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Colette looked over the images from the warehouse. They didn’t tell her much other than that the killer liked to be messy.
She felt a hand on her shoulder. “Seems a bit excessive, doesn’t it?”
Colette looked to Dammon. “So was it the work of Loch?”
“In a way.” He sat on Colette’s desk and took a sip from his brandy.
“The fact that everyone is after those three idiots proves to me that they all must be grasping at straws on this issue. So, does it change anything now that he has them?”
Dammon shrugged. “I wasn’t even sure what we were doing with them in the first place.”
Colette stared at him. “Then why did you task them with retrieving the cube?”
“Wasn’t my idea.” He took another sip of his drink.
“Then whose was it?”
Dammon looked towards the door. “Dear, you can come in.”
Into the office walked Lara in one of her usual business suits. “Hey, Colette.”
Colette shot to her feet. “You can’t be serious!”
Lara sighed. “You’re ascended, Colette. You’re supposed to be above petty grudges. And really, you’re such a bitch anyone else would have humiliated you thusly if given the opportunity.”
“And those would be your last words.”
Colette started towards Lara, but Dammon gently put his hand out in front of her. “If we had more time, I’d throw down some mud and let you settle this like ladies. I’m just going to have to ask you to listen instead. Lara works for Elza… who I’ve had a secret alliance with for some time.”
Colette backed off but kept an eye on Lara. “I thought she took the cube from Elza’s people and gave it to Asmod.”
“Don’t ask me to explain things,” Lara said. “All I know is that now we don’t want either Asmod or Serpine to have permanent ownership of the device.”
Colette looked to Dammon. “Elza is playing us.”
Lara smiled. “I’d almost guarantee it. And Dammon is trying to play Elza as he does all the other Trans. Duplicity is pretty much how the world goes ’round these days.”
Dammon led Colette back to her chair. “The obvious lack of trust aside, the fact is Elza has her people planted all over, and I have plenty of contact and resources. Together, we can mount an effort to get into Ronove’s lab and retrieve the cube.”
“And then what?”
Dammon sipped his drink. “That’s between me and Elza.”
“And no one still has any idea what the cube does?”
“I’m guessing nothing,” Dammon said. “Everyone wants it, though, so that makes it valuable and dangerous. So, I’ll need you to get some of your best men, and you’ll be working with Lara and her group.”
Colette looked at Lara. “Will your girls play well with others, Miss Skinner?”
Lara shrugged. “As long as your men won’t rape and murder them. They’re not fond of that.”
Colette was still a moment away from ripping Lara’s head off so as just not see that smug little smile anymore. “I’ll make a note of that.”
Dammon patted Lara on the shoulder. “Lara, could you give me a moment to talk to my employee?”
“Sure. I’ll give you two a moment to plot behind my back.” Lara left the room.
Dammon took Colette by her hand, the one that had been recently severed. “I can trust you can rise above a lust for vengeance over the ephemeral things of this world?”
“Of course. I know I have failed you recently, but–”
Dammon put his fingers to her lips. “A learning experience. You’re stronger for it, and I know I can trust you for this task. Yes, it seems foolish to put any trust into Elza or her followers, but she is an annoyance, not a threat. There is one out there, though, worth fearing… much more than either Asmod or Serpine upsetting the balance of power.”
“Who? And why haven’t I heard of him before?”
Dammon paused thoughtfully for a moment. “We liked to think he had no more interest in this world, but I’m afraid we were wrong.”
“And he is involved with the cube?”
“I am guessing he is involved in a number of things lately.”
Colette thought she saw fear in Dammon’s face, but dismissed the thought. “And what does he want?”
Dammon finished off his drink. “You know children stories where the villain seems to be evil for simply the sake of evil. This is him. He will not rest until anything with sentience is in eternal torment.”
Now Colette was scared. “So what do we do about him?”
“We educate ourselves.” Dammon looked her in the eyes. “This remains only between you and me, but I do not care about the cube. I have a completely different mission for you.”
NEXT
Archive of entries posted on 23rd June 2008
A Story, Bit by Bit
Unsolved
I don’t think I’ve ever been less engaged by a presidential election including the one in 1980 when I was only one year old (like most children in those days, I cried whenever Carter was on TV), so I’m going to take a break from politics to rant about math. I hope that’s okay with everyone, and if it isn’t, then @#$% you. My blog.
Anyway, there is Goldbach’s conjecture which is that every even number greater than 2 can be expressed as the sum of two primes. No proof yet, but it’s been verified up to about 10^19 through brute computer force.
What I find more fascinating is Goldbach’s weak conjecture. It states that every odd number greater than 5 can be expressed as the sum of three primes. It’s the “weak” conjecture because a proof of the “strong” conjecture would prove it quite trivially (if you know you can express ever odd number greater than 2 as the sum of 2 primes, then just add 3 to each of those sets and you have every odd number greater than 5 expressed as the sum of three primes). What interest me is that it’s proven for all but a finite set. Someone has proven it’s true for odd numbers greater than about 2 * 10^1346, and simple brute computer force has shown there are no counter examples up to about 10^18. So, if no one is able to come up with an elegant proof, the conjecture will be completely proven or disproven when computer power catches up.
