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Friday, February 6, 2026

Shhhh! Digital Media Presents: Grand Tapestry of Moments 03 - The Interview (New Chapter and artwork February 6, 2026 23:30 EST)






Chapters
  1. Monday July 21, 2025 10 AM - Change
  2. Tuesday July 22, 2025 12 PM - Sanity


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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.

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Brian Joseph Johns


Shhhh! Digital Media Presents:

Grand Tapestry Of Moments 03

The Interview

by Brian Joseph Johns



Monday July 21, 2025 10 AM - Change

- Pick up dry cleaning from Suds and Duds

- Lipstick and mascara from Glamorology

- Pesto for my pasta salad

- Meeting with Avner! Don't let him push you around!




Elsa pushed her way through the doors from the elevator foyer and into the reception area of News All Over Media, which of course was a subsidiary of All Over Global Media, who also owned other media subsidiaries such as Read All Over Media, Seen All Over Media and Heard All Over Media. Media All Over was their byline, though more recently and importantly, largely in part thanks to the global adoption of the internet, the web, mobile devices and the recent arrival of AI, they were quickly approaching the point at which they'd soon be all over, as in done.


The reception area itself was built during the company's renaissance. A marble desk, situated near a marble fountain complete with water-born plants and foliage, all of which was either dying or dead by this point, and scattered throughout the walls a variety of prints of award winning photographs shot by All Over Media photogs over the years, each housed in frames of masterpiece artisanship, and each of which was accumulating dust and cobwebs as they slowly faded into the obscurity of irrelevance and budgetary constraints.


Elsa's heels clicked as she stepped from the carpeted foyer of the elevator and into the marble floored reception area, drawing the attention of a man seated in the waiting area who over the top of his mobile phone, admired Elsa's gams as she passed him, the light fragrance of her perfume trailing the stale air behind her. She felt his eyes upon her, a fact that was more often the rule rather than the exception, for she was as much so a delight to the eye as she was a delight in her written word.


With her fingertips, she checked the marble desk for dust before leaning against it.


"Any messages Marlene?" asked Elsa of the receptionist.


"No, but Avner is in his office. He told me to remind you about your eleven o'clock with him," Marlene flared her brows at Elsa from behind her glasses.


"Alright. Thanks," Elsa responded, turning to get a quick look at the man admiring her before she continued beyond reception and into the offices.


"Morning Elsa," Patty waved to her as she passed the writer's cubicles of the dailies staff.


"How are you?" Elsa smiled to Patty, barely stopping for her.


"Good. One of my articles from last month just broke the two million mark," Patty smiled as she swiveled in her chair, a cup of coffee in her hand.


"Oh? Good for you. It won't be long before I have a new neighbour," Elsa smiled as she continued on past the cubicles and towards the offices and the door to her own.


Oddly enough, the door to her office was closed, though she'd often left it open in the event that the cleaning staff might eventually get to it. She reached for the door handle and turned, finding the door to be locked.


"That's strange. Maybe Avner locked it by mistake," Elsa remarked to herself, continuing on towards the coffee room.


"How's Elsa today?" asked Dan with a friendly smile on his face. Dan was a husky and bearded family man in his early forties, and one of the senior copy editors.


"Good. You wouldn't happen to know why my office is locked, would you?" asked Elsa, brushing her long black hair around her ear as she asked him.


He blushed ever so slightly.


"I don't know. I only work here. Did you ask the big guy?" Dan responded, slightly flustered as he carefully laughed through his gritten teeth.


"I haven't been in to see him yet. Should I be worried?" she batted her eyelashes at him ever so slightly.


"You? Noooo. You could tame a pack a wolves, Elsa. Its budget time and you know how he gets..." Dan skirted the topic carefully, backing away towards the hall as he tried to escape into neutral territory.


"What happened to the sweetner?" asked Elsa, searching the empty cupboards for coffee supplies.


"I think that Margie in HR got the last one. I'll see you later, Elsa," Dan turned and made his escape into the hall, leaving Elsa as she continued her search for sweetner.


She eventually found a package of sugar in the back of one of the drawers, under the cutlery holder. She opened and poured it into her coffee, stirred it and then continued down the hall towards Avner's door.


When she arrived, the door was open and Avner was wearing his bifocals and doing his emails. As she tapped on his door, he turned to face her, brushing his hand through his greying hair and removing his glasses and revealing a pair of cold blue eyes. He placed his glasses on the desk beside his keyboard, where they sat magnifying the dulled and salt bleached finish from his mouse hand.


"There you are. Why don't you close the door and have a seat?" requested Avner of her.


"You want me to close the door...? Isn't it nicer opened...?" Elsa responded, already having forgotten her personal note to herself from earlier in the same morning.


