.  But who had that kind of speed?  Neither one of them was a speedster.  Could they be working with crazy, future Alex?  Wait, Alex wasn’t that fast.  Or, at least, he hadn’t been, before.  What the fuck the was going.

Why didn’t they kill me?

(c) 2020 Copyright by Diana Hignutt

Chapter Sixty-Seven: Battle at the Auto Parts Store

Chapter Sixty-Seven

 

Battle at the Auto Parts Store

 

I ran up to the Plaza where the store that Jill’s work was located.  It was on the outskirts of Albany, almost to Delmar.  The plaza was almost empty, with far more of the storefronts vacate than occupied.  The anchoring grocery store had closed a year prior, the Dollar store next to the auto parts store had closed a few months before that.   The Pizza chain and Sub shop closed before that.  All that remained were the auto parts chain, the laundromat, and the smoke shop.  It was a sad testament to the economy of the area.  Of the world.

There was a lightning storm taking place inside the store.  Just as I feared.  I bolted in.  Probably the fastest sprint anyone has ever done.  I scanned the scene once inside and saw crazy, future Will, aka The Faster-Than-Light Assassin building up for the killing hit on Jill.  She was carrying a radiator box.  There was just a dawning recognition that something wasn’t right in her eyes.  It was all going to be over in less than a nanosecond.  I gulped.

Then, Will jerked back and froze.  A look of surprised horror crossed his face.

I ran over, but he remained unmoving, apparently paralyzed.  I grabbed Jill, set down the radiator, and took the fuck off.

I had no idea what force had stopped Will from killing Jill.  I didn’t have time to care at that moment, and obviously the full possibilities and implications of what happened to Will had not yet hit me.  They would later.

I raced to the apartment and grabbed Jackie who was playing Pokemon Sword and Shield on her Switch.  I got her out of there, and then I took Jackie and Jill to the place Clarity had suggested.  Someplace they would be safe.

Who would look for them in the English countryside in 1971?

(c) copyright 2020 Diana Hignutt

Chapter Sixty-Six: A Guide to Techno-Catharism

Chapter Sixty-Six

 

A Guide to Techno-Catharism

 

Techno-Catharism is the quasi-religion that Jill made up after her first conversation with the Ouroboros Machine.

Catharism was a gnostic sect of Christianity that flourished in the South of France until it was eradicated as heresy by the Catholic Church in the Albigensian Crusades.  The Cathars believed that this world was the creation of an evil god who made it while the ultimate god wasn’t paying attention.  That human souls were angels that were brought into this simulated world and trapped.

Jill took this idea and applied it to the Simulation Hypothesis, which, of course states that the odds heavily favor that we live in a simulation created by our post human descendants.  So, now, we have here Super-Intelligent AI, or the Ouroboros Machine running multiple simulations, which is where Jill then tied in the Many Worlds Theory of Quantum Mechanics.

As we’ve discussed already, the Many Worlds Theory of Quantum Mechanics states that there are infinite worlds like ours, with slight differences based on different decision outcomes, much like concurrent simulations would be run in a superfast quantum computer.

The practical aspect of Techno-Catharism, and the one which I find is particularly interesting, is where Jill explained that she attempts to will herself to the best outcome in every situation.  For example, she once used this technique to travel on fog bound mountain roads in the Monte Noire early one morning.  She explained that she tried to use intent to ensure she won the competition.

“What competition?”, I asked.

“The one we’re in with the other versions of ourselves.  All I had to do was drive better than the other versions of myself, and the odds favored my survival.”

 

 

 

© 2020 by Diana Hignutt

A Little Summer Break

Hey Kids, apologies.  Super busy at work right now.  Will resume in a week or so here.  Thanks for your patience...

Chapter Sixty-Five: Bootstrapping

Chapter Sixty Five

Bootstrapping

 

The expression of, “Lifting oneself up by one’s bootstraps,” often misused by individualists, capitalists, and fascists is an actual physical impossibility.  Absurdity is the actual point of the expression.  You cannot lift yourself up by your bootstraps.  Try it sometime if you don’t believe me.

That said, outside of Newtonian mechanics and socioeconomics, there is a field where bootstrapping (a verb form of bootstrap that encompassing the lifting oneself up idea) is a thing.  Time Travel.  It’s well used in science fiction, though one of my favorite versions is the myth of Platinum Man’s uniform.  Originally, we are told through interviews with his own personal propagandist, that somehow or other his adoptive Earth mother cut and sewed his impenetrable swaddling blankets they found in.  Later, I heard a different, far more believable version.

