Monday, February 3, 2025

The Butterfly Dragon: The Two Butterflies - Episode 13 (Updated February 1, 2025 4:30 AM - Mostly edits, a few additions)



Chapters

  1. Midnight Hour (Finished January 30, 2025)
  2. Eyes Without A Face (Finished January 31, 2025)

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The Butterfly Dragon: The Two Butterflies - Episode 13



Midnight Hour


[Billy Idol - Rebel Yell] (Loud preferrably 😉)


The car was a classic Mustang, from the year 1977. A veritable gas guzzling monster compared to the cars of today, with six cycinders pushing one hundred and two horse power and that was stock. This particular car was customized and tuned to the teeth.


For one, it had been ported and polished, increasing the horsepower by another nine, for a total of one hundred and eleven. The custom air intake brought clean air directly into the fuel-air system allowing for better compression, again adding another five horsepower to the sum.


The exhaust system was a custom header, designed by its driver, drawing exhaust fumes from the combustion cycle and filtering them faster than they could be produced, hence creating an induction effect upon the fuel-air system. When the exhaust outpaced the intake cycle, the exhaust system produced a popping sound that some drivers referred to as popcorn.


The standard transmission was a custom job, favouring high acceleration in the lower gears, and upper limit speed in the high end gears.


On this particular night, at around 11:30 PM on a Friday night, it was cruising the Gardener Expressway eastbount for the Spadina Avenue exit. As it slowed and turned left onto the exit, a nine millimeter handgun slid across the dash beneath the windshield to the other side of the dash. A half-eaten hotdog smothered in relish, ketchup and mustard rolled over onto its side, miraculously remaining on the napkin that contained it.


As the car slowed and came to a stop at Spadina, the driver reached up to the dash and grabbed the hotdog, jamming the remainder of it into his face as he quickly chewed it up and washed it down with the remainder of his gin laced tonic water. He'd have preferred an ice cold can of beer, but that would have been far too easy for other drivers to spot. So he opted for the water bottle camouflage and his second favourite drink.


He then wiped his face with his hand, shortly thereafter, wiping his hand with the napkin, tossing it all into a waste bag in the passenger seating foot area.


"Damn! Gotta put velcro on that thing or somethin'" he said aloud, but mostly to himself as he realized his nine millimeter had sailed to the other side of the dash.


He reached over and just barely latched onto the trigger guard as the light turned green. After carefully grapping it with his finger, he fit the gun in his belt, tucking it in carefully (safety on of course), and proceeded out and onto Spadina, northbound.


...


A few city blocks away at the New City Hall, a group of teens was seated outside of city council, a circular building itself situated between the two curved towers that made up the city hall infrastructure. Their music, ecclectic house, blared from bluetooth speakers that were connected to one of their iPhones, as they sat around and enjoyed the night. A trio of them rode their skateboards, practicing tricks and showing off to their friends.


The sound of the engine pierced the night, and even these teens could hear it at a distance, echoing through the buildings of the downtown corridor.


"That's gotta be a classic 'stang," one of the teens, a fan of cars said to his friends.


"A header kit too maybe?" asked another one.


"Maybe... Imagine if we had a car like that? We could go up north to Richmond Hill and pickup Derek," one of them suggested.


"Yeah. Too bad he's not here. Had to hang with his chick," one of the others pointed out.


"What? You don't like hanging with your girl?" a response came back, from one of the girls themselves.


"No. I just want to chill where I want to chill..." he stopped when they were all illuminated by the high beams of an oncoming car.


It was the very car they'd heard moments earlier, and now it was making a dash across Nathan Phillips Square directly towards them and without slowing.


They all jumped out of the way, some to the left and others to the right as the car crashed through their vigil and into the city council building, skidding sideways and coming to a stop as glass fell to the pavement, shattering all around them.


A man in a balaclava mask got out of the front seat and drew a hand gun, but by that time the teens that had been sitting there were long gone, all except for one. The one who'd remarked about picking up Derek, and whose name was Andrew.


Andrew watched from behind a cement bench, remaining hidden as he kept watch over the events unfolding.


The man in the balaclava mask then proceeded to the back trunk, and unlocked it, hefting it wide open. He then grabbed something from it, and hoisted it up onto his shoulder, wincing at the weight. He then walked over to one of the doorways leading into city council, and placed his load beside the door.


