Digi-Storm (The Diginoir Quadrilogy)

By Timothy Linnomme

It has been over twenty years since the incident in Utah and a lot of things can change...

SWR has reined in many of its scattershot experimental processes and though incineration and confinement still occur, they happen a lot less. One end result is a scaled down version of Project Vision; Bright Eyes are a commercial success...

Danielle and Malcolm have retired from law enforcement and are raising a family; they have almost forgotten the events they had witnessed and recorded...

The spin control used on the events of 2017-2018 was so well executed that not even the current US President is aware of what really happened then...

The biggest concern these days for Isaiah Roberts is making sure he watches his son play baseball and helping his younger daughter with her modeling career...even he has almost forgot what has happened except for some occasional bad dreams...

SWR never forgot about their escaped experiment; even if Isaiah Roberts has been relegated to low priority, he still is one; no one walks away from SWR after all...

While many of the nation states of the world sorted themselves out, Pakistan has gone in the opposite direction...the paroxysms of violence that occur in Pakistan only brings more darkness and no one in the country is left unaffected...

Two brothers born only a fraction of time apart embark on different paths to self realization which still have an eventual meeting point. While the oldest brother sees his way to glory in the words of the Qur'an, the youngest brother eventually becomes an SWR Committee member. The oldest brother calls himself The One and he intends to heal the rift in Islam but money for the cause is always a problem...

The younger brother is in the middle of SWR's cutting edge research; while experimentation without oversight is dangerous, it has become profitable to SWR. SWR creates its own vision free of the diseases of religion and politics and money is never a problem....

Though in most circumstances this group of people would never cross paths, circumstances are about to change...because of Isaiah Roberts...

It starts with a overzealous novice reporter who thinks she is in control of her environment and will do anything to make her name.In the space of three days, isaiah Robert's carefully constructed world is torn apart leaving him blind and horribly abused as he seeks warmth in some urine soaked blankets. He remembers a time of torture long ago, but this time the torture becomes almost lethal in its scope...

Though Isaiah is able to see very well with his optic modules, there is a darker aspect of his vision that he has forcibly suppressed for years, but it never went away. It had been laying quiescent all these years only waiting for the right set of events to make it once more ascendant...

Though his aberrancy has become atrophied in relation to the other things he can do, that state of affairs doesn't last for long. A fatwa calling for his recapture along with any number of the fervent willing to do the bidding of The One might be an immense obstacle for many, but Isaiah never forgot how to deal with an insect infestation...

Even though Pakistan has ejected and silenced all media but Al-Jazeera and the US has coopted a dedicated private video feed, the level of violence that starts to occur can't be fully hidden or disavowed. Even as detente is put into full effect, Isaiah Roberts couldn't care less because he has been most foully provoked and he retaliates in proportion to the new and unwelcome stimuli.. Finding his family is all that matters and anyone or anything getting in his way has a poor chance of survival. The fatalities from 2018 were only a few hundred people but now a few hundred thousand of them stand against Isaiah and will unfailingly follow The One and what the leader decrees. The One will never decree peace unless such a thing can be violated at a later time but not everyone is go

• Language: English
• Publisher: Timothy Linnomme
• Release date: May 28, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476364995

Timothy Linnomme

Life is essentially what you make of it and I have found writing fiction is not only challenging, it can be a lot of fun (and a lot of work!) I write in an adult vein and I am neither worried about sacred cows nor do I shy away from the dark side of homo sapiens. I have worn a lot of hats over the years and I like to think each new experience has something to teach as you grow and flourish from the input. I currently live in NW Ohio.

Book preview

DIGI-STORM

The DigiNoir Quadrilogy

Part Two

Timothy Linnomme

…That which lays quiescent will never die...

That which is provoked will become ascendant...

That which is wronged will retaliate in kind...

That which is violent will reap what they have sown...

Contents Copyright Timothy Linnomme 2011

Published by Timothy Linnomme at Smashwords

Cover Art Information: Blood Brushes by http://falln-brushes.deviantart.com/gallery/

Visit http://www.timothylinnomme.net for a full listing of titles and the latest information including up and coming releases!

Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty One

Chapter Twenty Two

Chapter Twenty Three

Chapter Twenty Four

Chapter Twenty Five

Chapter Twenty Six

Chapter Twenty Seven

Chapter Twenty Eight

Chapter Twenty Nine

Prologue

In the name of Allah, most benevolent, ever merciful

All praise be to Allah,

Lord of all the worlds,

Most beneficent, ever-merciful

King of the Day of Judgment

You alone we worship, and to You

Alone turn for help

Guide us (O Lord) to the path that is straight,

The path of those You have blessed,

Not of those that have earned Your anger,

Nor those who have gone astray.

The Prologue (Al-Fātihah)

I heard Allah's Apostle saying,

"The reward of deeds depends

upon the intentions and every person

will get the reward according to what

he has intended. So whoever emigrated

for worldly benefits or for a woman to marry,

his emigration was for what he emigrated for

Bukhari: V01B01N01

633 A.D. (CE)

Abu-Bekr closed the book after only reading the first surah that was there; reading the Qur’an filled him with joy and a deep sense of peace, but there would be time for that later. The mantle of leadership weighed heavily upon his shoulders, but the tasks before him were nothing compared to what his glorious predecessor had accomplished. The false prophets had been brought to heel and even now they were being assailed. He trusted the able general under his command to bring him joyous news of victory and he wasn’t about to be disappointed. Khalid ibn al-Walid had just arrived; the general made an effort to look as presentable as possible to the Caliph. Despite his high status, Khalid showed due respect to the one who has been chosen to guide the way to enlightenment.

May the blessings of Allah be upon you and your family.

May they also grace you and your family; how are we faring at Akraba?

Khalid stood with pride upon being asked that question; it had been a long and hard battle, but Allah had allowed him to achieve victory. The followers of the false prophet Musaylima had finally realized the error of their ways and were being shown mercy, but the same wasn’t reserved for Musaylima or Tulayha. Their punishment for their transgression was fitting regarding the crimes they had committed.