But what’s the point? Does any mathematicians honestly believe there’s a counterexample sitting out in the no man’s land between 10^18 and 2 * 10^1346? Have you ever heard of any special number that wasn’t somewhere around 3 (like e and pi)?
When I learned proofs in college, we were warned about ellipsis proofs. That’s where you say for an equations, “It’s true for x = 1, x = 2, x = 3,… so it’s true for all x.” The things is, though, the ellipsis proof tends to be correct, as patterns just don’t break down suddenly for no reason. And, let’s be real for a moment: When you’ve tried it up to x in the quintillions, I think you’re pretty much okay going “… it’s true for all x.” And there’s all these “unsolved” problems in mathematics that everyone knows is true even though no one has come up with a formal proof. It took hundreds of years for someone to finally prove Fermat’s last theorem, but it’s not like during those hundreds of years anyone thought it wasn’t true. And no one really thinks there’s an odd perfect number, but we’re supposed to pretend there might be one since no one has proved there isn’t one — same as no one has proved unicorns don’t exist.
I’m through pretending.
It’s time mathematicians stop wasting their time trying to prove things that no one actually thinks isn’t true. It helps no one and it’s stupid. Instead, they should put their energy into more useful, concrete things like finding even larger Mersenne primes. We still need to break the ten million digit barrier, people!
Obama Vows to Ban Profits in First 100 Days
WASHINGTON (AP) — Sen. Barack Obama on Sunday said as president he would strengthen government oversight of energy traders he blames in large part for the skyrocketing price of oil.
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“Some people blame low oil supplies or high oil demand for the recent spike in gasoline prices,” said the presidential hopeful, “but these are just outdated economic theories. The real cause is speculative trading in the oil futures market. Trading by unscrupulous, unpatriotic profit-mongers. My administration will put a stop to this by making it illegal to sell oil futures for more than was paid for them. Without the market distortion caused by the so-called ‘profit-motive’, our energy market – under the prudent and level-headed guidance of the federal government – will once again become both free and fair.”
Obama said that he intended to implement his “No New Profits” pledge within his administration’s first 100 days, promising to expand his economy-saving plan to other markets as his tenure progressed. “Although I’ve long stood against the ‘excessive’ profits made by oil companies,” said Obama, “the fact is that ALL profits are inherently excessive. That’s why I vow to extend this program to other markets as well. Food, precious metals, stocks, bonds – all will eventually be both bought and sold ‘at cost’. With all price fluctuations banned by the force of law, America will finally have a stable, sustainable, plannable future, unmarred by the evils of fear or uncertainty.”
The Democratic contender, however, reassured his audience that this new stability would not interfere with the creation and implementation of new government programs. “Some of my critics contend that without profits, we would be unable to collect the new taxes necessary to implement important new government programs like Universal Health Care, but we will find a way to make the wealthy pay their fair share. They’ll just have to sell off their mansions and limousines.”
“At cost, of course,” he concluded.
My Vision for America
I’m afraid conservatives aren’t very engaged in politics right now as it doesn’t look like we’ll have any candidates to fight for in the near future. Still, we need to have our own vision for the future to continue to work towards. With all the second guessing about Iraq, it’s starting to look like we’ll never be able to assert ourselves confidentially overseas again. That won’t do. I envision and continue to envision an America that knows to do what is right and doesn’t care about popularity on the world stage. In short, I envision an America that’s confident enough in itself to be an asshole.
MY VISION FOR AMERICA
I want an America with foreign policy like the Incredible Hulk: You make us angry, we smash the crap out of everything.
I want an America that will take a crap on some other nation’s lawn, and then that nation will thank us just for acknowledging their existence.
I want an America that causes contiguous countries to build their own walls on our border in a vain attempt to protect themselves.
I want an America that will invite itself into other nation’s houses, drink all their beer, piss on their furniture, and the only thing we worry about afterwards is where to get more booze.
I want an America that’s always looking for cool new things to nuke.
I want an America that declares war on Saturn and bullies all the other nations into joining us on the declaration.
I want an America that shows up drunk and looking for a fight to every U.N. meeting.
I want an America that invades the next Islamic country that pisses us off and then forcefully converts everyone there to Wiccan just because we think that would be funny.
I want an America that is all for passing tons of international laws and regulations with the running assumption that none of them, of course, applies to us.
I want an America that other nations are less concerned about receiving foreign aid from than not receiving our foreign detriment.
I want an America that surprises other countries by busting right through the wall yelling, “Oh yeah!” just like the Kool-Aid guy.
I want an America that announces there should only be six continents and it has a sentimental attachment to Antarctica.
I want an America that causes other countries to pay Rand McNally to get themselves delisted.
If the Color Fades, I Can Get Off Scott Free from Anything
I got my Idaho license plates, and instead of numbers indented in the metal, they’re just painted on. It looks fake. We went to Yellowstone over the weekend, and I saw that Montana license plates are the same. So what’s happened? Have we gotten to the point in this country that even our prisoners are too fat and lazy to pound out a decent license plate? What would their prisoner ancestors think of them? For shame.