Andrew took a closer look, quickly pulling his camera from his pocket to take video.


"That's... that's a body!" he kept his voice quiet and muffled his own mouth with his hand as the man returned to the trunk to grab a second body, not having seen Andrew.


The man then placed the second body on the other side of the doorway, and then began laughing a horrible raunchy laugh, as if he'd gotten some kind of sick pleasure from what he was doing.


He then leveled the gun at each of the bodies in turn, firing twice at their head, and once at their heart.


A security guard by that time arrived to confront him and did exactly that despite his better instinct and training. 


"Hands up! Police are on their way!" the security guard yelled at the man, leveling a taser at him.


As the man turned to face the security guard, he fired the taser to defend himself.


The shot was perfectly aimed, impacting in the center of that man's upper breastplate between the open lapels of his bomber jacket. The taser discharged into the man, but seemingly without any effect upon him. That's when the security guard noticed that the man was wearing modified cowboy boots, whose spurs were literally touching the ground and making a connection to some grounding wiring the man had rigged to his body, hence tasers were useless against him.


"Sorry bro! I'm grounded. But you know what? Some day, you're going to thank me for this," the man leveled his gun at the security guard's leg, and fired three shots into it, shattering the femur in two places and stripping away a good portion of muscle from his thigh.


He fell screaming to the pavement, though bled little from the wound.


The man in the balaclava mask then turned back to the bodies, and retrieved a pair of signs from within his jacket, affixing one each to the bodies. He then pulled a can of blue spray paint from his jacket and wrote in spray paint a pair of words:


M I D N I G H T   H O U R 


As the sound of sirens began to fill the air, he turned quickly to his running car and jumped in, still laughing.


In one press of the gas, with the steering wheel turned and the parking brake set, the entire car spun until it was facing the point through which it had entered the building. He dropped the parking brake as the wheels spun and the car shot out from the building and onto Nathan Phillips Square.


Moments later he was back on the Gardener and heading west to his own roost.


...


Heylyn lay curled up on her sofa, falling in and out of sleep with the late show on the large screen television on the wall across from her. She was dreaming of a courtroom, her friend Myung Chung-Ae sat at the stenographer's station busily typing as the proceedings continued.


Her lawyer, Holbrook Mitchell (known to his close friends by the nickname Hoby), was defending her in a case against a plaintiff challenging her right to claim parenthood over her adopted daughter Warai Jeong-Min Tokama. The challenge being made on the grounds of Heylyn being deemed unfit as a mother, and that Warai possessed remarkable talents that implied that she should be in the hands of specialists rather than an adopted mother unfit for parenthood.


The case had been going poorly for her, and any time she tried to speak in her own defense, the people around her urged her against doing so. It was as if her voice, her presence in the case was being stricken from the testimony. As if what she had to say with regard to her own defense simply did not matter.


She became frustrated, and when the ringing phone in her jacket distracted her attempts to speak out in the courtroom, she answered it in her dream.


"Hello?" she said in a ghostly voice.


"Its me! Monique! Didn't you hear the sirens?!!!" Monique asked Heylyn, who was suddenly pulled from her dream and back to the sofa, where she'd answered the ringing phone in real life, half asleep.


"What? Oh! I'm a mess right now Monique. I just woke up. It would take me five... maybe ten minutes to get ready. By then, the Police will already be there. Go without me. You can tell me later. I'll be up. I've got to check on Warai..." Heylyn sat up on the sofa.


"Alright! I'll drop by in about fifteen or twenty. I'll send Aikiko over to see you right now. See ya boss!" Monique hung up the phone, and a second later Heylyn saw the streak of light through the night sky as Eclipse made her way to Nathan Phillips Square.


Heylyn made her way to Warai's room, the door already slightly opened as she stepped through to check on her little girl.


"Butterfly!" Warai heard as Heylyn snuck up on her bed.


"Caught me, red handed. How are you? Is everything alright? No bad dreams?" asked Heylyn of her daughter.


"Nope. Welly came to visit the field. He says things are all over the place right now, but the best thing to do is to stay and play and live the field's way. What is the field's way?" Warai asked Heylyn.