"We're going to be talking for a bit. Could you. Please?" he took the liberty of using the "P" word despite not having really meant it.


Elsa turned and reluctantly closed the door, then placing her coffee on Avner's desk. She took the seat poised before him and crossed her legs to make herself comfortable.


"Elsa...?" Avner began his lecture, starting with her name and following it with a long pause, though her patience didn't last as much so then as it ever had.


"Before we start, is this related to why my office door is locked?" she asked him, suddenly recalling her message to herself from earlier that morning.


"Elsa, we're no longer the be all, end all source of news and information. We no longer have a monopoly on the medium. It used to be print. Then radio. Then television. There was nothing else, and you know as well as I do, when there's only one place telling the story, that's the place from which you're going to get the story. Guaranteed readership. Guaranteed listeners. Guaranteed viewers. Advertising revenue, because that's what this is all about. Without advertising revenue, we're done..." Avner explained to her, leaning back in his chair as he fondly recalled the old days.


"...but the people don't come for the advertising. They come for the content. The writing. My writing," Elsa reminded him confidently.


"In the old days Elsa, they very much did, but we're no longer living in the old days. We brought them with us for as long as we could, burning through our assets to cover our costs without meeting change head on. The internet snuck up on us. Mobile devices. All of it, the channel of a new generation who are tech-savvy and way beyond us. You know how it is, the bigger the ship, the slower the port-side turn. Corporate sent the budget this morning. We're losing two floors this year, and another four next year, but we aren't losing staff as long as the staff are pulling their weight," Avner said to Elsa, looking down the end of his nose at her.


"Are you saying that I lost my office because I'm not pulling my weight?" she became agitated with his insinuation.


"No. I'm saying that you lost your office, because I didn't want you to lose your job!" he responded to her.


"What about my awards? What about my readership? My readers are loyal, you know. I put our monthly magazines on the map. We sell subscriptions because of my writing!" Elsa reminded him once again.


"You don't understand Elsa. We're ceasing all print operations effective by the end of this month. We're looking at all print media, including your monthly columns as part of our new online strategy. You're now competing with writers working our dailies, but you have the advantage of having established columns which we're adapting to our new format as weeklies. The three magazines that you used to headline, will each become a weekly. Your columns? You're going to have to produce four times as many per month, that's twelve columns per month, and all for the same money as the three a month you used to do. That's what its going to require for you to adapt to this new economic model..." Avner leaned forward in his chair this time, using his hands to help him make his point.


"Three per week? Are you kidding me? That's how long it takes to do the research for one column, let alone the copy! And without an office? The answer is no!" Elsa responded, raising her voice.


"Would you let me finish?!" Avner raised his voice, but not his tone.


"Fine!" Elsa folded her arms across her chest, and began dangling her right heel nervously as she waited for him to explain.


"We're assigning you a writer. You're going to be working with someone else. Patty. You're going to feed her your rough copy and she'll take it to the final draft. You won't have an office. You'll be working outside of the offices, doing research and real journalism work. You'll put your copy together, updating Patty on a daily basis before the end of the day, and she's going to put it together into the final draft,  for which you'll sign for approval. She'll be credited as a co-writer/copy editor, but the columns will still hold your name and full credit as the writer slash journalist. You're losing the office, but you're getting something that is going help us revitalize our hold on the media market, and more importantly, revitalize you. Elsa, you and Patty are very different people. Patty should have a job in the office anchored to her desk in the cubicle, where she thrives as a writer, but you? I want you to lose the desk, and gain something more. You're going to have to live it, and she's going to have to write it," Avner lowered his voice only slightly, though his words became more encouraging, perhaps even sounding somewhat like those of a concerned mentor.


When he'd mentioned that she'd be outside of the office, her imagination began to explore the possibilities. At first she quickly shot them down, each one of them, thinking only in terms of the written words she needed to produce, rather than gathering the elements of the story for her column and where that might take her. As her subconscious fought a war over the possibilities and fears over how it might change her career, her mind once again arrived at the question of money.


"I want more money," Elsa said to Avner confidently.


"You're not getting it. However, I'm authorized to give you a monthly budget to cover some of your expenses. A portion of your fuel costs. Your vehicle insurance. Your phone bill. You won't be getting an increase, either this year or next, having your expenses covered works out to about the same as a standard increase. Prove it to us that you're still the draw of readership that we depend upon, and we'll reward you. That's the best you're going to get right now. So can I write this up?" asked Avner of Elsa, who sat in contemplation for a moment before giving him an answer.


"Give me the cheque for my car insurance today, and we've got a deal," Elsa responded with neither a smile nor a frown.


Avner pulled a cheque book from the top drawer of his desk, and quickly filled it out, leaving the amount blank and then handing it to her before signing it.


