Tin Universe Middle Grade Series.

Someone is zombifying athletes at Clear Cut High School in Utah. Lucky the school has its own young superhero in the person of Mildred Betbeze to try and figure out what's going on. Pep rallies, cheerleaders, new kids in the neighborhood are just some of things our hero and her sidekick slash best friend Aisha have to deal with in the first audio book adaption in Tin Universe's middle grade series. $2.00 Profits from the sales of this audio book will go to Trans Lifeline for as long as the books is sold on Podbean.

Wednesday, March 16, 2016

Tin Universe Daily #277


#277

A First Shot Fired
Part 10

BREAKING NEWS: Did the CIA target rescuers at sites of drone attacks in Afghanistan? …

BREAKING NEWS: Nebraska candidate for governor blames rape of three elderly women on too relaxed laws on Beyond Humans even though the men caught who raped them have been proven to have no Beyond Human abilities…

BREAKING NEWS: Being unemployed sucks, being called for jury duty when you had a chance at a job interview really sucks…

Some would say the very nature of trying to live in the modern world is an adaption to chaos. It’s about being able to shape your steps without the formula of what has directed the course of the past. Our questions for surviving the future may have to do with how well we can finger paint turmoil and not come out of it with it being an exercise for the insane.
The fear of this has more and more people reaching for some sort of uniformity to make them feel comfortable about the way the course of history is going. Human nature has always been one of safety within a comfort zone. That’s why hunger, bigotry, and imperial nationalism still exists.
Uniformity just sounds like a bad word doesn’t it? Well, it does to me. Just one of those words when spoken, heard, or read tweeks at the things that tell you this isn’t right. Ok, it doesn’t affect you in that way but it does really bother others in extremes. It has that effect on Chris Friday also.
And that’s the way a lot of other humans see it. Just get over yourself because that is the way a lot of humans see it. Seems that a lot of the discourse in the world today is about whether adaption and a giving up identity are worth security and protection.
The reasons behind a lot of human conflict and violence can come down to some sort of fight against some form or another of uniformity, even though most of the time these fights lead to an embracement of another form of uniformity to try and accomplish goals.
Humans are just a strange.
To a lot of us any talk of uniform… it just irks. It’s nasty and compels you to rebel against even using it in a sentence. This reaction is just something that exists within some people and maybe at the core of what drives humanities progress and has always been since the first chemical reaction.
When you play around with the definition of Uniformitarianism, “An assumption that the same natural laws and processes that operate in the universe now have operated in the universe in the past and apply everywhere in the universe.” You might come out of that definition knowing why uniformity is such an attraction to so many and also why it’s such a repellant to so many others.
Uniformitarianism was coined by William Whewell. You can Wikipedia him, I did, then I forgot most of what I read about him. He is the same theologian who came up with the term catastrophism as a set of ideas that the Earth is shaped by a series of sudden violent acts.
When I think of that with Uniformity I think about a society that preaches individuality but not at the price of a strong uniform system, no matter if said system is broken or corrupt. Denying our basic way of being, which is that violent causes a sort of violence that lives in uniformity, lives in stagnation.
We wear uniformity comfortably because we deny the violent nature that shapes our lives. It’s an imprisonment of hope. From giving in to the slow turn to losing rights right out from under us to the lies of depression.
The military functions on uniformity, a lot of jobs are done well only by the way of uniformity. But it’s not just in the military and our jobs where we confirm. You can see why uniformity is needed in those places, hell the whole social contract is confirmed to a set way of living life.
We confirm in what knowledge we except out of stupidity, in our beliefs out of fear, and in the things that entertain us… well, also out of stupidity. Why else would reality TV be so popular.
In the modern world we have disguised uniformity in false individuality as we strive to create a personal brand identity in hopes that others will like it and dress themselves in our personal skins. For examples see Twitter, Facebook, Cafépress, Blogger. One of the biggest goals a lot of people have is celebrity, to be part of a pack of superstars.
So out of that culture mindset they are those who might just be one of our few hopes left of true individuality. They are schisms in the box that so many are agreeing to live within.
Banks, Darryl, and Faith are creatures of identity destruction. Even though they don’t have any Beyond Human powers as such, they are very comparable to legendary Chameleons, though Chameleons with dissociative identity disorder.
They change almost everything they are on a daily basis. This is how they have survived off the grid for so long. Around their few friends the changes are mainly of cloths, like/dislikes, and stories of their pasts.
If Chris or Sergeant Luke want a straight answer they have to use a daily code word giving to each of them every morning, otherwise it’s a task of interacting with a different person, a stranger, who you have a day to get to know and get inside to see how they operate every day.
This at first drove Sergeant Luke crazy but slowly he has been seeing the possibilities this might offer them in the future.
How they got to this way of living isn’t known. They aren’t sharing and even if they did you probably couldn’t believe them. The two other friends of theirs that Chris might both had two different stories. One that they are all siblings wanted by the government, the other that they escaped a government facility and are now on the run.
Neither of those are the truth but let’s play in a little mystery from time to time for fun.
One of the few character traits they keep with each identity is loyalty to their few friends.
I just thought about it but what do you think, wouldn’t Identity Destruction make a great rock band name?
Whether either Banks, Darryl, and Faith actually suffer from dissociative identity disorder is unknown but Chris doesn’t think so because they talk about the switches of identity traits from time to time like it’s a character they are portraying in a 24/7 play but a different role each day.
