1 20 7 https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/357f1b19f4a198b0b75a973b8250b0c5.pdf 315c88737c1918862a607d8f9438bef4 PDF Text Text �� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Swarm Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library Description An account of the resource Student publication that began publication in 2011. Click on <a title="The Swarm" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=33">Items in The Swarm Collection</a> to view and sort all items in the collection. Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data paper Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 12 pages Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Swarm, Issue #2 Description An account of the resource Issue 2 of The Swarm. Published in October 2011. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Franks, Leonard I. (Editor in Chief) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2011-10 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College owns the rights to this publication. Type The nature or genre of the resource text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context swarm issue 02 2011-10-15 Student publication https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/25980b35bb1e58913f34b2913e26f36b.pdf 0aaaaec89688a7b196a4d7caa15dec03 PDF Text Text �� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Swarm Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library Description An account of the resource Student publication that began publication in 2011. Click on <a title="The Swarm" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=33">Items in The Swarm Collection</a> to view and sort all items in the collection. Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data paper Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 16 pages Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Swarm, Issue #3 Description An account of the resource Issue 3 of The Swarm. Published in January 2012. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Franks, Leonard I. (Editor in Chief) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-01 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College owns the rights to this publication. Type The nature or genre of the resource text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context swarm issue 03 2012-01-18 Student publication https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/518b343671fd0d9d667343f32090b69f.pdf f98080ce74511d2e70d4520720e913f9 PDF Text Text �� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Swarm Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library Description An account of the resource Student publication that began publication in 2011. Click on <a title="The Swarm" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=33">Items in The Swarm Collection</a> to view and sort all items in the collection. Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data paper Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 13 pages Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Swarm, Issue #4 Description An account of the resource Issue 4 of The Swarm. Published March 2012. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Franks, Leonard I. (Editor in Chief) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-03 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College owns the rights to this publication. Type The nature or genre of the resource text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context swarm issue 04 2012-03-15 Student publication https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/048ef94c35108ea13e62fcecbe96224e.pdf a69748633b73af597906a21c7358dbd7 PDF Text Text �Introduction Socrates: Tell me, O Meno, whether pulp fiction is something good, or if not good, can it be something worthwhile, or at least entertaining? And if any of these are true is it something that comes to human beings by publication or some other way? Meno: It is not hard to tell, Socrates. First we must know what the virtue of a pulp story is. If it’s the virtue of hard boiled crime you want, it’s easiest to say that it’s this you want: a detective who does well to his friends and manages the affairs of dangerous dames and crimes, and a nemesis who does harm to his enemies, and the detective who avoids the twists and turns of convoluted plot points. And if it’s the virtue of a space opera that you want, that’s not too hard. It is to manage well the breaking of the laws of physics and to boldly go where no man has gone before. And the virtue of horror, and of fantasy, and of parody, and light poetry, and there are a great many other genres, so that there is no difficulty in knowing what the virtue of pulp fiction is. Socrates: I have asked you for a definition, and you have given me The Swarm. Meno: Yes I have. In this exciting issue… Bloodcurdling tales from beyond the grave in: The Séance, by Kurt T. Strom! A deleted scene from senior prank! The electronic adventure of Amber the Cat-Rabbit! ...and much more! �The Séance Kurt T. Strom Lyle never believed in ghosts, ghouls, goblins or God for that matter. For that reason, when he was invited to a late night séance by acquaintances from his work, he was reluctant to join them. It was only after he found out Linda Stevenson was going that he quickly agreed to meet his new friends that Friday night, at Gold Cemetery. Gold Cemetery was neither golden nor a cemetery. It was a graveyard. Lyle knew the difference between the two; a graveyard was usually small, serviced a single town or church and was no longer in use. A cemetery was larger, interred more people and was still used. Lyle knew this difference because he came from a long line of either gravediggers and morticians. Lyle himself aspired to something more, but always felt as if it was a destiny he could never truly escape. When Lyle first arrived at the cemetery he found that there were four people there in total: Linda Stevenson, Axel Winters, Andrew Willard and, of course, himself. “Only four people?” Lyle asked as he sat down on the ground forming a half-assed circle with his new friends. “I thought there’d only be three,” Axel responded. “I’m surprised you showed up. I heard you don’t believe in any of this stuff.” “Who me? Oh, you know I love the strange and unexplainable.” Lyle said, feigning a smile at Linda who nodded in approval. “Then you will be pleased this evening. Tonight the four of us are going to contact the most notorious ghost in these parts,” Andrew began. “The ghost of…The Bloody Bastard.” Lyle was confused, he had never heard of any ghosts in his town let alone any with such a ridiculous name. “The Bloody who? What?” Lyle asked, attempting to remember if he had heard anything about this strange figure. “Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of the Bloody Bastard,” said Axel “The most famous ghost in the town. Everyone knows the story!” “Not me,” Lyle retorted with an air of confidence, knowing that the others must have been playing a trick on him. He never heard of any such thing from his father, grandfather or great-grandfather, all of whom were noted storytellers. “Well,” Andrew began “every tenth of June, especially if there’s a full moon, the Bloody Bastard roams Gold Cemetery…” Lyle felt the need to interrupt.“Graveyard. It’s a graveyard, because, well, you know…never mind.” “Anyway,” Axel picked up the story from where Andrew left off, “four-hundred years ago, when this town was run by Puritans, a woman had an affair, and a child out of wedlock. For that crime the Village elders condemned the woman and her lover to death. They were burned at the stake. And the child, the bastard child, was forced to live in the dirty town orphanage, where he was beaten, mocked and tortured daily because, after all, Puritans had no love for bastard children.” “I’m listening,” Lyle said, his head propped up by his hand. “Well, after he came of age he was released from the orphanage, but he was a cold-hearted man, intent for revenge on those who wronged him.” “What did he do?” Lyle asked, gaining interest in the story, though he still did not believe a word of it. “Why, what would you do in that situation? He murdered all the village elders, burning them alive as they had burned his parents many years before, and thus condemned himself to a hellish existence.” Andrew anxiously chimed in “Now get to the best part, the part about the burial and…” He was quickly interrupted by Linda who called out, “Shut up!” She then turned back to Axel and asked him to proceed with the story. “Ah, yes, when he was finally caught the townspeople had to decide what to do with this ‘Bloody Bastard’. The elders were dead, and no one could judge him. So they formed a lynch-mob and dragged him out into the street, blinding him, burning him and burying him alive, in this cemetery, in an unmarked grave.” Andrew was shaking with giddiness. “Oooh, this is the best part. Are you listening Lyle?” “Yes, I’m listening.” Lyle said, slightly annoyed at how giddy Andrew was acting. It was only a ghost story, and a rather clichéd one at that. Axel continued the story, “So, because he was blinded, he couldn’t find his way to hell, and he roams the earth, searching for his body, or a body he can possess.” With that, Axel finished the story and leaned back, as if telling the story had exhausted him in one way or another. “Wow, that story gets better every time, every time man, great story” Andrew applauded. “Yea, whatever. Seven generations of my family have not only worked in this town but in the towns’ graveyards and cemeteries; they’ve never mentioned �any “Bloody Bastard”, so to me, it’s just a bloody story” Linda spoke up “Tsk, tsk, tsk…remember the person who doesn’t believe always gets killed by the ghost.” She gave a quick laugh and Andrew and Axel followed. Lyle was less than amused, but kept it to himself. “Now now, don’t spoil the fun, Linda,” said Andrew. He then pulled a round object from his backpack. “What’s that thing?” Axel asked, looking at it quizzically. “This, my friends, is a soul orb, a soul communicator orb to be precise.” Andrew placed it in the center of the circle. Lyle moved to grasp the orb. “Yeah right. It looks like a bowling ball.” Andrew smacked his hand away before he could grab it. “It isn’t a bowling ball, you foolish unbeliever. Does anyone know that occult store on Billings Street?” A collective “no” came from the group. “Well, I got it there; the store owner said that it glows when a spirit wishes to make contact. Red when angry and green when content.” “Psh…I knew it, a scam alright” Lyle quickly grabbed the orb and examined it. “Where do you put the batteries in this thing?” he asked sarcastically. Andrew yanked it from his hands and placed it on the ground. “Don’t believe me? Just wait and see. Who wants to ask the first question?” “I will” Axel responded, clearing his throat. “Bloody Bastard, did that story I told make you happy?” The Orb began to glow a dim, fluorescent green. “This is so awesome,” Andrew blurted out. All Lyle could say was “Oh brother, are you all idiots.” At that the Orb began to glow red, blood red. It began thumping on the ground, bouncing under its own power, levitating and shaking in mid air. “Hey cut it out, it ain’t funny anymore!” Lyle said, covering his eyes, shielding them from the orb’s intense glow. “I ain’t doin’ anything. You just pissed off the Bloody Bastard, man!” Andrew shouted. The orb grew brighter, levitated higher and began making a pulsing, heart beat sound that started soft but grew louder. A few seconds later the orb exploded into a ball of flame. Lyle ducked for cover behind an old gravestone with Linda. Lyle began to breath normally again and the events of the past ten seconds played in his mind over and over. As he went over those scenes he began to laugh to himself. He turned his head around the stone to see where the “séance” had occurred. He laughed again, louder this time. The space was clear, tranquil, not at all the domain of a vengeful, murderous ghost. “What’s so funny?” Linda asked. “You and I. We were so foolish to fall for their prank.” “Prank? What do you mean?” “Oh, come on. ‘The Bloody Bastard?’ I knew that was nothing but a farce.” “Farce?” Linda asked as she brought her hand down on Lyle’s shoulder. “Oh, Lyle, how can you still be so dense?” “What are you talking about?” Lyle asked as he looked down at her hand and then back up at her. “I admit, their story was a bit fantastical, but what can one expect after a story has been circulating for over three-hundred years? Don’t get me wrong, there was a bastard child, but she was not blinded. No, she has perfect eyes to see her victims. How could it be otherwise?” Before Lyle could respond to her rather puzzling remark, he felt her grip grow tighter on his shoulder. He turned down to look at her hand once again, it had changed, and it was far more claw-like, with a thin layer of yellow and scarred flesh stretched over claw-like fingers. Her fingernails were cracked or broken off entirely. Breathless, Lyle shifted his gaze from her hand to her face. Her face, too, had changed; her hair was all but gone, replaced by a scalp that seemed freshly burned. Her eyes, once a pleasant blue, were bloodshot. Linda laughed and brought her other hand up to his shoulder. “Now do you believe in ghosts Lyle?” she asked with a contorted grin, flashing crooked and bloodstained teeth at him. Before he could even respond, she had set herself upon him. Even if he could have screamed, he wouldn’t have. That would giving the ghosts what they wanted, and Lyle didn’t believe in those sorts of things. �A Senior Prank Deleted Scene Jason Ritzke, Daniel Dausman [CAMERON, DAUSMAN, JACK and RITZKE enter, holding strange objects] JACK Assemble the candidates, so that they may hear the sacred liturgy! [The candidates are assembled] DAUSMAN Before the fall of Atlantis the Earth was ruled by reptilians from outer space. These godlike beings stood astride the world for a duration of a million bozars, or about three weeks, before they were utterly destroyed in a cataclysm caused by the atomic swerve. But before they fell, their written wisdom was carried to ancient Egypt (where they kept their spaceship landing pads) and become known to all the great minds of antiquity, such as Homer, Plato, and Alcibiades. King Solomon himself hid the last written copy under the Temple in Jerusalem, where it was mistaken for bathroom literature for over a thousand years before being rediscovered by the Knights of Saint John in the First Crusade as foretold by the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred. Their plans to bring enlightenment to the world were thwarted when Jerusalem was lost through the perfidy of the Knights Templar, and the Knights of Saint John were hounded through Europe by the Templars and their successors, the Freemasons and the Bavarian Illuminati. But they persevered, and after helping King William of Orange to the English throne to thwart the papist Stuart conspiracy he rewarded them with a haven in the New World. CAMERON Enter Samuel Kutler, an Elder of the illustrious order of the Knights of St. John, who, at the time of the chartering of King William's school, established a branch there as “The Esoteric Order of Leo Strauss”, uttering for the first time the holy words “I knew a man once...”