"Hmmmm. The field's way? I think that's the idea that when most things that happen, are beyond your ability to affect them one way or another, that the best thing to do is just to watch, but not be stricken to debilitating fear or panic when its seems dire. Remain focused. Is the perception of what you see around you really that bad, or is it an illusion made up to trick you into feeling scared? Either way, its better to be focused or even, when you're in the middle of a dream, to play in the field. You get some sleep alright and maybe, just maybe, we'll do something special this weekend," Heylyn said to Warai, fluffing her hair when she'd finished.


"Goodnight Butterfly," Warai said, rolling over onto her side and pulling the comforter tight.


"Goodnight other Butterfly. Sleep tight and good night," Heylyn tapped her nose, and then left her room just as she heard a quiet knocking at the front door of her condo.


Heylyn checked the security monitor and saw Aikiko outside of her door. She opened the door foor Aikiko and let her in.


"Monique left about two minutes ago. How are you?" asked Aikiko.


"I'm alright. A little tired, but alright. How about you?" Heylyn asked as they both walked towards the kitchen.


"I'm alright too. Just a little exhausted from the day," Aikiko reminded Heylyn.


"I bet. What time did you finish that photoshoot?" asked Heylyn.


"We went until 9PM, after which Kori drove me home. She stayed late trying to get all of the backlog on payroll done before the bank closed. I guess she didn't want an angry mob outside of her office door on Monday morning?" Aikiko smiled.


"Ha! I bet. Can I get you something? Tea? Latté? Maybe a bite to eat?" asked Heylyn as she examined the contents of the fridge.


"A tea would be nice," Aikiko replied.


"Alright. I'm also going to heat up some of the chicken-fried rice I made earlier and have some, if you want any?" Heylyn asked her, but by that time Aikiko had caught sight of the television and had seated herself on the sofa as her favourite night show was just starting at the midnight hour.


...


Eclipse landed at the carnage outside of the City Council building, and found a security guard just inside of the building laying barely conscious, a serious injury to his right leg.


"Hang on! I'm going to get you out of here and to a hospital!" Eclipse said to the security guard, who barely heard her, let alone had any kind of awareness at all.


As soon as she touched his uniform, his entire body was transformed into photons along with hers, and she flew at close to the speed of light to the nearest emergency room. She quickly found an empty gurney, and placed him upon it before transforming back into regular matter.


An orderly ran over to check on the security guard, turning to Eclipse.


"What happened to him?" asked the orderly.


"I don't know. Something bad. I just brought him from city council and I'm going back..." she responded to the orderly.


"You're that Eclipse girl, aren't you?" asked the orderly, now shocked by his realization but before he'd finished the words, she was already back at the crime scene at city council.


Monique examined the area as she heard the sirens getting closer and closer.


She was startled when she spotted two bodies, who'd clearly been shot at point blank range in the head and chest.


"Too late for them..." Eclipse said, a sense of lost sadness in her voice.


As she searched the area inside of the city council for any other injured civilians or responders, Andrew secretly recorded her on his phone. He managed to get under a minute of footage of her, when she turned to see the arriving swarm of Police cars pulling up to the damaged courtyard.


"I took a security guard to Toronto General Hospital. He's in the emergency room right now! Sorry, I couldn't help these two. They were long gone by the time I got here. Gotta go! By guys!" she waved at the Police as she disappeared into the sky at near the speed of light.


"She could have stayed. Most of us would never carry out the standing orders to arrest the Eclipse or Butterfly upon sight anyway," one of the Officers said to his partner.


"Yeah, but she and the Butterfly don't know that," his partner responded.


"Alright. Enough bickering. Lets a get a crime scene setup here and hold it down until the Detectives get here," the Senior Officer on sight ordered his men.


"Sir, we've got a material witness here," one of the Officers brought Andrew over to the Police car.


"Keep him discrete," the Senior Officer grabbed a COVID mask from his kit and put it on the face of their witness.


The rest of the officers went about setting up the crime scene as more and more emergency vehicles arrived and eventually, the unmarked car of Detective Edward Farnham.


...


Heylyn was bringing Aikiko her tea and a plate of food when Eclipse landed on her balcony.


"Oh! The balcony's locked!" Heylyn ran for the sliding doors of her condo balcony when Monique suddenly transformed herself into photons once again, and simply stepped right through the glass and into Heylyn's condo, after which she transformed back into her whole body self.