She filled in the numbers and returned it to him, at which point he signed it and returned it to her.


"Before you sign your new contract with us, from this point forward, we'll be choosing the topics of your columns..." Avner barely had finished his sentence before Elsa jumped on him verbally.


"No way! That's not the way I work!" she was ready to rip up the cheque before Avner responded.


"Corporate is using a market research firm as part of their guidelines for ensuring our share of the media market, and a guaranteed target audience for advertisers. Without that, we don't have advertisers. We'd be relying on internet click-throughs, which pay pennies compared to ad campaign deals and brand sponsorship. If you're going to leave and throw away everything you've built here, then you should know that any other media conglomerate that decides to pick you up, will require the same thing. If you won't do it for us, then you'll be doing it for someone else and for much less money," Avner explained the rules of the new media game to her, and she pursed her lips in frustration before folding the cheque and putting it in her purse.


"Where do I sign, and what's my first assignment?" she asked Avner.


"Glad to have you on board again, Elsa. Sign on the dotted line," Avner slid her contract across the desk after having retrieved it from a folder in the bottom drawer of his desk.


"We're doing an issue two weeks from now on the topic of modern spirituality. Now given the data of your previous readership, we've decided to give you a column dedicated to some of the more esoteric and controversial people associated with these new movements. You're going to be interviewing a fellow by the name of Proto-Humanus. He's the sole clerical representative of a largely unknown philosophy. Yet, for some reason, this guy has a large dedicated readership online, despite never having given public talks relating to his Proto-Humanus spiritual philosophy," Avner explained to her.


"So you're trying to lure his followers for the advertising revenue and throwing me to the wolves to achieve this?" confirmed Elsa.


"I'm not. Corporate is, but it does make sense. These online followers of his obviously read. They're consumers too, so why not? I can't say that I envy you because balancing between appeasing them, and every other competing philosophy is not going to be an easy task, but its one that I'm sure you'll be able to handle," Avner paused and smiled at her.


"Avner. I'm thirty-nine. I'm on the front doorstep of forty. I'm once divorced. I have no children, and the only thing I have to look forward to is writing columns about facial scrubs, cleansers and moisturizers, which I was hoping I would already have been doing by this point in my life. And now you're throwing me into a whirlwind which is most certainly there for young graduate writers starting out, rather than a woman whose egg will soon expire, leaving nothing in her future but anti-aging creams, ointments and the occasional vaginal fantasy club book of the month to look forward to..." Elsa spoke firmly, though her voice wavered slightly as if she was on the brink of tears.


"Elsa my dear. Take the opportunity and run with it. Insofar as the other woman stuff goes, why don't you talk about it with Patty?" Avner suggested to her, most certainly purposefully insensitively.


Elsa stood from her chair, placing Avner's pen back on his desk. She then turned and opened the door and stepped out into the hall, closing the door behind her without saying another word to him.


She then walked down the hall, towards the cubicles and over to where Patty was seated.


"So, did he say anything about my new office? The one neighbouring yours?" Patty asked Elsa.


Elsa's eyes grew narrow for a moment, before she once again regained her composure.


"Alright. I guess you already know that we're working together. I'm going to be getting setup with this new arrangement for the rest of the day. Tomorrow, I'll call you with an update, and by the evening I should have the first bit of material for the first draft. Any questions?" asked Elsa of Patty.


"So are we going to like, go for the whole mysterious side to this? You know, like a conspiracy? Or are we going to cover it like a spiritual tourist?" Patty asked Elsa enthusiastically, whose expression betrayed any dignity to Patty's question, instead averting it entirely.


"We'll talk about that tomorrow. I've got a real busy day ahead of me," Elsa turned to leave as Patty responded.


"Alright partner. BFN," Patty replied with a smile, leaving Elsa to wonder what that meant.


When Elsa arrived in the parking garage at her car, she got in and pulled her favourite note pad from her purse and wrote herself a note:


- Tub of Hagen-Dazs from Lakeshore Market

- Curl up with flannel blanket, Hagen-Dazs, television remote and have a good cry



Tuesday July 22, 2025 12 PM - Sanity


- Get to Yonge St. and St. Clair carwash by ten

- Oil and filter change

- Mechanic's inspection for power train warranty

- Deposit insurance money at bank

- Interview Porto-Hummus




Elsa pulled into the front driveway of the Apathy Center for Long Term Care, stopping at the parking station to obtain a ticket from the parking attendant. She rolled down her window as the parking attendant greeted her from within a strangely ornate glass booth.


"Good day Miss. Are you visiting or an out-patient here for counseling?" he asked her calmly and without any implied semblance of judgement.


"If life was the board game Monopoly, I'd be just visiting, and you'd be free parking," Elsa quickly finagled a clever quip to save face at that moment, though her jest was far too stealthy for his sense of humour.