. Not long did the order go unmolested, however, before the rise of the United States threatened the Knights of St. John, its new leaders consisting largely of freemasons. The Order, throwing in its lot with the anti-freemason party, wheathered the storm, but public opinion of the party waned, and we were forced into the public form of a mere frat. Further humiliation awaited us in the 60's, when the fraternities of St. John's were forced out of existence by secret actions of the Rothchilds and Swiss Bankers. We persisted in secrecy, and now, our time is come again, as we see a resurgence in the in freshman seduced by esoteric philosophy, due largely to the actions of that great and most incomprehensible of philosophers, Ayn Rand. RITZKE Only four have ever been in the inner circle of our order, one from each year, so as to maintain a perfect ratio of unity. Bring forth the candidates, that they may participate in the trials of the mind. RITZKE [asking stage questions of the candidates] Can virtue be taught, and if so by what tutors? What are Aristotle's secret guidelines for the prophetic reading of a sheep pluck? What is the 3rd person plural hortatory subjunctive of luo? What is the exact text of Kant's 3rd antinomy? Suppose truth were a woman? What then? [Regardless of answer, all of these earn a sudden “wrong” and a stage slap] RITZKE Since you have all failed abysmally the trials of the mind, we shall now subject you to a trial of the flesh. Bring forth the fleshpot! [Plastic containers of meat are set on stage] At the bottom of this chum bucket are the keys of Adam Smith. It is said that he who holds them will command the almighty invisible hand. He who retrieves them shall become our new initiate. Get them! [DAUSMAN, aside, whilst the candidates are rooting through the chum bucket] You know, that meat is %100 dis-enabled sophomores. You might even say that it's your old school chum. [candidate retrieves the keys] JACK In order to consecrate your induction into our most sacred order, and to celebrate our emergence, we will perform our most sacred ritual. Bro Cameron, bring forth the sacrificial prospie! CAMERON �We don’t have any prospies on senior prank night. Incidentally, I don’t think the administration likes it when we sacrifice them before they pay their tuition. JACK What! We always pay the fine on time! What are we going to do now? CAMERON It seems appropriate, on this special occasion, to make a more exalted sacrifice. JACK The sacrifice has been made. With the purified blood of this enlightened senior we bring you into the inner sanctum of our order and celebrate our orders emergence into the new dawn that awaits us! [The cult members throw off their uniforms, revealing their frat-boy outfits.] JACK Bro DAUSMAN, Beer me! [DAUSMAN snickers] [CAMERON, DAUSMAN and JACK turn to RITZKE] RITZKE Oh no. [DAUSMAN points off-stage] DAUSMAN Look, over there! [DAUSMAN hands Jack a beer. Jack steps to center stage and raises both his beer and sword above his head.] JACK Welcome, unenlightened wretches, to our new world! [to CAMERON] Perform the Cartesian mind trick, so that these proles do not remember our presence. [CAMERON, waving his hands at the audience]: You will doubt you ever saw this! [RITZKE, distracted]: What? [CAMERON, DAUSMAN and JACK stab RITZKE] [CAMERON, DAUSMAN and JACK exit dragging RITZKE] The Cat-Rabbit Kevin Finson’s fairy tale for those fond of quantum mechanics Once upon a time there was a rabbit. Her name was Amber (or Ἤλεκτρον). Amber was a very peculiar rabbit. In fact, she might not be a rabbit at all. This the story of a journey she once took, originally described in our Senior Lab Manual… Amber’s story begins in the laboratory of a scientist named Mr. Thomson; although Mr. Thomson didn’t call her Amber, he called her by a different name. Amber had to be discovered in a laboratory, you see, not simply observed in the wild like our ordinary quad-bunnies. This was because Amber is very small. In fact, she is many, many times smaller than anything you have ever seen. Unfortunately, the only way Mr. Thomson could observe a rabbit as small as Amber is was to gather her up with lots of her little friend-rabbits and throw them all across the room very, very fast. Amber didn’t like this very much, so she left Mr. Thomson behind and went to meet someone else. Several years later, Amber met a man called Mr. Millikan. Mr. Millikan did not engage in any of this silly throwing rabbits about, but rather observed Amber by letting her ride up and down on a very small drop of oil between two electrically charged plates, sometimes for hours at a time. By doing this over and over again and measuring how long it took Amber’s oil drop to go up and down Mr. Millikan made an amazing discovery. Amber was the fundamental unit of electrical charge! This means that Amber is the smallest electrical charge anywhere in the world and that all charges are multiples of her. Isn’t that an amazing thing for a rabbit to be? Eventually all that going up and down on oil drops gave Amber a stomachache, so she thought it was time to continue her journey. She next met a man named Mr. Rutherford, who told her that she shouldn’t run around by herself so much, but should rather run in circles around a much larger nucleus. Then she met a man named Mr. Bohr, who said she mustn’t run around the nucleus any way she liked, but now had to travel in certain paths at definite distances from the nucleus and wasn’t allowed to travel through the space in between these paths. Amber was confused by this, so she went looking for someone else to explain it to her. �Along the way she met a man named Mr. de Broglie who said she should be more like a cat, just because she had a cousin named Photon who seemed to be cat-like some of the time. Then Mr. de Broglie explained further that what she ought to do was spend all her time following around a very strange sort of cat which insisted on traveling faster than the speed of light. Now Amber can run very fast, as far as rabbits go, but no rabbit can go faster than the speed of light. That would be absurd! Amber got tired of trying to follow this absurd cat around all day, so she went looking for help from somebody else. Unfortunately for Amber, this notion of a cat just would not go away. Mr. Schrodinger thought that Amber may have really been a cat (or even a group of cats) all along, and Mr. Davisson even saw Amber climb a tree. Surely, you may say, rabbits don’t climb trees! But all along now we’ve been thinking that Amber was a rabbit. Is it possible that our friend the rabbit is really cat? Mr. Davisson didn’t think so, he even wrote down a list of all the reasons we have for knowing that she is a rabbit. Sadly, our Senior Lab manual here at St. John’s College sees fit to omit this portion of Mr. Davisson’s paper, so I will have to guess that he saw Amber doing something perfectly rabbit-like and not at all cat-like, such as eating lettuce. This tree-climbing business was still problematic, though, and led Mr. Davisson to declare that not only might Amber be a cat, but certain cats we know might be rabbits. Now Amber was more confused than ever. The last scientist she met on her journey was a man named Mr. Heisenberg. Mr. Heisenberg was a very strange man who told her that she was both a cat and a rabbit (although never at the same time). He devised an experiment where Amber had to first climb two trees (maybe at the same time) and then eat some lettuce, in order to prove his point. Because of this he said it was impossible to know where Amber was and how fast she was moving at the same time. At best one could determine Amber’s probability of being anywhere by asking the squared amplitude of a partially imaginary cat named Ψ. Even worse, now nobody was allowed to talk about anything happening to Amber when she wasn’t being looked at in Mr. Heisenberg’s apparatus: things could only happen to her when he was watching. Finally, Amber ran away from Mr. Heisenberg and found herself in the clutches of a three-headed monster! The three-headed monster was called The EPR, and he wasn’t really very monstrous. It’s just that when you have three heads everyone assumes you must be a monster, because if you weren’t a monster you would only have one head. Now The EPR thought that everything Mr. Heisenberg said was really quite silly and that he obviously hadn’t finished explaining Amber properly. Surely a complete account of a rabbit would tell you both where the rabbit is and how fast the rabbit is moving, The EPR said. This was when one of The EPR’s heads uttered the immortal words, “God does not make cat-rabbits and then play dice with them.” The EPR spent many years arguing furiously with Mr. Heisenberg, Mr. Bohr, and many other people about this. Unfortunately they all made so much noise with their shouting at one another that Amber got scared (as both cats and rabbits are wont to do) and ran straight out of the Senior Laboratory, leaving this Johnnie, for one, still very confused about what she is. Time Enough To Bleed Leonard Franks WARNING: The images described below may strike some with a cold terror that reaches deep into the bones; others may faint or be driven to madness. I assure you that this timeline is not a prediction; it is merely a possibility. A terrifying, terrifying possibility. 2012: The apocalypse comes. The sky turns to fire, the air to water, the earth to sky, and the water to blood. Two collections of humans survive the slaughter. One is in Santa Fe. The other is in Annapolis. 2013: The students of the two colleges notice that something has happened outside of the protective Johnny bubble. Graduated seniors are concerned for the lack of jobs, and the administration realizes that the complete lack of human population will drastically reduce admissions. 2015: The graduated classes begin to establish a primitive infrastructure curiously rich in massage therapists. The administration tries to encourage students to mate for the sake of future generations. In this endeavor, condoms are removed from halls, �rooms are shrunken, and The Oresteia is dropped from the program. People choose not to ask how the dining hall continues to serve food. 2027: Officially, peace is declared, marked by a huge both college seminar about Wittgenstein. Reconstruction begins. 2017: Among the dangers of humanity without laws, the Annapolis students choose a sovereign and form a kingdom based on the principals of Thomas Hobbes. The Santa Fe students, who thanks to excessive marijuana use are more or less immune to the dangers of humanity without laws, split into graduated classes and form a republic based on Plato. The two communities live peacefully, but separately. 2028: Reconstruction ends. The Johnny mentality is suddenly unleashed in full blast by the end of the war, which people see as a triumph of reason. Productive labor is completely replaced by the search for truth, virtue, or a proof that those seeking truth and virtue are morons. Meanwhile, penguins in Antarctica form a representative democracy, but that is a different story. 2018: The last students graduate from both campuses. While awaiting the next freshman class, the campuses build up a monopoly on books, thus establishing themselves as quasi-religious powers. The President is officially given the power to marry graduates. 2019: The infrastructures of both campuses improve. Pastries and couches are invented. Diplomatic relations, however, remain cold. 2023: The golden age of the two colleges is reached. Literature and philosophy flourish. People begin to believe that the St. John’s college education, with its focus on improving the students, may actually lead to a superior world. They are wrong. 2024: Inevitably, war breaks out between Santa Fe and Annapolis. Ostensibly it is a question of defending land, but it is well known that it in fact concerns whose Ptolemy stone is cooler. After a meeting, it is decided that the war will be decided by a giant game of Spartan Madball. Unfortunately, due to the lack of official rules, the game drags on for three years. 2029: Society begins to fragment. Since all of the people are educated in the art of taking radically different philosophies on equal footings, most of the breaks are on entirely petty grounds, but with nothing but rational discourse and debate to heal the wounds, they are not healed. 2030: A very brief period of union is created when a group of elders conquers the entire polity. But due to drunkenness and poor administration, this mayfly government perishes one day after it was created. This bloodless revolution is known as Senior Prank. 2032: It has now become practically impossible to hold a meaningful conversation without spending at least an hour beforehand defining terms. There is no system of law except for trust in the virtue of the citizens. Unfortunately, all of the people have read through the texts of senior year. Mass chaos erupts along with a complete apathy towards it. One student described life aptly as “solitary, poor, nasty, literate, and short.” 