Fighting Disease with our Computers: Please consider joining us

As many of you know, I've been using my computer to crunch molecules with Oxford for the last two years on The Grid. The project there has concluded. The good news is there are many more projects we can put our computer resources to work on and several of them can be found at the World Community Grid such as:

Help Cure Muscular Dystrophy Project
Genome Comparison Project
Help Defeat Cancer Project
Human Proteome Folding - Phase 2 Project
FightAIDS@Home Project
How Grid Computing Works


If you believe in putting your spare cpu cycles to good use, please consider joining team Bravo on the WCG. We started Bravo today. Autumn was the first to join. Any and all are welcome to work with us and many, many more around the world in doing what we can to support research. The project works with either PCs or Macs, so all my Apple friends, you've got no reason not to join us now.

To get started requires just two steps and less than five minutes of your time. Download the agent and then join team Bravo. That's it. Your computer will do everything else just like a screensaver, which is to say, it only processes data when you are not. I've been crunching molecules with more than 10 computers with a total cpu time that exceeds 20 years and I've had zero problems running the program on my desktops and laptops. Please consider joining us in a cause that will cost you no time and no money but with the promise of making a difference in the lives of your children (and maybe even us) with the research we support today.

Download the Agent HERE

Then join team Bravo HERE

269. The Scan

Three days later . . .

“Rog?” called John.

“Yeah? What’s up?”

“Come to the bridge. We’ve got visual contact.”

Rog ran. He entered the bridge, walked past John and stood before the main window, his nose pressed against the glass like a child at the airport watching a plane pull into the gate and wondering if his father was on this one. “She’s beautiful isn’t she?”

John didn’t answer.

“You did the scan didn’t you?” asked Rog without taking his eyes off Bravo.

“Yeah. I did.”

Silence.

“You know, I thought when we got to this point, wild horses couldn’t keep me from—and now, I just want to stand here. You did the scan, right?”

“Rog, I—“

“Hey, we both knew before we left. We knew this moment would be waiting, didn’t we?”

John sighed.

“And we knew we were idiots for allowing ourselves to believe, but we did it anyway, right?

John sighed again.

“And we talked and dreamed of miracles, that somehow, someway, they would find a way to turn six days into seven. How could they not? How could Kyra not find a way?”

John walked behind Rog and put his hand on his shoulder.

“Tell me. I need to hear it.”

“Hear what?”

“The scan. What did you find?”

John opened his mouth to speak but nothing he could think to say sounded right.

“Just tell me. Not like I don’t know. I just need to hear it, cause you know, until I hear it, I won’t believe it. Until you say it, I’ll still think it’s not possible, not true.”

John gripped Rog’s shoulder. “There was no sign of life.”

“I don’t believe it!”

“I know.”

“I’m serious. Your scans are wrong. Grab your stuff. We’re going.”

“Rog?”

“What?”

“I’m going to grab my stuff. See you in the pod in a few.”

“John?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks.”

“You know, scans have been wrong before.”

Categories: Story, John Discovery, Rog

268. Three Red Pills

Six hours ago Bravo ceased producing breathable air. Donning their suits, Kyra, Von and Em looked like paratroopers ready for a drop, but there was no drop. So they sat and watched their gauges. For six hours no one said a word before Kyra broke the silence. “Thirty minutes,” her voice distant and tinny through the helmet comm. “How much time do you have remaining Von?”

“About the same, perhaps a little less.”

“Em?”

“Same here.”

Kyra held out her arm and rotated her closed fist palm up. Opening her fingers all eyes locked on the three small red pills huddled together in the center of her hand. Von was the first to take his. Em hesitated, glancing down at the brooch in her left hand before reaching forward to take her pill.

“I know,” spoke Kyra, “this is not the way any of us ever contemplated we would meet our maker. The pill is—“

“We know,” said Von. “I have witnessed death by asphyxiation.” Looking directly at Em he continued. “I would not wish that death upon my enemies, not even the Javalinas that tortured me."

Kyra nodded. Em held her pill at arms length as if it could bite her. “How does this work?” asked Em.

“Like a sleeping pill, Em,” responded Kyra. “In about ten minutes you’ll start to get sleepy. Within fifteen you won’t be able to keep your eyes open and by twenty, well, you’ll be home with family.”

“Is it gonna hurt?”

“Nope. You’ll not feel a thing,” said Von.

“How do you know that?”

Before Von could answer, Kyra jumped in. “Em, no one is forcing you to take the pill. It’s your choice. It will take about twenty minutes to work. How much time do you have remaining on your gauge?”