When the teenager that would grow up to become the Earth’s Greatest Superhero (you, know, before the was beaten to death by a Russian billionaire) was approached by a group of young superheroes from the future, he traveled with them to their time to help them.  Upon arriving in the future, they took the young alien to the Platinum Man Museum and explained that he would become a superhero.  They gave him the original uniform that had been preserved in the museum.  He helped those future heroes and returned to his time equipped with the uniform and superhero experience.  So, in this story, Platinum Man’s uniform was bootstrapped into existence.  Where did it originally come from?  Was the first iteration the version where some Midwestern farmer’s wife with impossible sewing skill made it from indestructible alien fabric?  Or was it really bootstrapped, always existing in a time loop, preexistent and eternal?  It’s fun to think about.

The universe is like Platinum Man’s suit.

 

 

 

© 2020 by Diana Hignutt

Chapter Sixty-Four: No Time to Spare

Chapter Sixty-Four

No Time to Spare

 

 

 

There was no time to spare.  Usually, that would be ridiculous coming out of my mouth.  But the Superluminal Assassin was Will Simms and shit just got real.  He was a crazy version of Will from the future, out to kill me to stop some event he found objectionable enough to kill for.  Will was a no kill rule kind of guy.  He fancied himself too high and mighty to take another person’s life.  But not anymore.

He was almost as fast as me, and he was out to get me. And he was serious about it.

How much of my future did he know?  That was the question.  He knew where I was going to be on at least two occasions.  What else did he know?  How did he find out?  Could have tortured me in the future to find out where I was now?  Does all this shit get erased if he then kills me, because future me couldn’t have been tortured to give the information if I were already dead, right?  Makes me dizzy sometimes trying to navigate the intricacies of time travel.

The real, most immediate question was: did the former Golden Speedster know where I was staying?  How crazy was that bastard?  Would he hurt Jill and Jackie?

Couldn’t take that chance.  Had to get them out of there and somewhere safe.

There wasn’t going to be anytime to explain.  I was going to have rush in there pack some shit for them, grab them and get them both someplace that deranged speedster would never think to look.

But where?

Just then Clarity said through the earpiece, “I know just the place.”

“Where?”

“1971. You have friends there, remember?”

“Now you’re thinking, Clarity.”

“Thank you, Alex.”

And we were gone.  Off to a house party in 1971, and safety.

 

 

 

 

© 2020 by Diana Hignutt

Chapter Sixty-Three: Why I Hate the Golden Speedster

As you know, time travel is a bitch.  It fucks up everything.  That’s what happened to me.  When the Golden Speedster began time traveling, and his actions totally fucked up my life.  You can’t even imagine how it is to have some time traveling zippy guy undoing the important moments of your life, simply because you’re going to annoy him in the future.

Will Simms cost me everything.  When I look back on my life, and I remember how things could have gone differently, there was Will, all shiny and fast, screwing with my timeline.

So many of the bad decisions I made were the direct result of Will’s interference.  You’ll see.

And, so, as I began to recognize the missteps I made, due to Will’s time travel meddling, I began to hate him more and more.  Almost every major mistake of my life can be traced back to the Golden Speedster.  I’m sure he probably meant well with his efforts, but the dude completely screwed up my life.

I hate him with every fiber of my being.  I’m glad he’s dead.

(c) Copyright 2020 by Diana Hignutt

Chapter Sixty-Two: So, You Run

Chapter Sixty-Two

 

So, You Run

 

Sometimes you lose track of everything.  Of where you are in the story of your life.  It’s a weird feeling.  Somewhere between that Talking Heads song with it, “This is not my beautiful wife,” and Peter Gabriel’s “I walked right out of the machinery, my head going boom, boom, boom.”  You know what I mean?  Well, that’s where I was… nowhere.  An emptiness of being.  Sometimes you could just lose yourself in the Velocity Field, and nothing else mattered.  Like popping into the corner bar for a quick beer and a sandwich before getting that project done and staggering in at two in the morning, but without the hangover.

