Pretty sure no one saw that coming… maybe they did though. Should I keep going? I already know whether I am or not, so i guess you’ll just have to see.

I’ll be taking a breather soon from my Leadership project (ORACLE) and will be doing some small tweaks to this site. ORACLE is going great, Adam and I have made huge advances in these last couple days but… (and this may surprise you non-computer people) …it’s very strenuous work. Through working with the government and on projects like this and my website, I’ve come to the conclusion that I enjoy programming more than I enjoy engineering. Yeah I know, programming is a type of engineering… SHUT UP, thats not what i’m talking about. What I’m talking about is that it’s easier for me to do because the errors (while annoying and usually very tiny, hard to find mistakes) are a lot easier to fix and you can see results much faster than normal Engineering work. At work today I worked on ORACLE and I’m still ahead of schedule (work, not ORACLE… Adam and I can never be ahead of schedule, because if we’re ahead, we’re not doing enough)

It all comes down to one thing though… computer programming would not get me in space. Ocean and Aerospace Engineering could, which is why that’s my major. Being a (self-proclaimed) good programmer only gives me an advantage over the competition because I can program things to do stuff for me (which i’ve done before, and i’m not talking about robots).

Got off track for a sec… I’m gonna add some features most people won’t see… and a subscription thing so people can subscribe to categories (like TAoDS for instance) and receive an email saying that it’s been updated (maybe including the post… or at least a summary)

The deadly Asian earthquake may have permanently accelerated the Earth’s rotation — shortening days by a fraction of a second — and caused the planet to wobble on its axis, U.S. scientists said on Tuesday.

…the quake on Sunday caused the planet to spin 3 microseconds, or 3 millionths of a second, faster and to tilt about an inch on its axis…

When I heard that I was really interested. (Naturally cause it has to do with space) But what people don’t know is that this isn’t that unusual. Granted… giant tsunami kills over 120,000 people… but in context of the Earth… Solar and Lunar tides on our planet cause the planet to spin slightly irregularly anyways. It’s just so small it doesn’t effect us.

The news stations on tv really blew it out of proportion though… good marketing trick. ‘Giant Tsunami SPED UP THE EARTH’S ROTATION, SHORTENING OUR DAYS’ I heard that and was like… DAMN THAT’S AWESOME but no… damn media bitches.

See… this is why I get all my news off the internet, tv media sucks.

I think that’s enough for the night, don’t you?

~M

‘How long has it been… how long have I been like this? I know they haven’t forgotten about me because sometime’s I’ll hear voices near me. How am I still able to think while my body is effectively dead?’

Dirk wasn’t aware, but the reason the temporary-kill-switch is called a temporary-kill-switch is that it shuts down the body while keeping the brain active. Occasionally the rogue scientists would run tests on Dirk. When this happened he would drift in and out of this semi-conscious state while still showing no signs of life externally. Dirk remained waiting for his surgery with no perception of time and no way of knowing what’s going on in the world.

‘Did I die? Is this what happens when someone dies? I had read something about how some people believe that the conciousness stays with the body when someone dies… I wonder if they were right. Here come the voices again’

Dirk struggles to hear what the voices are saying…

‘…operate…nanobots… none of this is making sense… whoa! that’s something new. I feel lighter somehow… wait it’s gone… someone just opened my eye… i can see the ground… ow, someone just shined a bright light in my eye’

The voices begin to become clearer…

“…prepped enough to operate… …proceed…” ‘I must still be alive…’

A technique had finally been developed that would correct Dirk’s spinal condition and restore his body’s functionality. To prep him, they maintained the disconnection between his mind and body, but slowly woke up his back and lower central nervous system to operate on.

“The damage has been repaired, let’s close him up…”

‘Well that’s good… I still can’t move though…’

“Alright, wake him up…” a Dr. ordered. A few moments later… “Mr. Stanton… wake up… Orderly! Did you give the wake-up command”

“Yes sir”

“Any vital signs?”

“No sir”

‘This can’t be good…’

“Alright try it again… nothing… damn. No response from the his neural implants either.”

“Sir, maybe the t-k-s units are only good once. According to this patients record he’s been put in stasis before, and he has an early model.”

