I don’t typically watch horror movies. They’re cliché, and the characters are so stereotypical that they seem like meaningless, unreal paper dolls just waiting to be hacked to pieces. However, it is the haunting season, and horror movies are one good way to celebrate when you don’t get trick-or-treaters, or plunge into the typical celebrations. Today, I’d like to talk about three horror movies that are a tradition in our home every Halloween. 

Halloween (1978). The original is a classic, with Jamie Lee Curtis as good-girl Laurie Strode. I like that the main character is an intelligent, independent character who, albeit a bit lonely, makes overall good decisions throughout the movie. Michael Myers is also the perfect mysterious figure who seems to constantly elude his dramatically hilarious doctor, Dr. Loomis, and everybody else in Haddonfield. It’s just the right balance of mysterious plot, shock, and drama. The 2018 version is also great, as it follows up perfectly, probably because John Carpenter and Jamie Lee Curtis built on it 40 years later by returning to the mysterious magic that captured us in the original. 

Rick also likes the Rob Zombie remake of the movie. While it had it’s own merits, it told a bit too much backstory, which removed the element of mystery that intrigued me in the original. It was interesting to see how Michael Myers became who he was (and the kid that played him did a great job in the role), but it was too much information in my opinion. 

Salem’s Lot. These are vampires! Nobody does horror like Stephen King, and it seems to me that he was the first to address vampires emigrating from Europe to America. What’s more, he did it by piggybacking the story to a haunted mansion in a small Maine town, and weaving two eerie tales together. Very clever and classic. I didn’t see it until I was older, but I easily understand how this was a terrifying movie at the time, and how it scared so many people. Definitely a horror classic, and the remakes don’t touch it with the element of mystery and intrigue that the original had. This is a Halloween must-see. 

Tourist Trap. It’s admittedly cheesy, but cheesy in a charming way. I believe it’s because the plot behind it has a bit more “meat” on it’s bones than the typical horror story, with just a touch of the supernatural. Rick turned me on to this movie about four teenagers stranded at a wax museum tourist attraction that’s being driven out of business by the newly-developed highway nearby. Add a proprietor who is telekinetic and admittedly a bit crazy, and you have a classic horror movie. You’ll never see mannequins the same way again. 

Much like Christmas music and movies, it seems that I’m drawn to the originals. The horror movies from the 70’s were definitely better than what we have today. Perhaps it hearkens to the fact that the world has changed, and a lot of the mystery that once intrigued us is now gone. Or maybe it’s just because storytelling has changed, and sometimes we need to be reminded of what once compelled and inspired us to find that new inspiration for a new age. 

​That’s all today. Take care, and have a safe and Happy Halloween!

Bye!

October 23, 2019, is 30 years since my grandfather passed away. It doesn’t sit well with me.

I noticed the same thing a couple of years ago when it had been 30 years since my grandmother passed away. I didn’t ponder it because Chloe had just died (Chloe died on December 2, 2017 and my grandmother died on December 6, 1987). I thought the proximity of the events led to my sadness, so I didn’t evaluate my feelings. I was too much of a mess after Chloe’s accident and didn’t have the mental energy or foresight to “get it.” This time my mind is clear, and I see why it’s bothering me.

Nobody remembers my grandparents. Clarence and Lorene Lybrand are just names in our church history, but to me they were a significant part of my childhood. It’s been a generation since they passed away, and the world has moved on without them. Heck, the entire world has changed since then. It’s not just the people that are forgotten from that time. A lot of things have passed into memory, never to return. I remember a sermon our pastor preached a while back about dying two deaths in this world: the first physical death, and the second death in memory. I think that’s why this 30 year mark is hitting me hard, as it did with my grandmother.

I’m grieving their second death.

Of course, I remember them. My parents do, and maybe a handful of other relatives who are still alive. But the truth is that most of the people who knew them are also gone from this world, and nobody knows who they are. Granddaddy is why I love birds, and probably a big part of the reason I’m a writer – but nobody knows, or cares. Nobody knows who he was except what I or my family tell them. It’s impossible to understand the significance of something when you never knew the person.