"I forgot you could do that," Heylyn responded to Monique.


"There were three casualties... Two dead, and one security guard who's probably in stable condition. I brought him to the hospital. Seems like it was some kind of a lunatic or something..." Monique spoke, somewhat out of breath.


"Have a seat. Want some tea and a plate of chicken-fried rice?" asked Heylyn of Monique.


"Sure boss. The killer left notes on each of the bodies. They appeared to be people's names. The first one was Alex Reardon..." Monique continued.


"That's one of the Ombudsmen who works at city council," Aikiko told them.


"How did you know that?" asked Monique responded, a bit shocked that Aikiko would even be interested in such a thing.


"When I settled into the condo, I became interested in the politics and who I'd like to vote for..." Aikiko explained to Monique.


"Something any responsible citizen would do. Do you know if the victim was Alex Reardon?" asked Heylyn.


"I couldn't tell..." Monique became stressed when asked about it.


"That's alright. What about the other one?" asked Heylyn.


"She had the name Delaine Forbes... but again, I couldn't tell you who she was..." Monique replied.


"Delaine Forbes? I remember that name, but I can't remember from where..." Heylyn stopped for a moment to focus upon where she'd heard that name.


"She's the CEO of Midnight Hour Security..." Aikiko responded, having found it by a quick internet search on her phone.


"...and that's exactly what was spray painted above both of their bodies on the wall behind them!" Monique added.


"You said that you took a security guard to the emergency room?" Heylyn confirmed with Monique.


"Yep. Toronto General Hospital. Like seven minutes ago..." Monique responded, but by that time Heylyn was already dialing Toronto General Hospital.


"Hello. Have you received an injured security guard in emergency recently?" asked Heylyn.


"Do you have a name?" asked the operator.


"No. I didn't know his name. I was just concerned for a security guard on site who was taken to hospital and I'd like to know if he was taken there so I can bring a group to visit him," Heylyn explained to the operator.


"What company was he with?" asked the operator.


"Midnight Hour Security," Heylyn replied, looking to Aikiko and then to Monique expectantly.


"Uhhhh. Yes. There appears to be a security guard here from that company. He's in stable condition. Arrived from a site at city council at..." the operator had barely finished when Heylyn responded.


"Thank you so much! Bye!" Heylyn said as she hung up the phone.


"You're right Monique. He's in stable condition," Heylyn told her.


"Whew. Good to hear. Another point for the good girls," Monique responded.


"Our security guard is from Midnight Hour Security, but obviously he wasn't the target or he'd have been lined up on that wall beside the other victims," Heylyn reasoned with them.


"Then why would the killer paint the wall with their company name?" asked Monique.


"Eat up. Lets put this on hold for the moment and keep an eye on the news. Its been a long day for us all. We'll check the news again in about ten minutes, after we've eaten, and if there's nothing, we'll get some sleep and follow up tomorrow. Maybe check in with Myung Chung-Ae," Heylyn said to Monique, bringing her a plate of food, after which she retrieved her own and joined them on the sofa.


"Good idea boss. I'm starving!" Monique responded, shoveling a pile of chicken-fried rice into gullet.


Eyes Without A Face



Farnham sat in the driver's seat of his unmarked car, waiting for the CPIC system to verify his tablet's security credentials. Just when he was about to give up, and go with old reliable (his pen and notepad), the tablet echoed the word: CONNECTED CPIC SYS 7.93.


"Alright. You win again, but much longer and I'd have tossed you in favour of technology from four generations ago," Farnham remarked to his MindSpice AI powered tablet.


YES. PEN AND PAPER HAS BEEN A STAPLE OF HUMAN ACCOMPLISHMENT FOR MANY GENERATIONS. DID YOU KNOW THAT THE ANCIENT SUMERIANS EVEN USED NOTE-STONES TO RECORD CUNIFORM WRITING FOR KEEPING TRACK OF SEASONAL FLUCTUATIONS IN GRAIN STOCKS?


"I do now. How'd they do with crime scene investigation?" asked Farnham as he carried the tablet with him over to the Senior Officer.


I'M SORRY, THERE ARE NO TRACES OF HISTORICAL RECORDS ACCOUNTING FOR CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATION IN SUMERIA.