2033: A freshman year class arrives at St. John’s and is immediately isolated by the Johnnie bubble. Are they the new hope of the world, or the promise of worse to come? Draft of a Failed Twilight Zone Script Marco Damiano (Opening shot of a college campus. A man walks up the stairs to the quad and crosses into the dining hall. After he getting his food he sits down at a table full of people talking. A girl sees him sit down.) GIRL: Let's ask Billy. What do you think Billy? (Billy looks up from his food) BILLY: I don't really follow the news. GIRL: Well they say it's over a thousand times more powerful than the A-bomb. (Billy stares out the window looking disinterested). BILLY: Really. BILLY: Huh? Think about what? GIRL: The quadium bomb. What else? (Billy looks away.) GIRL: Yeah! They say it-(Suddenly Billy's eyes widen. Cut to the wall of the dining hall. It looks different then before, now it is blown to pieces and outside is �showing, also looking desolate and blasted. Cut back to the girl talking.) GIRL: -blow up a continent!...Are you ok? (Billy shakes his head and looks at the wall again. It is back to normal. Billy turns to the girl confusedly.) BILLY: Yeah, yeah Gwen, I'm fine...must not have gotten enough sleep. What were you saying. BOY 2: Yeah Billy, I figured you would be more excited. (Billy looks at him questioningly). BILLY: What are you talking about. (Boy 1 gives Billy knowing look). BOY 1: Come on, you think we haven't noticed. BILLY: Noticed what? GWEN: Just that they say that quadium has three neutrons and no protons or electrons, and that's how it has such tremendous power. (Suddenly another boy chimes in.) BOY: And I've been trying to tell her that's ridiculous! Such an element would be too unstable to exist- (The table again explodes into conversation. Billy gradually begins to look more comfortable. Move camera to Rod Serling standing to the right of the table, smoking a cigarette. He looks at the camera.) ROD: Meet Billy Wachowski, a young boy living in an old world. A world of bricks and books and perhaps even bombs. But soon enough Billy Wachowski will find out just how old his world is, a discovery that can only be made in...The Twilight Zone. (Cut to Billy walking down the steps to a field later. As he reaches the bottom step he pauses. Cut to a scene of him and Gwen on the field looking up.) GWEN: It's a beautiful night. BOY 2: Oh don't play dumb with us Billy. The way she's been looking at you, the way you two have been spending time together, what do you think we're talking about? You and Gwen. You know she'll be here. (Billy smiles quietly and shakes his head). BILLY: Knock it off guys, we're almost there. (They enter into a large room full of people socializing. The party is fairly tame but some are drinking and it is hard to hear over the music and the talking. Billy and his friends go over to the food table and start talking to some people. Gwen is with her friends in a corner. Billy looks at her, she glances his way as she is talking. The party goes on for awhile and as it does so the two continue to share glances.) (It is night now, the party is still going on. Billy is now alone talking to someone else while Gwen sits on the couch, still with friends. He looks like he is barely paying attention to the man, who is holding a beer and seems somewhat drunk.) (Cut back to Billy, once again shaking his head vigorously and mumbling.) MAN: So, so, so I tells him, I tells him that it's a lovely house, shame that it's going to get destroyed soon though. (Billy, suddenly attentive, turns to the man). BILLY: Really need to get some sleep. BILLY: What do you mean. (Cut to Billy lying in bed that night. He stares up at the ceiling for a few minutes recalling the images he saw. Finally he rolls over and attempts to fall asleep.) MAN: Whadyamean, whadyamean? Haven't you heard? With this new U-bomb thingamajig, or was it V-Bomb? W-Bomb? (Shot of the next day. Billy and his friends are walking to across the field to a building.) BILLY: Q-bomb. BOY 1: I can't tell you guys how excited I am for this. I haven't had time to relax in ages. BOY 2: I hear ya, it's been nothing but work work work lately. This party is what everyone needed. (Billy nods his head.) BILLY: Yeah, should be good. BOY 1: What, that's all you have to say? “Should be good.” MAN: Anyway, with is new Y-bom thingamajig, it's only a matter of time before we all die. Might as well live it up now, that's what I always says. (The man staggers a bit before holding up his foaming beet and takes a drink from it.) MAN: Did you know that they say it can wipe out a whole continent. And even if the Russians or the Iranians or Chinese don't get it they can't be too happy that we do. Yesiree, only a matter of time I say. Only a matter of time until a loud sound flying overhead and then Bo-(Billy angrily interrupts.) �BILLY: Shut up! Will you please, shut up! (Suddenly everything stops, and all the guests turn to look at Billy.) I was having a pleasant time, no troubles, and then you had to come with your stupid doomsday tales! (The man looks taken aback.) MAN: Sorry man, I was just trying to make- (Billy does not stop). BILLY: So.... GWEN: Yeah...(After a few minutes of awkward silence Billy smiles and looks at the stars. Gwen eventually does the same. They watch in silence for a while. Then overheard the sound of airplanes are heard.) GWEN: It's a beautiful night. BILLY: There is no Q-bomb, and there is no threat of nuclear annihilation! That ended years ago, can't you see that you drunken buffoon! Do I have to spell it out for you people! Read my lips. THERE. IS. NO. QUADIUM. BOMB! (He stops and looks around, noticing how everyone is looking at him. He stops when he sees Gwen staring as well. Billy quickly turns around and storms out, grabbing his coat on the way. Cut to Billy standing on the grass looking at the sky.) GWEN: Hey. (Billy turns around. Gwen is standing behind him. He looks at the ground.) BILLY: Hey. (Gwen also looks downward). GWEN: I...I saw what happened in there. (She look at him( Wanna talk about it? BILLY: Not really. GWEN: Oh. Ok (She looks sadly downwards again.) BILLY: It's just...just- (Gwen stares at him expectantly. After a few minutes Billy starts to look at the sky again and sighs.) It's just that things are going so well. School is good, friends are good, I even have a chance at...at...(He looks at Gwen. She does not look away)...at having a bright future. (Billy starts to get really worked up) And now all I hear about is “Quadium bomb this. Continental destruction that.” It's infuriating. I was hoping to get away from it at the party tonight, and I was before that....that...that drunken oaf got involved, and now I made a fool of myself in front of everyone, in front of yo- (Gwen kisses Billy on the lips. They separate and Billy looks at her dumbfounded.) GWEN: Billy, shut up. BILLY: Yes ma'am. (He pulls her in for a longer kiss. Finally they separate. Gwen looks slightly embarrassed and looks down while Billy looks away.) BILLY: Yeah, you said it. (Suddenly Billy's eyes grow wide. He turns and looks at Gwen, who is still transfixed on the sky.) BILLY: What....what did you just say? (Suddenly there is a loud explosion and the earth shakes viokently.) (Cut to morning. Billy is wearing the same clothes, now looking disheveled and ripped. He stands up to find the campus destroyed, looking quite like how he saw it in the dining hall. Where Gwen was there now is a pile of rubble. Show Billy wandering around, dumbstruck and shocked. As he makes his way up the steps to the quad though the buildings start to change into more and more how they used to look in the first scene, and Billy becomes less and less shocked. Finally as he walks to the top things look as they once did, and Billy looks normal, in dress and demeanor. As he enters the dining hall people slowly begin to form out of nothing. By the time he gets his food the building is full of noise. He sits down at a table and a girl looks at him.) GIRL: Let's ask Billy. What do you think Billy? (Billy smiles.) (Move to Rod Serling, who is standing nearby with hands behind in his pockets. He turns to address to the camera.) ROD: There you have it folks. Billy Wachowski was boy who dreamed of a bright future. A future free of war, death, and all the things in between. A world where he could live with those closest to him in peace. What he got was the next best thing. He got a future so bright it blinded him to the past; a past which he now relives, day after day, week after week, in...The Twilight Zone. �Hardin Loveless: Campus Security Officer A defective tale by Jack Farrell Name’s Hardin Loveless. I’m an Officer with the SJCPS (Saint John’s College Public Safety), one of the toughest beats this side of the Mason Dixon. Yeah, I been working the night shift here since the fall of ’87, ever since the case at SJU went bad. But I don’t like to think about that night…Nights on the SJC beat can get pretty heavy. Writing up drunken freshman and letting people back into their dorm rooms ain’t the cakewalk that it sounds like, let me tell you, buster. I remember once I had to walk all the way from Gilliam to McDowell alone when my walkie-talkie was out of batteries. That meant I had no way to call for backup, and nothing to protect me but the snow boots my grandmother gave me for Chanukah. This wasn’t high-school security I was dealing with, this was the real deal. This was the SJC. I did a lot for the polity, and it asked for a lot. Protecting the law was what I was born for, and the SJC called out for defense. Every night I answer that call. April 14th was a night like that. I was sittin’ in my office (well it was the security office, but I would have my own office if the college could afford the space), sipping a cup of coffee. It was a lonely night that night, and the coffee was stale. It was as cold and stale as my feelings for my ex-wife Janine. A tall, thin blonde walked in, sashaying the two feet from the door to my desk. Well, she would have been tall, thin and blonde, if she weren’t a short, stocky redhead. She had a look on her face that would bring a centipede to its knees. All two hundred of them. I had seen it before and I knew exactly what it meant: she had a case for me. Her voice eked out like an alto’s song during freshman chorus. “Uh, hey. I lost my keycard, and I was wondering if maybe somebody found it and turned it in here?” This was a sob story I’d heard a hundred times before in a thousand different languages, and I knew just how to deal with it. I put my coffee down and gave the girl a long, hard stare, just to let her know she wasn’t dealing with no two-bit street walker. I’d been spun over by too many fast-talkers to be played for a patsy by some college girl. I was the real deal, and she was about to find out. “So kid,” I said, laying on the Bogart real thick, “Someone biffed your cud, and now you’re on my turf looking for sanctuary. Well before you come running into my office like a French hunchback, let me lay something down for you: you go thinkin’ you can lay me out you better turn right around and march back to the Court of Miracles, cause this gargoyle don’t sing. So go ahead and start talkin’, but watch what you say or you won’t be ringing that bell come senior year.” The dame was as dumbstruck as that deer that I hit in my Fiat last week. “Uh, okay. Maybe I should just…come back later.” Now I had the broad roped like a Christmas tree on the roof of my car. She knew where she stood, and the only thing left was to put her in my living room and cover her in dangly lights. “Hold up there, kid. Let’s have you sit down and spill your sob story. Maybe before the night’s out I can break some appropriate heads and find you a new place to set your jives.” The skirt was still as confused as a Frenchman in a soap store, but she wasn’t going anywhere. She knew the best Security Officer on the beat was sitting in front of her in his vomit-proof boots, and she knew I was the only hope she had of getting justice in this town. “Well,” she said, “it’s just like I said before. I lost my keycard, and I thought maybe someone found it and turned it in here. My name is Alex Vance, and I’m a Junior.” I gave the kid another one of my patented scrutinizing stares (Okay, I admit the patent is pending, but you still can’t use it without written authorization). Alex Vance? Seemed legit. I’d seen enough fake IDs and heard enough pseudonyms to be able to tell when someone was trying to pull one over on me. “Okay kid. I’ll see what I can do.” I opened my (okay, the school’s) desk, and started looking through the keycards that had been turned into the PS in the past week. Second from the top was the oven-jockey that had just recently stalked her way into the office. I slid it across the desk for her, making sure to watch her hands for any tricks. “You’re in luck, kiddo. Looks like your story is straight. Here’s your key to the kingdom. Now don’t let me see you around here again unless you’re obeying the law.” Ms. Vance grabbed the card and left the office, looking confused. She was probably wondering how I was able to solve her case so quickly. But that was my job. I close cases. I protect the polity. Because I’m Hardin Loveless: Campus Security. And this was just the beginning. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Swarm Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library Description An account of the resource Student publication that began publication in 2011. Click on <a title="The Swarm" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=33">Items in The Swarm Collection</a> to view and sort all items in the collection. Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data paper Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 11 pages Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Swarm, Issue #1 Description An account of the resource Issue 1 of The Swarm. Published in May 2011. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2011-05 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College owns the rights to this publication. Type The nature or genre of the resource text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context swarm issue 01 2011-05-15 Student publication https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/a5c588d1f0b5727339732e714a8356b9.pdf 74c5e4668d7c93705c36584d21516370 PDF Text Text �INTO lliiS WILD ABYS S . . . ZakFrey We crest the line of hills just as the full moon is rising over the distant mountains, huge and orange and dusky through the pall of smoke and ash that blankets the sky and blots out all but a few faint, cold stars. Below us, and as far as the eye can see, straight out to the miles-distant horizon where the mountains stand in stark, black silhouette against the dull glow of the rising moon, the night is on fire. It's like looking out over hell. The night air is bitterly cold, but even as we draw our coats more tightly around us, hunch our shoulders and turn up our collars against the chill, a burning wind whips up off the battlefield, stinging our eyes, burning our throats raw, and bringing with it the sounds of the tumult below. The deep, droning hum of zeppelins and the whine of low flying aircraft, always followed immediately by the staccato bass thud thud thud of the forty-millimeter anti-air batteries. The grating roar of tank coax guns, the heavy whump of the hundred and-five millimeter artillery cannons that you can feel like a punch to the chest out to a hundred yards. And through it all, sometimes audible, sometimes not, the constant, quiet crackle of small-arms fire. Another blast of wind from below scalds our faces and eyes, and this time the wind carries with it the charnel smells of war. The acrid, cordite stench of gunpowder, the throat-burning reeks of scorched flesh and burning fuel and the strange, sickly sweet tang of magical fallout, all mixed together and carried up to us on the back of that blistering wind. To the north, and several miles distant, a massive flying fortress-city hangs ominously over the rolling hills, nearly invisible against the dark sky save for the occasional illumination provided by star shells and anti air flak. Down from the floating behemoth arcs a long trail of orange fire, a burst from one of the massive thirty-five millimeter gatling cannons, the stream of tracers so dense it looks like a solid, curving beam of light. A moment later, the sound reaches us, a grating, tearing roar like the sky itself is being ripped apart at the seams. We stand for a long moment on the hilltop, silhouetted against the last blood red glow of evening, looking down over the scene stretched out below, our purpose forgotten, our minds amazed in the face of the sheer, awful enormity of the hellscap e before us. Then, down the line, someone shouts something, the words indistinct over the clamor, but the meaning all too clear. Mechanically, we check our weapons and for a moment, the night resounds with the clockwork chorus of the tools of war, a brief, discordant hymn to an ancient and insatiable god. More shouted orders, wordless but understood. We descend into hell. THETATTOO rov avrov She stared in the mirror at the tattoo above her left breast again for the seventh time that day, but she still could make no sense of it. She bit her lip and squinted her eyes as if that would make things clearer, but she had already tried that. When she spoke before the village tonight she had no idea what she would say about her new tattoo. She had never been unprepared to interpret before. Her tattoos had always been especially clear. Everyone in her village got the prophetic tattoos which spontaneously appeared on one's body and foretold the future, but her tattoos were so unusually clear and understandable that she had been the de facto leader of the nightly councils since she was young. No one looked to their own tattoos anymore. The people relied on clear interpretations of her tattoos to decide what - 1 - �to plant and when, to arrange marriages, to plan trade missions with the other villages-no decision, grave or trivial, was made unless a tattoo told them to make it. Her tattoos where not only lucid but beautiful as well, and this one was no different. She looked at it for the eighth time. It was a labyrinthine mandala with nine concentric rings done in gold, blue, and black. The lines varied between high and low contrast as they traced the path to the center of the labyrinth. In the center was a gold and orange sun. 