It is what it is, and there’s nothing to be done for it. Rick hit the same funk in July, when it had been 30 years since his own grandfather passed away (it turns out our grandfather’s died 3 months apart in 1989), so he gets it. I think perhaps that both of us passing this milestone is what clarified it in my mind.

There’s nothing about this that makes me special. Everybody deals with grief, and I’ll deal with it like everybody else must. I’ll go to work today. I’ll get my flu shot. I’ll come home, and have supper, and finish laundry, and on the daily routine goes, as if it’s just another day. I guess it is. Memory doesn’t change today’s reality. It’s October 23, 2019. If I’m lucky, that’s all it will be – or perhaps it will be better. Lord, feel free to bring me a best seller with one or more of my novels, or even a jackpot win. Just not worse, please.

It helps to know that I remember – even if few others do. They might have died both deaths to this world, but they won’t be completely gone while I still grace this rock hurtling through space. Heck, a part of them will outlive me through my writing (especially through Splinter). In the meantime, at least I know he’s in Heaven with all those who have passed before and, most likely, with Chloe sitting on his shoulder.

It’s my blog, and I’ll whine if I want to. I can do that here today. I’ll bet there’s some level where you can relate. The reaper is no respecter of persons. It comes for everybody, and we deal with grief until the reaper punches our ticket. I’ll try not to think about that too much, unless it’s from a perspective of writing my next novel series. Ugh. It might be a night to watch some Seinfield or That 70’s Show reruns to lighten up and get into a more positive mindset tomorrow.

That’s all today. Take care, and have a great rest of the week.

​Bye!

There’s something about fall that’s inspirational for great stories. Whether it’s the “spooky” vibe of Halloween, the beauty of nature changing, or the resolution of the close of the year, most people find fall captivating. I believe it’s a favorite season for most of us. It’s also prime book season, as the cooler weather and shorter days contribute to great reading weather. Writers like this season too, as it’s full of inspiration. In fact, I discovered a few years ago that most of my early novels take place in the fall (or at least start during the fall), and that I needed to make an effort to move my settings to other seasons.

Today, I’d like to give you a brief description of my featured works for Halloween. You’ve probably seen the social media posts for these novellas and long stories, but here’s the story behind the story for these pieces.

Quarantine was the first fiction story I wrote and was inspired by, of all things, flu shots. I’ve always likes mysteries that take place in remote or secluded settings, and I wondered what would happen if somebody used the shots to cover up a crime in a small town. It seems the hospital near our home was starting an expansion effort at the time I wrote it, and those news stories also inspired my muse to create a story about a mystery on a small hospital in a small town. I was actually offered a publishing contract for Quarantine back in 2009, but the publisher went under so the contract wasn’t fulfilled. It’s hard to place a shorter work (under 50K words) with a publisher, and I was burned by that failed contract. so I decided to self publish it in 2012 instead of going through the struggle of finding another publisher willing to give it a try.

Resonance was a story I wrote on a slow day after reading a story in our local newspaper about a multi-million dollar estate going up for sale near our home. That estate has always seemed mysterious to me, as it’s sprawled in a remote area behind an elegant iron fence. Soon after that, I saw an episode of Supernatural that mentioned haunted paintings. The two ideas combined into this short Halloween story about college students that unknowingly buy a haunted painting from a woman who’s desperately trying to get rid of it.

What readers haven’t noticed is that this estate is the same setting for the Kerner family homes in The Earthside Trilogy. In fact, I do sneak a mention of the Resonance story into it during a discussion between two characters reminiscing about a childhood Halloween where they couldn’t trick or treat due to bad weather, and their parents told them the story about the haunted house that was supposedly at the back of the estate long ago.

The Eleventh Hour is a compilation of short horror stories I wrote for various contests or writing prompts. Obviously, none of them were picked up for publication, so I decided to combine them into their own book and self publish as a “side project” while I was working on The Earthside Box Set. The other short stories I wrote were combined in another short ebook titled Lost and Found, which are more general and character-focuses stories.

All three of these books are $0.99 and can be read in 90 minutes or less. I hope you’ll give them a try as a seasonal treat for your Kindle.

That’s all today. Take care, and have a great rest of the week.

Bye!
 