Victory is ours at Akraba! The ones led astray by the false prophets are once more succored and protected by the mercy and the power of Allah! The false prophets are no more upon this earth!

What of their fates? Are either of them still alive?

No, O Caliph; they have both been buried facing to the west so that they will never again look upon that which they have profaned, a fitting punishment.

Abu-Bekr’s tone of voice now had a slightly dangerous cast. Does this mean that you know the will of Allah more fully than Allah himself?

Khalid was quick to delineate what he had originally spoken. No O Caliph, but those who would profane the one true God must suffer the punishment of Allah, both here and in the afterlife. The Qur’an says as much. Far be it that I would know the ways of one so powerful.

Abu-Bekr was satisfied with the humility that had graced his ears. You are a devout follower of Allah; forgive me for ever holding your faith and belief in question.

It was much later as the sun waned in the sky that Abu-Bekr ruminated on not only the path he had so far travelled, but the expanding horizons that now opened up before him. With the elimination of the false prophets, Islam had become unshackled from its confinement to a localized area. He physically glanced in all four directions from where he was seated. The followers of Islam would spread the word of the prophet to the world, letting the world know that God truly existed and only required submission to earn the blessings of this powerful yet merciful entity. Abu-Bekr imagined the people of the world flocking to the banner of the one true God; wasn’t Allah peaceful and merciful? How could anyone ignore what had been written in the Holy Qur’an? Abu-Bekr knew that there would be those who would excoriate the holy words, but the price they would pay for such an act would be eternal torment in the afterlife. People couldn’t be forced to believe; they needed to believe with their hearts and their minds or their perfidy would be known. He went to sleep with surah’s echoing through his mind…

Synthesis

I

Once upon a time I was living in the dark

But now I'm only seeing the light..

Nothing I can't do

Now that I have sight...

The shadows of the dark were my enemy

But now they're banished to the night...

Nothing I can't be...

Now that I have sight...

Turn Around, Bright Eyes...

Bonnie Tyler – Total Eclipse of the Heart

(Advertising Campaign Jingle for Bright Eyes 2024)

…needless to say, the live talk show venue was more than a few guests speaking or an audience laughing or applauding; every aspect of the show was electro-digitized for the maximum effect. Leo Minstrel was one such host at the top of his game for the moment; his shows had millions of viewers. That number was expected to be even higher tonight due to the very special guest that was present. Robert Harris was a typical gawky looking sixteen year old male with all of the common afflictions of someone that age along with other such things not so common. A pair of wraparound glasses covered his eyes while a sturdy cane rested at his right side. To his left was Sparky, his working dog he had owned for several years. Once the introductions had been made, Leo got to work earning his public keep.

"So, Robert, how long have you been blind?"

"I was blind since birth, but I learned to adapt."

"Did you ever think that your situation in life would undergo a radical change?"

"If you mean that one day I might see, I wondered about it, but there are limits to what science can do. It is better to concentrate on the things you can change versus those you can’t."

Leo addressed the audience. What do you think about that? That is as sensible of an approach as I have ever heard! Once more, the applause was amplified and modulated for the maximum effect. Leo wasn’t finished yet, though. Let’s run that ad that is all over the place these days, shall we?

The marketing campaign for Bright Eyes was as slick and professional as could be. Not only was the spot almost five minutes in length, the people behind the product had paid extra for no clipped time; if you took the payment, you had to run the full advertisement. The modified lyrics of a once popular song combined with the latest and greatest video tricks made for an advertisement that would appeal to the largest possible audience. It was a magnificent piece of work that left the studio audience stunned in silence for several moments after the advertisement ended. It was only then that the audience realized that the blind teenager now was faced away from them. Without any further intro, Leo spoke.

"What are you waiting for, Robert? Turn around, Bright Eyes!"

Robert once turned around to face the audience as he removed his wraparounds. Instead of the sight of yet another atrophied pair of eyes, Robert’s eyes were a deep blue in color. They sparkled in the glare of the studio lights. A collective gasp was the first reaction of the audience, but it was shortly followed by thunderous applause. Robert once again was seated.

"So, Robert, what is the most amazing thing you have seen so far?"

"Well, Leo, there has just been so much that I can still barely comprehend it all, but I think the answer would have to be vibrant colors; at times they look like they are alive with intensity, but I was told that would fade over time."

"So what do you plan to do now that you can see? It looks like a lot of opportunities are open for you now."

"I was going to go to college anyways, but perhaps I might change my major. I would like to find a way to help others like me finally gain what they thought was unobtainable."

Leo had milked this for all of the PR that he could. Is there anyone you wish to thank out there?

"Yeah; I want to thank my family for their support and I especially want to thank the International Vision Institute for making this dream a reality. They are the ones who pioneered this technology along with Kestrel R & D."

Leo drew one more round of applause from his guest before moving on to an A-List celebrity who had a new movie in the works. At times he detested the schmoozing, but it paid his massive salary.

LNL (Late Night with Leo) Broadcast – August 21, 2026

…this matter is in essence breaking new ground; even twenty years ago, the possibility of this matter occurring would have been called preposterous, but then is not now. In the matter of Lawson v. The State of California, the opinion is as follows:

Though the Plaintiff possesses artificially created eyes, there is no evidence to support the claim that they are deficient in any way whatsoever; in fact, the artificial vision known as ‘Bright Eyes’ has proven superior over organic eyesight in most every aspect.

As such, there is no justification for preventing the plaintiff in doing anything that a normally sighted person would do. This also has to include the privilege of driving a motor vehicle provided a license is obtained.

The position that the State of California has adopted constitutes an infringement upon personal liberty. Artificially sighted human beings shall have the same rights as those organically sighted, but the ban on such people in the military shall for the moment be upheld.

Partial Opinion rendered in the case: Lawson v. The State of California – July 4, 2029

If you are in doubt

Of what We have revealed to Our votary,

Then bring a Surah like this, and call

Any witness, apart from God, that you like,

If you are truthful.