And sometimes you want to lose track of everything.  So, you run.  You run. And you run.  And the emptiness consumes you, and nothing fucking matters anymore.  All those moments you spent trying to smoke weed for those nanoseconds of peace, pale to the exhilarating freedom of the emptiness. The lightness of being.

I am the fucking Velocity Field.  Free. Pure Thought.  Timeless and eternal.

And then I wasn’t.  I was Alex Donkers, AKA Dr. Velocity, AKA the Dark Runner.

And all my problems came crashing back.  They always do.

(c) Copyright 2020 Diana Hignutt

Returns in June

So, I thank you for your patience, gentle reader.  I hope you can understand that these are troubled times, and that I've been working long hours and have been super busy at work.  My last shift I did a couple of thousand dollars in sales over my goal...that's a lot.  But, things are starting to settle down inside me now, and soon I shall get going once again on this novel.  It might not be the beginning of June, but it could be.  New chapters will definitely arrive in June.  So, thanks for reading.

Another Note from the Author

Hey, so I've been working a lot of hours and have little time for writing these days.  The blog will take a little break and resume in a couple of weeks.  Apologies for the delays.  Thanks for your patience.

A Note

Hey guys, just a little note to say that as of tomorrow I return to my RL essential job, so we'll be dropping back to Tuesday chapters only, and there's a pretty good chance there will not be a new chapter this Tuesday, but I will try.  Watch this space.  Be safe, kids.

Chapter Sixty-One: How Does the Velocity Field Work?

Chapter Sixty-One

How Does the Velocity Field Work?

That’s an excellent question, and the answer is I don’t know.  The Velocity Field appears to be some sort of extra-dimensional bubble that protects one from the normal effects of super speed.  If I ran as fast as I do without the Velocity Field?  Air Friction would rip me to shreds.  The air displaced as I speed by would destroy everything as I pass, pulling massive explosions after me.  A single ten-mile run would likely destroy the world in an instant.  But that doesn’t happen.

Why not?  Because of the Velocity Field.  It acts as an insulator between reality and the normal side-effects of super speed.  Even Clarity doesn’t know how it works exactly or why it exists.  Or so she says.

It also envelopes anyone I’m touching.  That’s how golden boy can run up the side of a building and catch his sweetie who is once again careless falling off the roof, apparently, and not kill her in the process.

If I carry someone, the Velocity Field envelopes them and protects them from the effects of the super speed, but it also allows me to transport them through time or even other universes.

It’s pretty cool.

(c) Copyright 2020 by Diana Hignutt

Chapter Sixty: Out of Sight, Out of Mind

Chapter Sixty

Out of Sight, Out of Mind

It’s a weird little trait of our mammalian brains, that we spend a lot more time thinking about the stimuli near us, be they people, places, activities, what have you, they we do thinking about the stuff that isn’t.  It’s related in some ways, I think, to object impermanence, which is the idea that things don’t exist for newborn’s if they aren’t in front of their faces.  We only lose that a bit.  Like, when you’re away at college, and you’re all about partying, and a little studying, and you almost never think about your family at home.  When was the last time you thought about that cousin you haven’t seen since you were kids?  When you’re on a tropical vacation, relaxing on some Jamaican beach, sipping rum drinks out of coconuts, you aren’t thinking about your poor old dad, struggling to get by without your help.  It is this property of our brains that leads us to make all sorts of selfish and thoughtless decisions, and erodes our better natures by the repetition of this thoughtlessness.

(c) Copyright 2020 Diana Hignutt

Chapter Fifty-Nine: The Faster-Than-Light Assassin Strikes Again!

Chapter Fifty-Nine

The Faster-Than-Light Assassin Strikes Again!

I had just stepped outside the warehouse in Baltimore.  My head spinning from what Nemo had just told me.  The air still had its early morning chill, the early June warmth hadn’t taken over the day yet.  It invigorated me, helped me clear my head.  I was lost in my thoughts, which were moving at superluminal speeds.  My eyes looked over the docks, the boats, the harbor, the Baltimore skyline, and the puffy white clouds that dotted the clear blue vista up above, but my brain was everywhere else, it felt like anyway.

A felt the knife slip just under my heart this time.  It came close.  I felt the pain and knew instantly what had happened.  I caught a glimpse of my assailant this time.  A dark blur.  Focus.  A man dressed in a costume identical to mine, except it was a deep indigo rather than black.  A man just as fast as me, or at least nearly.