'Pretty,' she thought, 'but useless unless I can interpret it.' She considered two choices: she could tell her village that she didn't know what the sign meant, or she could feign certainty and give them her best guess. Or would it really be guessing? She could look at the state of the village as it was now without certainty about the future. She could make a judgment and simply decide, without certainty, what they should do. She could be a leader to her people. She stared again at the tattoo and focused on the sun in the center. The rays were done in an intricate pattern that seemed to rotate as she passed her eye over them. W hen she stared fixedly they ceased to move, but then the labyrinth around it started to squirm. The image meant nothing to her, and she was running out of time to do anything about it. 'Maybe I haven't lost the gift. Maybe it's a warning. Maybe the future has become too complicated to read,' she thought. It seemed to her that this interpretation was no better than her gift having simply left her. She put her blouse back on and stepped outside. She stood in the middle of the circle her neighbors made. expectant smile deepening the creases in her worn face. father to do it?,' she thought. She saw her mother among them, her 'What will mother do witho,ut me to tell her and She saw her neighbors, the miller and the baker, stare at her with arched eyebrows and upturned mouths. They were all waiting. 'Will everyone simply go back to trying to read their own tattoos for themselves?' The thought made her frown. 'They need,' she thought, 'they need me to tell them. To tell them . . ' . After a deep breath, she told them. VIRGIN GROUND Jack Farrell In 2087, Plez-Tech broke new ground with its proposal for a new line of sex-bots set for mass production. The market had already been more than saturated with women and men of all conceivable races, builds, and sizes, so with waning stock prices they went for the only option left with an as yet untouched market: Plez-Tech announced its new line of child sized bots and the world caught fire. The Mini line was marketed with the idea that they would fulfill a need society had been trying to fill for millennia: a way to keep pedophiles away from its children. "If we can't stop the urge," the marketers said "why don't we at least focus it away from real children? It's the safe, responsible decision." And they were only too happy to profit from it. W hile media flare ups claiming that these machines would only encourage pedophilic behavior and churches of every denomination denounced the line with their loudest and most virulent caterwauls, millions of private orders started coming in to Plez-Tech through a system that was guaranteed to be efficient and confidential. Paul Donahue, chief programmer for Plez-Tech's AI department, refused to do the project at first. "I'm telling you now what I told you when you wanted to do that 'Firm Resistor' line before it got scrapped: there are things I'm not comfortable programming. A child either enjoying sex or being raped falls pretty well under that heading." - 2 - �James Flemming, his boss, knew this was coming. And he knew exactly what to say to it. "I know how you feel, but this is going through one way or another. And there are people who would be happy to do this sort of thing. If you leave, I have to start working with them. And I really don't want to." The sincerity of his voice told Paul he meant it, and he agreed to the project on two conditions: that his involvement would be kept confidential, and that he would get enough of the profits that he would not have to work for the next several lifetimes. He got both without a fight. Allegations of pedophilia were thrown against the CEOs, a few of which turned out to be true, but the project continued on with full steam. Protests were held, factories were bombed, and the unions asked for more than a few concessions because of the emotional strain of what they were creating. They got them in spades, and Plez-Tech got their machines. But so did millions. By 2088, the Mini line was in full manufacture. AI patches were being clamored for on (what the users hoped were) underground message boards. New and exciting additions were being proposed for the line, including the ability to order a model with a specific school uniform, and a map function was being put in place so users could more easily identify the names of local elementary schools. The risky venture appeared to be paying off. The stigma was not washed away, of course. Marriages were ruined when Minis were found. Hundreds lost tl1eir lives when Anonymous 2.0 hacked company records and distributed the names of purchasers. A famous child actress committed suicide when she found a model in her image hidden in her father's closet. But the money kept coming in. The minis kept selling because people wanted them. WAY D OWN BE LOW THEOCEAN, WHE I WANT TO BE RE H. P. Legomenon "Viscubacter edo?" murmured Reynard. He looked across the table and found that Dr. Solomon's eyes lit up, and in that moment he knew that this job couldn't possibly be good. "W hat does it do?" he asked wearily, rubbing under his eye. "It's an anaerobic flesh-eating bacteria," she said, "that glows." "Well," said Isabelle, "at least we can see it coming." Professor Lake smiled encouragingly at them from across the table. "I hope this doesn't change your interest in the job?" It did. Oh, how it did. Notwithstanding the doctor, who had stars in her eyes, glowing, flesh-eating bacteria completely changed the game--no one was getting their flesh eaten on Reynard's watch. On the other hand, the mods the ship would require would have to be utterly ingenious, and the money wasn't exactly bad. Reynard weighed it in his mind, flesh-eating bacteria against a chance to design more brilliant and more ambitious changes for his ship. Bacteria, design. Bacteria ... design. "Not at all," he announced. "We'll take it." "This is very, very stupid," said Isabelle. "Can't disagree there," Charles added. "You say this thing eats flesh?" "That doesn't seem like the sort of thing we'd want on the ship," Amy said in a doubtful tone. "Your arguments are reasonable and shall be taken into consideration," Reynard nodded. having considered them, we're still doing this. Get in now or clear out your bunk." Nobody moved. - 3 - "Now, �"This 1s how we're gomg to make the Geryon a "Right," he said, unrolling the blueprints. submarine." Charles exploded. ''You can't be serious!" he shouted. "There are so many things wrong with this idea! The ship is built to withstand one atmosphere or less, not upwards of fifty! And we don't have a way of sealing off the interior to make it waterproof, besides the fact that it'll damp the fans and flood the engines and then we'll never get it going--besides the fact that we've got nowhere to put the steam--!" "That's where you're wrong," Reynard said, tapping the blueprints. "The ship's already waterproof. It's airtight, in fact." "I found a family of squirrels living in the vent last week," Jules pointed out. "Well that's what happens when you leave a door or window open too long, doesn't it, Doctor?" Reynard said in a tone of mild reproach. "I thought we'd already hashed this out," she said with a small, sheepish pout. "Moving on," the captain continued. ''As long as we don't open anything unduly, we'll have no troubles--although of course we'll need to rig an air lock for the diving bell." ''And the fans?" "That," Reynard said with a smile, "is a work of genius." W hile Reynard and Charles worked on the ship, the others enjoyed a little bit of shore leave. Amy went to the bookshop to collect what they had in the way of deep-sea biology and underwater exploration. A French book about a nameless captain seemed to be the one with the greatest wealth of help in the current endeavor, and she read it cover to cover and took it to the captain with great enthusiasm. Dr. Solomon took Mr. Magihana off to the pharmacist and the medical supply shop to stock up. There had been no serious injuries yet, but she was enthusiastic that this would be the one. She would pick Jules up and throw her at a shark, if that's what it took to get her a chance at healing bite wounds. Jules and Isabelle shopped, and they shopped hard. It was a foregone conclusion that they were going to be underneath the waves for a bare minimum of a week, and Jules could scarcely stand the idea of suffering both a lack of sunlight and wretched provisions. They purchased a large basket of oranges and enough spice to make whatever creatures of the deep they caught tasty. Reynard barred everyone from the cargo hold, claiming that that was 'where the magic was happening.' The magic had to do with the fans, was certain--presumably some type of propulsion mechanism was being inserted. No one took the time to ask, although they cast him some odd looks. During the day he partitioned off the mess to work on the floor there. Perhaps the mechanism took up more space than they'd originally thought. All that was sensibly clear was that Isabelle had to cook in Dr. Solomon's lab with a bunsen burner and was consequently rather unhappy. Reynard soon threw a tarp over it and declared it open for traffic. In a week, the captain assembled his crew in the hold. They were already floating out on the water, and to everyone's great surprise they had yet to sink. How long this luck could hold, no one knew, but it was impressive enough in its own right. "Behold," Reynard said rather dramatically, and began pulling on the brown tarp that covered most of the floor. Everyone obligingly stepped off, and there came some startled gasps. There was a five-inch glass plate where the floor used to be, and through it they could glimpse down into the shallow depths of the harbor. Reynard and Charles grinned hugely, apparently having become - 4 - �united in their conception of what was possible--indeed, desirable--in a submarine through the long hours of working on it. Dr. Solomon immediately strode out onto the floor, gazing down and looking for new specimens to add to her collection of monsters-in-formaldehyde. Jules squawked and bolted for solid floor. It wasn't that she didn't trust its thickness, necessarily. Her rational mind was quite aware that the glass was perfectly thick enough to keep out the water, but the rest of her was mute with the horrific prospect of walking right into the briny abyss. She was gratified to see that Amy stepped back as well, looking a little paler for her trouble. ''You made a glass-bottomed submarine?!" cried Isabelle. ''Why?!" Reynard blinked, as if he hadn't been expecting quite such a ridiculous question: "Because it's never been done before." "Neither has swallowing oneself feet-first in an attempt to turn oneself inside out, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea!" Isabelle despaired. ''What if it crumples? What if it cracks?" "Then we are in a world of trouble, because whatever is big enough to crack five inches of glass is more than enough to cause us other problems besides that," Reynard said reasonably. He tapped a pleased foot on the glass. "Besides which, the glass is caulked on there so well that you'd be hard-pressed to find a beast alive that could pop it. It's going to work brilliantly. Naturalists will be clamoring for it, and we can sell the patent for a hefty bundle indeed." Isabelle knew, of course, that there was nothing to be done. going to work, they were trapped. out. If the captain was quite sure this was The only other option would be to get back to shore and wait this one She didn't much fancy that idea, since that would require her to own up to giving a damn about their current situation, and it was a personal rule of hers to avoid giving a damn whenever possible. She fidgeted futilely for a cigarette and shrugged her shoulders. "Fine," she said, oblivious to the two women behind her who were trying to stare anywhere but at the floor. "If it will hold, I suppose everything else will be fine." "Exactly," Reynard said with enormous cheerfulness. "Now then, for our final trick. .." He gestured to Charles, who took tl1e steps two at a time to reach the second level, and they heard his boots above their heads, in the mess. The tarp was pulled off of the floor, and they found themselves looking at a glass ceiling. "My kitchen!" It was, Reynard explained blithely, pointless to have a glass-bottomed submarine out of which no one could see. How often did they spend their time in the cargo hold, after all? But this way, tl-1ey got an extraordinary view of their journey without the slightest inconvenience, from the comfort of their highly popular mess table. They kept the glass floor of the cargo bay clear, since they were carrying almost nothing at the moment and could afford the aesthetics. The