The Cow (Al-Baqarah) 2:23

Las Vegas, NV July 12, 2040

It was a typical summer day out in the desert, but the misting devices that had been installed in the seating area made things bearable. It was summertime, time for picnics and swimming and…baseball. Isaiah sat with Loni as he concentrated on the game. Their son Aelgar was playing in a league. Even though he had only completed ninth grade, he had still managed to make his High School team as an exceptional outfielder and baseman. His hitting average was over .400, making him a force to be reckoned with in batting too. Isaiah made a point in attending the games; he was as involved as possible in his kid’s lives. Sometimes Loni would attend work permitting. Due to various reasons, Isaiah’s role was a house husband. His children and their friends thought it was kind of neat. On occasion, Isaiah would get away for a weekend to go searching with his metal detector; during the week, he would man his booth while the kids were in school to sell what he had either found or purchased. In some respects, it was hard to top Las Vegas, but there were sobering aspects on the flipside of things. This wasn’t the best sort of city to raise a family, but they were well off at least financially. Loni had the education; with that came a six figure salary for rarely more than forty hours a week, but Isaiah contributed his share.

Aelgar was up at bat; that was enough to stop Isaiah’s mind from wandering. Isaiah noticed the other team’s outfield moving back. Aelgar had flied out the last time he was up at bat, but the shot had almost cleared the centerfield fence line. Some habits are learned due to repetition while others became such out of necessity. In 2024, Bright Eyes Vision Replacement had taken the world by storm; the profoundly blind were the first to benefit from this breakthrough. With its advent, Isaiah had found a way to finally stop playing hermit. It had been pretty easy to blend in with the flood of newly sight-capable humans; by this time, their daughter Alditha had been born. Aelgar had followed two years later and his younger sister Ailith three years after that. It had been a mutual decision that three children were enough; at times the three they had were about all that they could handle. The names of their children were not common by any means, but Isaiah and Loni thought the standard name lists were too boring. Due to the nature of her work, Loni would often get comps ranging from the decent to the positively esoteric; one of the latter was a play set in an ancient period of the modern day UK. They both thought some of the names used were beautiful in sound, so they found a list of similar names. Though their children’s middle names were of a more standard nature, their children proudly used their first names, figuring a standout sort of name made a standout sort of person.

*

Despite this new breakthrough, humans were only too ready to discriminate; it had taken a SCOTUS decision in 2029 to allow BE recipients the privilege of driving though they still were barred from the military. As far as (as few as possible) people knew, Isaiah was a BE recipient. Not only did a BE recipient have perfect 20/15 vision, they had no specific foveal area; this meant that the peripheral vision of a BE was also superior. Despite the technology though, Bright Eyes were NOT organic eyes; light hitting them at the right angle would cause a prismatic flash. Instead of red eye removal, you would have to remove the whole color spectrum. Many BE recipients didn’t care about the dirty looks they received; they proudly displayed their gift but. Isaiah wasn’t one of those; he had several pairs of wraparound sunglasses he wore nearly all of the time.

Isaiah and Loni did their best not to pay any direct attention to the Bright Eyes advertisements for a very good reason. Despite the gushing media and high profile presence of the International Vision Institute, Isaiah and Loni knew from where the BE technology has originated. Kestrel Research & Development was so legitimate of a research facility they got regular grants from the most esteemed trusts. There was a darker side to Kestrel, though; even after all this time, Isaiah would have disturbing nightmares of the past. IVI talked about the first tests of the BE prototypes, but Isaiah knew that the actual prototype lived in Las Vegas, sported a crew cut fade going to gray and was named Isaiah Roberts. How violent must you be to make sure you are left alone? Isaiah’s visual acuity was in actuality 20/.333 along with infra-red capability, but despite appearing to now be only one of many, he still kept as low a profile as possible. He had a driver’s license, but that was as far as it went. The house, their three cars, the insurance; all of it was in the name of Loni Roberts. Isaiah only dealt in cash. There was a will and a Power of Attorney, but those were locked away with their lawyer and only accessible upon death or divorce.

*

The crack of a bat striking a ball momentarily jarred Isaiah. Aelgar had gotten all of the baseball on that pitch. The center fielder misjudged where the ball would drop, Aelgar was already around first and headed to second. Two runs crossed the plate, but Aelgar decided to try for third. The throw was close, but Aelgar slid in safe in a plume of dust. Isaiah nodded in appreciation of his son’s prowess. Aelgar excelled at baseball, but he also did well at school. Isaiah was waiting for the next play as a loud and belligerent sounding voice erupted behind him.

That was a bullshit call! That bastard should’ve been out!

Isaiah winced at the aural and visual intrusion of the noise; though he had been able to see for twenty five years, he had been blind for an equal amount of time. His hearing really was no better than most anyone else’s, but when you didn’t have eyes, your other senses learned to compensate as much as possible. The same applied to his sense of smell. Why do they allow beer here anyways? The bellowing voice was from a male perhaps around his own age, but somewhat larger in size. Before he realized it, he had turned to address the person.

Why not just let them play?

The man fixed Isaiah with an intense stare. What in fuck do you mean by ‘just letting them play’? There are scouts watching these games!

There isn’t any need for that sort of language, either.

When Isaiah didn’t get any reply, he decided that the matter had been resolved. As such, he wasn’t prepared for the kick that hit him in his upper back. Only a desperate hand grab stopped him from falling down over the lower seats which would have made for a rather nasty spill. The blow had still had been abrupt and strong enough to dislodge his sunglasses, but Isaiah caught them with his free hand. There was a spate of noise behind him. The man who had kicked him was being both restrained and admonished by a woman Isaiah figured was his wife along with two other males. Isaiah had recovered from the blow, but there was something else he needed to keep in check. I could kill you so easily.