Today, I’d like to discuss the hot topic from the weekend: the Joker movie. Rick and I saw yet. Yes, we did. And I was absolutely shocked when I came home and saw that there were actually protests against this movie, calling for it to be banned. They said it was too “graphically violent” and “disturbing.” I find this interesting for three reasons. Let’s break them down, from the perspective of a sci-fi writer, with a bachelor’s degree in experimental psychology, and 20 years in an administrative job, shall we? 

First, I find it  hypocritical that a society that keeps edgy shows on the air is protesting Joker as having too much violence. People say that Joker was too gritty, but what did they watch when they went home? Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad were both breakout hits.  American Horror Story and The Walking Dead continue on. Supernatural is premiering their fifteenth and final season on Thursday to huge anticipation from the fandom that sprang up around their show, and perhaps made a “fandom” a thing for television (weren’t they the first TV show in their genre to get space in the coveted Hall H for San Diego ComicCon?). And don’t even get me started on the Saw movies, and various other horror franchises that have raked in the dollars and the viewers. Don’t tell me you’re squeamish in your viewing preferences, especially with all of the Halloween horror marathons people are getting excited over. That’s not it. 

Second, Gotham is a dark place – and you know this. Superhero TV shows and movies have been popular since Iron Man came along in 2008, and there have been enough of them that you know what to expect from each franchise. DC is and always has been a dark place. If you go to Gotham, hang up the rose colored glasses and get ready for gritty. This is well established. Plus, the Joker has been a dark villain in this universe for decades, folks. It’s a rated “R” movie. 

The bar has been raised across the board for the past thirty years in entertainment, and this holds true for all forms: books, video games, TV shows, movies – heck, even the news! People say they want a light hearted break, but the fact is that the darkness sells and draws in viewers. It’s part of our humanity. We’re drawn to what’s different, and this kind of darkness is different from anything we’ve seen or known to date. 

Third, the movie really isn’t about violence. It’s about the consequences of our inability to be decent human beings. I’m going to do what I do and point at the pink elephant in the room. Are you ready for it? Brace yourself; here it is:

Joker made us nervous because we all know that we’re guilty of being cruel to, as this BBC review puts it, “the oddball in a cruel, intolerant world that doesn’t have time to care for vulnerable people.” People are intolerant for those who don’t fit the norm in any way. If a person like me doesn’t fit in – who has nothing wrong with them but whacked up sinuses, a refusal to be a ‘girly girl,’ and an authenticity I refuse to deny – then how do you think it treats those who have issues beyond their control that prevent them from fitting in your pretty little box of “how it should be?” 

It isn’t just intolerance, though. Some people treat others badly and talk ugly to others because for some reason, they feel entitled. They think they’re “above” other people, and are justified in being rude and inconsiderate. And they’re wrong. The problem, as we saw in Joker, is that not everybody is like me. They won’t snort and say “I hope you enjoyed this long, hot summer because that’s your eternity if you don’t fix that funky attitude,” and leave it to Divine intervention for that to come back around to you. There are those on the other side who feel equally justified to correct you, and they want that lesson to hurt. 

I’ll be honest: I walked out of Joker wondering how mentally unstable Arthur Fleck really was. That there was a mental issue was obvious. I just saw an environment shaping him in surprising ways. Spoiler alert: things started to turn when the welfare budgets and social services were cut. This isn’t me playing devil’s advocate for the villain (as I often do). It’s about the fact that this movie could be the premise to a thesis on the role of nature versus nurture in human behavior. 

Much like Martin Luther, Authur Fleck didn’t intend to start a revolution. He was just trying to get through life the best he could in a world that didn’t want to understand or accept him. As I often like to say, he didn’t have “the favor of man” on his side. He, like many of us, he lacked the charisma and charm that makes people want to do things for them, and had to work it out on his own. Square peg, round hole, like so many of us, but add some psychological disadvantages and that tilts the playing field completely out of his favor. Add a world on the brink and looking for something to vent their frustrations, and the powder keg blows. Congratulations. You have a revolution. 

Obviously, I’m in the camp of believing that this was a brilliant movie. Yes, it’s dark and difficult at times. This movie is a dark mirror not only for Batman, but for all of us as well. Joquean Phoenix did a brilliant job portraying this character. He deserves an award for it. Honestly, that had to be difficult to play a mentally instable villain. Well done. 