"Thanks MAZ. Stay in the background. Listen, but don't respond unless I ask. Collate anything you perceive and let me know if there's anything pertinent. Interrupt mode off and discrete mode on." Farnham ordered his tablet.


"Where's Poonya tonight?" asked the Senior Officer.


"Right here. He fixed this tablet up for me, but in all seriousness, he's on a hot date. Probably at third base right now, possibly making his way for home plate I hope, because as he says, she's the marrying kind, and Poonya always keeps his eye on the ball. That's what I like about him," Farnham responded to the Senior Officer.


"He'll be grateful he's not here for this one. Its real strange. For one, our two bodies there, they're not decomposing according to the forensic playbook, and because we don't have anyone here from Forensic Biology yet, you're going to have to check it out yourself. Secondly, our John Henry here, he seized up like a rusty disc brake. I think he's in shock, but maybe he needs the right person to talk to him. Its all yours Farnham, and let me say that I don't envy you one bit. Well I'm on my way home, 'cuz us sane people on the regular beat value our wives and mortgages, unlike you Detectives, who seem to be suckers for punishment," the Senior Officer left the scene, waving to Farnham as he did.


"Ha! Don't make me spellcheck your crime scene Morty. Get lost before I'm tempted," Farnham said as he pulled a measuring tape from the pocket of his trench coat.


"I'm gone! Enjoy," Morty was in his car and already gone before Farnham had pocketed the measuring tape.


"MAZ, we've got two bodies here. One female, in her mid thirties, auburn hair, short. Fit for her age. Possibly a jogger? Into fitness? A good diet. Facial disfiguration due to point blank discharge of  a firearm, powder burns, nine by nineteen millimeter parabellum, hollow point for sure given the disfiguration... eyes without a face... and yet there's no hint of post mortem scent..." Farnham got close to the first victim's face, his years of experience telling him that something was missing.


Farnham's attention turned to the pavement beside the body, upon which a sign had fallen.


"There's a sign here, looks like it was fixed to the body with a thumb tack. Must have fallen off with the wind. There's a name on it: Denise Forbes. At this point there's no way of telling if this is our Jane Doe here. I'll check for any signs of identification on her person..." Farnham leaned closer to her, checking the inside pocket of her jacket for any ID.


"There's no body smell. Smells unnatural. Like..." Farnham checked the wounds with his fingers, gagging slightly as he did.


When he finally had control of his nausea reaction, he checked the other body and found the same thing.


"Stendel? Where was the security guard taken by the Eclipse?" asked Farnham of one of the on scene officers.


"Toronto General Hospital... Detective," Stendel responded.


"And there were no other casualties besides the bodies here, right?" confirmed Farnham.


"That's correct Detective. We locked this scene down pretty good, despite John Henry there not playing ball with us..." Stendel replied.


"This isn't a murder case..." Farnham told Stendel.


"I'm sorry Detective, but there's clearly two bodies right there..." Stendel stepped away from his duty of marking the skid marks of the perpetrator's car.


"Stendel, they aren't victims," Farnham told him.


"Then what the f#ck are they?" demanded Stendel.


"They're f#cking ballistic dummies. The same kind they use in shooting clubs and forensics from what I can tell. They aren't alive. They're f#cking rubber!" Farnham turned to face Stendel, lifting the arm of one of the dummies.


"All of the sudden, this isn't a murder case. Assault with a deadly weapon for sure. Vandalism. Destruction of private and public property, but not murder. You know what that means right? That means its all yours boys," Farnham said as he stood.


"Stendel? He's right. We just made contact with the victim's families and they've confirmed that the names indicated on the signs, that both of those people are alive and well. No harm. No foul," Officer Mazel indicated to them both.


"Good luck gents. I've got a backlog of cases waiting for me tomorrow, not to mention I'm on my way home to Lori. I'll be thinking of you guys scraping this scene for signs of further vandalism. I bet I'm not the only one who's happy that our victim's are still with us," Farnham winked at Mazel, and then Stendel as he hopped back into his unmarked car.


"Call me again when you've got a better case. My night shift's over," Farnham pulled out of the crime scene and returned home to the arms of his waiting wife.


Inside Out



Alicia awoke at 3:39 in the AM, the child in her womb had suddenly come to life and decided that living at home (or womb) simply wasn't good enough.