Isaiah had been given sight, but he possessed a second sort of sight that originated from a portion of his brain that was never meant to see. It had almost killed him before he had forced some sort of order over the chaos his other sight had caused. A compromise of sorts had finally been reached, but that didn’t make Isaiah any less dangerous then he was. When his desire for freedom clashed with the mindset of the ones who had given him his eyes, a bloodbath had ensued along the path he and Loni had taken in flight. It had ended in a place called Stairway-Escalante, but a lot of people had died. Parsing human genomes used to take some concentration, but now it was second nature to him. Even before he had recovered from the blow, he could see his attacker behind him…L¤……… All he would have to do was fill in that numeric string with zeros and that person would be obliterated. It was fortunate for the disgruntled spectator that Isaiah wasn’t a violent person at his core, but when violence had been forced upon him, he had retaliated in kind so that he could live his life as he chose. Simon screamed at the very end. Ever since that time though, Isaiah had done his best to forget what had happened; there were more entertaining and constructive uses for his xenological sight. This was the first time in a long while he had considered killing someone, but this was only an isolated instance of force being used against him. It was easy to quash the action. He once more took his seat, but he neglected to once more don his glasses.

You all right, buddy? Mike didn’t mean it; he just had too many brewskis.

Isaiah turned to the source of the voice by reflex, but not directly; he turned in the opposite direction until he faced the speaker. The reflected light from the sun on his eyes was like a prism.

Yeah, I’m okay; no harm done. Isaiah even managed a smile of sorts, but the one who had kicked him wasn’t done yet.

Hey, it’s a fucking Bright Eyes freak!

Isaiah’s smile melted away as he blinked. Look, it’s a stupid, belligerent, alcohol-besotted dysgene—

Isaiah! Loni had grabbed his shoulder.

Isaiah could not only feel the shifting of emotions around him, he could see it as a numeric overlay upon the genomes he had parsed. Emotions had been nearly the last thing Isaiah thought he would see, but they were present. There was still an undercurrent of anger, but most of what Isaiah now saw was fear. The one who had initially kicked him was the first to back down.

What the fuck!? His eyes were blue, but now they are green? What the fuck!? His wife and friends we still hovering, ready to restrain him if needed.

Isaiah blinked again; his eyes were now back to their default color, as banal a shade of blue as could be imagined. Isaiah had chosen the blue as a default after Loni had commented on his random eye color changes. BE recipients had their eye color hard wired into their modules, an immutable constant. In as cold of a voice as he could muster, Isaiah responded.

Perhaps you are seeing things?

Isaiah once more wore his sunglasses as he concentrated on the rest of the game.

*

Aelgar’s team had held on for a hard fought victory. After the game, there was an impromptu gathering, but Isaiah was more interested in getting away from there as quickly as possible. The earlier incident had been forgotten by those directly involved, but not by those on the periphery of things…

*

Aleah Vesic had been pumped since she had first entered high school. She had found her niche and had fully embraced it. She started as a staff reporter in her first and second years of high school, rising to the position of editor in her senior year. Journalism was her calling and she heeded the call with a singular determination. Even after she had her journalism degree in the bag, she took other courses to widen her horizons as much as possible. A journalist had to be prepared for anything that came their way. She had even managed to wangle a prized internship with a top investigative reporter team in California; at twenty three years old, she had her degree in journalism and she felt that she was ready to take on the world, but the reality of the matter was harsh indeed.

Aleah was at least partially used to starting at the bottom and then working her way to the top, but in this case, the situation was jarring to say the least. She had made her rounds to all of the news agencies and corporations, but their condescension and ridicule at her list of achievements was only thinly masked. They didn’t even consider her internship as relevant and valid experience! She wasn’t just simply starting from the bottom again; she was at the absolute bottom with nothing to look forward to but years of toil to prove herself. Aleah Vesic, star investigative reporter!...no, Aleah Vesic , freelance reporter who had a night job in a warehouse to cover her living expenses and student loans. Being a freelance reporter meant that she always kept her (antiquated!) cell phone by her side for whatever crumbs that were swept in her direction. Today her sleep schedule had been disrupted so that so she could report on a local league baseball game. If she was lucky, her copy might net her fifty dollars and if she was luckier, her copy might make the back pages of the sports section in the local digital newspaper. Aleah had never turned down any freelance assignment, but at times it was frustrating. She felt at times that she was chasing a carrot on a stick with the only reward being physical exhaustion, but you never knew when you would be noticed by the right person.

This was offset by the leers she was given by not only the males that gave her assignments but by the same from many of her warehouse coworkers. Aleah wasn’t a virgin, but her tenacity in pursuing a career left her little time for socializing. The altercation caught her ear before her eyes due in part because she already had the needed copy for the game. That was interesting, she thought. The man who had been kicked was white while his companion was black. Aleah wondered what a piece on mixed-culture relationships would be worth, but when she heard ‘Bright Eyes freak!’ though, her mind immediately jumped the tracks to another path entirely. She saw the prismatic glint of sunlight reflected off of the eyes of the one who had been kicked. The rest of the harsh exchange was uttered in too low of a volume to hear from where she was, but the one who had kicked the other spectator looked like they were fearful.

Aleah lost no time once the game had ended. It only took a few questions to get the information she needed. The star player of the day was Aelgar Roberts. The person who had been kicked was his father, Isaiah. Aleah had things to do, but first on her list was getting enough sleep so she would be able to work tonight. After emailing her copy on the baseball game, she scarfed some Ramen noodles before going back to sleep. Perhaps today would be the most productive one in a while; that remained to be seen…

*

Are the kids in bed?

They were both relaxing in their study after dinner. Like the other rooms in their large house, it was spacious. After the kids were older, the family moved into a four bedroom, four and one half bath house with a large kitchen, family room, dining room and this extra room which had become the study. Since each child had their own room, Loni and Isaiah had made the study largely off limits to them. The house also had a three car garage, a xeriscaped yard, the mandatory water softener equipment, and a Las Vegas Chain Link Fence (nine foot tall cinderblock).

