[Herr D]

In the next several nanoseconds, GameFace had to work overtime. I was actually panicking. Several of my subroutines kept running without me. ESO in particular. Several Enforcers were pinged with the same question: “Can you i.d. this man?” It went out with an attachment. I hadn’t actually ever decoded their graphics compression for stills. One of my decoders began automatically. StayNeur was aggressively scanning the wall. And coming up with an explanation. ‘Implanted hardware in all sites inactive for long period of time.’
ALL sites? That snapped me out of it. What all was IN here? I kicked it into rapid scan mode and began to formulate a reply.
“You have an i.d. scanner in the wall?” It sounded rather inane, but that was actually important.
Jenko smiled absently. Somehow he looked completely different. “I have the works of an entire Enforcer uniform in the wall.” He twisted his hunched neck slightly to the right. “Identify,” he said to his wallscreen. He sounded different too. What was going on?
His wallscreen showed my full legal name, charges, date of entry into the BMPS system, two deaths to my credit, trading status as active, mining quota as fulfilled, and three paragraphs about how I was suspected of an uncertain number of murders, thefts, and possibly worse. Then it stated I was to be considered dangerous unarmed, uncooperative to authorities, and possibly protected by The Six.
And that’s when I got the report from a droid I didn’t even know existed. It explained almost everything.

\END TEXTBURST \ROBOTARM:ADDON:LOC314

[Herr D]

I blinked and missed ‘Blink.’

http://i1067.photobucket.com/albums/u438/jamais5/hm3/HerrD-BlinkTurnsTheBullet.jpg

I figure ‘B’ was just a random thing on his boxers, like a defunct brand’s logo. He was watching a jai alai match, saw a guy draw a gun, threw off his clothes, stole some sports equipment, dashed out to the right spot, turned the bullet back to the gunman, sticking his hand out to prevent having his face seen, and ran out of the building.
In three seconds.
And the news media went wild over his ‘shot.’

[Herr D]

I had dozed off mere seconds by my autoclock node (which did run a few percent slow in those days) when an old subroutine kicked in. I’d written a few anti-ambush modules the first day I knew I’d go to prison. SleepSafe informed me that Jenko had keyed in with his i.d., that his biometrics checked out, and that he was pointing something at me. I really wanted to stay asleep, but this wasn’t normal behavior for him. The man’s record was clear. He’d grandfathered in to miss most of the Gladiator Game requirements. He’d been mugged several times. No other violence. He WAS a murderer, but he’d used poison. As I began to wake up, lower-priority reports bombarded my consciousness. The missing cleaning bot had been trapped outside the hallway debris in old trashfill. Or maybe it hadn’t. The data didn’t match up. Thrash had not sent the coded signal he was okay. The morgue cargo ship he was supposed to steal had not been stolen. The post-firework riots were over. Every single planned color-combination had fired, with results about like we’d figured. The free fights show Upclose had started was still going on. The fake footage was in place and ready for purchase. A record number of beltminers were not working at the moment. A record number of Enforcers were ‘assisting’ the local prostitutes. Enforcer data traffic was oddly silent. As I pretended to wake up, I sent out instructions for the cleaning bot to reassess and tried to bounce a signal to Thrash’s batter, the assembly droid. I opened my eyes to Jenko pointing a gun at my face just about a meter out of reach.
“You know,” I said slowly, “If you fire that in here, the ricochet will very likely get you, too.”
Jenko frowned and moved his other hand. He knocked on his gun-hand’s wrist. I mean knocked. Jenko didn’t have subdermal armor. It wasn’t in his profile . . . “Who are you, REALLY?” he said.
“I am exactly who you’ve always thought I was.” Why did Jenko have armor? He never signed up for fighting. Who had implanted it?
He motioned me to hold out my i.d. “Now tap it on the wall just above the couch.” Mmm?
I reached down from my hammock and did what he said, frowning. I felt it in my head. Something in the wall scanned me. Something I hadn’t put in the wall scanned me.

[Herr D]

It’s sometimes hard to remember not to feel bad that I can’t do everything. Then I remember that a dragon couldn’t possibly enjoy ice cream. He’d need a titanium-tungsten-carbide-no-I’m-not-a-metallurgist alloy straw. And he’d still miss out on the texture.

http://i1067.photobucket.com/albums/u438/jamais5/hm3/DragonsCannotEatIceCream.jpg

This was also my chance to design the first-ever asbestos hanky.