She withdrew her Press Card identification and handed it to him, once again insulating herself against the impression of her being an outpatient, despite the fact that the only person to whom that impression meant anything was her.


He examined her Press Card, which had a professional photo of her taken two years earlier. The same photo that had graced every one of her magazine columns since that time. He squinted at it several times and then back to her, before he nodded.


"That is definitely you, though a different you than the one now here before me now," he said to her thoughtfully.


"No. That's the same me as the one sitting in the driver's seat of my BMW Z4 Roadster," she spoke diplomatically, though it quickly became clear to her that the two of them were from very different worlds and held very different values.


He slid her press card through a scanner and then handed it back to her, the license plate camera already having done its job.


"The guest parking is around the back of the facility. Its a short walk from the side door. Just ask at the check-in station and they'll direct you to the front desk," he said to her, offering her a simple smile as the gate opened, granting her access to the parking lot.


She followed his instructions, navigating the parking lot around towards the back of the main building until she found a spot in the very place he'd indicated. She pulled in and parked her car and then got out, lifting her sunglasses from her eyes momentarily so she could see the side door of the building. She then made her way into the building and over to the check-in station, where she was greeted by an older lady in a blue care facility uniform.


"You must be Miss Chlorine?" the lady asked her.


"Clovis. Elsa Clovis. I'm here to see..." Elsa dug through her purse to find her note book, which upon finding it she thumbed through the pages until she arrived at her day's notes.


"Porto-Hummus? Did I say that right?" she asked the lady.


"...errr, close enough. His real name is Perry Hanson, but we just call him Perry..." the lady responded.


"As in perennial, perhaps?" Elsa thought out loud, once again finding something that might prove anecdotal in her writing, pertaining to this particular story.


"No. Perry doesn't often get to see flowers or the gardens. He's uhhhh. You'd better see for yourself. If you'll wait a moment, I'll have Doctor Briggs take you to him," the lady assured Elsa, mentioning a name that she'd recognized.


"You mean Doctor Steven Briggs by chance?" Elsa asked, having recognized his name as that of another columnist in one of the Psychology Quarterlies published by Read All Over Media.


"No. Definitely not. You can be seated over there until Doctor Briggs gets here," the lady responded quite flatly.


Elsa rested her sunglasses atop of her head as she walked over to the chairs, taking a tissue from her purse to check the chair for any signs of dust or filth. When she found her tissue to be slightly soiled upon inspection, she instead remained standing, writing several notes in her pad, which provoked a frown from the lady at the check-in desk.


A few minutes later, which Elsa spent observing the goings on around her, another lady in her mid-thirties arrived, adorned in a Doctor's lab coat. She stopped at the check-in desk and spoke with the lady there, and then stepped over to where Elsa stood.


"Miss Clovis? I'm Doctor Stephanie Briggs, the Head Psychiatric Specialist of this facility. I understand that you're looking to speak with Perry today?" Doctor Briggs was barely five feet five inches tall, standing at eye level with the tip of Elsa's nose, and she spoke to Elsa as if she were an infant.


A demeanor that Elsa found slightly offensive, if not condescending at first.


"A pleasure to meet you Doctor Briggs. You can call me Elsa or even Doctor Elsa. I'm a Doctor of Journalism," Elsa responded, shoring up her perceived condescension by Doctor Briggs, failing to understand that for Doctor Briggs, the way she'd learned to deal with people just came with the territory and her career.


"I didn't realize they were giving out Doctorates for Journalism, but I'm sure that you're very aptly deserving of your credentials," Doctor Briggs responded calmly.


"Even those of us who tell the real story have to swear the hypocrite's oath, you know," Elsa smiled, feeling confident that she'd earned Doctor Briggs' trust.


"Well I'm sure that Hippocrates is very honoured, if not rolling over in his grave at this moment. Any who, let me take you to see Perry. We keep him tucked away in a corner of the facility that doesn't often get many visitors. He's part of our special care population," Doctor Briggs started walking, scrolling through the screen contents of her tablet to check up on her patients and schedule.


Elsa, upon seeing Doctor Briggs familiarity with technology, pulled her note pad and a pen from her purse once again, and began jotting down notes and randomly flipping between pages, almost as if she were intimidated by Doctor Briggs' use of the device.


Elsa, despite having been one of the highest scoring students in her graduate program two decades earlier, was a chronic technophobe. She'd graduated from the University of Toronto's Journalism program the same year that saw the birth of YouTube, and the purchase of the Cheerify social network platform by MindSpice, and yet she'd been the only student who'd handed in all of her assignments on paper, hand written or on very rare occasions, scanned copies or facsimiles, but never through the use of technology that went beyond anything but a scanner, fax machine or a pocket calculator.