Isaiah and Loni had their own computers and separate bookshelf space for good reason. While Loni used her computer for primarily work purposes, Isaiah used his for a variety of tasks. He managed the finances while he kept track of his auctions for his found and purchased items, but that was only the tip of the iceberg. While Loni’s bookshelf contained mostly work related books with a few personal items, Isaiah’s ran the gamut from Astronomy to Zoology with a lot sandwiched in between. A well-worn Barnard’s Celestial Guide set was next to a locked down tenth generation Drobo device. The books on Biogenetics were not only up-to-date, they were way above what the average reader would find interesting. One whole shelf had no shortage of Blu-Ray discs in various sorts of holders. One personal item Isaiah really liked was a horse with its front hooves raised. It was almost thirty centimeters in height and had been cast in solid silver; he had found it with his metal detector and a lot of help. The programs on his computer were as varied and as esoteric as the books he owned. One such program was open on his computer; it was a three dimensional molecular modeling program created by MIT among others. Isaiah used it to create and view theoretical chemical compounds. Another such program he used was a virtual star map; the amount of memory it used was horrendous, but Isaiah’s machine had the needed power.

There was one task for which Isaiah used his machine that would have raised eyebrows, but what many would see as paranoia Isaiah considered the price he paid for his freedom. There was a massive file on his and his wife's computer that gathered and saved all information relating to certain topics that were found mostly by using appropriate flags though at times Isaiah used manual searches. Kestrel R & D and the Bright Eyes Project were two manual entries while flags were used in various pertinent threads. The moment that Bright Eyes had emerged, Isaiah was quick to get as much info on the main players as possible; he had years of information on the technology. Isaiah had forged a sort of accord some years ago, but that was no guarantee that it would be obeyed. Three of the information files concerned specific people in high-end law enforcement who were also a part of the accord in a way. It was a price that not only he paid, but the rest of his family. To most people, strangers were strangers, but to Isaiah, a stranger could also be a dangerous enemy with near limitless capital at hand. Isaiah had long ago memorized the phenome information that comprised his wife and children for that same reason; vigilance was part of the price

Loni arose from where she was seated and glanced down the hall to where their children’s bedrooms were. It’s only ten after nine; they probably are still awake; what’s wrong?

I may have gotten some dirt in one of my modules; that bleacher area was rather dusty. Neither of them bothered to rehash what had happened today; there were more important matters to address. They both left the study and watched some television in the family room. It was only when the kids were present that they actually watched and even at times enjoyed what was being viewed, but things took a different tack when they were alone. They knew what channels that would be most likely to carry Bright Eyes advertisements or the equivalent. There had even been some slickly made infomercials over the years. Any and all such items were found and recorded and analyzed if necessary. The International Vision Institute didn’t even exist before 2024, but no one paid that any mind. Unlike the public masses and any number of supporters though, Isaiah and Loni knew the real truth behind the matter. The actual source of the Bright Eyes technology was like a cancer with an unlimited means of metastasizing into whatever it needed to be to fulfill its purpose, from a legitimate R & D enterprise to a legitimate distribution vehicle for the research.

It wasn’t until after eleven that no more activity was detected from their kid’s rooms. Isaiah retrieved a rather peculiar collection of items he kept sealed in a nondescript box. The contents of the box were rather commonplace, but their uses were not that common. There was a bottle of rubbing alcohol, a bag of lint free cleaning cloth patches, a piece of deer hide, a small yet powerful magnifying device, and a small pedestal light with a halogen bulb. Despite its size, the light was sufficient to illuminate a small room while the magnifier was 30x in strength.

At times when a married couple was alone, conversation would often delve into matters more personal versus the more general topics around any children; though this was no exception to that rule, this conversation would have merited analysis had it been recorded. Isaiah had never really developed the involuntary actions humans used to protect their eyes, so he didn’t flinch as he gently grasped his right optic module and removed it. Isaiah’s eye socket was a pit of black only occasionally broken by the barest hint of sparkles towards the rear of it, but Isaiah no longer paid that oddity any mind. Isaiah had already closed and locked the sliding door that allowed the dining room to be accessed from the family room area, so the only available entry to where he sat was through the kitchen. Where Loni was seated, she would be able to see anyone there long before they would be able to see Isaiah.

The optic module didn’t look like very much at least on the exterior. The module resembled an elongated egg shape slightly larger than a robin egg but it was colored the palest of grays. The only thing that marred the smoothness were four precisely cut notches, two to a side. In the rear part of his eye socket there were four catches made for the four notches on the module. The front part of the optic module was also gray in color, but under a light, the gray color dissolved in a prismatic color display. It was the Japanese who had microminiaturized viewscreen technology; the end result was called TinyScreen LCD, the heart of the Bright Eyes technology. A small CMOS chip inside the module was hard wired with the colors and proportions of the human eye. Information viewed through the screen was sent across microfilaments embedded in some metallic mesh like material to respectively simulate synaptic information flow and the optic nerve.

As far as anyone knew, Isaiah was a Bright Eyes recipient, and that was how it would forever remain. For all intents and general purposes, the ruse was easy to perpetrate; Isaiah’s eyes had all of the properties of a BE recipient. Isaiah inspected the optic module for any debris. Bright Eyes modules are permanently emplaced in the eye sockets. After he wiped off the optic module with rubbing alcohol, he inspected the module under the light with the magnifier using his other emplaced optic module. The eye color of the emplaced module was green. The color of a BE recipient’s eyes is hard coded into the embedded ROM chip. Isaiah’s modules also contained a ROM chip, but it was of a much more robust construction. Isaiah had long ago suborned the ROM chips in his modules allowing him to display any color that he wished along with at least two variants of the appearance, cat eye or solid color. There had been some dust on the optic module, but that was no longer the case. There was something stuck in his eye socket though, but even a mirror was of no use. A BE recipient has statically defined 20/15 vision that will not degrade over time. Isaiah’s vision was actually 20/.333 with infrared capacity, yet another difference. A BE recipient has eight microfilaments embedded in the vision portion of their brain, four to a side. Isaiah had thirty two such filaments, sixteen to a side. Twenty four of the filaments had gone to the right area of the brain, but the eight outermost ones had caromed off of the mesh and lodged in his forebrain.