[Herr D]

woohoo! I’ve long wanted to do something like this, and I’m finally done!

Fall foliage, forest, and even a rainbow–truly a KODIAK moment! So–you want to see something REALLY scary in an outdoor scene?

Here.
http://i1067.photobucket.com/albums/u438/jamais5/hm3/HerrD-KodiakMoment.jpg

I suddenly feel hungry. I’m gonna go eat.

[Herr D]

I’m actually missing the fun and the extra income I used to have from Halloween preparation. Time and circumstances squeeze hard sometimes. This is my pop quiz mask entry. The ‘It’s Just A Birthmark’ Mask.

Viewer discretion advised. Cousin Willard looks better than this.

http://i1067.photobucket.com/albums/u438/jamais5/hm3/HerrD-TheItsJustABirthmarkMask.jpg

I remember an old rubber mask with fake boils and warts that could bend to fit any face. It was old enough that all the paint was gone, but it kept it’s shape and it’s base red rubber color. I haven’t seen such a high quality mask sold outside the industry–ever. I’ve no idea how my dad got it, and he told me he didn’t remember.

*pop
*

[Herr D]

Hello SiKwIdIt. (harder to type than it looks.)
Feedback: ?’s–did you know the angel of war is traditionally Michael? I don’t know the proper male form of the name Artemis–Artemius? Artemo? Artemer? My declension skills are rusty anyway.

Retro is a nice effect and definitely is not overdone on this site. My favorite so far is the chief. You made his shield like a dreamcatcher. A Shield Of Dreams? ‘If you wield it, they will come?’ Don’t get sik of hm3!

[Herr D]

I hadn’t figured out how to get around hiding messages inside other messages until Upclose reminded me about making one large signal out of a bunch of small, synchronized ones. Sure, the programming, the timing, and the testing is a lot more work, but it is a lot easier to disguise origin, meaning, and purpose. It also takes less power. By nine hours and ten minutes, the reprogramming was ready, signals exchanged, cameras synced up to ‘blink,’ the fireworks were deployed, and notices were ready to screen.
At ten hours on the nose, every arena showed a caption explaining which outer viewports, which feeds from which cameras, and which side of V-gamma-7 to be on for the best views without obstructing the viewports. Every kiosk showed the same message. The fake fights were in the system. There was a mad scramble. Everyone wanted to see. Three people got broken ribs and there were a lot of sprained ankles before things settled down. No one had seen fireworks since they left Earth. I was taping it with a rogue camera. I was dead tired. I went home. People could do without me for awhile.
And they did. The revolutionaries faded into the crowds. Spontaneous parties and drunken brawls broke out in the hallways. Crunch wound up getting torn limb from limb when he tried to stop Upclose doing a celebratory striptease on top of a cleaning bot. She wasn’t the only one. Female Enforcers had been deployed to do flying leaps and carry the strippers to safety. I was taping that too. I got home and almost got a nap before the bottom fell out.

[Herr D]

Why not both? To the left you have Roamana, to the right you have Joustiet. The saccharine tunes pass, killing most of the audience, then they part ways planning to have extremely deformed and very violent children. Then Roamana’s family, the Capistranoswallows, and Joustiet’s family, the Mountthegores, find out and kill off each other completely — everyone dies, even most of the audience. It’s a Shakenuphere Tragedy!
. . . I’m gotta stop drinking caffeine and typing. –Good work.

[Herr D]

[hrmmm–my naivete resurfaced. But you did choose an alias with a realistic spelling. Maybe that was the point?]
Thank you! Always pleased to alter autonomic rhythms.

One thing a lot of people will not realize on seeing that last one is the perspective problem. Having a reflective disk for an eye / head means a few things thematically. The reflected word is backwards, as it should be, because he is forward-thinking with his goal of tech updates. The word is NOT upside-down because of his skewed perspective–he up-ends or dumps peoples’ work because his view of the world IS upside-down. It probably came off as an error.

