Welcome to the sci-fi fantasy electronic and alternative opera... For your information, Shhhh! Digital Media is in no way associated with the Salvation Army or any other religious or ideological organization. I myself have no association with them as well. There are people trying to sell you a much different picture of who I actually am and what I'm about than is the truth. I do not live or work in a homeless shelter with all due respect, nor do I live or work in a prison. I am an advocate for the charities represented here on Shhhh! Digital Media, but I am not a volunteer. I choose to do the best I can, where and when I can. I've never worked as a security guard in my life, but it is an honest way to make a living for an honest person, especially if they don't take the identity of other people.

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Thursday, February 12, 2026

Help Women, Children And Men Fight The Disease Cancer! Support The National Breast Cancer Foundation or get in on the Rock The Road Raffle and help Men fight Prostrate Cancer with The Canadian Cancer Society!

You read that right! 


You can either help Women and the National Breast Cancer Foundation in their fight against Breast Cancer, or help Children in their fight against Childhood Cancer, or with the Canadian Cancer Society's Rock The Road Raffle, you can win one of five grand prizes, though there are literally hundreds of other ways to win and you'd be helping real life scientists and researchers in the fight against  the disease, cancer!

Cancer is a leading cause of death worldwide, killing women, children and men and accounting for nearly 10 million deaths in 2020, or nearly one in six deaths according to the World Health Organization.

Nearly half of all Canadians are expected to develop cancer, which is the leading cause of death, with smoking, poor diet, and aging as major factors. 

While incidence is high, 5-year survival rates have risen significantly thanks to the impact and successes in research afforded by your support of organizations like the National Breast Cancer Foundation, Childhood Cancer Canada and the Canadian Cancer Society.


If you're in another part of the world, you can still help by searching for your local cancer research and treatment organizations and supporting them.


Thank you and spread the word!

🦋🐉🪄

Brian Joseph Johns

Shhhh! Digital Media

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Wednesday, February 11, 2026

Thank You Apple!

Hello again. Brian Joseph Johns here.


I've been an iTunes user for years, and had my main account (under my alternate email fav.inbox@gmail.com) hacked by another user who apparently had been using my iTunes account at another location, possibly in the same city as mine or somewhere else.


It was an account for which I'd lost the answers to my security questions as I never use the actual answers to security questions as they can be gotten to by other means such as social engineering or Open Source intelligence.


So I had this iTunes account for years that was used both by me, and a hacker who has been using it to impersonate my identity from another location other than my home address in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. This hacker wasn't someone that I know personally or at least insofar as I'm aware. It was someone however whom had been impersonating my identity for quite some time, and seemed to be assisting the people attempting to steal my content and my identity for since 2012, or possibly earlier.


Recently, Apple changed the interface of their verification process, allowing a person to verify using their payment card as a form of two-factor authentication, which allowed me to bypass the fact that I had forgotten the answers to my secret questions and finally after years, allowed me to reset my password and change my email. 


So essentially, today, after having had this asshole using my account for years, I was able to finally lock them out of my iTunes for good. Since 2025, I've been locking down all of these loose ends, and trying to cut off the identity thieves one by one. The iTunes account was one of the trickiest situations of those situations but thankfully, since Apple took the bold move to improve their two-factor authentication process, I've been able to reclaim another piece of my identity and my life. I wish that other social media companies and online platforms would follow suit, as identity is more and more becoming intrinsically linked to a person's analytics data over the span of time they created that account. When you lose access to such an account, it is literally like you're losing your identity, though the real problem is socially ideological and collectivist as a form of power over loners. People that predatory collectives isolate so they can take some aspect of their being from them and wear it as their own.


Seeing companies like Apple going with innovative and cutting edge policies that help a person keep their identity associated with their person, rather than solely their email account or even the online account itself is a big step in the right direction. If someone can take the impression of being the owner of your account, then they can take the accumulated effort you've put into it, in a sense, taking your karma from you, or by attempting to make you seem inconsistent with the activities of your own account.


In my case, I've had that sort of thing going on for years, with a group trying to polarize me by making it seem that two different email accounts that I operate belong to two different people, rather than the same person. Essentially, what they're trying to do is to make it appear that fav.inbox@gmail.com belonged to someone else, and that I stole their account, rather than the truth, which is that I own both accounts, the fav.inbox@gmail.com account, and the account with which I've been publishing content all new content on Shhhh! Digital Media for the last two years.


Not to mention, I had a bunch of movies and music on my iTunes account that goes back many years. Its nice to have finally been able to integrate it with my brand identity and my personal identity. The identity thieves are people who've been trying to associate my identity with a very different digital footprint than is the truth. Its funny how in this day and age, one's online activity can become a form of karma, and that there are people and collectives out there who actively seek to steal that karma or relocate theirs to someone else's online identity. That's really what's going on under the veil.


Also, these same people are and have been trying to give you a very different impression about my actual identity, that is based upon someone else's. For one, I'm very pale skinned European Canadian. I don't smoke at all. I drink alcohol occasionally but infrequently. I eat fish and chicken often, though I don't eat pork or beef very often. Maybe once a year, but I do eat them occasionally. I work every day, producing something towards the ends of furthering Shhhh! Digital Media, or advocating for the charities it promotes, but I don't volunteer. I've been writing and creating Butterfly Dragon and Tales of the Sanctum content for a VERY long time. Both ideas have their roots in short stories I wrote before I'd turned twelve years old (forty-six years ago). I've been working on the modern incarnation of both storylines since 2012. I'm a man and considerably fit despite my sum activity level and age, though I've been very active health wise for most of my adult life. I don't have a social circle or even people near me with whom I socialize. I am a very, very solitary person and am often kept isolated by the same abusive collectives who are having a negative impact on the lives of many others similarly. I just happen to be a lot more sturdy than most and unafraid of such obstacles. These abusive collectives are convincing many of my readers that I'm someone else, and giving the credit to that person rather than associating it with me. They're social thieves of a new kind. My name is Brian Joseph Johns.


I'm very saddened to hear about the shootings in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia. Grieving for the lost and injured.


I'll be working for another day on offline projects, once again, doing some modeling in Lightwave 3D and hopefully doing some prototyping in Unreal Engine before the end of the day on Thursday February 12, 2026. That should put me back to writing by the weekend and publishing something new by Monday I'm hoping.


See you soon! :-)

This content is entirely produced in Toronto, Ontario, Canada at 200 Sherbourne Street Suite 701 under the Shhhh! Digital Media banner.

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Tuesday, February 10, 2026

Let's Get Some Facts Straight Here...

Hi. I'm Brian Joseph Johns.


I'm not a guitar player and have never owned a guitar.


The only instrument I've ever really played and studied are keyboards, piano and MIDI, and I have a pretty extensive background in music theory, though I'm a horrible sight reader and horribly out of practice, but I can still play, and I can still write music, amongst other skills I possess.


I do NOT have hepatitis and never have had it or any other STD in my life.


I am not Jamaican. I am European Canadian, and I have no African or Caribbean heritage at all, but I'd have to ask then, why is there a problem that I don't?


Nobody, and I mean nobody is controlling me except me, and I'm not anyone but myself, Brian Joseph Johns.


I am not Scottish. I am not Irish. I am not South American. No disrespect meant by those statements.


I am not a member of any ideology or cult that swaps identities between people and never have been, though that's not a criticism of any books or movie plots where that sort of thing happens, because its a common vehicle in writing. Crossed Swords (a book my Mark Twain) examines this theme, as much so as Freaky Friday does, though in Freaky Friday, I believe that the protagonists literally swap minds, whereas in Crossed Swords, the protagonists are two different people who look remarkably similar and who are on the opposite extremes of wealth and poverty. Same with the Count of Monte Cristo and The Man in the Iron Mask, both by Alexander Dumas, though the latter two were more stories of revenge and/or redemption.


Regardless, I am not a member of any ideology that would swap two people's identities, and I am not possessed by the disembodied mind or soul of another person that has subjugated my own mind or soul to the back seat, while it drives my body around like a hijacked car.


I am aware of the fact that I've written stories and books along this line in terms of plot (Era of the Spellbound has large elements along these lines), but because I write things of that nature, doesn't necessarily mean that I believe that they occur in real life.


I believe that symptomatically, there are things that can occur with the human body that could potentially make it seem like something of that nature is occurring, but the people who interpreted it that way would in all likelihood be misinterpreting the actual phenomenon itself, and formulating a very different hypothesis of what was actually going on under the hood in terms of science or magic.


I do believe that there are people who actually attempt to do such things to other people, but I believe that their efforts are confined mostly to successfully fooling people into believing something on that order is occurring rather than it actually occurring. In most cases, its very easy to fool people for whom there is something to be gained by believing it versus the one being duped, and this is certainly the case where intellectual or creative property theft is concerned. There are cults and collectives who actually turn it into a social form of entertainment attempting to steal creative and intellectual property from others, and quite often those who do (who almost always operate in large groups collectively) leave a trail of destruction in their path, and there are few people who'd dare cross them.


There are also cults and collectives who swap the histories of two people, often without their knowing or being aware, as a means to dispose of the garbage of one upon the other, with the other only finding out when people attempt to hold that person to account for whatever history or actions such swapping might entail.


Some groups that do this, turn it into a sort of snare, i.e. like a trap, that binds their victim the more they struggle to get free of it, benefiting from the manic reactions their victim has against their newly inherited history, with some people even regarding it as a form of alchemy attempting to effectively craft such a swapping of histories and the associated character traits and behaviours to make it all seem consistent, but the one thing that all such attempts rely upon is everyone who knows the truth of the matter, either going with the truth, or going with the lie, and unfortunately, it seems that in this day and age, that a group of people will go with what benefits them the most, rather than what is factually the truth, meaning that history can be altered if there is a profit to be made by those upon whose recollection the alteration depends.


If a cult decided to pit a community against a person, in order to steal that person's creative efforts, they'd only have to create a scheme where everyone who went along with the idea earned a reward of some form for going along with it, such as getting the credit for that person's efforts, instead of them. That person does something that gets attention of people, and instead of that person benefitting for their effort, the people around them benefit, perhaps landing job opportunities or some kind of financial reward, while the person whose actual effort yielded the output gets nothing but having everything taken from them. Everyone who remembers things the way that benefits the group rather than the individual whose effort was stolen, benefits, while the one whose efforts were stolen doesn't.


I suppose that eventually that person would just give up, which would then prove to be a fatal flaw, as those who benefited would no longer benefit from that person's effort.


If its so important to be sure that I don't get the credit for my own effort, then what is there to keep me going? Nothing in most cases. I'd just find something else to do that requires a completely different set of skills that those people don't have, that could yield a potential future for my efforts and if the same thing happened again, then I'd have two examples from which to pursue legal recourse, because the more people the become involved in a lie, the harder it is the keep that lie in place.


Sure, the kinds of scammers that would operate something of that nature might use some kind of barter system as a means of rewards and payment, but even that would eventually get found out. The audit trail would be a bit more difficult to uncover, but not impossible.


So here I am just trying to build my brand, and generally doing my best to be inspiring to others, and then a nasty group of people attempt to steal all of my work from me and give it to the credit of people who have nothing to do with it. In fact, that nasty group it turns out have been planning such a thing all along and the people that you trusted have actually been going along with a scam and rewriting the factual history with a false one.