It wasn't that she was incapable of or lacked the intelligence and skills needed to use computers. It was the fact that she believed that if the words had not been scribed by the muscles and tendons in her fingers and arms, that they somehow hadn't originated from her, but rather through some bizarre alchemy secretly inherent in technology, that if not acknowledged, could be potentially harmful to those who relied upon it.


Any who had attempted to question her about her phobia, would often find themselves confronted by very creative and contrived excuses that completely skirted the real issue, but explained for that specific moment as to why she wasn't using a computer, and it would never involve any mention of her phobia.


Hence, most people that had come to know Elsa didn't suspect a thing when it came to her and technology. They just assumed (and most correctly so) that she was eccentric. As much so as Doctor Briggs had now assumed the same thing upon experiencing some of her social quirks thus far, though in under estimating Elsa's intellect, she'd also missed the cues that would have told her that there were issues related to a deep seated phobia she'd not yet acknowledged. How she walked with poise and confidence, despite the fact that she seemed intimidated by the presence of Doctor Briggs' tablet. Enough so that the flipping of the pages of her note pad and occasional writing of notes had become the ascribed medicine she'd eventually found through years of self discovery. A medicine that helped her deal with her phobia, despite the fact that she was secretly protecting it.


"Have you ever been in a long term care facility, Miss Clovis?" asked Doctor Briggs of Elsa, who by that time had turned off the screen of the tablet and tucked it under her arm.


"You mean as an in patient? No! Certainly not," Elsa responded somewhat defensively, without knowing she was once again secretly protecting her phobia.


"No. Silly me for not clarifying myself. I meant as a professional, or as a visitor?" Doctor Briggs elaborated on the context of her question.


"No. Most of my work as a columnist involved the promotion of women's products, especially brand names, though I really turned it into an artform of sincerity. Perhaps a little sheltered in the flowerbed of life compared with writing a piece on a long term care facility, but life happens in many different places and to many different people, doesn't it?" Elsa responded with a sense of rhetoric, feeling relieved once again that she or her phobia was not under the microscope.


"It certainly does. So tell me, where are you from originally Elsa?" asked Doctor Briggs.


"Scandinavia," Elsa responded, fondly recalling the foggiest bits and pieces of her life as a child. Brief flashes of being held in her mother's arms, or wheeled in a stroller.


"Where in Scandinavia?" Doctor Briggs spoke softly and with sincere interest.


"Norrköping. In Sweden. Until the age of three. Then we moved to Düsseldorf at that point in time and lived there until I was thirteen, at which point we moved to Canada," Elsa recalled more from her youthful life. Colourful memories Düsseldorf. The bright summer sun shining down upon the Rhine River. The vivid colours of autumn leaves amidst the Eller forest, where she chased the birds and squirrels until she was out of breath from laughter.


"It must have been nice to have seen that much of the world from an early time. Not many of our patients here have had that kind of luxury, and the ones who have, often experienced very difficult developmental challenges that hindered their lives. I hope that you're not uncomfortable talking about such things?" Doctor Briggs asked her as a courtesy and in the interest of caution.


"I have to be honest and say that I've never had this kind of an experience, nor have I dealt with those who've found themselves in such a challenge. Any pointers as to how I might proceed without putting my foot in my mouth, or theirs?" Elsa asked Doctor Briggs.


"The special care facility are a group of patients whose long term care requirements often include, but not always thankfully, restraint, strict schedules and rules, carefully monitored diets, carefully monitored activities including their consumption of various forms of media. Most are pleasantly peaceful, especially when their regimen is carefully accounted for, but some can be triggered quite easily at the drop of a hat, or by something as simple as an expression or gesture. Even asking the wrong question might lead to a response that could very quickly get out of hand," Doctor Briggs explained to Elsa, who despite still not fully fathoming what she was getting into, began evaluating her creative options when it came to her questions.


"What about Porto-Hummus?" asked Elsa of Doctor Briggs, still not having corrected her notes.


"Perry. You see, that's the sort of thing that might trigger a patient. Something so simple as forgetting their name. In here, their name is all they truly have, and not something to be taken for granted," Doctor Briggs explained to Elsa.


"But isn't a name the weight of a person's importance? I mean, its value to a person is in some way a representation of their self respect. Isn't it?" asked Elsa from the perspective of an astutely observant woman who'd known many people for whom their sense of being was a specific acumen associated with their name.


"Mazlo's hierarchy of needs certainly goes a great length towards defining the importance of a sense of self, and one that isn't reliant upon a sense of belonging or acceptance, and often in spite of it. When we have little else, we only have ourselves. But does that mean that without other people, is a name important? You'd have to lose everything and only be left with that to know for certain," Doctor Briggs posed to Elsa, who contemplated what the Doctor had to say.