“Oh, that explains it. Well ladies and gentlemen, we just operated on a corpse”

If Dirk had been able to move it, his jaw would have dropped then.

‘No! I’m Alive! WAKE UP WAKE UP c’mon…’ Dirk struggled as hard as he could to move his finger… a limb… ANYTHING, but it just wouldn’t happen. As they carted him off, he began to drift out of his semi-conciousness. ‘NOOOOOoooooooo……….’ he thought weekly. He’d have cried if he could

Funeral arrangements had been made and Dirk was to be burried the next day. His death was made known to the public and many friends of his attended the funeral. When he was hit by the car the rogue scientists Dirk was supposed to be working for told his parents and friends that he was in stasis until surgery could be performed.

As Dirk drifted back into conciousness he was being lowered into the ground. He could hear the dirt being poured on his coffin and he slowly drifted back into his stasis.

…to be continued..?

“Mr. Stanton… wake up”

Dirk slowly opened his eyes and Dr. Salade was in front of him. He was lying in a hospital bed with IV drips in his arms.

“I told you not to use your ability while visiting people at Tech. Not only does it draw unwanted attention to you, but it is also very dangerous.”

‘…Veronica… Where’s Veronica?’ Dirk asked with much difficulty.

The distance had been an impossible one, but Dirk had tried anyways. As soon as he realized what was happening, he began transmitting his thoughts to his limbs. Time effectively slowed around him and then he ran as fast as he could to push Veronica out of the way. Just as the truck was about to hit her, Dirk dove and pushed her out of the way.

“She’s fine, back at Tech with just a couple of scrapes and bruises…” said Dr. Salade “…but you are a bit worse off.”

‘What happened?’

“Witnesses say that when you pushed her out of the way you got hit by the car instead. You broke your neck and are now paralyzed below it. You would be dead if our nanobots weren’t in you.”

‘If I hadn’t had the nanobots, I wouldn’t have needed to dive in front of a car to save my friend, because I wouldn’t have been “in Australia”.’

“Dirk, you’re still alive because you were transmitting when it happened and when you became unconcious it stayed that way. Your mind has reached an equilibrium with your body, but it is only keeping your vital functions alive, you’re a quadriplegic now.”

Dirk struggled for a moment… he couldn’t move. He tried transmitting his thoughts and still couldn’t move.

‘Is this permanent? Is there anything that can correct this?’

“Not with current medical techniques.”

‘Well what can I do?’

“We’ve come up with two options… 1… you can live life as a quadriplegic and hope that your brain doesn’t stop transmitting…”

‘What would happen if my brain stopped transmitting?’

“When you stop transmitting, your heart and lungs will stop functioning. We could then put you on artificial organs, but you’d be very confined and the technology could fail.”

As Dirk heard this he began to think that he would be living the rest of his life in a hospital room.

‘…and the other option?’ Dirk asked quietly.

“Our other option is to reactivate your temporary-kill-switch and put you in a stasis until we can perform some kind of corrective surgery.”

‘How long would that take?’

“There’s no telling. It could be a month, a year, or a decade from now. There’s no telling how long it will take to perfect a technique to repair the central nervous system’

Neither option sounded too good to Dirk. He could either live his life in a hospital, or go into stasis as the world around him changes.

“If you remain as a quadriplegic, your chances are probably 30% that you’d still be transmitting after a month. If we activate the t-k-s you should be perfectly healthy after any surgery, assuming that we can wake you up, which is a 50-50 chance.”

‘Why would my brain stop transmitting?’

“It would become overburdened and just tire out.”

Dirk thought to himself that if his brain “blew a fuse” while transmitting for such a long time, he would probably suffer some mental problems as a result. He could either stay awake and wait for a technique to be developed while being completely confined in everything he did (and still die), or he could go into stasis and possibly not wake up.

‘Alright, it doesn’t seem like I have much of a choice… Put me to sleep I guess… I’d go insane from boredom if I didn’t…’ Dirk forced a chuckle.

“Are you sure?”

‘Well, what would you do doc?’

“I don’t know what I would do.”

‘Well I’ve decided. Let’s get this over with.’

“You’re ready now?”

‘Yeah… just don’t forget about me…’

And with a flip of a switch Dirk was placed into stasis from the t-k-s.

…to be continued…