As I stated, as it stands currently, I'm up in the air as to whether to continue or not as a result, meaning that all of the stories are at a stand still as of now, and until I decide what to do about the situation, though it is heart breaking that a bunch of people that read and benefited from my writing would conspire to steal it from me and attribute it to the effort of people who actually have nothing to do with its creation whatsoever.


So, I'll try to be back in about a week to continue working on Grand Tapestry 03, and then from there Era and then Butterfly, unless there's another incident in which case I'll delay it further. I've got lots of other work to do, that combine the skills of writing, programming, physics, artwork and musical composition as well. I'll put my mind to that for the rest of the week. Sorry if anyone was looking forward to as much as I was about Elsa's story in Grand Tapestry. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.


See you soon... oh and I'm not Trent. My name isn't Terence. I'm not Andrew, and I don't play guitar, and I'm 6 feet tall and weigh 175 lbs and am pretty fit for my age of being a 58 year old man. My time training in Goju Jujitsu Ryu, and Aikido is still with me, despite my lack of maintenance and upkeep, enough so that I'll be able to write Butterfly again when I get back to it, with some inspiration from some Wing Chun practitioners who've been serving as skill and style references.


Be back soon :-)

This content is entirely produced in Toronto, Ontario, Canada at 200 Sherbourne Street Suite 701 under the Shhhh! Digital Media banner.

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Saturday, February 7, 2026

Boundaries And When They're Broken By Those Who Readily Violate Privacy

None of this content is produced from within the shelter system or any care facility with all due respect to clients and administrators of such services. 


Some of this content contains controversial topics that might trigger some readers. Reader's discretion is highly advised.


Today in this particular post, I'm going to be handling the difficult issues involved when one or more people in an organized form, attempt to or achieve doing so, violate your privacy and share information about that violation online.


I will be continuing writing Grand Tapestry of Moments 03 after I finish this post, but I thought in light of recent events that seem to have targeted my life, that I should take some time and speak about this in a reasonable manner and deal with the real issues involved when abusive collectives weaponize breaches of others' privacy.


Public Image: The One We Create vs The One Perceived vs The One Others Create vs The Mirage Of Their Combination


As content creators, assuming that at least some if not most of my audience are in some way contributing to the world in such a way, the older that we get, the more that we tend to through our online presence, attempt to craft an illusory impression about our being, and one that is most often very flattering in the name of preserving our interests, both present and future, and creating a zone of safety that limits the kind of information we share about ourselves personally, where the context of our content is somehow separate from us and our private lives. For instance, you'd probably never hear about the most intimate and private details of other content creators mixed in with their content in a way that is directly associated with their lives. 


Its never good practice to mix such private elements of one's life with their regular content, especially when it comes to younger content creators (in their early twenties and onwards as they develop their personal brand), and especially in the case of women. There's a privacy boundary about oneself that everyone should be careful of crossing, because some people who partake of your content might misinterpret expositions of your most private or intimate moments as personal invitations into your life. I'm not talking about the vast majority of people who can make the distinction between their own lives, and the lives of others whose content they enjoy, recognizing the boundaries between the content creator and the audience and why there are limits in that regard. 


I think that the important aspects that need to be addressed come in a variety of different forms.


The foremost are about protecting the people in your life and circle, whether you still have communication with them or not, because privacy over the last thirty years has become the number one targeted commodity in a person's life since the widespread popularity of the world wide web, and mobile communications. The more popular a content creator is, the more valuable that commodity becomes both to the content creator themselves, and to those seeking to breach it.


There are people in this world who become obsessed with those who create their personal content brand online or on television or the film industry and even in video games, seeing the visage that such a person creates as largely being a lie. These are often people who for one reason or another, hold grudges, or who've had such grudges artificially amplified by social engineering groups (often criminal gangs) so as to create conflict between people and keep people divided, by employing the most personal and private moments of a person or group of people in order to do so.



Modern Scandals And The Public Impression of Sex Trafficking

I am certainly not speaking in protection of any sex trafficking networks that do and have exploited the vulnerable for a variety of motivations that often have the dual role of weaponizing intimate moments of privacy for profit in some form. A weapon that is most often paid for at the cost of the health and the life of the exploited, and seeking to damage someone who has access to resources that imbue them with powers that possibly or could be misused unfairly in social competition, business or other venues of life, such as someone in such a position systematically seeking the sexual gratification of a minor. A situation that evokes extreme public hostility (rightfully so) though it is important to remember that the kind of people who cultivate these kinds of weapons against those in the public eye, are very much aware of that, and most often, on the basis of political and ideological (religious) motivations, seek such weapons to advance their interests with such regards.


In such a case, we have sexual predators who systematically and secretly attempt to use their resources to acquire sexual favours from minors. Some such activity is organized through complex networks which are ever increasingly becoming entrenched in devastatingly hidden ways in the midst of even low income communities, never mind the lives of the wealthy and the quickly evolving wytch hunt seeking to label anyone with money or influence (and most often both) as being a sexual predator, because that label evokes such hostility against those labeled as such, that it is in fact the most potent weapon of all, and this is certainly a fact well understood and known by those wielding it that way, in the absence of protecting the interests of the exploited, and the public safety. The one wielding such a weapon can very quickly become the one wielding the power they implored was abused by those they're wielding it against. Not always, but most often, it  becomes a case of the one who hunts monsters, becoming the monster, as Niechtze once put it.


The Overlap of MMIWG2S+

Recently, in Canadian history, investigators became aware of the horrifying fact that many vulnerable Indigenous women had gone missing, or whose remains had been discovered through forensic sciences, leading to the investigation of Missing or Murdered Indigenous Women MMIW (MMIWG2S+). These cases pose a very complex challenge for investigators despite the fact that demographically speaking, the data comes together to reveal the emergent properties of a social phenomenon that most likely arises from sex trafficking and the privacy issues connected to the customers and the sex workers, especially where such sexual activity involves extremes such as violence or harm, though the privacy issues aren't limited to those aspects. Considering that customers who sought such services might also have found aspects of their private lives seemingly in the hands of the sex workers who provided their services, and in the event that these people wrongly wielded the power to protect the interests of their privacy, that might go a long way to explaining many of these cases of MMIWG2S+ where it involves sex workers.

In other words, the privacy issues become a tool of power against those whose secrets are involved, and often, underground and black market businesses whose market segments overlap (sex workers having substance dependencies for instance put them in frequent contact with those dealing such substances and possibly managing sex workers as well). The overlap creates pockets of privacy based power, that could and possibly has been wielded by these overlapping market segments of the black market economy. 

If it becomes known amongst those paying sex workers with the substances upon which they're dependent, that one of their customers is the close relative of a Member of Council, those dealers are suddenly in possession of privacy related information that could be used to corrupt policy and in doing so, create a paranoia between these privacy compromised people on one side of society, versus those violating that privacy and employing it as a form of power on the other side of society, with the sex workers themselves caught in the middle, many of whom at one point in time were frequently in low income areas, discarded Indigenous women.


When the paranoia level between the two sides becomes dangerously disruptive to the structures of power in society, and threatens to pit the public against the hidden powers (such as traditional organized crime, outlaw motorcycle gangs and street gangs), those powers in not having a complete understanding of how they're all being played, might seek to solve the issues by way of silencing the sex workers, whom most of these overlapping segments of the black market would have blamed for the breaches, when in fact I'd bet that it was the result of those trafficking them and providing them with the substances which they depended upon, though those responsible would never admit to it, and would do everything possible to keep that presumption well away from their responsibility. The evidence of this exists more strongly than ever today, as such groups have social gangs that actively seek to transfer and radicalize others with regard to such. As if groups of harassment gangs are seeking to dump their garbage elsewhere to keep it away from the very people who are and have been the problem. The ones using the local dealing of substances as a means to maintain a grip over the communities they inhabit, including as part of the barter system and payment means for many sex workers on the lower end of the scale and as a means to ensure that the secrecy and disposal of information about such activities is directed outward and away from those responsible, and into the laps of those who could be used as viable substitutes for those criminally responsible.

Indigenous women from the 1980s and onward most certainly made up a large part of this group, and I'd certainly given this understanding and the evidence, assume that privacy breaches, that were wielded by local gangs who eventually became organized via internet and mobile technology, against other segments of society, both the black market and legal segments, that initially created the paranoia that led to the first one or two waves of the systematic murder and disposal of these women as a means to shore up the perceived leak of incriminating information. However, decades later, it becomes very evident that those women, and other sex workers were never the leak at all. They were simply caught in the middle, and played by people trafficking them, who likely harvested and wielded the secrets in an attempt to manipulate and corrupt established political power. 

First on the scale of local politics (family members or friends of Council members who partook of the services of sex workers), and then likely expanded their reach to target all members of the community, by which time such gangs had adapted their knowledge to employ modern computer hacking, WIFI eavesdropping and Software Defined Radio eavesdropping amongst other methods, wielding public secrets as a collective and using them to pressure or control members of the community who stood against their black market activities. This is something that still goes on today, and given the fact of how these people are wielding the secrets they gather, I'd be willing to bet that their predecessors were the very ones who manipulated the paranoia that led to the MMIWG2S+ tragedy. A paranoia that likely led to the first two waves of murders that resulted from these power structures trying to shore up their perceived leaks, while those who farmed the paranoia secretly got away with it and advanced their methods and furthered their effectiveness in doing it, right until this very day.


A Ground Level View Of "Possible" Community Based Sex Trafficking Networks

This same network are likely part of a firewall that protects community based sex trafficking by and large, especially that exploiting minors or unwilling sex workers, though I am not speaking about the kind that occurs through personal ads in the city weeklies, and those that are discretely employed by responsible professionals who recognize that a healthy sex life and a respect for the safety of sex workers is an important part of life's many journeys. It isn't something which I'd personally take part in myself, but it is something that I see as worthy of respect of protection, especially given the fact that sex work isn't always about servicing those with a predatory appetite for exploitation or harmful behaviours towards others. Some customers I'd imagine are those who might not be able to service themselves. Perhaps the absence of arms, or other aspects of their being that act to impair or deny them of one of life's greatest joys. What kind of a monster would deny such a person of that experience? Kind of like people who are not far from the being the kind of monsters who'd employ the secrets of others to create division and paranoia that led to the murder of generations of vulnerable sex workers, the vast majority of whom were women.


From my perspective, I see evidence that a very secretive network has developed over the last decade and a half since the Toronto Vice Squad operation against Gangs and Guns, and Sex Trafficking in the city came to a close (2007). The overt presence of the gangs have transformed to one of a more docile and politically manipulative kind, that replaces their former roots in violence with the manipulation of public impression against their enemies, and possibly against investigators, protecting a secret network whose operational nodes are made up of residential buildings (most often low income), with groups of apartments there within making up the node's operational structure, and employing modern technology, and civic technology as both forms of intelligence gathering, and information dispersion throughout the community to other nodes. Their information gathering abilities are quite advanced, and even combine modern social engineering techniques to achieve local breaches, and to extract information from both systems, and from people. 