"Philosophically speaking, many beliefs espouse the idea that the self, especially in terms of the identity is irrelevant," Elsa responded, drawing upon her knowledge of philosophy, though without ever having fully explored its many rounded corners.


"Subjectivity versus objectivity, and a simplification of they who are the observer and that which is observed. Some philosophy does away with the observer paradigm, instead favouring the idea that there is only the observed. We're not separate from what we perceive. We're a part of it," Doctor Briggs began hitting upon an inherently complex topic.


"However, identity and the self in a modern society are very important aspects associated with one's survival. How do we accrue money without a name? In some of the dark corners of society, there are people who live without banks. Without credit cards. Without identification. The data centers have very little if any knowledge of these people, and perhaps in the sense of organized society, they live without an established identity in terms of the record keeping of the rest of society," Doctor Briggs continued.



"In such corners, there are established barter systems that rely upon identity and its being constantly associated with a person at the level of their physical being. In such corners, these barter systems are very actively keeping track of a person's social debt, and their social gains. The people who maintain these dark corners are very adamant about protecting and preserving what is theirs and what isn't. In recent studies however, researchers have found that collectivism has eroded the concept of individual identity enough so that those who live within these barter system based economies disappear unless they become part of a larger group that can protect them," Doctor Briggs paused as they turned a corner, where she waved to one of the female patients who smiled back innocently.


"The ones who don't, often end up with the weight of debt, while losing the graces of their social output, which is cannibalized by more predatory collectives. Some of the people in this long term care facility have fallen victim to such collectives at various points in their lives, and upon denying them of their name, you might draw their violent wrath, for when you have nothing left, and that last bastion of your sense of self is taken from you, the lengths that you'd go to in order to protect yourself, and prevent yourself from inheriting someone else's debt, would likely be very far. Possibly risking the only thing that you have left after losing your name. Your life. Remember, that to the power of a collective, the concept of identity is based upon a social agreement between the individual and the collective. If the collective chooses not to recognize the identity of the individual however, that is and can become a very big problem, and a threat to society and civilization itself," Doctor Briggs explained carefully to Elsa, giving her enough background so that she could safely and cautiously proceed as a responsible journalist.


"Then this long term care facility is the last place these lost sheep have to go?" asked Elsa, now understanding much more about the nature of the facility and the people whom currently relied upon it.


"Not all. Many were born with issues. Life and health challenges that made their development very difficult and in most cases in the special care wing, impossible without intervention. Here, they have a life and they are protected, even insulated from the risks that their challenges pose for them and others in society. Some however, were rescued from those dark corners about which I just spoke. They weren't born that way. They were made. Manufactured by predatory collectives, though now they're safe here. From such groups, and from themselves and the risks that their resultant condition imposes upon their continued survival, both from a physical and a psychological standpoint. Perry however, is a very unique and distinct case from them all, as you'll see in a moment," Doctor Briggs continued around another corner, leading Elsa down a hall to a door with a card checkpoint and a PIN code entry number pad.


Doctor Briggs inserted her identification card (which caused Elsa to immediately note the significance of their previous discussion), and then entered her PIN code. A green LED lit on the magnetic lock of the door, Doctor Briggs opened it for Elsa, the two of them stepping forward into the special care facility as Elsa carefully jotted down a note for herself.


The special care facility was housed in a dome shaped room, about thirty meters in height, with three floors, the bottom most of which they were at had six halls leading outward from the dome concentrically, each at spaced sixty degrees to their neighbours.


The dome's foyer area was alive with life in the form of green plants, all of which were of healthy colour and texture, feeding on the light streaming in through the skylight atop of the dome. A number of special care patients were seated amongst strategically placed benches, both near and far from the plants. Some of the patients possessed books, and of the books there were many varieties. Some of them strictly with pictures, and others with combined text and in storybook format. Others were filled with large print text, and much rarer were those of modern and classic literature.


"How many patients are housed in the special care wing?" asked Elsa.


"Currently, there are thirty. Twenty of them are lightly monitored, while the remaining ten are under constant monitoring and supervision. Perry is at the very top of that list, though as you'll soon find out, he's actually quite special," Doctor Briggs stood in the center of the dome, pointing out some of the first twenty patients, and then indicating a few of the top of the list.


Elsa took notes as Doctor Briggs spoke, Elsa's eyes cautiously darting towards her tablet every now and again.


"They seem very well adjusted," Elsa noted aloud.


"Most of them are, thankfully, but that requires a lot of dedication on the part of the staff. Its not always easy you know. Some of the patients seek very creative ways of expressing their independence from us, and most often at the expense of safety. Either that of others, or more often than not, their own," Doctor Briggs looked specifically over to one of the patients, a fellow in his late twenties and wearing the same inpatient gown as the others. His hair was messy, and his face was quite literally half-shaven, though diagonally. He bore half a beard and moustache on one side of his face, split along a diagonal line that ran through his chin, leaving trail of sloppy shaving strips on his neck.