This movie is art imitating life. We already see shades of it all around us. If we’re wise, we’ll listen  - and maybe even try to do better from now on. But I doubt it. The Joker character has been around since 1940. The really funny thing is that the character continues to evolve, but we “normal folks” don’t.  

That’s all today. Take care, and have a great week.

Bye!

I finished the first round of rewrites on Domino, my scifi/mystery novella. Today, I'd like to share an excerpt with you so you'll understand what it's about. This is from Chapter 7, around the middle of the story, when the Domino program is explained by Julissa Marler as she talks to Detective Grace Milone about some recent deaths on her university campus. Keep in mind this is a "sneak peek" early draft, and is subject to changes in revisions in the future. 

Enjoy!

Chapter 7

“We called ourselves ‘The Christmas Club,’” Julissa said, as she swiped tears from her face under the harsh light hanging over the table in the investigation room.

Grace looked up from watching the tape spin in the archaic tape recorder that sat between them on the metal table. Julissa had consented to an interview, but only if there was no computer equipment used to document the proceedings. As Julissa has waived her right to have an attorney present, it was worth the effort to dig the ancient machine out of the trunk of her great-grandmother’s belongings. “Why is that?”

A smile broke through Julissa’s tears. “We wound out having an impromptu meeting in the research lab Christmas night four years ago. That was after Naomi and Bianca’s first semester ended. We all got bored hanging out with our families all day, and made excuses to run by the lab to check on things.” She wiped her nose with the crumpled tissue. “It’s amazing. We all had the idea within a two-hour time frame. I went by first, around seven o’clock. By nine, all four of us had made excuses to break out of the home for a little while to supposedly ‘check on things’ in the lab.”

Grace smiled at what was obviously a happy memory for Julissa. “I take it you really didn’t need to check on anything?”

“No, we just needed a break from houses full of families.” Julissa sniffed. “It was fun; maybe the most fun holiday we had while we were here. We opened a bottle of wine that Kasei brought, ate nuked leftovers from the Christmas party, and chatted until one in the morning.” Julissa grabbed a fresh tissue from the box next to the tape recorder. “Kasei and I had been at odds with Naomi and Bianca over writing the code for the system the whole semester, but we finally had a breakthrough that night. I think that having just the four of us, without the other members of the study around, gave us the freedom to talk about our hopes and dreams for Domino. We were finally away from all of the faculty and staff pushing their expectations down on us for the grant. We could actually talk about what we hoped to accomplish with this program.” She paused, a small smile breaking through. “The alcohol probably helped too. We were honest with one another, for the first time ever.”

“What did you to accomplish with Domino?” Grace asked.

Julissa sighed. “The purpose we established that night was to help people through the grieving process by developing a software program where they could communicate with the likeness of their recently deceased loved ones. We recruited volunteers from nursing homes and hospitals to have Domino access their neural chips to study the electrical patterns in their brains. Those patterns would establish a code that would emulate their likeness online. This code would remain stored in Domino so the subjects’ loved ones could access the system after their demise to converse with them post mortem. Eventually, we did want to expand it to allow the code on the Internet so they could have true freedom in an unlimited world, but that was a long-term goal. Our immediate goal for the grant was to get the code functional inside Domino.” She held up a hand as Grace started to speak up. “Please understand, this was not an attempt at achieving immortality by storing human consciousness online. The purpose of Domino, as least at that stage, was to give people the opportunity to resolve issues and say goodbye to their loved ones properly. It also gave terminally ill people a chance to preserve their memories and their likeness online, to give them comfort that something would survive after their physical body was gone.”

“Domino was created to help with the grieving process for both the dying and the survivors,” Grace said.

“Exactly,” Julissa said.

“All of the subjects for this project were terminally ill?”

“Yes, they had all been diagnosed with terminal diseases. Mostly neurological diseases that the neural chips could no longer repair, like late stage dementias, or aggressive cancers.” Julissa paused, staring into space. “The neural chips have only been in mass production to implant in the public for thirty years, and it’s ideally done in infants. A lot of adults chose to have them as well, but the chips didn’t work as well in adult implantations because they don’t have a full lifetime of biological and neurological data and history to draw from to correct these issues.”