These tactics make up the barrier between their activities, and those who pose a threat to them. Within their operational structure, especially the places where customers might attend to receive services, are more often than not, equipped with extensive hidden camera networks, most of which are operated and monitored collectively by entire segments of the community, especially those seeking to break the illusions of any residents of the community about whom the impression of their association with investigative bodies acts to stifle or interfere with the regular operations of their black market businesses. Obviously, if a person is caught on camera involved in services provided by a sex worker, that video can be quickly circulated throughout a community to assure local black market dealers that its safe to continue business even when that person is around. So these networks are designed to destroy any illusions that might interfere with their regular business activities, in the absence of a visible Police  or security presence, though another practice by these groups seems to be all about training and taming both Police and security to their agenda, rather than to the agenda of civic and criminal law. Both Police and security are targets of secrecy violations, which are then used to pressure or control them.


There is evidence to suggest that these pressure tactics are also used to farm youthful sex workers, and to seek customers for such workers. It is almost a form of social conditioning, by the group collectives that operate in this manner and I've seen evidence that young women are targeted by this activity as well, and have heard mention on several occasions of implied offers of women based upon age, though the term age was never used in order to further keep the activity concealed, the youngest of which I've heard was thirteen.


In having actively confronted and spoken out several times against the collective nature of the people protecting this aspect, I've often encountered women in the street, whom I walked passed who in having heard about my standing against this activity, said thank you to me, without my even knowing them personally. Basically, they were confirming that what I suspect given the hidden evidence, seem to be very effectively going on, and they're very frightened if not terrified to talk about it with anyone. Over the last three years (since 2023), I've received these responses from possibly more than twenty or thirty women who greeted me upon passing them on the street. In other words, these are women, some of them young, who were afraid to say anything to anyone else for fear of becoming targeted, or who are actively being farmed towards such ends. It is difficult to say. I think its frightening to know that so many are trapped in such a social dynamic that could eventually break them down to exploit them and if this is going on with very young women, then that is a problem that should receive attention immediately.


This trafficking seems to entirely be hidden inside, and likely this this transformation of their methods from the time of 2007, they've gone from being visible, to operating discretely inside of residential buildings throughout the city, who as I stated, each have their own operational node there within that is the firewall against investigation and exposure.


The Importance of This Information In The Age of Social Media, Content Creators and Influencers


Our boundaries are constantly under attack, and more and more this creates the pressure that we should lighten up, and be more trusting with aspects of our private lives. However, I'd warn against this though certainly also advise against going the opposite extreme. Finding a balance is important, but remembering who gets access to what information about you you're willing to share is one of the most vital decisions that a person needs to consider as they grow into this new platform of global awareness.


These collectives I've been speaking about, are very effective shapers and manipulators of human behaviour, especially amongst those they target, for to them it is akin to being like a competitive sport. Keep in mind that many of the people who are subject to this complex activity, are consumers of social media, content and the output of influencers and many of them are a part of this loneliness epidemic that can and is being used to manipulate them towards the ends of delusional thinking with regard to their favourite content producers and influencers.


As we experience this loneliness and sense of isolation, more and more of us buy into the illusion that our favourite content creators are speaking directly to us, rather than the whole of their audience, and the collectives that manipulate the behaviours of their targets, often attempt to farm this aspect of the relationship between a content creator and their audience members, to the degree that they're cultivating dangerous delusions that potentially could lead to obsessive behaviours with regard to the content creators, who most of the time aren't vastly wealthy business moguls seated atop of an organizational brand they developed. Many of them that are growing their first few years of their brand impression are struggling themselves to survive, and don't have a layer of security or even an experience of awareness that when you have a large audience of people, there can be lost and lonely people in that midst, who can and often will be via the manipulation of collectives for whom such manipulations are nothing more than a sport and a cruel joke, try to create a stalker, convincing that person that the content creator they're obsessed with is trying to send them secret love messages, intended only for them, imploring them to get up and get on a plane or train or taxi and come to them directly so they can discuss it in person with each other. This is another form of exploitation and of the vulnerable, though in this case, its both the stalker being farmed, and the content creator who are being played into a situation that could potentially develop into dangerous extremes.


This is where knowing your boundaries as a content creator comes in. Nobody else is privy to the private aspects of your life, and we all have them, and in crafting your brand appearance, which is another illusion you feed to people about the content creator you're trying to appear as, rather than the person you actually are. Its not disingenuous at all, its a safety barrier between the people who use your content, and yourself, that puts limits upon how close you allow them to get to actually knowing you.


When you share details that go over a certain boundary, to some of these lonely people, who are most certainly being farmed by collectives trying to game them as stalkers against you or other content creators, they might see that as their advancing in their closeness to you, and might even use that as a justification to get closer to you, once again, the possibility that they're being manipulated by collectives for whom that sort of thing is a social game and a joke to them, unaware of ignorant (more likely) of the harm they might be causing and the risk they're putting you and your potential stalker in.


Considering that many content creators and stars of social media are ever getting younger and younger, I can't help but think that we need to be very careful about this and more importantly so, to be aware of it so we can put on the brakes, and take this on with a better approach, erring on the side of caution. This is most important for young content creators, social media moguls and influencers because you don't have the infrastructure and life experience yet to know that you need to protect yourself and your circle, until you're old enough and have enough experience to know and take responsibility for these aspects yourself. The more popular and larger your audience is, the greater that pressure and responsibility will be and if that outpaces the financial return you get for cultivating those aspects of your online presence, that could be a potential danger. For the most popular and successful influencers, security should always be a priority at the top of the list, and not because your audience isn't worthy of trust. Because you need to protect the boundaries you setup from the beginning and to lay down those boundaries in order to assure other content creators a good example of such practices.


The Older You Get, The Easier It Gets To Speak About Violations Of Your Secrecy and Privacy


I've since I began this journey of developing my content and brand, and from long before, had a private life (and still do to a certain degree). We all do and the best thing that you can do is remember that, and to accept yourself for who you are and what drives you, given your specific situation in life, though being aware of a healthy balance and unhealthy behaviours is certainly something you should examine in self development, but eventually, especially with the collectives I've been speaking about today, you're eventually going to hit a point where your privacy is destructively violated by people for whom such an activity is just a sport and a joke, much like the collectives who practice cultivating obsessed fans and stalkers. 


The more popular that you are, the more that your secrets and privacy can become a potential point of power against you, hence as your audience grows, so will the attempts to violate your privacy, especially exposing and sharing aspects of your life where your secrets seem to contradict some aspect of the personal brand you've developed with regard to the illusion of your public impression.


Written Women From A Man's Perspective

I write a lot about women, and write a lot of women characters. I've always been fascinated by, and sometimes obsessed with, in terms of their presence, physicality, their persona and being and their vast potential in every possible extreme and everything in between. So vastly different from the experience of being a man, that when writing women characters, you eventually come to realize that the more attention you invest in understanding their perspective, the closer you get to them, though when you're not the same sex as the characters you write, that can also prove to be a point of contention, and for some an issue of authenticity, though some of my favourite male characters were written by women.


Given the fact that I've given writing believable women characters so much effort and detail insofar as my empathic understanding of them goes, it does and would seem a contradiction that I am a sexual person, and very much so with my regard for women, physically and intellectually. 



Distinguishing Between Truth And Misinformation


Obviously, if there are aspects to my life that are of a sexual nature, and seeing as being older and somewhat more reclusive, I tend to take care of matters of my sexuality myself, with the enjoyment of erotic content rather than shopping for an instant fantasy partner on YouTube for instance, something I won't and don't do. A fact about which I am neither ashamed nor shy, and this is precisely the aspect about my privacy may have been breached.


Before I go any further, and without giving specific details, I will let you know that I've been in a few committed romantic relationships in my life, and that given the nature of abusive collectives, they've actively stalked my past girlfriends, and at times still do so I've received intelligence through my own network with regard to their being and safety. They know me better than anyone with regard to those private aspects and would likely vouch for me, though I'm certainly not seeking that. 


I'm just explaining that the reasons for my being single have nothing to do with my worthiness and eligibility. I've always been a very affectionate kind of person, and a good partner when and where I needed to be, and never sexually exploitive or abusive with regard to the women I've loved (and the women I didn't). I think that if I weren't single, that the abusive collective would likely make life very difficult for that woman, enough so that it would prove to be a risk to her physical and mental health. I can't say that I'm an incel or anything of that nature (I've had opportunities that I've turned down), but I can say that my own love interest is a woman (and not a man or transgender with all due respect to members of the LGBTQ2 community) and that if I could be with her, I would. Sometimes, abusive cults and groups can get between two people, and somehow never be held legally accountable in the face of such crime.


There have been attempts to paint me as a person who is a womanizer, despite the fact that I've only ever asked a woman out twice in my life, with every other relationship having begun because they expressed their interest in me, because I've been hopelessly shy for most of my life. Not lacking confidence, but rather, just fearful of having a woman regard my interest in her as being strictly platonic, which has never been the case at all, though twice in my life I've been in horrible and short relationships that I accepted for reasons of sympathy or outright having been deceived rather than actual interest, and in doing so instantly regretted them, and still do until this day.


Sexuality and extremes always seem to play into the false impressions about a person that groups that violate a person's privacy seem to target, though I can honestly say that I've never been a fan of or obsessed with receiving fellatio, and have certainly never given it, though I have gone to great lengths to make intimate moments as enjoyable as possible for the women I've loved, and I've had a few women remark that they'd have preferred it if I was more aggressive or forceful, though I certainly would find that to be difficult. I enjoy the creative enthusiasm of Southeast Asian erotic content, but I also know my own limits and what I'd feel comfortable with. Violence against women in any form has never done it for me. 


Roleplay is and can be fun, and I love how it plays out in a lot of Southeast Asian and European erotic content, but not in real life with strangers who just vote themselves into your life and privacy, perhaps trying to create an orgy through the walls. WTF is that?!!! Certainly, the privacy between couples is under attack the most aggressively that it ever has been and by abusive ideologies that have no place receiving protection in society, given the fact that they violate every aspect of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Human Rights Act and the Privacy Act of Canada. 


I don't use narcotics or smoke, though many of the most intimate nights I've ever had often started with a bottle of wine or a few drinks, though far from being part of every such experience. There's something about modest quantities of good food, good wine (or whiskey) and good music that really sets the mood, though despite my being a sucker for quiet intimacy, I've got a healthy taste for light kink as well. 


I'm not "Heb", which most people should already know about me. I've never been a sex offender or predatory towards women of any age, and despite the fact that I can appreciate attractive women in their mid twenties and thirties, I tend to find myself drawn to women forty and up, especially given my age. Especially European or Southeast Asian women as I've stated, though this isn't an attempt to advertise or place a personal ad on my website. Its an attempt to deal with misinformation that might have had a negative impact recently with regard to my sincerity as a writer. One thing that I can proudly say is that I've never violated "no means no". Ever. I'm certain that if a woman ever wanted for the sake of play for "no to mean yes", that she'd creatively choose a very different way to express it, rather than to put at risk the word guarding a woman's right to have the final say over what happens and what doesn't with her own body


So, if any information has surfaced that contradicts anything I've stated here about my real nature, I'd take it with a grain of salt as its very obviously bullshit, and that is definitely something with which the market is currently flooded.


I'm old enough now that I don't mind people knowing a bit more about me than I'd suggest that younger content creators do not divulge about themselves. I can protect myself and deal with just about any situation fine, preferring peace over war any day of the week, but I'll definitely stand my ground when and where I need to but I guess my entire point is that we shouldn't have to, but it helps to know how to.