Sergeant Luke wished his undercover cops were even close to this good adapting a new identity as these three were.
Since getting a straight answer from any of them, even when using the given code word, about their pasts is near impossible he hasn’t even thought much about if they are this way because of a severe trauma. His personal theory is the world has just cracked them in a different way than it cracked him or Chris.
No matter what one thing remains the same about each of them and that is Banks is a doctor and sometimes a nurse, Darryl is an all-around genius, and Faith is a hacker beyond measure.
Chris had meet each of them, several times each in fact, before a mutual friend introduced them at an underground club for hackers and those trying to stay away from Big Brother Reach and the like.
Big Brother Reach being the codename for the N.S.A.’s raw information gathering operation that is also developing an A.I. component.
But I’m just telling you that as an FYI and because it’s something I’d like to explore sometime in the future.
Today has been mainly a rest day for Chris after pretty much day after day of training in one shape or form but it is also a day that he has been eyeing for a while now.
Ever since they put together their base team Sergeant Luke has been avoiding Banks, Darryl, and Faith as much as he can.
He has had to work with them a lot but honestly they creep him out a lot.
So with a few days off from training Chris has used the time to try, as much as he can, to get to know his team and lunch is always good for conversation, even if you are having lunch with an unfamiliar person each time you sit down.
‘It’s been a weekend since…,’ Chris
‘You and the sergeant went all fisticuffs.,’ Banks
‘Yea, and I’m still bruised all over,’ Chris
Chris and Banks were eating in the Popeys Pillar base cafeteria. A baby blue painted large room with lots of tables and chairs and a well-stocked kitchen. Once it offered meals to military men, now its meals go towards five individuals on a mission of their own.
People talk about an army marching on its stomach and that’s one of the reasons the cafeteria was one of the first sections of the base Sergeant Luke wanted to get back up and running like new.
It took three days for Sergeant Luke to get everything cleaned up and ready to work. Darryl helped a lot with that. Though having a helpful technician one day and a pig headed one the next did slow down things a bit. Good thing all were still geniuses either way.
They all cook from time to time but Darryl has become the main cook adapting a different chef personality for each day’s menu when he cooked. A genius in the kitchen can be a truly amazing thing no matter what he’s cooking because cooking is chemistry after all.
The piss angry British stereotype chef personality is one that they never like when one of those pops up. It always has everyone deciding on cereal, hotdogs, and instant noodles on those days.
Today for lunch is southern fried chicken with smashed bacon tators and beers.
‘You have nothing broken except for a slightly cracked rib,’ Banks said from her sports doctor personality of today.
‘Slightly cracked says the person who doesn’t have a cracked rib,’ Chris
‘Just need to needle you up at game time is all,’ Banks
Darryl brings their food and sits down with them, ‘Eat up, a lot of good lard in that chicken.’
Like any good southern chef he ate as he cooked and tested the food.
Banks started in on her plate but Chris was just staring at his. He wasn’t distracted with a fear kind of worry but a possible embarrassment sort of worry. Very high school.
‘Today, isn’t it uniform day?’ Darryl
‘I’ve been dreading this,’ Chris as he played with his smashed tators.
The intercom system whistled on, ‘Chris, I need you in the Staging Area.’
Chris chugged his beer in one go and then stood, ‘I’m surprised Faith isn’t around for this?’
‘No matter the personality, hackers are never very social,’ Banks said showing one of the signs that cropped up that they totally understand what they’re doing.
Chris exited the cafeteria heading for the Staging Area. He should have eaten earlier, that fried chicken looked good and it’s never as good the next day.
The Staging Area is the place you go before heading out on a mission. A place to check your equipment and get any last minute instructions. Also called a Go Area or a Time To Puke Area as a lot of people do that right before a mission.
Chris couldn’t help but see the symbolism in the place where Sergeant Luke would be showing him his combat uniform. After all symbolism is the whole point of him wearing a uniform in the first place.
On the walk there Chris thought about how all of this started. About the lessons, the bruises, and the long overnight talks about what they were going. What could happen, what was probably going to happen, good and bad.
Today is the beginning of tomorrow and tomorrow being chaos, tomorrow is the fight against the uniformity of good enough.

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The sale of this book without its cover….well, is, sort of, impossible since it really doesn’t have a cover but let us go through the legal spray out anyways. If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that it was reported to the publisher as “unsold and destroyed.” Hands up to you who have books like this in your collection? Now that I put my hand down we can continue with the credits and copyright and legal and stuff that people just don’t ever pay attention to unless it is pumping their own horn.
An Original Publication of System* Publishing, a Tin Universe book published by System*Publishing, a division of System*Productions, Melbourne, Florida. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead or living dead, is entirely and very much so in the coincidental.
Smashwords Edition Copyright © 2015, Brian C. WilliamsSystem*Productions. Tin Universe Daily, and all related titles, characters, and elements are trademarks of System*Productions. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. While unauthorized reproduction is sometimes needed, please remember us writers types are for the most part a poor lot just in search of a ways to tell our stories and enough money to add to our Doctor Who collections….well, at least that fits me. For more information on Tin Universe Daily, the artists who contributed to this book, and Tin Universe contact System*Productions at hangofwednesday@gmail.com
Written by Brian C. Williams
Edited by Brian C. Williams

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