next day they began the descent. THECHA1EAU Kurt T. Strom Things had not gone according to plan. True, I had successfully scaled the stone wall surrounding the old manor house, and successfully broken one of the many Gothic windows of the Chateau. But it was' in climbing into the building that I ran -5- �into some trouble. I snagged my left foot on the windowsill and tripped, slicing my leg on broken glass in the process, and twisted my ankle slightly. I was undeterred, though, in my quest for, what I had heard described as: "The Greatest Hidden Hoard in The Southern Valley. " Let me bring you up to speed. I had long been studying the history of Southern France, and in my studies I encountered many varying legends surrounding the family who once owned the Chateau. The name of the lord has long been forgotten, but the stories of the fabulous wealth he amassed before his death, a death which occurred at his own hands, were extremely prevalent and, in my mind, most likely true. The legend says that Lord . . . something or other taxed his subjects mercilessly. This was in the years leading up to the French Revolution, when decadence and greed were unparalleled. The miserly lord hoarded all the treasures and gold that he had, in all things but name, stolen from the people. Apparently, near to the Revolution, the local populace, by that point very tired and hungry, besieged the Palace· to take back what was rightfully theirs. Sensing his demise, the lord murdered all of his servants and killed his wife and son, before plunging a dagger into his own heart. When the people saw the carnage the mad lord had inflicted on his family and the savage look in the eyes of his soulless husk, all of them were at once terrified and relieved. They plundered what they could from the manor house, but over time many of the peasants who stole items got sick and died, and superstition overcame the villagers. The survivors soon returned any items they could to their rightful places and sealed up the Chateau. For nearly two hundred and twenty years the manor house sat derelict, almost forgotten, the stories of the gold dismissed as legend or myth. But I knew better. I knew that the true hoard still remained, a hoard that must have been worth millions in the lord's own day, and untold amounts today. That was why I sought the Chateau. That was why I broke in. As I trekked through the dense forest, heading towards the setting sun, I began to see the Great Clock Tower of the Chateau rise from the dark green canopy. The closer I came to the manor house the more I hungered to be inside of it. I came to a clearing and saw the building in all its majesty, as fresh as the day it was abandoned. I was awestruck by the beauty of the exterior, which was adorned with bas-relief carvings and marble statuary, a mixture of Baroque styles and flair with sturdy Gothic masonry. After I had sliced my leg tumbling through one of the windows, I was faced with a contrast. The inside of the manor house was a wreck; the floor was covered in a layer of moss which gave nourishment to vines growing up the walls and any remnants of furniture. As I wandered about the many rooms of the once well-kept domicile I found myself overcome by a stench of rotting flesh and fresh animal droppings. Yet, I knew my prize was worth any damage to my body, physical or mental. I had no fears of ghosts; I had no superstitions or beliefs in spirits or a hereafter. But, needless to say, I was grateful for the rampant superstition of others. I hobbled about the old maison, certain that the treasure would be in the one place no one would disturb: the master bedroom, the scene of the murders, and the very bed on which the Lord had committed suicide. As the sun set, the manor house became dark, and the full moon was the only source of illumination. I hastened my search for an egress from the ground floor. I eventually found a very long staircase that spiraled up to the upper levels of the house, where, I knew I would find the treasure I sought. Slowly, on account of my leg, I ascended the staircase, carefully taking each marble step. I marveled at the beauty of the house, lamenting its current state. "Perhaps, " I thought to myself, "I will buy this building, and the land, when I am wealthy." I smiled as I came to the landing and saw several doors before me. One of them had an extra board bolted to its front. A crucifix, tarnished but still silver, was nailed to it. I knew I was facing the room of death, the room of treasure. I approached the barricaded door. - 6 - I had come prepared for such an event. I pulled a �crowbar out of my back-pack and set to work on the barricade. It was not easy work, and my leg was killing me, but I soldiered on. As I worked at the plank of wood I thought I heard a noise from the hall. I called out "Who are you?" But then, as quickly as I had said the words, I regretted saying them. I knew better than to suspect any ghosts or ghouls, and I was certain no one was researching the history mythology and folklore of one Chateau in southern France. As I stated, I was intrepid in my task. I went back to work and after several minutes of pulling, prying and splintering the wood I was faced with the true door of the Master's Chamber. I fiddled with the door-latch. It was still locked. The door went quicker than the barricade and a warm wind blew out of the room. Two hundred year old air rushed past my face, choking me with its staleness. My grandmother has always told me that stale air was "The air of Ghosts, and the stench of Spirits," but I am sure she would have changed her attitude if she had known what I was soon to find. At the foot of the bed was a chest. I opened it and saw before me what I had dreamed about, what I had known was there, the gold, the jewels, the secret hoard, the Cache of Lord something-something. I plunged my hand into the gold coins and let them fall into the chest. The *clink-clink-clink* of the coins filled me with a greedy satisfaction, a lustful sense of accomplishment. I picked up great handfuls of the gold and gems and threw them into my bag. As I did, I once again heard a sound from behind me. Again, I turned; again I saw nothing, and, out of pride and a strange sense of courage, I refused to call out. Instead I went back to the treasure, filling my bag with more gold than I could ever spend in a lifetime. As I shoveled the gold into my bag a sudden shadow fell over the box, and over me. I turned 'round to see myself face to face with a black shade, a formless ghost from the depths of hell. I suddenly felt a new feeling, I felt terror, reader; I felt pure dread. I stood up quickly as the shade reached its hand towards me; I grabbed the backpack and was nearly pulled down by its weight. I slung it over one shoulder, causing a new pain to rise there, and moved as quickly as I could past the ghost and out the door. In the chaos I had forgotten about my wounded foot and brought my left foot down sharply on the marble staircase. It finally snapped under the new weight and awkward step and I tumbled down the staircase. When I came to my vision was blurred and my entire body was in pain. I could neither lift my arms nor move my head. My neck must have twisted in the fall, for I was paralyzed. I saw the shadow come near to me, and I braced for my demise. The black being stood directly over my body, put its hand to its head and pulled off a black mask. It was no ghost, it was a man, like me, a greedy adventurer, and, though I loathe admitting to it, this treasure-seeker was far craftier than I. "I must thank you. You saved me the trouble of getting into that door by force." The man said. I did not respond. I could not speak. "I would share some of the profit with you, but, alas, you seem to be without any need for it." He smiled and picked up my backpack. "Next time," he said with a wicked grin "don't be so superstitious." He began to walk off. I heard his footsteps grow fainter and my vision became blacker. The blackness surrounded me, and the pain ceased. Things had not gone according to plan. MA TCHES Slaya Nemoy Connor blew out a stream of frosted air and glanced at Theoden who was hugging himself for warmth and looking around the street apprehensively. - 7 - �"Puck, where is the old man?" Theoden muttered. "Right here." The two young soldiers glanced hurriedly behind them. Leaning against the brick wall of the tavern was an elderly man dressed in an old fashioned military tunic. He was completely bald on top, a stark contrast to the yellowing muff that concealed his chin, and even this late at night he wore shaded glasses. The two soldiers snapped to attention and saluted smartly. Even though the old man could not see the gesture, he could hear it. ''At ease, gentlemen," the old man said standing up straight and tapping a slim, silver topped cane on the ground. The soldiers relaxed, slightly. "Begging your pardon, sir, but what took you so long?" Theoden asked. "Things," the old man said vaguely. He tapped his cane in front of him and moved forward with an ease that suggested he understood the terrain better then he let on, better than most who could see it clearly. "Shall we sojourn?" The old man walked purposefully out of the alley and into the street. Connor and Theoden followed at a respectful distance, until the old man stopped. "Don't dawdle behind, I do not care for formalities at this time in the night," the old man said pointedly. The two hurried to catch up and they continued down the street together. Connor walked right next to the man, while Theoden hung back slightly keeping a careful watch on the town. The ruckus of the day was milder at this time of night, but there were still remnants of the fighting being enacted by drunken brutes. The noise level was still high, the taverns all lit, as those who ocly hours ago had been murdering in the streets sought solace from their crimes in watered down ale. It was repulsive; the more so because Theoden itched to clean up the residue the battle of the day had left behind. But he had strict orders. Instead he watched in disgust as two burly men were hefted out of a tavern in an unruly mess. They landed close to the three military personal and Theoden flinched but the old man made no move. "Ignore your thirst for justice. Let them fight amongst each other. It will make our jobs that much easier," the old man said wisely. Theoden took one last look at the revelry, and then looked straight ahead to where the old man was leading them. Connor glanced back at Theoden once but ocly gave him a slight grin and a shrug. They walked several blocks away from the bawdier part of the Gutter to one of the quieter, more residential areas. It was still disgustingly poor and downtrodden, where those who lived in the tenement apartments were no better off than those lying out in the street. One either stifled to death packed tightly together in the few rooms available, or froze to death outside in the bitter cold. Either way they were called destitute for a reason. They did not even own their own lives. The old man navigated his way neatly between the shivering bodies on the ground. Connor and Theoden had more trouble. Connor in particular kept stumbling over piles of rags. He cursed under his breath and gave the prone form a swift kick, turning the figure over. Theoden bit back a curse as he looked down at the man's dead-eyed stare. Connor noted the dead man with a shrug of indifference. "Such a waste of space. Why doesn't the king just do away with the Destitute once and for all?" Connor muttered. "Because the king has morals and no money," the old man said dryly, still moving forward. Connor walked up to him. "He could just burn the Gutter to the ground. Nice and easy, no cost except a stealthy assassin." - 8 - �The old man said nothing. Theoden, coming up behind again, looked at Connor's back skeptically. It was a good idea, but fooll1ardy. Theoden sighed and looked away. He noted a burst of flame coming from a small alleyway. The fire burnt bright for a moment then started to fade and was suddenly gone. Unthinkingly, Theoden moved toward where the light had been. Connor glanced over. ''W here are you going?" he asked. Theoden ignored him and glanced into the small alley. The alley was strewn with garbage and crap. An alley cat was pawing through the mess and mewing loudly in frustration at the slim pickings. Huddled against one wall was a little girl. She was tiny, dressed in tattered rags that barely covered her arms and legs. Her feet were completely bare and turning blue. Her head was buried in her arms and all he could see was tousled, knotted, curls of a generic dirty color. Not knowing what he was doing exactly, Theoden crouched beside her and touched her arm gently. The girl looked up. Her eyes were glazed over, tired and not registering anything. Close to death and a startling deep brown color. "What the hell?" Connor was looming in the alleyway staring down at Theoden and the girl. Behind him, the old man stood waiting patiently and staring at nothing. "It's just a stupid girl," Connor said laughing harshly. ''You stopped us for a stupid girl?" Theoden ignored him and gently tucked one of the girl's stray locks behind her ear. He noticed at the roots the girl's hair was a reddish brown. Her face was streaked with dirt and tears. Theoden traced the trail of her tears with his fingers all the way down to her throat. His hand rested on the hollow of her collarbone where a thin metal chain rested. ''W hat are you doing?" Connor demanded. "I don't know," Theoden admitted. He lifted the chain slightly and got a look at the milky white crystal that hung at the end. A strange piece of jewelry, strange for the girl to be wearing it at all, and probably worthless considering it would have been sold or stolen long ago if it had any value. Connor idly placed his hand on his gun holster. "Let's kill her," he said suddenly. Theoden let the chain drop and stared up at his fellow soldier. ''What?" "She's going to die anyway, let's make it quick and easy." Connor drew his gun. "Who said she is going to die?" Theoden said, glaring. "Oh, just look at her." Theoden glanced at the girl who was staring at the gun with little expression, but in her eyes it was clear that she clearly understood what a pointed revolver meant. She was ready for death, but not from a bullet. "Put the fucking gun away," Theoden growled. In answer Connor aimed. "She is going to die," he pointed out matter of fact. ''And I want to kill her." Theoden glanced at the old man who had remained uncharacteristically silent during the whole exchange. He stared stoically ahead as if he was not only blind, but deaf and uninterested. "I said put the gun away." Connor lowered his weapon and shrugged. "Fine by me if you want her to slowly freeze to death rather than take a nice, easy bullet to the brain. Never thought you'd be that cruel." "She does not have to die," Theoden said. "She