By the time you get old enough to appreciate these facts, most of what you were protecting on the way to your later years will become a currency you might use to show your trust to others, but not before you've gone the distance and protected it all over the years on your journey as a social media mogul, content creator or influencer.


Alright, I've ranted enough that I need to take a break, and then get back to writing Grand Tapestry of Moments 03 - The Interview.


Thanks for reading my content and wading this far into this post, especially given its controversial nature.


I am Brian Joseph Johns and this is Shhhh! Digital Media at https://www.shhhhdigital.com or https://www.shhhhdigital.ca in Toronto, Ontario, Canada at 200 Sherbourne Street Suite 701.


This content is entirely produced in Toronto, Ontario, Canada at 200 Sherbourne Street Suite 701 under the Shhhh! Digital Media banner.
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Tuesday, February 3, 2026

Shhhh! Digital Media Presents... The Butterfly Dragon: Heroes of our Own Reimagined: Episode 9 - The Fallen and the Risen (Artwork added Tuesday February 3, 2026 17:30 EST)

Brand new artwork, though remember that this is still early in the entire storyline. Their final costumes are a bit of a ways off. Still, this should give you an idea of what's around the corner. Thank you to Perplexity AI, GPT, Claude, Google AI Studio, Grok, DeepAI, DeepSeek and Photopea.





Chapters

  1. Convergence (Finished January 28, 2026)
  2. Manufactory (Finished January 29, 2026)
  3. The Meeting of Extremes (Started January 30, 2026)

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The World Veterans Federation is a humanitarian organisation, a charity and a peace activist movement. The WVF maintains its consultative status with the United Nations since 1951 and was conferred the title of “Peace Messenger” in 1987.


I'd like to point out that it was the incredible Gary Sinese Foundation that brought the issue of Veteran's rights to my attention. I've always had little respect for those who'd forget the great contribution made by those who've risked life and limb to defend those values that so many of us espouse. Perhaps the true measure of one's principles are by that for which they'd risk their life.

"None can speak more eloquently for peace than those who have fought in war."

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The Edgar Allan Poe Museum
Because Barris told me to put it here. If I didn't, he said he'd walk. Geez. Stardom really gets to some people's heads. Maybe I could kill him and bury his heart beneath the floor boards! Or I could encase him in behind a brick and mortar wall, for shaming my family name of Amantillado! 

In all truth, there's a good chance that thanks to the works of Edgar Allan Poe, Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Jonathan Swift, Mary Shelley, Robert Louis Stevenson, Herbert George Wells, Jules Verne, Dr. Seuss, Stephen King, Clive Barker and Pierre Burton (for The Secret World Of Og and his ground breaking interview of Bruce Lee) that all of us are literate. Actually that goes back much farther to the Phoenecians and their first 22 character system of symbols. Literacy is important. Really it is. Literally. It allows us to approach our employer at the end of the week (with a big club) and ask: where my money?! Math important too. It help us count our thirteen fingers and toes.


Wikipedia
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Shhhh! Digital Media Presents:

The Butterfly Dragon - Heroes of our Own: Reimagined

by Brian Joseph Johns

Episode 9: The Fallen and the Risen

Manufactory

6 Years Ago
Toronto, Ontario
Canada


Alicia slipped in the door of her studio apartment, then pocketing her keys and quickly kicking off her shoes. After hanging up her blazer in the closet she made her way to the kitchen and placed the fixings for her salad in the fridge, by which time Mr. Frisker had jumped up onto the island countertop and Barker was running in circles around it once again, in some kind of manic display of happiness.




"My little twins are are hungry again?" Mr. Frisker rubbed the side of his face against her hand, while Barker stopped and barked once enthusiastically.


Alicia retrieved their cans of food from the cupboard and served them each a generous serving, which once again led to a calm silence in the apartment, with the exception of the eager sounds of their eating.




She then flicked on the large screen television after which she made her way to the second floor (with one leap), bounding the upper railing and landing softly on the other side.


She then stripped off her clothing, one garment at a time and eyed herself carefully in the mirror.


"Good. Nothing off about my body considering this is the ninth week since my having taken the Series Y formula, and over that time I've certainly put my new body through the rigors of extensive testing... in a matter of speaking," Alicia noted that her body and form were still as remarkable as the day she'd taken the formula.


Alicia then stepped into the bathroom, and from there, into the shower, where she washed the stresses and worries of her day down the drain.


"...more and more Torontonians have been reporting sightings of the mysterious masked woman in the trench coat. Just last week she was seen scaling 22 Front Street West, where she quickly disappeared from sight before onlookers could get a picture of her. Here's more from independent video journalist, Janice Yu," the anchor of CityTV Evening Edition announced as Alicia threw the weight of the day off of her shoulders in the shower.


"Last week, Toronto residents Ellen and Denny Smith were on their way to a local restaurant on Front Street when they spotted a woman in a long black trench coat scaling the side of 22 Front Street West: 'She was already halfway up the side wall when my wife and I spotted her. She seemed to be using various outcroppings, leaping up the wall in a series of leaps and bounds before she made it to the roof and disappeared,'" Janice, an attractive and assertive woman reported to her viewers.


"This is the fifth such sighting over the course of the last six months, which has some Toronto residents spooked. I'm here live with Police Detective Edward Farnham about these reports. Detective Farnham, what do you have to say about what these people are witnessing?: 'We're skeptical about these reports until we see some real evidence, though I should point out that if there are thrill seekers using Toronto buildings for publicity stunts or just seeking thrills, that you could end up seriously injured or even killed, not to mention that you might be putting others' lives at risk. Especially those who might try to copy you. There are proper channels one must go through to legally perform such displays, much the same as movie shoots must book with the city when they're shooting on city street locations,'" Detective Farnham responded to Janice's question.


"Detective, Is the Toronto Police Service investigating these reports?" to which Detective Farnham was pictured answering: "No. At this current time we have no investigation regarding these reports, though we have a number of patrol officers who are aware of the situation and are keeping an eye out just to make sure that nobody gets hurt," Detective Farnham replied.


"There you have it from Detective Farnham. As far as the mysterious lady is concerned, we'll just have to watch and wait until she reveals herself again. This is Janice Yu reporting courtesy of CityTV Evening Edition," Janice smiled for the camera before the scene switched the anchor desk.


"In other news, the warehousing and manufacturing sector has taken a hit in recent times, with a series of attacks by vandals against a number of such operations, leaving Toronto businesses questioning whether its safe to operate in the city. CityTV correspondent Nelson Ryder reports.


"Across the GTA, and out as far as Scarborough and Mississauga, Toronto is seeing elevated vandalism targeting warehousing and manufacturing sites, including a number of break-ins costing local businesses hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars thus far. I spoke with local real estate developer Elsen Wendell earlier today on the issue: 'We're seeing a rise in vandalism at a number of sites throughout the GTA, many of which have been my personal customers though I'd like to remind residents and business owners that these situations are isolated in nature and that the city of Toronto is still very much one of the safest places in the world to operate a business,'" Elsen, a well dressed tall man in his late forties with greying hair spoke to the reporter.


...


Near 22 Front Street West, Detective Farnham approached Janice as she and her videographer prepped their equipment for the return to the studio.


"I take it we're done here?" asked Farnham of Janice.


"Oh? Yes. We're finished. Thank you so much for your remarks about the situation. I'll see you again sometime I'm sure," Janice smiled at Farnham, who extended his hand.


"It was a pleasure," Farnham smiled and turned to return to his car, where his partner was standing, leaning against the side door.


"Old man on TV again? They need young man like me!" Somboon, a digital forensic specialist said to Farnham as he approached the car.


"That's national television, not Riverdale bozo," Farnham said to Somboon as he walked around the car to the driver's seat.


"Hey, watch it old man. I have family in Riverdale you know?" Somboon responded, opening the passenger door and getting in at the same time as Farnham.


"Not the district, I meant the television show, although when I was a kid, it was called Archie. You know. A lot of young people with hip hair cuts and all.  I guess you'd call it a yoap opera," Farnham started the car.


"A what?" Somboon confirmed.


"A yoap opera. A youth soap opera," Farnham carefully pulled the car out into traffic.


"I don't know where you are old man. Delerius maybe? Premature retirement might be a good idea. So what'd they ask you?" asked Somboon.


"They asked me about the trench coat woman... again..." Farnham told Somboon, seemingly dissatisfied.


"What did you tell them?" asked Somboon, really pressing it with his partner.


"What they're allowed to know," Farnham replied, quickly losing his patience with his partner.


"So you left out the part about how she's connected with the recent spate of vandalism?" Somboon continued pressing it.


"...and the part about how every time we arrive on the scene, there's just a bunch of unconscious thugs, who get cycled through the system faster than we can lock them up," Farnham looked to Somboon and smiled.


"We need stronger locks for them," Somboon replied with his own smile.


"We need better legal tools for the prosecutor in the forms of statutes and laws, and we need stiffer sentences and a better grip on parole. We need policy changes, not punishment hardware," Farnham responded.


"Yeah, whatever. Sometimes you think too much when you should act old man. So where to now?" asked Somboon, somewhat less abrasively.


"We're checking out a manufactory in the downtown towards Commissioner Street. I got a tip that Walton Norler's going to be there. Part of his new Business Edict, giving a tour of a new facility and building confidence amongst investors," Farnham told Somboon.


"Are we invited?" Somboon looked to Farnham, a humourously inquisitive look on his face.


"No. We're going as a safety measure. I'd love to catch the vandals during the commission of their crime," Farnham replied.


"So we're conducting a stakeout," Somboon went through the utility box in the dash and retrieved his thermal imaging camera.


"Yes, but off of the books. Besides, weren't you the one last week who was saying that we need more action?" Farnham asked Somboon as they turned left onto Commissioner's Street.


"I meant with the ladies! Not with the guns!" Somboon replied with a smile on his face and a wink to Farnham, telling his partner that he was only joking.


...


Alicia had by that time finished buckling the last clip on her boots, and had rolled up her black trench coat and her domino mask into a tiny bag which she slung over her shoulder as Mr. Frisker and Barker once again came running over to her.


"Alright. Mommy's got to go out for a bit and see if this Mr. Norler is just another one of the bad guys or if he's the real deal. You two make sure that you behave now," Alicia said to them as they watched her slip over to the door to the fire escape. She opened it and stepped out into the night.


A few minutes later and she'd flagged a taxi to drop her off at Lakeshore Boulevard and Saulter Street. From there, she was on her own as the mysterious trench coat girl.


...


Walton Norler led a group of six men, each of them attired in three piece business suits, through the new Tynan Pharmaceuticals Manufacturing facility, he with his own business jacket slung over his shoulders and the sleeves of his button down shirt rolled up as if he was ready to jump onto the production line himself.




"These facilities are amongst the most advanced in the world, and are being prepared for the next generation of medical pharmaceuticals being developed at our research facility. We've targeted markets that have been cash cows for generations, and with our next generation of treatments, we believe that we're going achieve supremacy over a number of diseases, though I'm going to wait until the CDA has approved them before I say more. Gentlemen, you're getting in on something that is truly going to change the world as we know it. It begins with our case studies of numerous patients over the years, continues on to our research wing, and will finally be resolved here, in our manufacturing facility. From here, we'll be shipping to pharmaceutical warehousing operations all over the world, and all in line with my better business edict," Norler assured the men, as they examined the facility.