“Twenty-five minutes.”

A hush of air sounded in the cold command center as first Kyra and then Von and finally Em retracted the faceplates on their helmets. Gasping at the lack of air, each placed a pill on their tongues and swallowed before quickly closing the faceplate again.

“Give me your hands,” said Kyra, the only light coming from the two small lights at either side of her helmet, which fell softly on Von’s stoic old wrinkled face and Em’s frightened countenance. “Papa always told me I entered this world in love and I’d like to think I’m going to leave it the same way.”

Von tried to smile. Em was not capable.

“Feel the warmth?” asked Kyra.

They both nodded.

“Papa taught me this little trick. He said it was love. I suppose in a few minutes I’ll find out just whether that old geezer had been pulling my leg all those years now won’t I.”

Em fought to keep her eyes open. She lost. Von was determined he would be last. He was wrong. Kyra looked at her two friends in slumber. A tear slipped from each eye before she too succumbed to the hands and minds of scientists from a land long left behind. Approximately three hours later the last known lights on Bravo, the lights on Kyra helmet, flickered before giving way to the darkness.

Categories: Story, Kyra, Von, Emy

267. The Fall of Em

Kyra rubbed her burning eyes with the back of her hand as cesious smoke hung silently in the cold bay, the vestige of violence paid. What once was threat was done. What once was three more days was rendered down to one.

"Von, I'd ask you what this was, but I know you don't know anymore than I do and I suspect you care even less."

Von just stared. Kyra wondered for a second why he didn't answer her. Then she realized he wasn't looking at her, probably wasn't even listening to her. Turning to the left, she caught sight of Em, las canon in her arms, the full weigh pulling her shoulders down as a small trickle of blood ran from her nose and over her lip. She just stood there as if her legs were pinned to the floor with no expression on her face as first one drop and then another escaped to the floor.

The thud, when she fell forward, was as cow struck by carnifax. The weight just fell, hard. The sound was not a sound as much as it was an indelible memory, a moment forever linked not to what was seen without but what was felt, or as in this case, not felt within.

Neither Kyra nor Von moved and Kyra mulled the inaction. Why did she not immediately run to Em’s aid? Why was she just standing there, watching Em's limp body, crumbled by Janus only knows what? Yet, she debated, what was the point? What was there to save? She looked so peaceful, so at rest.

Von walked past Kyra; neither fast nor quick. Kneeling at Em’s side, he powered the canon down, fully conscious that his first concern was the weapon, not Em. Placing his hand on the back of her head, he closed his eyes and mumbled something Kyra could not hear. Slowly, he let the back of his hand slide down the side of her face and then cupping her chin, turned her still face toward his. Her eyes were open a little wider than normal and they glistened without blinking. Her upper lip was covered in blood and her lower lip hung open as if it didn't have the strength to close. Von let his fingers touch her scarlet lip. The blood felt warm and he rubbed it, her life, between his dirty fingers. Her eyes just stared, not directly at him, but off to some imaginary point over his left shoulder, perhaps, he thought, to a better place.

Von gently rotated his fingers over her round cheek as father to daughter saying good night, his eyes tracing each contour of her face as one does in disbelief. Moving to her brow, he hesitated before pulling his hand over her eyes to close them.

“What are you doing?” whispered Em. “I’m not dead yet.”

Von jumped. “My Janus girl, are you still alive?”

“No pampusweed, it’s my ghost talking. What the frail do you think?”

Von laughed. “I thought you were dead.”

“I know.”

“And you—“

“Yep.”

“Why you little—“

“Hey, what’s going on over there?”

“She’s alive.”

“Psssst. Von.”

“What?”

“She already knows.”

“What?”

“That I’m not dead yet. Why do you think my nose is bleeding?”

Categories: Story, Kyra, Von, Emy

266. In the Valley

John shares a few photos with Rog. Early days in flight school.

Categories: Story, John Discovery, Rog, Paintings

265. Kyra in Red

Kyra in Red

Categories: Story, Kyra, Sketches

264. Sam

Em's sketch of Sam

Categories: Story, Emy, Paintings

263. Kyra Pre-Bravo

Kyra

Categories: Story, Kyra, Sketches

262. Waters of Divine Decadence

Lil' Twilight administered the Waters of Divine Decadence herself. Trev was never the same.

Backstory: (as far as we know)

Ancient landing pads on a distant and remote moon servicing the local shipping population, quite an unruly clientele, especially with Big Cephelus lording over the local whoring trade and none the too happy with business of late.