I recovered my balance before I hit the ground from the attack.  I was on my feet, badly hurt, but still mobile.

I regarded my attacker.

“Hi, Alex,” he said.  He sounded like Will.

“Will?”

He laughed but didn’t respond.

“What’s up with the new suit?” I asked.

“So many questions, Alex.  I thought you were smarter than this.”

It was definitely Will’s voice.  I was sure of it.

I knew with my wound; I would not be able to take him.  He had every advantage.

“Let me finish you, Alex.  Let it all end here,” he said almost pleading, holding the knife with my blood dripping off.  “So many terrible things are going to happen.  But we can stop them, right now.”

“Will, what has happened?  What’s going to happen?” I begged him.  I was terrified of him.  There was something about him that was deeply disquieting.  Disturbing.

“What the fuck happened to you, man?”

He paused and looked up.  “You have no idea, dude, what’s in store for us.  I have to stop it.  It’s the only way.  I’m sorry.”

I took off.  I ran as hard and as fast as I could.  I ran across the multiverse, traveled through time, and kept running.  When I finally stopped, I had no idea where or when I was.  But then, neither did the F-T-L assassin, or some future fucked up version of Will, or whoever he was.

I was lost, alone, but safe.  I still had no idea WTF was going on, and it was really starting to bother me.

(c) Copyright 2020 Diana Hignutt

Chapter Fifty-Eight: Selling England by the Pound

Chapter Fifty-Eight

Selling England by the Pound

If I had to rank the great prog albums of Genesis, from worst to best, I’d go like this:

First, they’re not really Genesis on that first album, so I don’t count it, also, I don’t count anything after Steve Hackett, their brilliant guitarist leaves, some gems sure, but not proggy enough for our purposes.  I do generally prefer the Peter Gabriel fronted Genesis to the Phil Collins fronted Genesis.

 So:

7. Trespass

6. Wind and Wuthering

5. Nursery Crime

4. Trick of the Tail

3. The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway

2.Foxtrot

And the best Genesis album is 1. Selling England by the Pound.

Now, most people who have an opinion about such things, prefer Foxtrot or Lamb.  I know what I like, and I like what I like.

Try and remember that, it’s going to be important later.

(c) Copyright 2020 Diana Hignutt

Happy 420 From Dr. Velocity and the Gang!

I'm sure Dr. Velocity would be mad at me if I didn't wish his avid readers a very Happy 420!  I'm sure our boy, Alex would be kicking back smoking the dank and listening to early Genesis albums, but what you do is up to you.

So, moving forward, looks like I'll be dropping new chapters on Tuesdays and Saturdays (could be late Monday or Friday too), rather then the whenever schedule I've adopted here during the quarantine.  I'm doing this so I can work on another project that's been on the back of my mind for a while. I'll post details of that over on my other blog, themanyworldsofdianahignutt.blogspot.com in the near future.

I hope you have as much fun reading these chapters as I am having writing them.  Thanks so much for reading.

Happy 420!

Chapter Fifty-Seven: I Meet Admiral Nemo (again?)

Chapter Fifty-Seven

I Meet Admiral Nemo (again?)

I went to the address on the letter.  It was a busy warehouse by the docks in Port of Baltimore.  Workers were coming and going.  The letter said to ask for Peter Mammers.  I asked a harried looking woman with a clipboard.  She signed and pointed to the office sign.

I went in the office.  There was a secretary at the reception desk.

“Hi, I have an appointment with Peter Mammers,” I said with a smile.

“Sure, I’ll take you in to see him.”

And in a moment, we went through some more doors and there, in a very large tank of water, was Admiral Nemo.  I got a flash of recognition at the sight of the dolphin.

I heard the words, “Welcome, Alex.   It’s good to see you, again,” inside my head.  It was weird.

“Hey,” I said aloud.

“It’s been a few months.  We’ve been worried about you.  Word is you and the Golden Speedster took each other out.  I’m glad that’s only half true.  Why haven’t you reached out to us?”

“Amnesia and loss of powers,” I replied.  “I just got my speed back, and I’m only starting to get flashes of memories back.  A lot of stuff I’m not clear on.”

“I see.  That explains the situation.  When do you think you’ll be able to get back to work for the Society?”

I hadn’t even thought about that.

(c) Copyright 2020 Diana Hignutt