"I thought pharmaceutical lines required centrifuges and clean rooms?" asked Rodney, one of the men familiar with investments involving the production of pharmaceuticals.


"Not this one, though we do utilize centrifuges, they aren't the large clunky ones with which you're familiar. They're micro-fuges. State of the art, high speed, chaotic turbulency capable. They're grouped in rows of six, by six in height. They achieve the same results in one eighth of the time per cycle, and process twice as much input material as their larger, clunkier cousins," Norler smiled, feeling a sense of relief that he'd spent the time researching the technical details for the tour of the plant.


"As for the clean rooms? We've integrated them into the manufacturing process. At several stages along the production line, we can divert materials to a mobile clean room stage, which can be plugged in at any point along the production line, and is entirely automated, or it can be manually operated by trained staff. Most use cases will involve automation, but our staff will always include at least three clean room process trained technicians. Staff who are essential to our production line and the monitoring thereof," Norler pointed out one of the mobile clean room modules, which appeared like a translucent stand up closet with a work table, shelves and a variety of tools.


At the top of these clean room modules were a series of three automated robotic arms, each of which possessed six dual jointed fingers, capable of manipulating precision tools with the utmost delicacy.


...


MissGvious sat at the driver's seat in her Lincoln Continental, parked a few blocks from the manufacturing facility. Beside her car were two unmarked vans, each of them full of her field operators as she liked to refer to them.


In her own car, there was Stakz in the passenger seat. He was a large fellow, as tall as her without about twice as much muscle, his vein popping arms having led to his nickname. In the backseat were Wakk and RokSteddi, two more of her thugz and along with Stakz, her backup when things got hectic.


"Yo! You ready Stakz? Wakk? RokSteddi?" she asked them, grabbing her phone from the tray between the front seats.


"Ima ready as I'll ever be!" Stakz was quick to respond.


"Lets go gurl!" Wakk replied.


"You know I'm with you gurl," RokSteddi added.


She dialed the phone and a man on the other end answered it.


"MissGvious I presume? How are you tonight?" asked Torman of her.


"So we're clear on this info you told me, right?" MissGvious got right to the point.


Torman cupped his hand over the phone and turned to Valerie, who sat beside him on the sofa as they watched City on a Hill.


"Honey, I've got to go take this call elsewhere. I'll be right back," Torman leaned over close to Valerie, who wrapped her arms around him and pulled him even closer.


"I want a kiss first," Valerie demanded of him.


He leaned in closer and gave her a quick peck on the lips.


"No. I want a real kiss," Valerie insisted.


He leaned into the kiss this time, remaining fixated on her lips for as long as he could without drawing the ire of his caller. He then leaned away from her and smiled.


"I'll be right back for more of that," Torman said to her as he got up.


He left the living room and the same giant screen upon which his father used to watch movies, and headed into the kitchen, where one of his security staff stood leaning against the counter, eating the last bits of a cookie.


"Mike. I'm going to need a minute," Torman said to the personal security specialist.


"Sure thing Mr. Torman," Mike stepped away from the counter and walked out of the room and found his way to the front door, where he stepped out for a smoke.


"Yep. We're as clear as day on this. Norler's interference with the members of the board is what ultimately got your father killed. Norler's been playing us all for a very long time, but he's such a goody two shoes that he's almost untouchable," Torman explained to MissGvious.


"Ain't nobody untouchable. Especially the man who got my father done!" MissGvious said with an immeasurable pain and intensity, which left her lips as the ripest of contained anger.


"I'll believe it when I hear about it. I wish you luck, 'cause you're going to need it. He's a slippery one that one," Torman remained skeptical.


"Oh. And one more thing. You know that girl you used to go to school with? The Chinese one? The one that you really liked?" Torman said to her with a grin.


"You mean Heylyn or Helayne or whatever the heck her name wuz?" MissGvious confirmed with Torman.


"That's the one. She's connected to this whole deal that went down with your father's death. Turns out she's tampering in our affairs. Downtown. She foiled a robbery that involved one of your contacts. Samias. The guy from Montreal? Well it turns out that Helayne and her friends having exposed the corruption at her school before graduation, actually had repercussions that led the rival cartel to take out your father. Helayne's exposition of the school corruption exposed him as a  former hitman. Norler years later cut off one of their laundering operations, and after those two incidents, it was only a matter of time before they figured out the connection with your father. If you'd take care of Norler and Helayne, I think you'd be on the road to healing a wound that has for too long festered on your soul,"  Torman said to her, speaking like someone who cared about her.


"Norler? He's in that manufacturing plant right now, selling Tynan out. Helayne? She can be found at 240 Adelaide Street West. She just purchased the building and is overseeing work crews as they finish renovations. She'll be there with another girl. Monique. That's Samias' ex-girlfriend. She's  got a lot on him, and she needs to be taken out. After all, you want her as a witness against you in court now, would you?" asked Torman somewhat rhetorically.


"They'll both be done before this night's over," MissGvious assured Torman.


Torman pulled a notepad from his pocket and scratched the names of Norler, Helayne and Monique from it, drawing a thick line through each of them as he spoke.


"As long as we're clear on your info being accurate," MissGvious said to him, clarifying the facts with him one last time.


"Oh, I'm clear as can be on this. Trust me, I'm ever so clear," Torman smiled as he spoke.


"I'm going to get it done. I'll call you tomorrow, when me and my fellas might be needin' a new line of work. Maybe seeing as what I'm about to do will be helpin' you, you'll help me out too," MissGvious insisted.


"Call me tomorrow on this number," Torman smiled to her.


With that, MissGvious hung up.


Torman then left the kitchen and walked to the front door and opened it, handing his phone to Mike.


"Take this, and have the number changed immediately, though message all of my contacts except for MissGvious and her crew with the new number. Got it?" Torman explained to him.


"Sure thing boss," Mike responded, accepting the phone and pocketing it as he finished his cigarette.


Torman then returned to Valerie on the sofa and lay down with the side of his face resting against her breast.


"All finished?" asked Valerie.


"Certainly am. Just had to tie up a few loose ends," Torman smiled as he crawled up her body and found her lips once again.

...




MissGvious got out of the car first, and upon her stepping out the car, it was easy to see that she was wearing a purple skintight suit, like a gladiator or a wrestler, a pair of gauntlets, one on each wrist and even with a small cape. She affixed a mask over her eyes and wrapped her curly red and frilly hair up in a purple bandana, while the rest of her crew donned their tube masks.


...


"Somboon?" Farnham said quietly to his partner, who had leaned over against the passenger window of their concealed care and was now asleep.


Farnham leaned over the shook his partner.


Somboon awoke with a start, reaching for his service pistol.


"They pulled up a few minutes ago, with two vans. Look at that! They've got like twenty of 'em. Armed," Farnham told Somboon as he contacted the radio room.


"Why didn't you tell me?" Somboon asked Farnham in shock, as he rubbed his eyes.


"I did! You must have been asleep!" Farnham insisted as he requested backup.


"We should wait for the backup!" Somboon insisted.


"Those guys in that meeting with Walton Norler, they might not have that much time left!" Farnham explained to Somboon.


"So you're saying its better that we die too?" Somboon looked at their odds thoroughly.


"No. But the two of us, if we're careful, we might be able to delay them. Hold them off until the backup gets here," Farnham insisted, stepping out of the car and drawing his pistol.


Somboon shook his head, and grabbed both the shotguns and a box of ammo from the utility box.


"I must be crazy following you old man!" Somboon threw the shotgun at Farnham.


"If crazy is what we need to get the job done, then so be it. Just cautious and careful. When we bluff, don't give 'em an inch. Got it partner?" Farnham said firmly as he holstered his hand gun and checked the shotgun.


"I got it. Lets do it," Somboon said as he cocked the shotgun.

Manufactory




Alicia stood atop of the manufacturing building in the growing darkness of the evening, hunched over and peering through a large skylight, into the warehouse below. She could see that the lights were on but whomever was present on the production floor was beyond her direct line of vision. She concentrated until her heightened senses kicked in. She could see that the group meeting were located in another part of the manufacturing floor, about forty meters from her position.


She checked each of the panes of glass of the skylight until she found one that was slightly loose. Using her heightened strength, she managed to shimmy the glass loose, and eventually removed it from its place. She slipped through the opening onto the top shelf of a shelving unit immediately beneath her. She then replaced the glass and went about getting her bearings.


...


MissGvious watched as Stakz and Wakk pried the back door to the manufactory open with a pair of crowbars, her remaining crew of seventeen behind her, each armed with their own weapons, either melee based, or firearms. Most were packing pistols they'd procured on the black market, while others were armed with everything from knives to sledge hammers, each of them with their tube masks covering their face, and a baseball cap covering their head.


As Stakz gave his crowbar one last forceful push, the lock suddenly snapped and the door flew open before them.


MissGvious charged into the building, as Stakz and Wakk caught their breath.


"Whew! That was one tough door yo!" Stakz stood aside with Wakk as the others poured into the door.


"Yeah. I'm tinkin' maybe next time we should go in through a window," Wakk responded between breaths.


"I'm with you there bro. Lets get into it before MissGvious takes it out on our asses," Stakz said, following the last of their crew in through the door they'd just opened.


"Nobody touch a thing until I've taken out Norler! Ya hear?!!!" MissGvious ordered her crew as they fell in behind her.


...


Alicia heard the sound of the door lock breaking from the top of a shelving unit that was in the part of the manufactory where Norler and the investors were situated, though she continued watching over them and listening to their conversation.


"...and in case you're wondering, quality assurance has always been integral to our vision from the very start. Even in this state of the art production line, we've integrated modern technology that allows us to divert materials or finished products by various statistically derived factors into one of our six Q/A stations along the course of the production line. And just like the mobile clean room units, they're modular and can be relocated and plugged in to any other part of the production line, to accommodate different Q/A requirements," Norler explained to the investors as Alicia listened to from the top rack of the shelving unit.


"You see, we want to make sure that the vision of our genetic designers and researchers makes it from their minds and hearts, to the end of the production line and into the various containers that will eventually find their way to the shelves of your local pharmacist, and perhaps if that vision holds, change the lives of the people they help, for the better," Norler gestured to one of the quality assurance modules as he finished his delivery, taking a bottle of pills that had recently come off of the line and throwing it up into the air and catching it.


A tear welled up in Alicia's eye as she heard his words, and for a moment, she thought he was talking about her.


"What about the recent rise of alternative healing or naturopathic medicine? How do you intend to compete with that market?" asked on the investors.


"I've personally, under the recommendations of another board member, begun examining alternative medicine as alternate platforms to give our customers the means to augment their treatment. The first of our integrations will be a line in support of Traditional Chinese Medicine, whose treatments will be targeted at a niche market segment after extensive testing for interaction with western medicine, and make use of an international supply chain that will completement our western medicinal treatments. This is of course is all dictated by Health Canada and the rate at which they evaluate and approve such treatments," Norler added.


"What about questionable market sustaining practices? Are your treatments in these new facilities working towards the ends of suppressing symptomology, or are your researchers working towards the ends of a cure, and if so, how does that affect our overall investment? If we cure our customers, then we'll have no more customers," asked another one of the investors.