will," Connor said simply. The girl was slowly turning an unnatural white, tinted by frosty blue. Theoden suddenly pulled off his regulation military coat and threw it over the girl's shoulders. He wrapped her tightly in it and pulled her close, rubbing quickly at her legs and arms until he felt the blood flowing again. He tucked her more tightly into his jacket, which was huge for her, making sure all her exposed areas were - 9 - �covered. The girl burrowed into the woolen material and curled up tightly. Theoden gently put her down and stood up. "That was thoroughly useless. So she won't die now but she will soon, probably in the next couple of hours when someone steals that coat," Connor said sarcastically. "But not tonight." Theoden gave the woolen form a fond look. Connor rolled his eyes. "She is a destitute, she will die a destitute. Her life is pointless and your actions even less." Theoden looked straight at Connor. "You don't know what one life can do. You don't know." He walked purposefully out of the alley. The old man suddenly seemed to come to life and moved forward to lead the way. "You read way too much," Connor muttered under his breath but trailed after the others. There were orders to fulfill that night, some more grisly then killing a harmless girl in an alleyway, but at least the girl slept in a borrowed coat that night and would live to see the morning. THE S INDRI S AGA AkiO. Chronicled by Jason Abidan, Chief Librarian Magus of the Archive I do apologize for the delay in my chronicling, dear reader. Sadly, I fear the tasks of a Chief librarian hinder me from doing such work as this in a timely manner. Had it not been for Providence, my second-in command, I would still find myself in the Ninth Quarter of our archive, patiently instructing the littlest readers that they shouldn't throw the books from the high shelves on the floor for easy access, and flatly telling our older readers that no matter how many times they look, there are no books on enchanting lovers in our shelves. Yet Providence stepped in, and now I may continue in my work of telling you of Morgan Caron Sindri, of the Day and from the Village Folk, who, having just met his companion the black rabbit Alpin von Lamis while doing nothing in the fields, soon arrived at the clock tower to give people the time of Day. Chapter 2: There's a koan in here somewhere "This is a weird clock tower," said Alpin, looking around from Morgan's embrace. "I mean, I wouldn't have called it a tower unless you said so, but you say it is, and so I guess it is." Alpin von Lamis wasn't wrong, for the clock tower of the Day was a rather unusual one. To begin witl1, it was not much of a tower per say. Rather than mark its hours in large numbers, they were marked by two rows of number circles that fanned out, one behind the other, in a semi-circle on the ground. And instead of a large obelisk or a metal triangle whose shadow would track time, there was simple yet eloquent marble stone that had been set at its center that was just large enough for a person of decent size to stand on. It was, in short, a rather large sundial that that seemed to require a human being to run it. The clock was read - 10 - �only at sunrise and sunset, as those were the times that Folk had decided to begin the day and night shifts,1 but its shape meant that it had great acoustics, and thus it served a double purpose as an open concert hall when it wasn't being read. As Morgan approached, a small group of workers had begun to picnic along the edge of the undrawn semi-circle. "Come on Morgan, what time is it?" said one, tapping his boot up and down. "I want to go home to me kids." ''We'll soon find out Horatio," said Morgan. "Just let me get in there." "Get in there?" asked Alpin, his ears twitching. "But-but there's no door. How can you go into something with no door? I thought you people couldn't burrow." "Did you consider by walking?" "I suppose . . . " Horatio stared. "Did that bunny just talk?" he said at last. "Yes, the rabbit did," Alpin replied. "My name's Alpin, and I'm Morgan's companion." " 'Morgan's companion' ?" Horatio said before bursting into laughter. ''You're too small to be a man's companion," said Horatio. "Such a tiny little cotton bunny like you is meant for my little girl." "Oh really? Well, just give me a-" ''Alpin-" Morgan warned. "No, no, please, let me at him," Alpin said, trying to struggle out of Morgan's arms, "let me at him, I want to-" "He's with me," Morgan said, shifting his arms so that his hands muffled the ongoing mutters of the bunny, "and the longer you ask questions, the longer it'll take for me to get in there." "Oh fine, fine, take the wee fluffy thing with you," Horatio said while stepped aside to allow Morgan to walk in. "Serves him right," Alpin whispered as Morgan stepped onto the platform. ''Alpin .. . " "No, really, he should make way for my great buddy." "Right." "I could totally take him," Alpin said affirmatively. "Just for the record." "Of course." " . . . so, what are we looking for?" "My shadow," Morgan replied. Glancing off to his right, he saw it lying very neatly on the "number six" circle. ''Yep, it's time!" Morgan. ''Alright Day people, time to go home and let the next shift in," Horatio yelled over the cheers of the other workers. "Well, that was fast," said Alpin. "Should we-" "Not yet," Morgan interrupted. And he was correct, for the rabbit had been about to suggest they leave, and had they done so they would have been smashed by the streaming crowd of workers that had flooded across, in rivulets of teenagers and eddies of small children, each clocking in while the other clocked 1 For most people, this would be an extremely bad idea. Sunrise and sunset, after all, are rather mercurial phenomena when it comes to time. However, the village was rather fortuitously situated so that sunrise and sunset always happened at the corresponding six o'clock, all year round, no matter how leisurely the sun moved. Neverd1eless, d1e village Folk had made d1e clock just on d1e off chance the sun got d1e better of d1em, and further hedged their bets by mandating its unusual habit of being read only twice at sunrise and sunset on the grounds d1at everyone knew even the most broken of clocks were correct twice a day, and d1us would always be correct if read only twice. - 11 - �out, trying desperately not to clock each other, and changing places with such a dizzying hurry that the whole town had crossed the square in a matter of seconds. Instead of workers, the clock was now surrounded by what appeared to be a group of singers and one very impatient conductor.2 ''And now we can leave," Morgan said, stepping off the square. ''All yours, Lightly!" "Wait, that's it?" Alpin asked Morgan as they left, leaving the choir to settle into their places. ''All you had to do was look at your shadow?" "Well, yes." "But, but, why? I mean, that seems like waste of a person if that's all you had to do. W hy not get a really large puppy or a cat, maybe even a squirrel or some large ground rodent to stand there and look at its shadow? I mean that was-" "Nothing?" ''Well, yes." "That was the theory, that since everyone was busy and I'm supposed to do nothing anyway I could as easily do it here." "But you have to do something right?" "Doing nothing is my something. Like, it's my job." Alpin turned around in Morgan's arms. ''You mean to tell me that you," he began, his front paw bouncing on Morgan's chest, "you're supposed to do nothing all day?" Morgan nodded. ''Yes, it's my job to do nothing," he told his new furry friend. "Not really the most exciting job, not to mention the part where nobody knows what it really means to be doing nothing. I suppose I'm lucky they' ve kept it to just checking the time and hanging around really, instead long streams of pointless errands." "But that's amazing!" Alpin said, hopping out onto the ground. "Doing nothing, I mean. You can do practically anything you want! You can play games, read books, listen to music, travel- why, you can do almost everything!" "Except not really," Morgan replied. "I mean, those are all doing something." "What-no it's not! Having fun is not doing something, it's strictly doing nothing!" "Oh really?" said Morgan, annoyed. ''Who says so?" "Well, we Elfin-Baladi of the Night do, and-" ''Wait, you're from Night?" Alpin stopped hopping and starred at him. "I'm a giant black bunny. W here did you think I was from?" "Well, in all fairness, there could be black bunnies outside the Night." Morgan said defensively. "I mean, I' ve heard that there are some in Twilight-" 2 Our archives state t):J.at this group would eventually grow into the illustrious Tempo Fugit singers, whose distinctive "light waves" style Jed them to become known for such hits as "Let there be Light," "Keep Your Lamps Lit," and "Don't go quietly (into the night)." Apparently the conductor, one Light House-Beacon, had perfect pitch, much to the dismay of his singers who could bit every ove1ione but it, and thus the compromised by allowing him to sing one "particle" note every eight measures to keep them vaguely in tune. - 12 - �"Those silvery, glittering things are NOT Elfin-Baladi," Alpin said indignantly. "They are posers."3 "I'll take your word for it," Morgan said, "but- and try to understand- I' ve asked everyone here what they think doing nothing means, and they haven't been able to give much of an answer." "Well, the answer is, doing nothing means doing anything unimportant or leisurely," Alpin replied. ''At least, that's what it means among the Night. No clue what you crazy people think it is. Speaking of which, where are we spending the night?" "Well, at my house, of course," Morgan said quickly. ''But that's neither here nor there." "Wait, really? It's not this way?" "No, it's behind us," Morgan said, pointing in the other direction. "Oh good," Alpin said, turning around. "I can't wait to have a fluffy bed and a few good carrots. Oh, why did I hop the wrong way? Do-do you mind carrying me some more?" "Not at all ," Morgan said, picking Alpin up. ''You should be resting your paws any way. Now, tell me more about this doing nothing thing you people think." ''What's to say?" Alpin said, giving something of a bunny shrug. ''You just do it. No one has to explain it to you." "Man, I wish I could go to Night," Morgan said. "Well, why not?" Alpin asked. ''You're supposed to be able to do nothing anywhere anyway, right?" "I. .. I suppose," Morgan said slowly. "I mean, I guess." "We can ask tomorrow morning," Alpin said contentedly. "For now, let's go home." lliOMA.S AQUINAS AND THE SILENCEOF THE L4MB S Leonard Franks It was last Tuesday night when this case began. I was sitting in my office taking in some Divine Revelation. Fortunately, my secretary hadn't discovered the bottle of it I keep under my desk. I was so tired I could have slept through an Achaean cutting my head off. The name's Aquinas, by the way. Thomas Aquinas. I'm a private eye. About two weeks before, a dame named Helen walked into my office with a case. Any good story has to have story, thought, characters, language, melody and spectacle, and believe me, that dame's face was a spectacle. Unfortunately, though, like about fifty percent of the dames I meet, she was out to lay my soul bare of its corporeal fetters. Naturally, I escaped and called the cops on her quicker than you can say "God is pure act without any admixture of potentiality". But before the thin blue divided line got here she told me something that had haunted me ever since: all organized crime in Annapolis was just a series of emanations from a boss known only as The One. After a week of vainly trying to find him, I was beginning to feel about as stable as an unresolved tritone and I still couldn't predicate a thing about him. Since then, the closest I had gotten to solving a case was tracking down some road-rager named Oedipus. 3 Truthfully, this remains a hotly debated issue among dasypodisian scholars, namely, what counts as being either Elfin or Baladi? Indeed, some have suggested that d1e so called "glittering" Elfin-Baladi is a branch tlut exhibits tl1cir ancestral Elfin heritage more, ·while others have decried such tactics as colorist, divisive, as well as leading to the Two-Hundred Year Tail-Thumping between ultraconservative Elfin-Baladi and those tl1ey call "arrow-shooting pretty bunnies." My own research bas indicated that Alpin von Lampis seems to have been neutral regarding tl1e issue, provided that no one confused which den he sprang from, at which point he'd quickly correct tl1e speaker. - 13 - �So I was in my office trying to clear my mind of all earthly things and hope that that would put me a little bit closer. And naturally, that was when a new case had to walk in my door. Some things never flux. This time, it came in in the form of someone I knew. A cop. The good kind of cop: the kind who knows when you should take action and when you should just let a being at work stay itself. His name was John Calvin. And it didn't take much to tell that he was flustered. "Hi, John," I said. "What can I do for you?"He glared at me. ''What can you do for me? Nothing, that's what. No one can do anything for me. No one can do anything for any one." "Urn . . . " "The things I've seen as a police officer . . . I' ve seen women fall in love with their own stepchildren. I ' ve seen druggies try to hide at the bottom of rivers with giant glass pipes. I ' ve fucking seen parallel lines converge. But I' ve never seen anything like this. I've been to hell and back, Aquinas, and I haven't seen Paradise on the way." This was starting to get more elongated than the omicron in the third person plural subjunctive of AU (JJ and I didn't have all day. "So it's a crime, then?" "I'll say. And the police can't do a thing about it. I swear, if a single person gets saved in this town, it's because of arbitrary divine will, not us. We're all universally wretched." "Human laws fail in some cases," I said. "Hence it is possible sometimes to act outside the law, namely, in a case where the law fails; and yet the act will not be evil. If, however, the same reason remains, for which the law was hitherto useful, then it is not the custom that prevails against the law, but the law that overcomes the custom. " He thought for a second, and then poured himself a drink. "Thanks, Thomas. You always did know the right thing to say." ''All right, so tell me about the case." He downed the drink. "It's a serial killer, and a brutal serial killer at that. Even Officer Epictetus has suppressed his desire to deal with the case and he's normally got an iron stomach." "Just the facts, John. Just the facts." "Fine. He's hit four people so far. He doesn't stick to the same MO, but he marks his victims with little notes beside them. Not much. Just fragments." "Fragments like what?" "The first victim was a streetwalker hit by a crossbow right through the throat. There was a note attached to it. It said that 'The name of a bow is life, but its work is death"' . "I see." "The next was also done with an arrow. It was a two bit con-man by the name of Gorgias. 