"Well, lets get you to Perry," Doctor Briggs suggested, starting towards the third concentric hall to their left.


They ventured forth and down the hall, passing only one hall monitor along the way, eventually arrived at a large door with another card checkpoint and number pad. Doctor Briggs inserted her ID card into the checkpoint and entered her PIN once again.


A large magnetic lock buzzed and hummed, eventually clanking at which point the door began opening sideways, to the left.


"Any reason why the door went that way rather than right?" asked Elsa observantly.


"Yes, as a matter of fact. Perry is right handed. Actually we've observed him a number of times using his left hand equally as well as his right, but he still favours his right. We also noticed that he has a tendency to stand on the right side of the hall nearest the door, which gives us an advantage when dealing with him in cases where he's violating the rules of his residency," Doctor Briggs explained, peering to her left and finding Perry standing facing the still opening door as Doctor Briggs entered the room, Elsa behind her.


Elsa examined Perry, who for all intense purposes seemed a normal man in his mid thirties, even handsomely so though somewhat bereft of focus unlike the others Elsa had seen. His appearance was like that of a ghost, pale as a sheet, though not quite as much as so as her own skin and foundation. He slowly turned around to face Doctor Briggs, his face lighting up when he spied Elsa for the first time.


He smiled at her and immediately began turning after which he began walking over to a first chair which was centered in the room, facing another chair of similar design, as if he'd been waiting for her to arrive.


"Perry? I've got someone that I'd like you to meet. Would you like that?" Doctor Briggs asked of Perry, as he walked in small steps purposefully towards the chair for which he was aiming, moving more like the tortoise than the hare.


"You brought her? I was wondering when she'd get here, and look, oh do look how you've brought her!" Perry said as he paused with his back to them, slowly turning having arrived at his chair, before slowly bending over to be seated.


"Perry, you're to go easy with her. I don't have to call for the restraints, do I?" asked Doctor Briggs of Perry, Elsa looking to the Doctor and then back to Perry as they awaited his response.


"Do they need the restraints today she asked me?" he turned as if he were speaking to someone else whom only he could see.


"No. I don't think that will be an issue today. Its such a nice day. There's no noisy bits at all," Perry turned back to face them, eagerly awaiting her from his own chair.


"Alright. That's a good sign, he seems to like you..." Doctor Briggs didn't get a chance to finish her sentence before everything went dark, and the world seemed to disappear momentarily.


 Elsa was seated facing him, her legs crossed and her note pad resting on her knee as she played with the pen in her hand.


"...what just happened? I was standing over there and then... nothing! And now I'm here? What happened?" Elsa turned around to see that there was no sign of Doctor Briggs and that the door was now closed and locked.


"You walked over to the chair after Doctor Briggs introduced you to me, and then you sat down. Doctor Briggs bid us farewell and then she closed the door. You then pulled your note pad from your purse and I asked you if I could borrow it. You said no, but you gave me a piece of paper from it instead. I used a very very very tiny pen to draw a picture for you and gave you back the piece of paper. You smiled for the second time since you got here, and put it at the back of your note pad. Then you asked me if it was alright if we talked for a bit, and I said alright, and smiled. You began playing with your pen, and then you looked startled and asked me what happened," Perry explained to her, going over every detail slowly and patiently.


As he explained what had happened, she suddenly began to recall what she'd missed, and all in great detail, as if someone had poured her recollection of the events back into her head from where they'd been taken.


She opened the note pad, flipping through the pages all the way to the back, where a perfectly precision etched image of the Birth of Venus presented itself to her, though instead of the original Venus, it was a perfect rendering of her. Upon seeing it, she even blushed, closing the note pad momentarily as she covered her face, and then opening it again to take another look. She then held it up to her face, examining it up close, absolutely amazed by the level of detail, smaller than her eyes even up close to see.


"How did you do this?" she asked him.


"With a LOT of practice," he winked at her.


"Was that your first question?" he confirmed with her.


"Who are you? I know that your name is Perry Hanson, a very nice name by the way, but who are you?  Can you tell me?" she asked him softly, flipping her note pad back to the front and the most recent page she'd been using.


"Yes. I can tell you, but you've got to keep it a secret," Perry said to her, retaining the same innocent look upon his face.



- Who is Perry Hanson?


- Who is Porto-Hummus?


- Why is he in here?



For later tonight:


- Pickup Salmon filet and hollandaise for BBQ dinner

- Bottle of wine? Shiraz? Riesling?

- First page draft for Patty

- Call Düsseldorf


Coming soon...