"That's not entirely true. First of all, we work towards both goals: the suppression of symptomology as a means of relief, and curative treatments so that our customers can be freed from the bondage of illness. Curative treatments involve very intense long term investments in both research and engineering, often much longer than treatments that target symptomology, not to mention that what we learn in fighting symptomology often becomes indispensable in research targeting a cure. We prioritize both, but we never circumvent curative treatments on the basis that we'll be eliminating our customer base. What we learn in curative treatment research, often applies to the treatments of other diseases as well. Both their symptomology and their cure. There are a lot of people out there who need treatments that help them cope with symptomology, and in many cases, we're still a long way from a cure. Your investment won't ever be a dead end, though in all honesty, I wish that we were in the day and age that I could say that it was, because that would mean that nobody is getting sick, and unfortunately, that's just not the case," Norler explained to the investors as the sound of something falling from one of the shelving racks in another room broke the relative silence of the factory.


"What was that?" asked one of the other investors.


"I don't know. Maybe raccoon got in here somehow?" Norler turned in the direction of the sound, and heard agitated whispering voices there from.


 "If there's anyone else in here with us, this is a private facility and we're not giving public tours at this time," Norler said as he stepped in the direction that he'd heard the clatter.


Something flew at Norler from the darkness of one of the other rooms connected to the production line. It glistened as it spanned its trajectory, just amiss of Norler. He quickly and barely just stepped out of the way as the projectile plunged into the shoulder of one of the investors.


"Dammit! I'm shot!" he yelled, looking to his shoulder and seeing a knife handle sticking out of his body, the blade fully submerged between the top of his chest and his shoulder.


Norler turned in the direction of the injured man, not realizing that another blade was speeding at his back from the same darkness.


As the second knife was about to plunge itself into his back and possible sever his spinal cord, a mysterious blonde haired woman in a domino mask and a black trench coat landed on the floor behind him, catching the knife dead in the air.


"Gotta go handsome," Alicia said as she tossed the knife to the floor under one of the big machines, then leaping up and onto the shelving racks and disappearing into the darkness.


"I never miss!" MissGvious fumed as she charged into the room directly at Norler, this time wielding a large hunting knife.


Of her crew, those with guns took cover and setup their own firing line to cover the onslaught of those with close quarter weapons.


As MissGvious closed in on Norler, screaming as she charged at him, he turned and fell over backwards trying to get away from her.


Something fast landed beside her as she was about to plunge her knife into him. Alicia caught MissGvious' arm, and twisted it behind her back, throwing her off balancing and attempting to push her to the floor.


MissGvious quickly adjusted her stance and turned her body enough so to allow herself to free her arm. She wrenched her hand away, but her knife was gone.


"Its very dangerous to run with knives young lady!" Alicia said to her as she snapped the blade in half, tossing both useless pieces away.


MissGvious didn't waste a moment and instead took her onslaught to Alicia, allowing Norler a few moments to escape to his investor group and check on their safety.


"Take 'em all down yo!" MissGvious ordered her crew as she charged at Alicia.


MissGvious threw a fast punch at Alicia, who easily dodged it, leaping over MissGvious and landing behind her.


MissGvious didn't even bother to look, but instead delivered a side kick that connected with Alicia, sending her backwards and crashing over a conveyor belt, where she landed against the start switch on that segment of the production line. The production facility hummed quietly to life and began running the program it had been assigned during the previous day's tests.


"So, you're a trained one, are you?" Alicia leaped over the conveyor belt and confronted MissGvious once again.


"I've been studying my whole life for this moment!" MissGvious continued her onslaught on Alicia as gun fire opened up around them.


"I hate to say it, but I'm still a little new at this. So just bare with me if you could?" Alicia dodged another one of MissGvious' punches, delivering a kick of her own which sent MissGvious flying across the room and into a shelving rack, and then to the floor.


"That one is going to cost you!" MissGvious got to her feet and adjusted her purple mask, then charging again at Alicia as the gunfire flew around them.


...


"Stay down and follow me! There's a steel storage room right there. It can be locked from the inside and out with a code. It'll keep us safe until the Police arrive!" Norler yelled to the investors, getting hold of the injured one and helping him in the direction of the storage room.


MissGvious caught sight of Norler again as she stood off against Alicia, and instead charged towards him, grabbing one of the steel rollers from a conveyor belt to wield as a weapon.


"You're going to die today!" MissGvious screamed at the top of her lungs as she charged at Norler, wielding the roller like a club with both hands.


Four of the investors had made it into the steel storage room, while the remaining two struggled to get there, one of them being the injured man. Norler's progress was cut short by a swift kick from MissGvious as she raised the roller in hand, ready to lay the killing blow.


When she went to bring it down upon him, she found she couldn't move it for the life of her. She turned to see Alicia holding onto it with one hand.


"The Purple Nacho Libre is being very naughty today," Alicia said to MissGvious, tossing the roller away.


"I ain't no Purple Nacho Libre. I'm the Purple Hood, you know what I'm sayin'?" MissGvious responded to Alicia.


"Your name needs a little work, but its definitely much better than the costume," Alicia smiled at her.


MissGvious threw another flurry of punches at Alicia as she lost control and flew into a rage.


Alicia dodged them easily, then leapt over a conveyor belt just narrowly missing an actuator arm as it lifted a container of pill bottles from one conveyor and loaded it onto another.


MissGvious tried the same move, but impacted with the high speed actuator arm on its return trip, which threw her twisting through the air into a cabinet on the other side.


When she got to her feet, Alicia was there and ready for her.


"I need backup! Now!" MissGvious yelled and Wakk appeared from the cacaphony on the production line, taking up behind Alicia with a hammer.


"Get your ass away from her blondie or Ima mess you up!" Wakk threatened Alicia.


Alicia dodged his hammer as he swung, laying a kick dead center of his solar plexus and launching him into a wall. MissGvious though had managed to land a serious punch to the side of Alicia's face, sending her into the control station nearest them.


Alicia shook it off, checking Norler's position as he approached the entrance to the steel storage room, then turning to face MissGvious again.


"That really hurt you know?" Alicia said to MissGvious as the sound distant sirens approaching could be heard.


"We gotta vacate! The Babylon is here!" MissGvious suddenly turned and fled her crew falling in behind her, one of them grabbing Wakk and helping him up from the floor.


Norler had just closed and locked the steel door of the storage room when two people appeared from a nearby door. 


"Freeze! Toronto Police Service!" Farnham appeared from another door on the far side of the production line, Somboon behind him, each of them packing a pump-action shotgun.


Alicia was now the only person still there. She turned to face Farnham and Somboon, raising her hands.


"Is this high enough?" asked Alicia of them, raising her arms as high as she could.


"That's a good start. Now don't try anything funny," Farnham ordered her.


"I won't, but that man with the gun behind you might..." Alicia said to them as she kept her arms in the air.


Both Farnham and Somboon immediately turned to face whatever Alicia had pointed out, but by the time they'd figured out that there was nobody there, they turned to see that Alicia was gone.


"She's reeeal sneaky," Farnham said to Somboon.


"She's kinda hot too," Somboon added.


"That's enough out of you..." Farnham replied as they checked the production floor.


...


MissGvious got into her Lincoln Continental, Stakz, Wakk and RokSteddi piling into the passenger seats.


The rest of her crew piled into the two vans, the three of vehicles then speeding out of the back parking lot and towards the exit, while eight Police cruisers filed in through the entrance to the facility.


Alicia watched from the roof as the MissGvious drove around the building, the two vans following behind her car.


"Maybe I can find out a little more about her?" Alicia said to herself, then turning and sprinting as fast as she could towards the end of the roof.


 She leapt out into the air and fell quietly, landing on the roof of one of the vans, softening her impact carefully by bending her legs as she fell flat and gripped the sides of the van's roof.


"Yo?! Did you guys hear anything?" asked Stubz in the back of the van.


"Are you kiddin'? My ears is still ringin' from all that shootin' in there yo," Mooch responded.


"What?" responded Boomz to both of them.


On the roof of the same van, Alicia laid low and hung on as the van sped towards Lakeshore Boulevard East.


...


Farnham and Somboon had secured the back office and the part of the production floor where the storage room was situated as their backup arrived, entering the building in groups with their weapons drawn.


Somboon was busy working on overriding the digital lock on the storage room door with a portable computer from his kit.


"Got it old man!" he assured Farnham, as the magnetic lock hummed and unlatched.


"Open the door. I'll check it," Farnham ordered Somboon, his pistol in hand as he opened the big door.


"We need an ambulance. We've got an injured man here..." Norler immediately confronted Farnham, who peered into the storage room and caught sight of the man with the knife sticking out of his shoulder.


"Don't remove the knife! Leave it. If you remove it, you might cause more damage or he might bleed to death!" Farnham yelled to them.


"We need paramedics here immediately!" Somboon turned and yelled to his peers on the Police force.


"So, did blondie cause all of this or was it the gang?" asked Farnham of Norler, holstering his pistol.


"No. She's definitely not one of them. She saved my life. She might have saved all of us. She kept them all at bay while we fled into this storage room," Norler advised Farnham, who listened carefully.


"I guess you have a guardian angel then. Is there a reason that the production line is running?" Farnham asked Norler.


"No. Someone must have accidentally hit it during the fray. I'll shut it off if it will make things any easier," Norler responded, stepping out of the storage room and over to the production line control panel where he hit the stop button.


The production line quickly shut down while all of the robotics tucked themselves away in their storage and maintenance position. 


The room went from the sounds of the ongoing noise of production to a sudden silence as the investigators began arriving one by one, setting up the crime scene.


...


"Looks like we made it!" Stakz said to MissGvious.


"They ain't followin' us. They ain't even seen us," Wakk added.


"So where to sis?" RokSteddi asked of MissGvious.


"We're going to get that Helayne chick. I ain't ending this night before I at least get one of them. Someone has to pay for what they did to my father!" MissGvious said as she drove.


Atop of the van, and inside of Alicia's jacket, her phone's silent ringer rang, though with the bumps and ride of the vehicle, she couldn't hear it or feel it.


...


Myung kept her phone to her ear as she sat at home, waiting for Alicia to answer. When it rolled over to her answering service, she left a message:


"Hi Alicia. It's Myung again. Listen, I think Helayne is in some real trouble, and that we should try to find her and help her. Call me when you get this message," Myung said before hanging up the phone.


She then dialed another number and waited for an answer.


"What is it Myung?" asked Aikiko, answering her phone.


"What, no Dragon's Eye Security Dominatrix anymore?" asked Myung sarcastically.


"I don't make fun of your business, so don't make fun of mine. What do you want?" Aikiko responded.


"I haven't been able to get a hold of either Helayne or Alicia and I'm worried sick about them," Myung said to Aikiko as she picked up and took the last bite of her Gimbap.


"Well, while you were busy making your dinner after work, I managed to locate Helayne's new place of business. Its on the corner of Duncan Street and Adelaide Street West. Now, if you're as good a friend as you say you are, then why don't we meet down there in fifteen minutes. I mean you're practically around the corner from there, and me, I'm a short distance too," Aikiko said to Myung.


"Really? You found it? Ok, I'll meet you in fifteen minutes on the north east corner of Duncan Street and Adelaide. See you soon!" Myung hung up.