'The harmony of the world is a back-bent harmony, like the harmony of a bow and a liar"' . "Strange." "Then he changed weapon and went after a soldier named Othello. He was knocked out and tied to a lightning pole on the top of a building during a storm. The note said 'A lightning bolt rules the world" ' . "One more." "This one was an heiress. Practically a queen. Name of Dido. Burnt to death. And the note said that 'Fire is the exchange for all things and all things for fire just as goods for gold and gold for goods"'. "Obviously a complete madman." "Yeah, we figured that much out. But that's about all we' ve figured out. Thomas, do you think you can track this killer down?" - 14 - �I had been looking forward to that question about as much as a person looks forward to being asked to preach to the Ninevites, and after four years of friendship with John I had about as much chance of getting away With saying no. I didn't like serial killer cases. You have to get in their heads; then, as soon you do you feel dirty, like a kid who's just stolen some peaches he didn't and you want to make some confessions. But that's life. "Yeah," I said. "I'll see what I can do." He smiled broadly. ''Wonderful. I'm sure you're predestined to succeed. The latest crime scene is at Carthage place. You might want to get there before the police clean it all up." I nodded and he left me. When I had more or less gotten myself together, I went outside and climbed into my car, the Created IntelLexus. That was when I learnt that when it rains, it rains for forty days and nights. Sitting next to me was a woman I knew all too well. Her name was Alyson. For a while, she had been a gold-digger, possibly a black widow, before starting up a business as a Madame. In the business, she had taken the name of the ''Wife of Bath" . Much t o m y chagrin, she was one o f the dames who wanted m e alive rather than dead. ''All right, Alyson," I said trying not to look at her. ''What do you want?" The ends of her lips turned up. "Oh, Thomas. Do you really need me to tell you what a wants?" - 15 - Printed on 1 00% post consumer fiber recycled paper. ®�1 � woman � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Swarm Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library Description An account of the resource Student publication that began publication in 2011. Click on <a title="The Swarm" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=33">Items in The Swarm Collection</a> to view and sort all items in the collection. Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data paper Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 16 pages Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Swarm, Issue #5 Description An account of the resource Issue 5 of The Swarm. Published in November 2012. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-11 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College owns the rights to this publication. Type The nature or genre of the resource text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context swarm issue 05 2012-11 Student publication https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/e3dffa6d83cb89893f5e7cf3abb5a0ff.pdf 49fc87fbb650e314fd3a9c95a88ba185 PDF Text Text �WAYDOWNBELOWTHEOCEAN, WHEREIWANTTOBE,PART2 H. P. Legomenon The first day was not so bad, for the water was lit well by the sun and one could see rather far out Two days later, they touched down to the bottom of the Marianas trench. About half a mile away, they could see a faint glow in the dark, and knew that had to be their quarry. As it happened, the bacteria's phosphorescent glow ended up being useful. "Well," Jules said. "Now what?" into the blue. There was a slightly perilous moment in the bridge, when a large shark had floated mindlessly past the big window, and other dark forms swarmed just beyond the limits of view. But the glass was thick "I volunteer," said Dr. Solomon, without any prompting. and the captain unflappable, and they pushed onward. Nevertheless, Amy and Isabelle, the only other people in the bridge at the time, chose to sit elsewhere. "It would be my pleasure to accept the position," said Dr. Solomon. The mess was off-limits, generally speaking, because no one wanted to get that close to the abyss that yawned beneath them. Jules, in particular, had taken to walking like a cat with bags on its feet, pulling her knees up much too far to avoid even the pretense of stepping firmly on the glass. The doctor spent a lot of time lying flat against the cargo glass, attempting to make friends with passing fish. "We'll need someone to go in the diving bell," Reynard said. "It will need to be someone who stays cool under pressure," Jules said, unable to resist the pun but simultaneously making herself a little light-headed with claustrophobia. The day before a truly hideous example of undersea life had bumped against the glass bottom of the submarine and put her even more on edge. "For the good of the mission, I will go," said Dr. Solomon. "Someone who can be trusted not to wander off," Amy said. The days that followed began to wear on everyone's nerves. Jules, who had a particular affinity for sunshine and open spaces, had taken to lying on her hammock and trying not to think about the heavy, crushing darkness that surrounded her at every instant. "The oxygen hose will make that an impossibili_ty, though I will restrain my curiosity for the time being to efficiently complete the task," said Dr. Solomon. "Someone who has experience with strange organisms," Isabelle said. Charles was up to his elbows in work. Having never worked on a submarine, he did his best to keep "What could be more suited to a doctor? I will be proficient in this capacity." up with the pressure demands the ship was making, trying as best he could to keep the thing from imploding on itself. "We might be doomed," he cautioned Amy, who had come down to hold a wrench and press a button in the capacity of his assistant. "It is a hazard of the occupation," she said sagely, and she wasn't wrong. Isabelle, unsurprisingly, was cross, though for a highly specific reason. "The food is disappearing," she said at one meal. They'd not thrown a tarp over the mess floor, out of deference to the captain and engineer's hard work, but no one looked down--except the doctor, whose neck seemed stuck that way. "I think Charles should do it," said Reynard decisively. Dr. Solomon looked like she was going to cry. Charles shuddered. "Really? Me? Why not Magihana?" "I am more useful here," Mr. Magihana said, and HYHU\RQH�kind of avoided making a comment. Mr. Magihana had been ... peculiar of late. Everyone had an instance of this peculiarity to recall--] ules thought she saw him ducking every now and then in the hallway, unprompted. Amy would've sworn he'd sat in the same position for six hours, a defiant look on his face, playing with a little sharp knife as he sat at the mess. Isabelle was angry about the still-diminishing quota of food, and knew that it had to have something to do with him. "We're eating it," Charles observed. "It is disappearing out of proportion with my cooking it. I keep a list." She consulted it now, as Mr. Magihana performed the duty of serving. "Yesterday I had three bags of dried fruit. Even allowing for you low, unscrupulous thieves and snackers, there's no reason that I should only have two bags today. Nor that I should be out an entire smoked fish, nor, Mr. Magihana, one of your bottles of sake." Mr. Magihana's back straightened and he did two very peculiar things. After a moment, everyone "Right," said Reynard. "Suit up, Charles, you're the only man for the job." Dr. Solomon gave the captain a final look of miserable betrayal and went to go commune with the sand-dwelling creatures at the very bottom. The diving bell was a pretty damn scary thing to be incased in, but Charles admitted that the only reluctance he felt was based on the fact that he hadn't designed it. He was commenting on ways to improve it realized that his eyes had narrowed and his smile had disappeared. It was something of a shock to the room at large--the man had never done such a thing before. all the way through, though no one could hear him. "My sake?" he asked, his voice as quiet as it ever was. Everyone tensed, waiting for some type of spring or catch to snap. what a damn great lot of ocean was around and above you. Everything was blacker than pitch, outside of the Part of what made the bell scary was that, you were finally forced to consider how tiny you were and "Yes," said Isabelle. cold glow from the Geryon's spotlights, and in that blackness Charles, not an imaginative man, began to think "l see," he said. He looked carefully around the room, gazing particularly in the corners and the he saw huge, aquatic shapes swimming dreamily past, just out of sight. shadows of the area. After a moment, his meaningless little smile returned. "I shall make a note of it." "...great," said Isabelle, and everyone began to eat, thoroughly unsettled. .What could be seen was small and inoffensive, with the unearthly, horrid quality of all deep .sea life. Here was nightmare, if ever it could be found on earth. Every moment he expected the sea bed to sink beneath him, to reveal that it was all a clever trick, the camouflage of some giant, hideous fish, over whose mouth he had been walking: -1- -2- �AMYTH Pseudonymous Bosch Once, he nearly tripped over a large, iron ring buried in the sand. A tremor of sheer fright shook up both his legs and, possibly in defiance of the laws of physics, he jumped. He pressed onward, trying not to think about such a thing and why in the name of any sane and decent God it would be stuck on the bottom of the deepest, darkest bit of the ocean. Far and away, the bacteria oozed, moving like a swarm of glowing, tiny insects over the sea floor. The doctor had explained with unbridled jealousy what would happen if any of the bacteria touched his skin. First it would be a rash that would spread quickly, and then his skin would open up in boils, revealing the tissue--probably within 72 hours. It would become extremely difficult for even a highly advanced hospital to treat, let alone the doctor's cute little rig of medical supplies and pure medical enthusiasm. He was about to face one of the deadliest creatures on the planet. And Charles was armed with what essentially amounted to a turkey baster. He approached carefully. It wasn't an intelligent being, or even an intelligent swarm, after all. It couldn't be suspicious of him. He'd do it quickly, finish the job fast. He had several inches of metal and industrial rubber keeping him safe--of anyone, he was probably the most well-protected to encounter the thing. He stuck the opening of the baster into the thick of the bacteria swarm, sucking up a sample and hardly believing it could be so easy. Then he tried to sprint back to the ship. At it happened, he wound up trudging. He still made a pretty JRRG�clip, he thought. Once the world was nothing but one vast organism, and it was perfect. Blood bright and lucent with the heat of life surged from core to extremity and back again, electrical impulses swirled in flocks and clouds through intricately woven nerves in pursuit of near-divine thoughts, forests of muscle grew dense and stretched again, impossibly long, as the parts of the body shuffled and re-ordered in its eternal dance; for no energy was lost in the metabolic exchange of the perfect organism, the universal being, but its every vital force rebounded to its spring to re-create and re-birth it new in every moment, reconfigured but always itselfin-itself, as ancient as forever and as young as a breath inhaled, a moving image of eternity. Except it had a flaw. How LWgot there you'll have to ask the liars, because I don't know, but there it was like a tiny grain of sand had worked its way into a nautilus shell, and it gave birth to friction, and irritation, and the flaw grew, and now the parts of the organism no longer worked in harmony but what was healthy and hale in one organ taken by itself now sometimes frustrated and harmed another organ. Still the flaw grew, and the vitality of the organism no longer returned to it full and unadulterated but some was diverted along entirely useless channels, feeding the flaw, as the flaw became a sickness and spread throughout the organs of the body. Finally a greater part of the body was sickness than remained whole, and the moribund organism for the first time in its ageless life thrashed and threw and then collapsed utterly, its flesh putrefying and disintegrating into the inert and dead matter that forms our world. But though it was itself lifeless, the broken residue of the organism remained fecund with its The bacteria seemed pretty well contained, which was making this far and away the most efficient, easiest job the Geryon had ever performed. lingering vitality, and in time new life sprouted from it and grew in power and sophistication: first "Nicely done, everyone," Reynard said, smiling with obvious pleasure. "Now then--how about a trip to the surface." lightning and the greater and lesser luminescences, and then simple plants feeding off the luminescences, and "Yes, please," echoed everyone. microscopic diggers, opportunists working in the universal carrion, and alongside them near-creatures like the simple animals and parasites feeding off the others: the strange fungi infesting other creatures or living off their byproducts, herbivores consuming the plants and fungi, carnivores consuming and assimilating even the "Right. We'll just--" herbivores. As life arose and continues to arise out of the earth, air, and rock all of these creatures struggle The lights flickered, dimmed, and disappeared. The whirr of the engine slowed and stopped. "Right," said Reynard. "Smashing." against each other and against the remaining inert matter for expansion and dominance, for increased vitality, Dr. Solomon held the jar of bacteria above her head, lightly the crew in a terribly faint glow. ingenuity of warfare and the appropriation of greater and greater amounts of vitality have seen the present "I have a confession to make," said Mr. Magihana. "You.don't say," said Reynard, crossing his arms. "I fear we may have been harboring ninjas," to make what is not them into a part of them and so become a greater portion of the whole world. The organisms grow in size and complexity; man is the most developed example, though he certainly does not recapture all the subtlety and diversity of the one-time universal being, with its organ systems unknown to modern biologists. And the end and goal of all organisms, in their struggle and alliances of opportunity, is to one day become or give rise to the new and final organism, the one that will dominate