"Whooooa... whooo... I ohhh. I think this would be a good time to get to the hospital..." Alicia said aloud, as she leaned up on the bed, the child in her womb clearly indicating that they were growing evermore curious about where the rest of us found our solace.


"Water? Is it your water?" Norler paniced, jumping out of bed from the midst of some pseudo nightmare/dream in which he was facing off against Jason Michael Santers with MediFriend. As Santers attacked Norler, MediFriend was telling him how he could heal his adversary, while Santer's version was telling him how he could sew Norler's grave.


Norler shaked off the cobwebs of post nightmare sleep and sat upright.


"Uhhhh! Alright! Water? Water?" panicked Norler.


"Water's good... lots of kicking in me... oohhh Heylyn's really going to get along with this one... already a martial artist for sure...!" Alicia held her womb, as the child within her winded her several times before she was upon her feet.


"Alright! Alright! The elevator! I've got our shoes and your blanket!" Norler quickly snatched up everything they'd prepared along the front hall and the closet, guiding Alicia to the elevator.


Once they were on their way down, Norler helped her get her shoes onto her feet, and then wrapped her in their favourite flannel blanket, and together they breathed. Alicia gasped as the door opened at the parking garage, breaking their rhythm.


Norler got her to her feet, and she ran, a woman more physically capable than Norler could ever hope to be, bent over, struggling to carry the child within her. 


And together, they did it.


They made it to Norler's Acura (his Chrysler Pacifica being his second choice for this moment), and he immediately reclined her seat as he helped her get her seatbelt on.



"Honey... this one's definitely like me if you know what I mean... Hurry!" Alicia held her stomach fast as Norler pulled out of their parking spot and sped out of the garage, skidding out onto Queen Street and on his way to Toronto General Hospital.


"Speak to me Alicia!" Norler hunched himself over the steering wheel, looking for every opening he needed to get his wife and child to.


"Oh my... arghhhh! My water just broke! Norler! Promise me you'll give this bugger a good lecture! No patience in this one honey...! Oh baby! You little bugger! Just hold on...! I know you're anxious...! Oh you bugger...!" Alicia gasped a few times as Norler slammed the brakes on just outside of the emergency room.


He kicked (literally) his door open and ran around to Alicia's side of the car, dragging her from the car as the orderlies fixed her to the gurney. She cursed them as much so as she cursed Norler and even her own child several times. Some found shock in her words, but most found joy, hope and laughter, only imagining her plight of giving birth.


Norler sat on a chair in the waiting room. The air cold.


He crammed a protein bar he'd intended for Alicia into his mouth. Chewed it.


Swallowed.


Waited, pacing the halls.


Suspecting, but never fully realizing that he truly had the easy end of the deal of child birth the entire time.


The same orderly that had helped Alicia onto a gurney came up behind Norler, during his thirtieth pass of that section of the hall.


"Mr. Norler? The Doctor in the delivery room approved your being there. Alicia's about to give birth if you want to come with me, you can help her through the process.


"Thank you. Nothing else would mean more to me," Norler followed the orderly into the delivery room.


That moment, from that point on, belonged to Alicia, Norler and their newborn child.



Unlikely Allies



Monique sat out front of her favourite café, drinking her favourite Latté Mochiachatta in the morning sun of a day that had already graced the two degree mark.


She was dressed for this occasion in one of her various incognito outfits, this particular one focused on keeping her face well hidden, as well as her figure so as not to attract too much attention. A casual loose fitting track suit, a pair of large lensed sunglasses and a stylish day hat.


She wore little makeup as well, as most would have recognized her hallmark eyes and eye shadow, despite their being hidden behind her sunglasses. She sat waiting for her counterpart to arrive, enjoying her latté, and reading one of the fashion quarterlies, never paying attention to the man beside her.


Braden had been seated next to her for a full half hour before she even noticed him, and when she did, she poked him first, and then scolded him.


"Why didn't you say anything?" asked Monique of him.


"You called me here! I was waiting for you! You didn't say you were coming here incognito," Braden exclaimed.


"Well given the situation I assumed you knew?" Monique responded, lowering her voice.


"Fine. My bad. So how do you want to do this? I heard on the news they already deemed that the case isn't a murder case. That the dead bodies were actually just rubber dummies," Braden explained to Monique.