...


A painter carried two white buckets of refuse, one in each arm as he walked towards the back of the building, through a double door into what would eventually become the shipping area, and over to the newly installed dock doors.


He paused, putting the buckets down beside himself and stepped over to the shipping door, pressing the big button labeled 'DOCK ACCESS'. He pressed it, somewhat worried that it might at the moment of the approach of the finish of their contract somehow cease, and require a week more of service work to repair. Instead, there was an electrical hum as the insulation seal opened away from the roller track, allowing the rest of the door to move vertically, sliding upward to reveal a large construction waste bin that had been provided by the contractor's network of service suppliers during the engineering work of transforming the building into the buyer's vision.


The warm spring air of the evening greeted him, as the door finished its ascent and its having done so gave him a sense of pride in his own work, despite his feeling that he'd only helped to provide the finishing coat.


He took one of the buckets by the handle and tossed its contents of drywall clippings and dust into the bin. When he turned to grab the other bucket, he was shocked to see a slender young woman in work coveralls with short hair, tinted of stylish pure black and white with the second bucket already in her hand, ready to pitch the contents into the bin for him. He immediately recognized her as the woman who'd been assisting the client. He pressed the button to close the loading dock door.


"Miss...? You don't have to do that... I'll..." he quickly tried to get the bucket from her.


"What are you afraid of? I mean really? Let me find out for myself why I shouldn't help you, if I shouldn't help you," Monique said to him as she wound up the bucket, pulling it back, ready to toss the contents.


"What kind of a man would I be if I didn't say?" he asked her.


"You're from Quebec? I can hear it in your voice?" asked Monique of him.





He paused and smiled as Monique held the bucket, ready to spring at any moment.


[Ahhh, I am. And you Miss? I suppose that you're an expert on French? Both the Canadian and European varieties?]
"Ah oui, je le suis. Et vous, mademoiselle ? Je suppose que vous êtes une experte en français ? Aussi bien le français canadien qu'européen ?" he asked her.


[Not necessarily. I just recognize a kindred spirit. You seem like the kind of person who has dared to adventure beyond the cozy familiarity of Quebec, into the rest of our country.]
"Pas nécessairement. Je reconnais simplement une âme sœur. Vous semblez être le genre de personne qui a osé s'aventurer au-delà du confort familier du Québec, dans le reste de notre pays," Monique replied in her native language.


[I appreciate your having come forward to say so, but I'm here simply because there was more work for me as a skilled painter, and with a crew who could afford my dedication to my craft. I take it you are a French woman stricken with wanderlust, are you?]
"J'apprécie que vous ayez pris la parole pour me le dire, mais je suis ici simplement parce qu'il y avait plus de travail pour moi en tant que peintre qualifiée, et avec une équipe qui pouvait se permettre mon dévouement à mon art. Je suppose que vous êtes une Française aux prises avec une forte envie de voyager, n'est-ce pas?" asked the Painter of Monique.


[Me? Oh no. I'm a free spirit who held too much pride in my family and aspirations and became a lost soul who fell right into the trap, not even having seen it coming. Humbled yes, but maybe too late?]
"Moi ? Oh non. Je suis une âme libre, trop fière de ma famille et de mes aspirations, et je suis devenue une âme perdue, tombée dans le piège sans même l'avoir vu venir. Humiliée, c'est sûr, mais c'est peut-être trop tard?" Monique pondered, having relaxed her hold on the bucket as she lowered it to the floor.


[No. Its never too late, and I appreciate the fact that you'd help even a lowly painter like me with my work. You who work with the very client whose resources create vast economies. Here, and abroad.]
"Non. Il n'est jamais trop tard, et j'apprécie que vous aidiez même un modeste peintre comme moi dans mon travail. Vous qui travaillez avec le client même dont les ressources génèrent d'immenses économies. Ici et à l'étranger." the painter replied to her, moved somewhat by her words.


[What moves the world about my employer is the exact same thing that wills your hand to move that paintbrush, and that's why I didn't run when she gave me that choice. You know the one. You might think of it as simple as economics. I think she knows that its about something more, that goes beyond the price tag we put on it, for that price is beyond value to her, and what she wills into being is just as valuable. Before you automatically contradict me to protect your ego, you should know that she truly admires the finishing work you and your peers have done on the building. In this meeting of two places.]
"Ce qui touche profondément mon employeur, c'est exactement ce qui vous pousse à manier le pinceau, et c'est pourquoi je n'ai pas fui lorsqu'elle m'a donné ce choix. Vous voyez de quoi je parle. On pourrait penser que c'est juste une question d'économie. Je crois qu'elle sait que c'est bien plus que ça, que ça dépasse le prix qu'on y affiche, parce que ce prix n'a aucune valeur à ses yeux, et ce qu'elle concrétise a tout autant de valeur. Avant de me contredire d'emblée pour protéger votre ego, sachez qu'elle admire sincèrement le travail de finition que vous et vos collègues avez fait sur le bâtiment. Dans ce lieu de rencontre entre deux mondes." Monique replied, her young and ambitious spirit very evident in her demeanor.


[Tell me, what is it that these two places might being doing that is so beneficial to our being? Our economy? Our future?]
"Dites-moi, que font donc ces deux endroits qui soient si bénéfiques pour notre existence ? Pour notre économie ? Pour notre avenir ?" the painter asked Monique, his right eyebrow raising in quest.


[I don't know. She's often vague, but she alludes to it being a matter of West meeting the East. So simple, yet so elegant. Perhaps locally in our own country, from coast to coast, or perhaps throughout the world. We'll have to see where her vision takes us.]
"Je ne sais pas. Elle reste souvent vague, mais elle laisse entendre qu'il s'agit d'une rencontre entre l'Orient et l'Occident. Si simple, et pourtant si élégant. Peut-être à l'échelle locale, dans notre propre pays, d'un océan à l'autre, ou peut-être à travers le monde. On verra où sa vision nous mènera." Monique replied, hefting the bucket up and into her frail arms and heaving the accumulated refuse of her life into the bin, and then dropping the empty pail to the floor of the newly crafted shipping area.


[Perhaps the statement: from far and wide was never meant to limit our sense of self and belonging to only our mutual shores. In some sense, that's why we all venture out into the unknown, but ultimately end up running into kindred souls like ourselves," the painter replied with a smile as he turned his back to the dock, removing his hat out of politeness and to wipe the sweat that had since he'd started working that afternoon from his brow and then pressing the button to open the loading dock door for her.


Monique returned his smile, a look of shock coming over her face as she recognized the unmistakable form of a masked man standing on the asphalt outside of the loading dock, a 9mm firearm aimed directly at her center of mass.


"Yo Monique! I seen whatch-ou've done and become and all, but I'm afraid that its time to pay the bill!" Samias said to her as he pulled the trigger.


As he approached the last of his words to her, she was able to move herself enough so that the round ejected from the pistol at supersonic speeds only grazed her left lateral muscle, scratching one of her ribs and spinning her in place until she fell to the floor, rolling in pain and agony.


The painter quickly ran to hit the docking door button, in hopes of closing the door before the gunman had time to finish his grim task, but on his way to his goal, he was hit in the upper forehead by a round from the same gunman's pistol and fell lifeless to the cement floor, immediately dead.


Another man jumped atop of the dock, helping to heft the original gunman up and onto the shipping area floor, both of them searching the area for additional targets.


"You missed her! She's still moving," Nebus, the second man, advised Samias, gesturing to Monique and then ensuring that his balaclava was fully covering his face, not wanting to finish the job himself.


Samias checked on the painter he'd just shot, ensuring the man was dead, before risking his back by moving up to assess Monique's health. As he approached her, she struggled to get away from him. He looked back several times to the dead painter and then to her, wondering who was the bigger threat of the two. The painter, who would represent his second degree murder charge or Monique, who represented being the only currently living witness to that fact, other than Nebus, his accomplice. Monique however was in fact the intended target, and silencing her was tantamount to his rising through the ranks of Torman's organization.


"There are some things that should stay with the living, and there are some things that should stay with the dead. The upright, and the downtrodden. At this moment, you're the key to my getting ahead in life. You're the fallen and I'm the risen!" Samias said to her as he leveled his pistol at her head, and squeezed ever so carefully...until...


Helayne slammed into Samias from the side, throwing his aim far to the right and into the cement wall,  his fired round chipping and shattering bits of the brick work to the cement floor beside Monique.


Samias immediately swung his firearm around to Helayne's head, which she immediately ducked, grasping his hand with her exercised grip until it became too much for him to bear. She folded herself to accommodate her grip until she was once again facing him and pressuring his arm against his back and forcing him to the floor, at which point she became aware of the second assailant, whose gun was already pointed at her head.


"Oh! So sorry. I missed you! Oh so much I missed you!" Helayne said to Nebus, the second gunman as she slowly stood, keeping both of her hands behind her head as she faced her new assailant.


"Well, you know. I'm a skilled warrior yo! But unfortunately, its lights out for you," Nebus responded to Helayne.


Monique kicked Nebus square between the legs as he fired, just barely missing Helayne's head, though she did not remain stationary long enough to appreciate that fact. She instead focused on Samias, who by that time was moving in to finish Monique once and for all.


As Nebus rolled around on his back, gasping for the lack of air that had arrived at his doorstep via a swift kick to his groin, Samias' aim once again found Monique's pretty face from a distance of three meters. He pulled the trigger just as Helayne once again had managed to kick his gun, this time  entirely dislodging it from his grip, after which she landed a flurry of punches to his face, sending him to the floor unconscious.


Monique upon seeing the swiftness of Helayne's defense, was suddenly spurred into action, kicking Nebus' dropped pistol to the other side of the dock, far from his grip.


"Are you good?" asked Helayne of Monique.


"Yeah. I'm good," Monique responded, plugging her wound with her hand as she negotiated with the rest of her body in attempt to get to her feet.


"Ok. You good? I'm bad!" Helayne said, kicking Nebus in the gut once, knocking him unconscious.


"Who are these people? You know them?" asked Helayne as Monique collected their firearms, tossing them each of them into the garbage bin after Monique had opened the loading dock doors once again.


"That's my ex-boyfriend..." Monique said to Helayne as she pointed to Samias, kicking him in the gut herself.


"He very bad man! Too bad! You need to take away the people like him from your life!" Helayne insisted of Monique, both of them looking with sadness to the fallen painter, Helayne pulling her phone from the breast pocket of her jacket and dialing emergency services.


"We need help, here at north east corner of Duncan Street and Adelaide Street West. Inside new building on the corner. Men shooting with guns, and men injured! You need to hurry please!" Helayne said to the 911 operator before hanging up.


"You're shot?" asked Helayne of Monique, a deep sense of concern for her first employee apparent in her eyes.


"Its hurts like a... but I think its a scratch. Really," Monique gasped in pain as the other painter wandered into the shipping and receiving area through a set of double doors, both of his hands behind his head.


"Its alright! We already stop the bad people!" Helayne said as she turned to face the other painter.


"Well hello Miss Ying. If it isn't my favourite class mate of all time," MissGvious said to Helayne from behind a purple mask as she wore what appeared to be a skin tight wrestler's halloween costume.