The end result of that action had many implications. There now was a portion of Isaiah’s brain that had access to visual input but it had no way of processing or understanding the input…at first. The war inside his brain regarding that matter had almost killed Isaiah, but he managed to enforce a sort of order upon the chaos. The affected part of his forebrain now could also see, but it described its world using discrete number sequences. Isaiah called it xenological or xenodigital sight for the lack of any better term. Once he turned that sight loose on his optic module socket, it was easy to find the piece of caliche lodged in one of the catches. The concept of zero in normality is powerful; it allows for a placeholder function to exponentially increase a number; the concept of zero in a xenological sense is also a placeholder function, but it can be used to obliterate other values. Of all things regarding his xenological sight, that aspect of things was the most dangerous. Even after all of the intervening years, Isaiah would sometimes have nightmares from the past. Despite the relatively normal existence he now had, that aspect of his vision would always be with him lurking in the shadows or in the periphery of his mind. Isaiah intended to keep it there. Once Isaiah had the piece of caliche targeted, it was a simple matter to obliterate it. 0C13….0000…. gone. How in hell had that happened? Isaiah could still feel something in his optic module socket, so he leaned over the table while he tapped the side of his head with his palm. A little spider fell out of the socket and skittered away as another small piece of caliche was dislodged. Isaiah laughed at the spider, but he now noticed Loni’s stare as he reinserted the optic module.

I thought that we had reached an agreement that there would be no more erasing things.

What do you mean—

I can feel it when I am close to you; it has become tolerable though it still is disconcerting at times.

There was a piece of caliche lodged in my socket inside one of the catches. I knocked loose a second piece and evicted a spider; am I going to have mice taking up residence there soon? Isaiah grinned when he realized Loni was laughing.

A spider? Loni was laughing even harder.

Welcome to the land of unique marital secrets. That asshole at the game today wouldn’t have been missed, though.

Loni had stopped laughing when she heard that. Her gaze was a combination of anger, fear and a far off look of someone who had almost been pushed off of the mental edge. The SUVs tried to run them off of the road and they were shooting at them, but most of the bullets had failed to hit their target. Instead, bits and pieces of SUV and humans flew up in the air or disintegrated into a miasma of headache causing and terrifying gray. Loni was only able to curtail the vision using an extreme amount of effort. We have made a life for ourselves here; why do you want to ruin everything? Wasn’t what happened in the past enough?

That bastard is still alive, isn’t he? I also remember the past, but usually now I only see it when I dream. Isaiah had a prescription for SomnoSan, a heavy duty sleep aid, but even that didn’t stop all of the dreams. The most disconcerting one was when he had walked into that valley; two towers of screaming and shrieking void annihilated all that it overran. He had called it forth; what had started as a panic reaction that temporarily shorted out his optic modules had quickly grown into something almost with a life of its own. In Kansas, he chopped apart his assailants, but in Colorado the void had spewed forth. They convicted the possible rather than prosecute the impossible. THEY had caused it; Isaiah could easily rationalize that part if he wished. SWR had given him the sight they had promised, but they had denied him his freedom. Perhaps if they had just let him go, a lot of deaths could have been avoided, but they had considered him to be their property. It had ended in Utah, but how many had he killed there? Even after that day and with no further stimulation, it still kept growing, always present, forever waiting. Over the intervening years, Isaiah had found constructive uses for what he could do, but once he had used his capability to kill, the means to do so had never left him. It fell to Isaiah to keep it under control; so far, he was doing very well at the task. What would it be worth to you to be able to see, Mr. Roberts?

Isaiah could see as others did now, but he also could see in an entirely different way. Most people would see a blue sky, but Isaiah could also see the oxygen and carbon dioxide and the ozone as discrete numerical values. Isaiah used four fully divisible logical base values to order his xenological world. While a normally sighted person could disavow something they saw as not making sense, Isaiah’s other sight required him to assign a number stream to everything he saw; failure to do so ran the risk of shattering what order Isaiah had created. Binary or Base 2 was of little use to Isaiah past defining some color values, but that schema was the foundation upon which the other bases he used rested. Octal or Base 8 was what Isaiah used to define most low numeric value information he gathered, such as a specific genome or phenome marker. Hexadecimal or Base 16 was used by Isaiah to define items like the periodic table of elements (mass and atomic weight) and the genomes of plants, trees, and lower level creatures. Lastly, Isaiah used a proprietary value set based on hexadecimal for defining things like humans or a planetary gravity well. Though Isaiah had found a representation of Base 256 on the internet, it was a binary computation using a dotted decimal overlay, useless to him. Instead, he had used exponentiation from 0-7 along with a special symbol to count up to 255 without repetition. In his version of base 256, 10 equaled 256. Despite the poor radix economy of the schema, it allowed massive numbers to be created with the minimum number of written values. Even sound could be rendered to a numeric value, allowing Isaiah the ability to listen at a distance, but also speak in the same fashion. The only limit to this aspect was the languages Isaiah understood and at the moment, that was only English.

His sight did have a few limitations, though. Sustained and cacophonous sound could disrupt his ability to focus while creating almost anything more often took more effort than it was worth to a large extent. If he had a baseline of the appearance of an object, he could force the object back to that state but that process caused a lot of energy; he had done so one time when he had been mortally injured, but it had taken days to recover from the effects even with food and rest. At one point he had been unable to obliterate anything colored true black (#000000), but that was no longer the case. The easiest things he could do with his sight were viewing, shielding and of course destroying. If he overlaid zeros upon any perceived numeric sequence, that sequence would cease to exist, often with horrific results. Humans (including himself) couldn’t tolerate seeing nothingness, so instead they would see a sickening color of gray. The effects of the gray color on people had a variety of effects, from vomiting to temporary insanity. At some point, Isaiah had seen so much of the gray color that it no longer affected him, but at times he wasn’t quite sure of that. After he had scared the hell out of Loni and Alditha more than once, Isaiah had installed motion sensor light modules in the potential darkest areas of the house after he had been shown some photos his wife had taken when he was asleep on the couch in the family room. The camera had done an exemplary job taking the picture, but in several of the pictures it was hard to see Isaiah while in two of them , he really couldn’t be seen except for the barest nuance of light reflecting off of his optic modules. Isaiah had also improved on the appearance of his modules over the years so that his eyes almost looked natural; without the benefit of the infrastructure behind the Bright Eyes technology, that had taken a lot of work. Isaiah was more than familiar with human eyes as a result of that effort.