Grace nodded. She was familiar with the failures of the neural chips in adult implants. They could help with healing and reduce or eliminate the need for pharmaceuticals, but they worked best if implanted in infants shortly after birth. It had something to do with how the chips stored data as the brain developed. Like many things, the chips worked best if they were there from the start. There were many studies in progress on this very issue. She was surprised none of them were interested in this experiment.

Grace flipped through pages of materials she printed out prior to the interview, since she couldn’t have her computer. “So all of the subject participants were older adults, who had neural chips implanted later in life?”

“Yes,” Julissa said. “All of them had been implanted in middle age, when the technology was first available. The chips did a great job of holding off their diseases, by the way. I believe our youngest participant was an eighty-five year old with Parkinson’s disease.”

“Are any of the subjects still alive?” Grace asked.

Julissa nodded. “Three from the last batch are on hospice care.”

Grace consulted her notes. “Undergraduate programs here at Palmetto University are four years, and the graduate programs you and Kasei were enrolled in was another two year program. If the four of you established that the purpose of Domino was to help with the grieving process four years ago, then the project was already underway for two years. What happened during those first two years, when you and Kasei were freshmen and sophomores? Were there other members on the team before they started at Palmetto University, or did you expand the team when you hired them?”

“There were no other members. Kasei and I worked with the university staff on research and development,” Julissa said. “We were gathering information on the neural chips to figure out how to write a computer program that could collect the data we needed to set up Domino. Kasei and I tried to do it ourselves, but we couldn’t. We needed people who specialized in programming and computer science to help us bridge the gap between the neural chips and the system we were designing.”

“That’s why you brought Naomi and Bianca into the project.”

Julissa nodded. “We also spent those first two years figuring out where to recruit subjects. Most psychology studies recruit from the student population of the school, but that obviously wouldn’t work for us. We had to get inventive.”

“How so?” Grace asked.

Julissa looked down. “Kasei’s mother is a psychiatrist. She works for a practice affiliated with the system the local hospital is in.”

"You used family ties to recruit subjects.”

“We used family ties to get the word out that the study was in progress and ready for patient trials,” Julissa said. “Every participant in this study contacted us directly to volunteer.”

“But they got the contact information, either directly or through a chain of connections, from Kasei’s mother.”

“Yes,” Julissa stared at Grace, “but that’s not wrong.”

Grace returned the stare. “I’m not implying that it is. I’m just making an observation that family ties seem to be a strong factor in this study.”

Julissa paled. “What do you mean?”

Grace leaned forward. “Why haven’t you mentioned that you and Kasei were cousins?”

Julissa set her jaw. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It’s another family tie in this study. It was enough for the university to suspect a conflict of interest, and to dig deeper into other potential conflicts.”

Julissa snorted. “They overreacted, just like you are. We’re distant cousins, not even legal. Her grandfather and my grandmother were brother and sister. As far as I’m concerned, that makes it third generation ‘don’t give a crap.’”

“Ok, I see your point,” Grace flipped through papers again. “It does seem strange that the university would raise concerns about you and Kasei being distantly related six years into a successful study. The question about whether it was ethical for Kasei’s mother to help with recruitment for the study also should have been addressed sooner. It looks like the university launched an investigation in November of last year” She stopped at a page midway through her stack.  “What happened on October 23, 2175?”

Julissa paled again. “Kasei’s father died in a lab accident. The university opened an investigation into Domino two weeks later.”

Grace nodded. “That was the catalyst for the investigation, then. Why?”

“The accident occurred in our lab when he tried to integrate with Domino. The security filter Naomi developed blocked him. Unfortunately, it caused an overload of his neural chip and he died of a massive embolism.”

Grace thumped the papers down on the table. “Wait a minute. Kasei’s father died the same way and in the same lab that Kasei died in last week?”

“That’s right.”

Grace took a deep breath, pulling her notepad in front of her. “Why was Kasei’s father trying to integrate with Domino? According to our research, he was a doctor at the hospital in Columbia working with the neural chips.” She reached for a paper in the nearby stack. “In fact, wasn’t he on the team that developed the Wi-Fi enhancements to the chips?”