I think this next will catch me up. Like the complaint-rock sites that won’t post whines before their time, I have a couple more for later. But this one is probably OVERDUE. Once upon a time, when I began to become aware politically, I almost made a rather goofy mistake. I almost swore never to vote for someone who slung mud during a campaign.

In my defense, it would have saved A LOT OF GAS AND TIME. Decades might have passed between votes. Anyway, I noticed there are so few non-partisan political cartoons, that I saw the opportunity to make one for the Chimera pop quiz. And then I blew it–it’s not non-partisan, it’s ANTI-partisan. Oh, well. Inspired partly by the Pushmepullyou from Dr. Doolittle, the eroding patience of my elders, an elephant at the Maryland Renaissance Festival and my co-rider Maria, a former tutee from the FOP, my sense of civic responsibility, stories I heard of what not to do from the circus of Jones & Jones & Jones, the Washington DC Zoo, and a vague memory of a hybrid creature from the old series Bloom County.

http://i1067.photobucket.com/albums/u438/jamais5/hm3/HerrD-PartyProgression.jpg
*

[Herr D]

I am more behind than I thought. Pop quizzes have passed.

http://i1067.photobucket.com/albums/u438/jamais5/hm3/HerrD-godOfTheOtherShoesAndSocks.jpg

I don’t really have the capacity to imagine everything. gods? Oh, well. I think of this more like a being going through a little hell or individual purgatory or purgation process. His punishment for making people feel unwelcome or a bad fit for this world is to forever be stealing shoes and socks. He can never find a correctly fitting pair. He must surrender the closest several he has to the eternal void every time he finds one that doesn’t hurt. He will never succeed but always keep trying to find lasting comfort.

This next was more a tribute to everything lost on hm, but the same principle applies. Some poor soul is facing extended, if not eternal torment for ruining progress or creation by others in the course of furthering his own.

http://i1067.photobucket.com/albums/u438/jamais5/hm3/HerrD-IMPROVEDgodOfTechUpdateErasures.jpg

I’m afraid I’ve seen this personally in the business world.

This concludes my Purgatory Page.
*

[Herr D]

Wow. Your hunch was correct. I had missed your entire gallery. I imagine you and I and Iscarioto and Harlequin have proven that HM3 won’t be broken by unconventional uses. This is very much a more versatile site than it would necessarily appear, and I’m glad to see others aware of that. My favorite so far, I think, is your fairy fossil. [side note: gibberish? Does that mean your folks made up your name?]

[Herr D]

Thank you, Weilyn. (Is that a Welsh name?) Hair/Standard is a great source. Aelihoh is at least my favorite dream, and I don’t dream enough. I’m afraid with my sleep-deprived lifestyle, I can only remember your screen name in connection with my two favorite knights–yours and Kaylin’s. I want to enter that, but I’m having trouble picturing myself as a knight at all–and my pics on the subject in general are rather ‘outside’ the probable intended scope of the contest.

[Herr D]

I’m falling behind in posting again! Be right back with virtual arms loaded with pics.
[several minutes go by. . .]
How do you spice up fall? Add Autumn Seasoning.
http://i1067.photobucket.com/albums/u438/jamais5/hm3/HerrD-TheAutumnSeasoning.jpg
The alchemist has stepped out for a break, you know–to see if it’s working and to prevent getting a repetitive motion injury.
(This happens to be my favorite of all recent contest entries, and the one I’m sure I did the best at. The next one I’m sure I did the worst at.)

Johnny Mindbreaker was an entry in the random character contest. Somehow the best combination of randomly generated items didn’t inspire me as much as I had hoped. That’s supposed to be a kitchen knife and an Uzi and ‘tremors’ goin’ on with his hands there. I originally had him in all blacks and grays. Then my wife saw it and pointed out that black doesn’t really scream ‘badazz’ like it used to. She has a point. Dressing the way Johnny does here should invite trouble and get him more practice fighting. Or killed very quickly by a sniper. Oh, well . . .
http://i1067.photobucket.com/albums/u438/jamais5/hm3/HerrD-JohnnyMindbreakerRND.jpg
I originally intended to make another from my list but didn’t have time. Full week.

[Herr D]

Like your motley steel armor. It wasn’t easy to stripe fur evenly, was it? I ran into that.

[Author]

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