Finding constructive purposes for what he could do gave Isaiah a small sense of accomplishment. One such game involved the digital encryption that was commonplace in the world of today. 128 bit encryption had been replaced with 2048 bit or higher, more than a match for the best computers available, but not for Isaiah. Even the higher level encryption was no match for someone who could literally see the encoding. The bottom line was that Isaiah could break any encryption in short order and access whatever the encryption protected. Since he wasn’t using any sort of software to do so, there was essentially no chance he would be caught, but why take the risk? Isaiah lacked not only a violent mindset; he also lacked a criminal mind. Loni brought home more money than they could spend not to mention what Isaiah either found with his metal detector or bought and then resold. It was interesting at times to break in and parse a digital data stream, but Isaiah quickly became bored with such a little challenge. There was another pursuit he had started even before he finally won free of his tormentors; to this day, he had never lost interest in it.

Isaiah only did his special version of stargazing when he was alone with little chance of being interrupted. Loni had eventually found out what he was doing, but her only visible reaction was a wide eyed stare and a shake of her head. Her dark complexion actually paled as she looked through what Isaiah called his log books. Though he had started out manually entering the data into notebooks, he had eventually transferred the data to his computer. Isaiah kept three copies of the information in three separate places. Extra solar planets were no longer that big of a deal; even before the first lunar telescope was in operation, hundreds of such planets had been discovered. With the lunar telescope, the number of known planets now ranged into the thousands with several planets near to the Earth in size. Though Isaiah’s regular sight was constrained like anyone else’s, his other sight wasn’t constrained in that way. Outer space was almost completely devoid of any matter, so it was a relatively simple matter for Isaiah to //shift// his focus to any one of the myriad points of light in the sky. At first, Isaiah used star names to navigate, but that had been replaced by the RA (Right Ascension) and Declination system. At times, Isaiah would use information on newly discovered planets as a stepping off point, but he did his best to keep things as organized as possible. Isaiah had information on almost ten thousand planets with many of them having potential or even actual life. He couldn’t actually see the life as what it was, but he could still parse its information. With the help of a computer drawing program, he had hundreds of pictures of theoretical phenomes extrapolated from the gathered genome information. At first, Isaiah formed speech sounds that he directed at the alien phenomes, but would they even understand him? From then on, all that he did was scan for gravity wells and observe, though at times perhaps just even that wasn’t safe. Some years ago, he found a disruption in space too small to be a gravity well. It was a massive metallic craft full of phenomes. Even though he only observed, he had the unsettling feeling that those phenomes knew someone or something was watching them. The sketch of the phenome was unsettling; it was a humanoid sized star shape covered with icy blue colored fur. The center appendage had two large solid color red eyes with black dots in the center and an awful lot of teeth. Isaiah kept this information to himself for the same reason he never visited a doctor or punched a clock: his eyes. All it would take would be one pass from an UltraScan device to prove he didn’t have anything resembling Bright Eyes. Isaiah wasn’t able to find anything tonight, but this was the last part of the grid portion he currently was scanning. He felt tired enough so that he didn’t take any of his medication, but that turned out to be a mistake…

...at first, he thought he was once more in the valley in the Utah park staring at his tormentors, but this wasn’t the park. It was a smaller valley, but it was filled with people dressed in robes and head scarfs. There was a pathway leading into the valley that terminated at a dais roughly in the center. There was a small group of people on the dais; one of them appeared to be his focal point. They were using a cordless microphone to speak to the crowd; the crowd roared back their approval at appropriate moments. He felt feverish but acutely aware of his surroundings. There was someone standing beside him on his right. She was carrying a backpack. The noise from the people and the person on the dais stopped. He knew that he was now the focus of their attention and he knew that wasn’t a good thing. Where was he and what was he doing here? His skin felt like it was on fire, but when he looked at it, all he could see was sweat and dirt and grime and…something else. Whatever it was, it floated and danced in the air instead of staying in one spot. Whatever it was, it was also everywhere that he looked. It didn’t matter how many people were there; he could see them all as separate entities. The mass of humans was no longer inchoate in nature. Some of the people charged towards his position but none of them made it there; instead, they winked out of existence, leaving only an afterimage in their wake. There was something else he needed to see, but where was it? It was off to his left some distance away. The transport vehicle was massive in size, but what it carried was also massive….

…he was now in the area where the people were, but he was being given a wide berth for some reason. He was yelling at the person on the dais, but he wasn’t sure that he was being heard or understood. Other people in the crowd attempted to attack him, but none of them came even close. Any person there who he perceived as a threat was obliterated without a second thought. The person on the dais had something in his hand, but their invective was directed at him for some reason. The person on the dais could no longer be heard; whatever was on the transport vehicle had been raised to point at the sky. There was a rumbling as billows of smoke erupted underneath the missile. He was now concentrating on the missile as everything went yellow and orange and white…

II

In the realm of geopolitics, there are no friends or enemies; only friendly enemies and hostile friends

Unknown

Ask the children of Israel

How many a clear sign We had given them.

But if one changes the favor of God

after having received it, then remember

God is severe in revenge.

The Cow (Al-Baqarah) 2:211

They ask you of war in the holy month.

Tell them: To fight in that month is a great sin.

But a greater sin in the eyes of God

Is to hinder people from the way of God,

and not to believe in Him,

and to bar access to the Holy Mosque

and turn people out of its precincts;

and oppression is worse than killing.

They will always seek war against you

Till they turn you away from your faith, if they can.

But those of you who turn back on their faith

and die disbelieving

will have wasted their deeds

in this world and the next

They are inmates of Hell

and shall there abide forever.