RokSteddi led the painter forward, wielding a gun which he held against the back of the man's head, MissGvious taking up his other side, with Stakz and Wakk on the other flank.


Wakk immediately ran over to Samias upon recognizing him, helping him to his feet.


Helayne stood protectively in front of Monique, keeping herself between the latest threat and their target, or so she'd assumed.




"You won't get her. I won't let you!" Helayne said defiantly as the skylight above them shattered, and the mysterious blonde haired woman leapt down onto the shipping area floor, standing beside Helayne defiantly.




"That's right. If you want to get to her, you're going to have to get through the two of us!" Alicia said to MissGvious as she advanced.




"Make that the three of us!" Myung leapt up top of the loading dock and took up a position on Helayne's other side, from Alicia.




"Try four of us!" Aikiko said as she leapt down from the same skylight from which Alicia had appeared moments earlier.


"I hate to be a spoil-sport and all, yo, but I'm afraid that I'm not even after her. I just want you!" MissGvious pointed directly at Helayne.


"RokSteddi? Take her out!" MissGvious ordered her gunman.


He moved the gun away from the painter's head and leveled it directly at Helayne, firing upon her three times.


Helayne looked down to her chest, where three entry holes had penetrated her clothing and were now stained red as her lifeforce ebbed from her.


She looked to Alicia, who grasped her as she fell.


"Helayne!" Alicia yelled, as her best friend keeled over on to the shipping floor, lifeless and dead.


Myung and Aikiko both screamed, each of them becoming a blur of punches and kicks as they advanced upon MissGvious and her crew, Aikiko quickly dispatching Wakk with his own blunt weapon which he'd attempted to wield against her. She quickly disarmed him and bludgeoned him with it until he lay breathing but unmoving on the cement floor.


Myung advanced across Aikiko's other flank, closing in on Stakz and RokSteddie, employing all that she could recall from the teachings of their long gone instructors. Stakz directly confronted Myung, perhaps in the interest of protecting MissGvious from the rage they'd inspired from the Korean Canadian martial artist, trying twice unsuccessfully to intimidate her with his superior size.


"One punch from these pipes and you're done..." Stakz said to her, bouncing on his feet like a boxer.


He threw one at her, and then a second, Myung just barely having avoided them in time. She backed up, luring him further into her space, then pausing long enough for him to risk throwing another punch at her. As he did, she quickly dodged to the side, causing him to pivot away from his blind spot. As he attempted to waylay Myung, Aikiko kicked the side of his head, not once, but twice with a well placed round house. He stood stumbling for a moment as if he was about to say something to Myung, putting his index finger up as if to to make the point, and then fell forward onto the cement floor unconscious.


"Aikiko!" Myung yelled, launching herself into a kick at RokSteddi just as he fired upon Aikiko.


Myung's foot connected perfectly with his forearm, sending his aim off and into the wall as MissGvious took up the slack, confronting Myung directly.


"Remember me?" MissGvious said to Myung from behind the mask.


"Not particularly, though it must have been disappointing to be turned down by the WWE?" remarked Myung to MissGvious.


"Not nearly as disappointing for you as its going be getting your ass whooped!" MissGvious moved forward, attacking Myung with spinning punch. The second of MissGvious strikes connected with Myung, sending her defensively into a roll, which she emerged from on her feet on MissGvious' right flank.


Myung kicked MissGvious once from the side, attempting a second kick which MissGvious caught, forcing Myung to the floor and helpless.


Aikiko by that time had disarmed RokSteddi, sending him into the wall with enough force to rend him unconscious as she turned to direct her effort at MissGvious as she moved in on Myung on the floor.


...


Alicia held Helayne in her arms, Helayne gasping as she tried to say something to Alicia.


"You're... you're still wearing your graduation dress...?" Helayne said to Alicia as she gasped one final time, out of breath. Out of time.


Alicia shook Helayne, her eyes both opened, staring off into the distance. At something only she could see.


"Helayne!" Alicia cried, shaking her and then laying her on her back as she tried to resuscitate her with cardio-pulmonary resuscitation.


"Come on! You're going to make it! Just keep breathing... Just! Keep! Breathing! Dammit!" Alicia cried, pushing on her friends chest, trying to force life into her.


Alicia's bottom lip began to quiver as she realized that her best friend was gone. She stared in disbelief at her face, unable to accept that their friendship would end that way. Everything Alicia had, she had because of Helayne.


"Everything... even the Series Y...!" Alicia quivered as she fought tears.


"The series Y..." she said again, suddenly realizing what she must do.


She searched her trench coat pockets until she found the utility packet she'd used to stow the Series Y formula. She opened it as the fighting went on around her, retrieving the needle and the vial of the series Y formula. She quickly filled the needle, dosing it with twice the amount that she'd used on herself. She then searched Helayne's right arm, for an artery that might have enough pressure to deliver the formula throughout her body.


Upon having found a viable candidate, she injected the needle and emptied it into Helayne's lifeless body. Alicia waited and watched for any sign of life within her dead body, but none came and much like Leland had been taken from her, so would be Helayne.


Alicia felt the rage swelling within her, as she caught sight of MissGvious and her onslaught on Myung and Aikiko. Alicia leapt forth from the floor and struck MissGvious with a force that sent her through the double doors, and then beyond, through the wall, studs and all into the office space beyond, crashing through a makeshift barrier that had been setup to space the partitioning.


Most of MissGvious' crew had fled by that point. Wakk had just gotten to his feet and was helping RokSteddie, who then went and collected Stakz. Together, with Samias and Nebus, they fled the building to the front, where their vehicles sat waiting. They quickly got in and disappeared into the night as the emergency services began arriving one by one.


Alicia gave chase to MissGvious, but upon the arrival of the emergency services, instead retreated back into the building, sneaking out through the skylight, up to which she'd leapt in order to escape.


"Alicia!" Myung yelled after the mysterious blonde haired woman, who stopped and peered at her through the skylight.


"Shhhh! Don't let them know who I am! There's more at stake than you know!" Alicia urged Myung and Aikiko before she slipped away into the night.


Monique fell unconscious beside Helayne's lifeless body as the emergency services arrived and began tending to both the wounded and the deceased.


...


As they lifted Monique onto a gurney, an oxygen mask on her face, she saw them load the deceased painter, and then Helayne, both of whose eyes stared off into the beyond and some future that had escaped them all, for they'd been cheated of it by the forces seeking to undo the fruits and honesty of their labour.


The ambulance attendant folded the sheet over Helayne's lifeless face, and her gurney sat beside the painter's for a short time until their travel arrangements had been finalized.


As the back door to the ambulance which housed Monique was closed, she whispered goodbye to the only true friend she'd ever known.


Somewhere, within the depths of her stranded consciousness, Helayne heard her.


To be continued in The Butterfly Dragon: Heroes of our Own Reimagined: Episode 10 - Burden of Proof


Brian Joseph Johns

Credits and attribution:


Special Thanks To Rocket Fuel Lakeshore Blvd West, perhaps the best place in history to get a coffee, circa 2001-2004. Miss you all very much.


Artwork: Amy Wong, Wendy Pusey, Ghastly, Birdman, Brian Joseph Johns, Daz3D, Unreal Engine...


Tools: Daz3D, Corel Painter, Adobe Photoshop, Lightwave 3D, Blender, Stable Diffusion (Easy Diffusion distribution), InstantID, Sadtalker, Google Colaboratory, Microsoft Copilot (Windows 11), Hitfilm, PhotoPea (a great web based Photoshop stand-in if you're on a low budget or in a pinch), Borderline Obsession...


DeepSeek AI for suggestions on exercises to improve aspects of describing scene and settings with a more sensory focused grammar.


InstantID by: Wang, Qixun and Bai, Xu and Wang, Haofan and Qin, Zekui and Chen, Anthony. Research Paper Title: InstantID - Zero-shot Identity-Preserving Generation in Seconds.


Sadtalker by: Zhang, Wenxuan and Cun, Xiaodong and Wang, Xuan and Zhang, Yong and Shen, Xi and Guo, Yu and Shan, Ying and Wang, Fei.
Research Paper Title: SadTalker: Learning Realistic 3D Motion Coefficients for Stylized Audio-Driven Single Image Talking Face Animation.


Gratitude: Our Mentors, Senseis, Sifus, Sebomnims, lifetime inspirations, family, friends, the Nomads (ask Stanton about that one), the Music, the Movies, the Theatre, the Arts, ASMR, (both YouTube and Bilibili and the many other creators on those platforms), the Gaming and Developer communities and of course, the audience.


Martial Arts (in the words of real experts and at least one comedian): https://brucelee.com (home of the real Dragon and an entire family of inspirations), http://iwco.online International Wing Chun Organization (International presence of a very scalable intensity martial art, protected and developed by Shaolin Nun Ng Mui) and the alma mater of Jinn Hua's own specialized variation thereof, https://iogkf.com International Okinawan Goju-Ryu Karatedo Federation (even Hanshi had his teachers), https://itftkd.sport International Taekwondo Federation (Here there be Taegers), https://tangsoodoworld.com Tang Soo Do World (the path of Grandmaster Chuck Norris), https://www.aikido-international.org International Aikido Federation (how else would Navy Chef Steven Seagal liberate a Nimitz Class Aircraft Carrier from a team of hijackers?), https://www.stqitoronto.com Shaolin Temple Quanfa Institute (The City Of Toronto's own Shaolin Temple), https://www.enterthedojoshow.com Master Ken's Ameri-Te-Do presence (If we can't laugh at ourselves, then we can at least laugh the loudest at others, and other Zen)


Magic (performance, illusion and perhaps the real thing): Magic Week Archive (I'm currently growing this section so stay tuned)


Special thanks to Aitrepreneur, Mickmumpitz, Hugging Face and the YouTube educational content producers, including those catering to the AI content production pipeline and of course AlphaSignal.


Shi Heng Yi Shaolin Training For Self Mastery 
A reknowned Sifu under whose tutelage you can study the theory and practical applications of the Shaolin Arts for health, physical and mental wellbeing in every day life


Shi Heng Yi Shaolin Training For Self Mastery 
A reknowned Sifu under whose tutelage you can study the theory and practical applications of the Shaolin Arts for health, physical and mental wellbeing in every day life


Jesse Enkamp: Karate Nerd
Jesse, a reknowned Sensei who runs his own dojo, explores the world of Martial Arts, traveling to many exotic locations to meet practitioners of a variety of different arts


Sensei Rokas: Martial Arts Journey
A reknowned Sensei of Aikido who in seeking to understand the roots of Aikido and its applications, seeks to stress test its effectiveness in a number of real world situations while studying its history


Seamus O'Dowd
An extensive growing archive Katas, Techniques and Waza (mostly Shotokan)


Iaido: Train For Katana Mastery Like Samurai 
The original weapons focused curriculum under which Samurai became masters of their art



Extensive courses for calisthenics and body strength, stamina and flexibility


Special thanks to Canva for inspiring other creators and giving them the tools


Special thanks to Captain Crunch and his wonderful sister!


Special thanks to Bandcamp for giving indie music artists a home under one roof


Something to give you perspective: The very first teacher had no formal education, didn't graduate and was self taught, but only because they had no other choice. We do.

This content is entirely produced in Toronto, Ontario, Canada at 200 Sherbourne Street Suite 701 under the Shhhh! Digital Media banner.

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