Written by Brian Joseph Johns


Credits and attribution:


Thank you both the Deepai.org and Photopea.com, without whom the title art would not have been possible.

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 WongWendy PuseyGhastlyBirdman, Brian Joseph Johns, Daz3DUnreal Engine...

Tools: Daz3DCorel PainterAdobe PhotoshopLightwave 3DBlender, Stable Diffusion (Easy Diffusion distribution), InstantIDSadtalkerGoogle ColaboratoryMicrosoft Copilot (Windows 11), HitfilmPhotoPea (a great web based Photoshop stand-in if you're on a low budget or in a pinch), Deepai.orgGoogle AI Studio, 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 AitrepreneurMickmumpitzHugging 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

Tapp Brothers Exercise For Better Motion 
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.

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, DeepAIDeepSeek and Photopea.





Chapters

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

Support Charity


Please support education and information access where you can in addition to these charities:


National Breast Cancer Foundation [Donate] [Hope Kit] [Women's Programs]
One of their top priorities is educating women on what they can do to be proactive with their breast health. Knowledge and early detection saves lives.


Help research that provides cures and support treatment for sick children. 


Creating a world of possibility for kids and youth with disabilities.


The Cancer Research Institute
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David Suzuki Foundation
Through evidence-based research, education and policy analysis, we work to conserve and protect the natural environment, and help create a sustainable Canada. We regularly collaborate with non-profit and community organizations, all levels of government, businesses and individuals.


Donate directly to FireAid today to help us start rebuilding our community. Direct donations will be distributed under the advisement of the Annenberg Foundation and will be distributed for short-term relief efforts and long-term initiatives to prevent future fire disasters throughout Southern California.


United Nations Fund
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Two organizations whose contribution of expertise, human and financial resources and volunteer efforts provide humanitarian solutions to real world problems the entire world over. These charities operate worldwide. The United Nations Fund supports the various programs part of the United Nations' global mandate, as much a foundation as it is a roof around the world.


World Veterans Federation (Under Reconstruction) [Wikipedia]
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."

Ralph Bunche, Nobel Peace Prize 1950



The Reeve Foundation provides programs for research, uniting Scientists and Specialists from many different fields to find treatments for spinal cord injury translating them into therapies and support programs.


For over 60 years, Heart & Stroke has been dedicated to fighting heart disease and stroke. Our work has saved thousands of lives and improved the lives of millions of others.


The ALS Society Of BC
ALS (also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease) is a progressive neuromuscular disease in which nerve cells die and leave voluntary muscles paralyzed. The ALS society provides a variety of programs to combat this disease and help those with it to survive.


Muscular Dystrophy Canada
Muscular Dystrophy Canada’s mission is to enhance the lives of those affected by neuromuscular disorders by continually working to provide ongoing support and resources while relentlessly searching for a cure through well-funded research.


Humane Society International
The Humane Society protects the health, lives and rights of animals the world over, ensuring that they too have a voice in this world. We are interdependent upon the complex web of life this entire planet over for our mutual survival. This is a world wide charity.


The Global Foodbanking Network
Ensuring that people the world over have enough food day to day in order to survive and lead healthy lives. In this challenging day and age services like this are becoming more and more essential. This is a world wide charity.


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
The model for what may become the Encyclopedia Galactica, a complete reference and record of history, events and knowledge of humanity and its journey beyond. It is the encyclopedia of all that we know, what we surmise that we've known and will learn in the future. Yes, Wikipedia is a charitable organization of great importance. If you enjoy what I am doing here then please take the time to donate to Wikipedia. Surprisingly only 1% of Wikipedia's users donate yet the site serves pages to millions every day.


Humble Bundle
A video gaming storefront benefiting a vast variety of different Charities in the United States and United Kingdom (hopefully soon to be expanded to include other areas of the world?). By software their software bundles and choose which Charity your money benefits and how much of your money benefits that Charity. See? Gamers can do their part too.


Multiple Sclerosis is a degenerative disease currently affecting an estimated 2.3 million world wide. By donating you are contributing to effective research in finding a cure and tipping the scales of MS research to change lives forever.


If you're a resident of Ontario then please consider supporting Building Better Schools.


Other Ways To Help Using Your Computer


Join World Community Grid
https://www.worldcommunitygrid.org


Join BOINC
https://boinc.berkeley.edu


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 WongWendy PuseyGhastlyBirdman, Brian Joseph Johns, Daz3DUnreal Engine...


Tools: Daz3DCorel PainterAdobe PhotoshopLightwave 3DBlender, Stable Diffusion (Easy Diffusion distribution), InstantIDSadtalkerGoogle ColaboratoryMicrosoft Copilot (Windows 11), HitfilmPhotoPea (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 AitrepreneurMickmumpitzHugging 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.