The Cow (Al-Baqarah) 2:217

The world after 1991 was called a dangerous place, and rightly so. With the Cold War ended at least on paper, various nationalist movements erupted across the globe while acts of terror went on the rise. The culmination of that was the World Trade Center bombing that killed nearly 3,000 people. Now the war ceased to be cold as it heated up in Afghanistan and Iraq. It was unofficially called the Terror Age.

Economic trouble plagued the nation states. Even the USA wasn’t beyond the fiscal malaise. As things became even worse, it was apparent that hard choices would have to be made; choices which no political party were willing to make. The Tea Party revolution had foundered for a while until picking up with renewed steam. The visit to Pluto raised more questions than answers while it was private enterprise that made it back to the moon in 2016, but those milestones were very few and far between the periods of dismal failure. The elections of 2012 and 2016 in the USA didn’t really help; it was the same political parties uttering the same tired phrases to gain the needed votes. It was in 2020 that things began to change. In only twenty years, the world turned into something someone from 2010 would have hardly recognized.

Another assassination attempt had been made against the Israeli PM, timed to coincide with an attempted breakout from the Gaza Strip. As a result, an emergency Knesset meeting was convened. The breakout from the Gaza Strip was contained, but only a week after the incident and emergency meeting, Israeli forces began to mass all along the Gaza Strip along with inside the southern part of the West Bank. The United Nations demanded to know what Israel’s intentions were, but the Israeli UN delegate refused to answer any questions. Without any warning, the Israeli forces surrounding the Gaza Strip moved into the area with slow but deadly purpose while the IDF forces in the southern West bank did the same until they had reached Jericho. Once the IDF reached Jericho, they moved no further north. The same was done to Jerusalem. Israel shifted its forces in the city as they removed Israeli settlers from East Jerusalem, essentially abandoning that area. The Gaza Strip action succeeded with not too many deaths; the surprise that Israel would conduct such an action helped. The Palestinians rooted from that area were put on flat barges to Haifa, which had also been abandoned. In one month, the Shock Partition of Israel had been completed. A border had been created ranging from Herzliyya that angled down to Jerusalem. While the border also gave East Jerusalem to the Palestinians, the Israelis kept The Gaza Strip and Jericho for their own. The Knesset had decided that there would be no more ‘Nagorno-Karabakh’s’, so the Palestinians had been given most of central Israel to the north. Israel also proclaimed Jerusalem to be an open city, relinquishing its claim to the whole. Israel gave up not only Haifa, but Nazareth and the ancient site of Megiddo, but it decided that access to the latter two sites could be negotiated in a diplomatic fashion.

The West Bank portion south of Jericho also was now firmly under Israeli control and that was quickly made apparent. At first, the Palestinians were as shocked as the suddenly uprooted Israelis, but they were quick to adapt to the status quo. Video after video of jubilant Palestinians were seen across the globe and on the internet. The uprooted Israelis were quickly given shelter and living area as Israel quickly rebuilt the ruined infrastructure of the Gaza Strip. Without Palestinians at their back, this allowed for a better deployment of their military forces. Most of a division set up on the Gaza border with Egypt while the rest set on the newly defined border including the Jordanian part. The Palestinians were only too quick to revert to their old ways courtesy of not only Hamas, but Fatah too. Israel’s silence as Synods were destroyed or gleefully desecrated had the rest of the world worried; how was Israel going to respond to these actions?

When the UN delegation from Palestine demanded the Gaza Strip be returned to them, the Israeli delegation responded with one single uttered obscenity before once more keeping their silence. Needless to say, once the Palestinians had their new lands under their control, agitation for the return of the Gaza Strip was enough to justify renewed rocket attacks against Israel along with the return of the omniciders in full force. It was then that the world got a glimpse of the new Israel. No invasions occurred from the IDF this time; they had learned how pointless those had become over the years. The IAF targeted the sources of the rockets and destroyed them with extreme prejudice while in one bloody week, almost one hundred Hamas and Fatah militia members had died. For each Israeli citizen killed from an omnicider, five Palestinians were kicked out of Israel. The Palestinians pulled out all of the stops, but Israel had removed the kid gloves this time. The only places where any real concentration of Palestinians remained were in the occupied parts of the West Bank. After a bloody week of omnicider attacks, Israel ejected all Palestinians within its borders. Israel was going to have peace no matter what they had to do. When Palestine called for aid to support its fledgling country, (What was left of Hamas and Fatah had taken to fighting amongst each other yet again, ruining the infrastructure they had been given) that was the last straw as far as the USA was concerned.

In 2022, an attack was launched against the General Fusion Corporation’s working fusion reactor assembly in the Yukon Territory of Canada, but the attack failed. The security inside the compound held out against the attack until reinforcements arrived. The tests conducted with the reactor were ahead of the revised schedule, making up somewhat for the extra capital investment and delays. A prototype engine using the technology was already undergoing testing, but it still would be years before the power would directly supplant oil. All that the attack accomplished was the expulsion or imprisonment of those found complicit in the attack and even more security around the reactor site.

The USA GDP had climbed to almost sixteen trillion dollars, but the national debt was keeping pace. The president who had been elected in 2020 began 2023 with a bang. With the stroke of a pen, a 25% consumption tax was levied to replace most all of the taxes on capital and labor. The president also ended all governmental aid to Africa and the Middle East, including Israel. What forces that were left in the Middle East were called back home; instead, the whole area came under a watch and observe system. Needless to say, the president was burned in effigy in many parts of the globe while unflattering comparisons were made between him and any number of sociopathic leaders in the past, but the president weathered the storm. The next thing that he did was to seal off the whole Mexico/USA border, but Immigration Intake Facilities were built to deal with those who wanted into the USA. The critics were silenced when the issue of illegal immigration became almost a non-issue as a result; there were no more illegals to hire. When, the president’s party turned their back on the president, he decided to run as an Independent. The president also signed another bill taking away Social Security revenue from the Congress. By the time the 2024 elections had