"I know that much already. What I want to find out is why this guy planted those dummies, and used the names Denise Forbes and Alex Reardon. I mean, there must be some kind of a connection?" Monique responded, much more casually this time.


"So what do you suggest?" Braden asked her.


"Let's do a little research on the internet here first. Then we'll take it from there," Monique pulled her tablet from her purse and placed it on the table in front of them, while Braden took out his phone.


"I've got Alex Reardon, you checkout Denise Forbes..." Braden said as he typed in the search term on his phone.


"Since this incident, there's certainly no shortage of news about them... sheesh," Monique said as she scrolled through pages upon pages of news related to the incident at city hall.


"I'll say, though there's not much here about Alex Reardon. Something from a year and a half ago. A short article about how research contracts are awarded. It looks like Mr. Reardon killed a project because it violated how Government research data is used by private industry. Cost a lot of jobs and a lot of people weren't very happy with him. That might be something. It has motive written all over it," Braden explained to Monique.


"What company?" asked Monique.


"Tactical Asset Group. They're an investment firm that specializes in autonomous hardware for warfare," Braden showed her.


"And what's that mean?" asked Monique.


"Drones. Reconaissance and armed. That kind of thing I'd imagine," Braden explained to her.


Monique combined the name of the company with Denise Forbes in her next search, and came up with the jackpot.


"Bingo! It says here that our girl Denise was connected to TAG, and helped usher in a deal with security giant Gate Guardian Security..." Monique showed Braden the photo and the accompanying article.


"That's Mr. Reardon there. Shaking hands with the VP of Gate Guardian!" Braden pointed out on from the photo on the article on her screen, showing her an image of Alex Reardon from his search.


"That was like six months ago! So he shut down another deal four years ago, and likely was publicly chastised for it. I mean come on? It cost money and jobs. He stays beneath the radar for a few years, and surfaces to approve this deal, and comes out of it looking like the hero. Mrs. Forbes in the meantime has been actively campaigning on her business promotion agenda. Trying to land huge  lucrative contracts for businesses in Southern Ontario," Monique began piecing it all together.


"How does this all connect to city hall?" Braden asked her.


"That's exactly what we're going to find out," Monique stood and returned her tablet to her purse.


"Coming?" Monique asked Braden.


"No, are you coming? I'm driving don't forget," Braden reminded her.


"Lets pay Gate Guardian a visit in person, shall we? They're in Brampton, on Summerlead Road," suggested Monique.


"Alright, but you're going to fill my gas tank," Braden responded to her.


"Are you saying Heylyn doesn't pay you enough?" asked Monique.


"No. She pays me quite well for what I'm doing, but with insurance and maintenance, it adds up," Braden unlocked their doors.


"Alright. Stop at a gas station. One with a Tim Hortons and I'll buy the gas, but you're buying the coffees," Monique got in the passenger side of his car.


"Deal," Braden said as he started the car and drove off into the Queen Street West traffick.


Much more writing and artwork to come...


To be continued...


Credits and attribution:


Car driving maniac character concept and design originally by Darrell Haines. His initial concept art of thirty-five years ago, visually wrote most of the enigmatic character of this story.


Further, this story is inspired by the music of our generation, the likes of Billy Idol (and GenX)  and many other artists and all of their most esoteric material. The kind of stuff that drove that crazy guy behind the wheel of a '77 Mustang to break the chains of his mortal coil.


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

Tools: Daz3D, Corel Painter, Adobe Photoshop, Lightwave 3D, Blender, Stable Diffusion (Easy Diffusion distribution), InstantID, Sadtalker, Google Colaboratory, Microsoft Copilot (Windows 11), Hitfilm, Borderline Obsession...

Extra Special thank you to 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.

Extra Special thank you to Adobe, especially their award legendary image editing and compositing application Photoshop, who make much of the artwork on Shhhh! Digital Media possible.

Extra Special thank you to Corel for their Painter application, which is a great companion tool when combined with the power of Adobe Photoshop.

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.

Ask Seki Sensei | Online Katana Lessons! - Study Iaido And Kobudo Online

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)

Jesse Enkamp: Karate Nerd

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

Thank you to Captain Crunch from 89 Steps.

Special thanks to Fifth Social Club Toronto.

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

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


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