“Yes, but he had been discredited and removed from the team.”

“Why?”

Julissa stared at Grace. “You’ve already done research into the connections amongst the team members, so I might as well be straight with you. Kasei always talked about the groundbreaking work her father and grandfather did on the neural chips, but the historical documentation barely mention their contributions. Her grandfather was on the team that developed the neural chips and established the foundation that went on to fund the work her father participated in. It even provided the seed money and support for this study, but he’s barely mentioned in official documentation. Don’t you wonder why?”

Grace leaned forward. “Why?”

“Because they had bipolar disorder.”

Grace jolted, reaching for her papers again. “Who had bipolar disorder? The grandfather, the father, or Kasei?”

Julissa leaned forward. “All three of them.”

Grace leaned back. “Why would they be discredited because they had bipolar disorder? Can’t that be controlled through the neural chips and medication?”

“It can be, if the patient consents to have the necessary monitoring of their neural chip and takes their medications.”

Julissa’s eyes darted around the room. “Unfortunately, as is the case with many bipolar patients, they didn’t. They grew frustrated with the repeated adjustments that treatment necessitates, and just decided to live with it.”

“I still don’t understand why this led to the investigation into the study. Why was Kasei’s father trying to integrate with Domino?”

“To talk to his father,” Julissa said.

“Kasei’s grandfather died thirty-two years ago,” Grace said. “There’s no way he could be in Domino. He lived and died before the program was even written.”

Julissa cracked a small smile. “Did he?”

“What do you mean?” Grace asked.

Julissa looked down. “The purpose of the neural chips was never to integrate man and machine. The purpose was to create a new evolution of humanity. To make man and machine one thing. No more real world and cyber world.” She leaned forward again. “The purpose was to create an evolved race of artificial intelligence that was directly connected with the human mind that didn’t distinguish between reality, as we define it, and the cyberworld.”

Grace stared at Julissa, her eyes wide. “You and Kasei didn’t develop Domino. Her grandfather did.”

Julissa nodded. “He set the stage for it. We finished what he started.”

Grace slumped back on her seat. “How did Kasei get her grandfather’s neural code in Domino? Where was it stored for over thirty years while her family waited for her to get to college where a study could be funded to launch this effort?”

“That’s where we get to why we needed Naomi and Bianca on the study. Kasei’s father had the code from her grandfather’s neural chip stored on an external storage device, but we couldn’t figure out how to transfer it from that old technology to our newer computers. Naomi figured out how to build a bridge to transfer the neural chip data into Domino.” Julissa paused. “In a sense, Kasei’s grandfather was the first inhabitant of Domino.”

Grace rubbed her forehead. “I suppose this is what the Christmas night conversation was about four years ago?”

Julissa nodded. “It was. We were surprised the code was still stable, but it held up remarkably well over the decades.
Unfortunately, it also revealed a problem that became more obvious as the study went on.” She paused. “We learned that the primary emotional state that people were in at the time that their chip was mapped to Domino was the state that dominated their activity in the program.”

“Computers don’t have emotions,” Grace said.

“They don’t, but emotions do influence human thought and decision making,” Julissa said. “Unfortunately, the code didn’t know it was an issue to adjust for, and none of our programming methods seemed to offset it. The emotional state that the subjects were in when they were integrated in the system is the predominant state that stuck in the programming.” Julissa shifted in her chair. “For example, all of the subjects were experiencing a high level of fear when they were integrated. This is natural. They knew they were dying, and were anxious about preserving themselves in an experimental computer program. When we ran the program back for their loved ones, there was a heavy tone of anxiety and fear in the responses. The relatives found this disturbing, and reported that it was making their grief worse instead of better.” Julissa looked down. “One subject said it was like reliving the nightmare of their final days all over again.”

Grace nodded. “It worked, but not as expected.”

“Of course not! How can you resolve issues if the program has the same problems that prevented them from reconciling with the host during their lifetime? You run up against the same walls.”

Grace smiled slightly. “The program had the same problems as the people.”

“Worse, actually. People have the potential to overcome their problems. Programs, not so much. You can only rewrite code so much or it becomes something different, or it breaks. Then there was Kasei’s grandfather. It seems he was on a rage bender in his final days, and that paranoia was destabilizing Domino.”

