I’ll Tell You About the Swarm

“You kids think you know stuff? Fresh out of boot camp stinking of perfume! Thinking you’re gonna teach that ravenous swarm a thing or two about your big guns from over the water, built in the land of free? You’re gonna be saviours of the whole fucking race? Makes me laugh. I remember when I was just like you. Cocky and full of spunk and vinegar just chomping at the bit to get my bit…

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Cafe Scene

Two figures stand in the doorway of a run-down cafe, rain whipped sideways by the ferocious winds roaring through the streets. Red stained clouds race across the sky obscuring the stars and moon that must hide beyond, howling swallows up the night sounds, trees that dot the side of the road yaw as if to breaking point their branches clawing into the darkness, shadows dance and leaves, plastic bottles and crisp packets swirl relentlessly in…

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A bullet with your name on it

He stood before his dresser mirror, then looked down at the photo of his wife and son. He’d taken the photo: broad smiles on their faces. He couldn’t remember where he’d taken the picture, only that he had. Every once in a while, he felt like he was about to remember. A picture of him wearing a military uniform, bold and proud. He opened the side-drawer and glanced down at the revolver. He picked it…

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The Dead

The dead? The dead… well they don’t die anymore, just slowly waste away. If they’re lucky maybe they can have a volshebnik use their dark arts or some taytakura prey to some unseen fiend to stop their body from rotting and existing in a state of agony until they break down to dust. Of course in some parts the dead that don’t die are hauled into fires and burnt, unlive, screaming and kicking until they’re…

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Naomi Wilding, Senior Student at St Authors Academy Missing for 3 months. Unstable family home Reported delinquency Body found buried in the garden. Brain missing. Empty cavity used as kind of plant pot for a flower. Flower not previously catalogued. Charlie Bird, Junior Student at St Authors Academy Missing 11 weeks Part of Miss Wilding’s friendship group Single parent household Truent Body found buried in the garden. Similar state to Miss Wilding. Hanna Smith, Senior…

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Conversation

“Sometimes it’s simply easier to kill” “That’s a reasonably troubling statement” “However that is the state of things, the world is on the brink and there’s little point in trying to justify yourself to those with a knife to your back.” “While I can see your point you may learn a thing or two by listening to them.” “They were letting their blade do the talking before I concluded the conversation.” This short exchange was…

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Seeding the Stars

Fourth Generation Seed Fleets By this point in time a Seed fleet consisted of over a hundred large ships sent in a number of waves, the first consisted of automated factories that would arrive first. The factory fleet would set about building orbital infrastructure, deconstructing asteroids and smaller orbital bodies, large scale laser network construction and the development of O’Neil cylinders. The second wave was made up of seasoned colonists, people who had helped in…

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3 Dandies

The exaggerated sniffing of the air as he strolled past them in the quadrant was a daily pitter-patter that drifted towards a young man that walked by who seemed to mind his own business. “It’s a disgrace they let dogs in.” A blond true blooded noble snorted as he lent back against the wall waving a lavender hanky in front of his nose. “Dog? To fine an animal, what we have here is common swine.”…

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Crack the Can

A pair of vast graphene cylinder spin like thousands of others, ten kilometers long, a radius of one and a half kilometers, each home to over ten million souls. Held together by a lattice framework of steel and graphene and connected to the center of each cylinder like a cotton wheel on a spool the megastructure futher surrounded by a network of solarpanels, sattelites and domes. Small vessels dart between the artificial island in space,…

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Solutions

Again I find myself contemplating the problem with setting IT organisations on the “right path” with regards to transformation. It almost seems that out of politeness and I suppose an obligation to some pretence created before my arrival. There is a common pattern to the “Digital transformation” get in some tools, an issue tracking system, a continuous integration platform, maybe some kind of orchestration, a version control system, etc… normally these will all be the “likely…

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