Lil' Twilight, his main ho, and, to be fair, a technician turned artisan in the trade of warm commerce, charged twice the going rate and still made more money in tips than BC was earning off her keep. And there was the rub.

So one day, BC called Lil' into his office, the one overlooking the main pad, so he could keep an eye on local traffic. His desk faced the main window and he had Lil' sit on the sofa before him. She, for the occasion no less, wore illuminated destearian glass garments, which left nothing and everything to the imagination.

Well, Lil' jingled over to BC's desk, reached into her incandescent pocket and tossed a credit chip onto his desk.

"What's this," he frowned.

"Pick it up." Lil' leaned over, her ample amplitude of creamy delectation pointing the way.

"Unlimited?"

"Yep."

"Where did you get this?"

"A poor innocent little soul. Name is Trevor--an off worlder. Seems he was so discombobulated, he left it behind."

BC worked the chip between his fingers back and forth and forth and back, his eyes ablaze with a dull gleam just short of malicious, more akin to lust than greed; yet, with BC, where one began and the other ended no one could say, or perhaps no one had the gonads to say. Either way, to say he was a biomorph of lustful greed or greedful lust would be to state a fact known to all and to all agreed.

"Come round the desk Lil'. I think you need to show me the proper appreciation for taking such an instrument of unrighteous seduction from your weak and feckless hands. Do you have any idea how much trouble I'm about to save you?"

Lil' moved around the desk, her eyes dropping in sync with her knees. "BC, darlin', I'm gonna show you how much I appreciate your burdensome and ever faithful endeavors to always look out for my best interest."

BC let out an audible sigh as Lil' traced her perfectly manicured nails along the top of his thighs.

With a blink of his eyes, he closed the blinds and turned on his digicorder. Lil was worth more than the occasion.

Lil's fingers danced in unison and BC's knees parted. She smiled and rolled her eyes to half moons, just a glint of light catching the corners like the diamonds on BC's thick finger.

Lil' was a master of playful anticipation, of allowing the client's imagination to do what she never could, never would. Her magic worked in the spaces between the notes, as she like to say, and this, in her mind, is what separated her from all the rest.

"Feeling tumid I see," she purred with a voice smooth as her honeyed scarlet lips. "Or is that turgid and tumid?"

BC sighed with heavy lids, his eyes just slits.

Lil's nail converged, lightly upon bulging custom silk, a velvet hammer of female delight, or so she would argue.

Categories: Story, Trev, Lil' Twilight, BC, Sketches

261. My Dear Chatelaine

Mairi: +Hey, can you hear me?+

Dr. X: +Aah, my dear chatelaine, I thought you had forsaken me. Please accept my not quite so humble apologies.+

Mairi: +Sorry. We’ve had a bit of drama. Besides, you know they won’t let me see you. Just getting close enough to tickle your immeasurable neurons has been a challenge.+

Dr. X: +I know. Won’t let me see anyone. Such primitive tactics would amuse me if they weren’t so sad and pathetic. You would think they had forgotten I can surf, at will, the dull waves of their backward pea-sized brains. Quite boring really. The dullards seem not to have an original thought between the lot of them. Then again, perhaps that’s their plan. Torture me with boredom. Now you, my dear, well, you stimulate me in ways I’ve never imagined.+

Mairi: +The feeling is mutual my good doctor. You’ve opened doors I never knew existed, doors never far from my mind, not to mention a few other parts.+

Dr. X: +Tell me about this drama. I sense on the edge of your wicked mind, opportunity.+

Mairi: +Could be. I still feel as a child with these new abilities but I can’t help my mind returning again and again to you and Yul. Dreams and visions, the two of you, not clear, yet, how do I say it, almost destined.+

Dr. X: +The drama, dear chatelaine?+

Mairi: +Oh, yes. Yul has a terminal disease, so say the doctors here. Her condition is worsening and they plan to operate in the next couple days. Seems they still feel at a lost as to what good they can do. I feel the procedure could be nothing more than a live autopsy.+

Dr. X: +I see. Have you seen her charts?+

Mairi: +No. Why do you ask?+

Dr. X: +Request the charts. All of them. If they say no. Demand them and demand a detailed explanation. They’ll relent, trust me. Now, very important, keep your eyes on each chart, making sure you read every line, every detail. And have them explain everything twice.+

Mairi: +I’m not a doctor. Won’t know the first thing about what I’m seeing.+

Dr. X: +But I am my dear.+

Mairi: +Oh.+

Categories: Story, Dr. X, Mairi, Paintings