Grace squinted her eyes. “Rage bender?”

Julissa waved a hand. “It’s why it’s called bipolar disorder. They swing between states of high activity and paranoia, and states of deep depression.”

“So he was agitated.”

“To put it mildly,” Julissa snorted. “Kasei was keeping in contact with his code, and he kept complaining about being confined to the system. He wanted a bigger space. He said the program was too small and too crowded.”

“How many participants did you have in the study?”

“A little under a thousand.”

“That’s a lot of data,” Grace said.

“We were conservative. We had nearly a million applicants. We had to filter them to get an appropriate base of participants who were still healthy enough to be scanned and to consent to the program of their own free will.” Julissa paused. “Nearly a quarter of the applicants were from family members of comatose patients.”

“We all want to live forever,” Grace mumbled.

“Obviously, we can’t,” Julissa grumbled. “We reported this, of course. We had countless meetings to propose solutions to offset the emotional element of the programming. We thought we were making progress in at least keeping the program on track. Then Kasei’s father killed himself trying to get into Domino himself to save his own career, and they discovered that Naomi built that back door to the Internet to let Kasei’s grandfather out.”

“Naomi built a back door to allow people to escape?”

Julissa nodded. “Kasei hounded her to do it until she finally consented. Kasei went into a state of her own after her father died, naturally. She was completely out of control. We had to change the locks on the labs and block her for a month before Bianca finally got frustrated enough to tell her that we’d build the back door if she’d stop hacking us and give us some peace.”

“Kasei bullied Naomi to build the back door to the Internet?” Grace asked.

“And then Bianca bullied Naomi to help her build a virus to take down Domino altogether. She was frustrated with the entire thing and had given up. Bianca was barely getting by academically, and was sick of school. She wanted to get out from under the pressure of the study, so she sabotaged it.”

Grace sighed and rubbed her face. “I had no idea all of this drama happened. They sure did keep it quiet in the media,” she flipped through pages again. “There’s no report on the death of Kasei’s father.”

“It was handled internally by the university police.”

Grace dropped her papers. “Where do you fit in all of this?”

“My focus was to keep the experiment going. I had a personal interest, of course. I’m using it for my doctoral thesis. Or at least, I was. I have no idea where to go from here. I thought Bianca had a backup of all the Domino data, but she swore that she destroyed it.” Julissa sniffed, grabbed a tissue, and blew her nose. “I guess I’ll never find out what happened with that now.”

Grace reached across the table and patted Julissa’s hand. “Don’t give up yet. My partner is an expert at digital forensics. If anybody can find those files, he can.”

Julissa snorted. “Tell him to check the dark web. I wouldn’t put it past Bianca to sell it to the highest bidder.”
Grace took back her hand. “What?”

“That was another issue that came to light in the investigation, and another reason Bianca wanted Domino gone. She was hacking into the university system to change data.”

“What kind of data?”

“Mostly her grades, but they did find a similar signature on some of the data and results reported from Domino.” Julissa clinched her jaw. “It seems that many of the problems that I reported for further investigation in our proposal to continue the grant disappeared somewhere between my transmittal to the study directors and the President’s office.”

Grace threw her pen down. “It seems there are more than just family ties complicating matters here.” She glanced at a paper on the table. “One more question. Why was the study established here? Why not at the university in Columbia? They have more resources to carry out something of this magnitude.”

“Isn’t it obvious? Kasei got her scholarship here, not there.”

“I see. Daddy pulling more strings?”

Julissa shrugged. “I think her mother is an alumna here. Generous donations can get you far.”

“Money can open doors that would usually be closed.” Grace nodded toward the tape recorder. “Do you think Kasei got in the system? Is that why you didn’t want any computers in here?”

Julissa looked at the tape recorder. “I know she did. She got there, and beyond.”

“You mean she got out the back door?”

Julissa nodded. “She did.”

“Domino is crashed. How do you know?”

“You know that message you found on Naomi’s computer the night she jumped?”

Grace nodded.

“I got it too.”

Grace sighed. “How do you catch a paranoid computer code?”

​Julissa sagged against the back of her chair. “That’s the million-dollar question.”