all else, consume or symbiotize into itself all other substances whether living or dead, and out of this synthesis of the whole world take its place as the new and eternal perfect organism. -3- -4- �THE PEOPLE'S VOICE (MATCHES: PART II) By Slaya Nemoy ''Yes, but Welton printed it. He is just as guilty as the writer, who will also need to answer for his crimes." Quilla took a deep breath. "Please! None of it his fault. Don't arrest him!" "Bloody, fucking, stupid deadline." Quilla glanced out the window and glared. "Bloody, fucking, stupid soldiers." She did a double take and jumped out of her chair. She raced out the door only just remembering to grab an old sweater to cover up her indecent top. Outside in the hall, Jacques was peering out of his room toward the stairs. ''What the hell is going on?" "No fucking clue," Quilla replied in passing. She was down the hall and at the top of the stairs just in time to hear the captain of the squad read out the arrest warrant. "By order of his Royal Majesty King Compten IV, I hereby arrest Colin Welton for insulting his Welt laid _a restraining hand on her arm. "The captain is right, it is still my paper. I will willingly go with them." "No! You can't." Quilla made to grab his shoulders but he pushed her away. "Officer, I am ready to go," Welt said, standing tall. The captain nodded and ushered him over to one of his men. ''We also have the arrest warrant for the writer, The Quill. If you will hand him over to us we will just be on our way." This the captain directed at Quilla. She glowered. ''You will find no such man here." Royal Majesty and denouncing his right to rule. The crime is high WUHDVRQ�and is punishable by either death or life imprisonment." The captain, a rather handsome man in his early thirties, rolled up the warrant and turned to Welt who looked dour. "If you will just come with us, sir, the little fuss will be made the better for you," the captain sai_d. Welt carefully removed his leather printing apron and took down his coat from the rack by the door. "No!" Quilla yelled. She bounded down the stairs and stood in front of the captain. ''You have no right!" "Oh really? Search the place," the captain ordered. Soldiers started searching all over the building. The captain looked at Quilla for a long moment. She glanced down at her stockinged feet and after a minute the captain looked away and started to interrogate Welt who, like Quilla, insisted The Quill was not to be found. There was a slight commotion at the front door. The captain ·glanced up as a young lord walked in his bright eyes sweeping over the room. The captain clicked his heels together and bowed slightly. "Are you here to arrest the printer?" the lord asked. The captain nodded. The captain looked at her exasperated. ''We have every right, young lady, the king has ordered the arrest." "My men are now searching for the writer of the offending piece, though the printer and his daughter insist he is not in residence." ''What was his crime?" Quilla demanded. Quilla looked up angrily. The lord turned to her and she stiffened. "I have already read out the warrant," the captain explained patiently. "Let it rest, Quill," Welt said so only she could hear, shrugging on his coat. Quilla rounded on him. "No! They have no right. You have done nothing wrong." "I am not Welt's daughter," she muttered. The captain shrugged but the lord glanced at Welt then at Quilla. "Then who are you?" "He has committed high treason." She said nothing. The lord walked over and she glared up at him. "How!?" Quilla said fiercely. "Is he not the editor of The People's Voice?" The captain asked. "Aye," Welt admitted. "The People's Voice is not treason; the king has already ruled on this matter," Quilla said glaring at the captain. "There is no reason to arrest Welt. He is not guilty of any part of this crime." "He is the printer of The People's Voice, and he printed an offending article. That is enough of a crime." "He didn't print it," she said bristling. "I'm telling you he had nothing to do with this." The lord leaned in slightly and a lock of his fine light brown hair fell loose from his queue. "He ruled begrudgingly and only if certain conditions were met." The captain matched her gaze. "We have met them." She raised her head stubbornly. "Publishing a certain article is not meeting the conditions." Quilla frowned. ''What article?" The captain waved a hand and a week old paper was produced by one of the soldiers. Splashed across the top was the title in plain, simple letters, The People's Voice. Underneath in eye catching bold font was the article heading; The Hypocrisy of Kings and in smaller lettering the sub-heading, Is the King Really Worthy of his Crown? _The captain read the offending title out loud. Quilla blanched. "The king has tolerated your little penny rag because it gives the people a sense that they actually," he grinned nastily, "have a voice. But this time you have gone too far." Quilla bit her lip. ''Welt did not write that article. You have no right to take him into custody." -5- "Do you know what damage this article has done? In only a few words the city has been knocked off its feet. It will take months to recover, if not years. Everyone is hounding for blood, nobles, bourgeoisie, destitute, everyone. In one way or another this will end in blood, but we'd rather it not be a revolutionary blood." "So what do you want it to be?" she sneered. "A public hanging of the offending persons. A simple death that will calm the nobles and frighten the masses enough." She paled. ''You're going to hang Welt?" ''We may very well have to." "But he didn't do anything. I really mean that. We printed the article after he had retired for the night. We knew he wouldn't allow'it, but the people need to speak. Without a voice, you do realize the people -6- �will be soundlessly yelling in their minds until one day they will not be able to stop themselves and the words THE PERFECT SOLDIER will burst forth in yells and-screams. And trust me, you do not want to have that happen." The lord looked at her shrewdly. "You are awfully poetic," he noted. "But there are things that must By Jack Farrell One more kill and I will be able to feel again. I follow the child through the ruined streets of the city, and I begin to wonder what it will be like to be myself again. My calculations tell me that it is tired and wounded, but also be done for the greater good." ''Whose_greater good?" that it is afraid. This is a weakness I do not have. The men who made me this way saw to that. He said nothing. "Please, you must believe me, Welt is not to blame. Hanging him would be a gross injustice and will When the Iron Corps was created, my home country was deep in the throes of war. Old grudges we had held do you no good." Without thinking she clutched at his arm and he, startled, pushed her away. The loose with ancient enemies had been boiling under the surface for generations, and eventually the proper excuse button on her sweater finally snapped off and her sweater gaped open. Furiously she pulled it close but not was found to begin a conflict. The full ferocity of the war was more than expected, however, and it became before he could see she wore little more then a chemise underneath. His eyes suddenly went wide and he necessary to explore drastic alternatives. The casualties were in the millions as the fighting became domestic, reached down toward her neck. She jerked back. and desperation led to the creation of the Corps. "Don't touch me." ''What is that around your neck?" he came forward and lifted up her necklace to get a better look at the milky white crystal hanging at the end. She pulled it away from him and tucked it beneath her chemise. He Blood. Fresh. The child is near. Its tracks take me into a dark building. There are few exits. The child will not escape. In its fear it made a mistake and did not view all of its alternatives. Soon it will no longer matter. was staring into her eyes intently and she felt confused and horrified. ''What do you want?" she demanded. ''Your necklace .. " He recovered himself and stood up straight. "If you say, what was his name? Welt? Did not print the article then I assume you did?" As the war raged the resolve of the citizens began to weaken, but the zeal of the leaders did not allow them to forget the ethnic hatreds that began the conflict. But even they were startled at what began to become necessary. As enemy refugees flooded our borders, the decision was made that they be eliminated. But our She hesitated then nodded proudly. soldiers often did not have the necessary determination to open fire on women and children as ordered. So "And who wrote it?" She looked up at him. There was still a strange look in his eye which was the only reason she they created the Corps. admitted the truth. "I did." He looked shocked, then slightly confused but also curious and proud. He turned suddenly. It is weeping. The child knows what I am about to do. Its -fear once again ensures its destruction. Its cries point out its position, and I find it all the faster. It is in the next room. "Captain, release this man and order your soldiers to leave the premise." The purpose of the Iron Corps was to create a unit of soldiers unaffected by the normal inhibitions and The captain's mouth dropped open as did Quilla's. weaknesses that were hindering the war effort. Free of empathy or fear we would be able to do anything and "Sir?" the captain said tentatively. everything needed to bring the war to an end. The program was an even greater success than they expected. ''You heard me, release this man." They brought us in, and through a special combination of mental conditioning and chemical alterations, they "But, sir, we have orders," the captain sputtered. removed all our capacity for normal emotion and human empathy. Part of the programming ensured our "I have made new ones. Do as I command this instant." The captain struggled with himself briefly then clicked his heels again and bowed. He called his men loyalty to our own country, and we were allowed to retain some of our feelings so that we might "revel in the glory of our victory", or so the director said as we were being conditioned. back and told them the change of plans and without further ado they marched off the premise. The lord gave Quilla one last look and swept out after them. The results were more drastic than they believed. We of the Corps determined that the most effective method of ending the war was not through conventional methods. Biological toxins are wider reaching, less expensive, and more efficient. Of course, the flu virus we modified also spread into our own country, but the Corps considered these acceptable losses, of which there were a mere ten million. Our creators were displeased with the proposed method of assault, but as this constituted a hindrance to the war effort, we reclassified them as enemy combatants and they were quickly eliminated. Over the years much interbreeding has occurred between our two peoples. Given that our standing orders were the destruction·of all members of our ethnic enemies, it became necessary to cull many from our home -7- -8- �country in pursuit of this goal. The other members of the Corps are currently dealing with them. I am tasked with the elimination of those with an immunity to the disease. Protection. I supposed that that was about that than which nothing greater could be expected, coming out of her. It was expected that a certain portion of the enemy would be free from the weapon we engineered. These we "I'm not an ellipse, Alyson. I only have one focus at a time. Why not go to someone who does that for a job? Llke the police?" rounded up and placed in a secure holding facility, and they quickly died due to dehydration - all but the child. Soon, that will no longer be an issue. "Because I've got a proposition for you." "A proposition, eh? That would definitely be a common notion for you." "Please, sir. Please," it cries. It is relying on a false assumption that I will be swayed by its plight. An intriguing tactic. One we should consider for the Steel Corps, should it ever be necessary to recreate our successes. The child is no threat, and use of ammunition on it would be a waste. Its eyes spread more tears and its legs kick uselessly in the air as I strangle it. As its blood pools at my feet I turn and begin walking EDFN�to the camps. Soon I shall be returned to my old self. I wonder what it will be like. Wonder. A sign of curiosity, and thus returning emotion. This is going to be an interesting day. THOMAS AQUINAS AND THE SILENCE OF THE IAMBS PART 2 By Leonard Franks The name's Aquinas. Thomas Aquinas. I'm a private eye. And there I was, about to drive off to see She rolled her eyes, making sure she was in the rear view so I could see it. "It's a worthwhile proposition, Tommy. But I'm going to need you to accept some first principles first." ''Just get to the point already. I want to know what your line is." "Don't be such a square. This is all very plane. Look, around here, half of being is an emanation from the One. You're one of a very few people that I know absolutely I can trust. So I figure the two of us should work together. You give me protection and I give you underground connections. It sounds like a perfectly good friendship of utility to me." "If you've got some annals, lay them out. I'm listening." "Thank you. Look, you know that I'm perfectly nice, overall. I may have gotten lost in a dark wood at the halfway point of my life, but I'm basically a good person." I motioned for her to skip it. I could never stand a prologue that was longer than its tale. "Fine. Look. I get occasional communications from the upper the latest victim of some killer going by the name of Heraclitus when I suddenly find that The Wife of Bath, steps on the ladder about what I should and shouldn't do. Well, I decided that I might as well be a fine, madame and most annoying woman on the planet, is sitting in the back of my created IntelLexus. I think you upstanding citizen for once and turn in a criminal I was aware of-" can understand that I wasn't exactly beatified. "A competitor in your field?" "All right, Alyson," I said. "Why don't you just make like a developing sea urchin and split? I don't have time for you." "There may have been a little bit of honey around some of the wormwood for me. Yes. A competitor. So anyway, that gets certain parties a little bit upset with me. It ended up being the genesis of a few nasty things, "I'll answer that question," she said. ''But first, I'd like you to drive for about five feet in any direction." so I make a quick exodus and come here. I ask you: did I really do anything wrong?" That struck me as a relatively humble request, and I like humility. So I geared the car and pulled out. I I sighed. "Nothing outside the realm of natural reason, I suppose. If I decide to help you, what can you offer?" hadn't gotten much more than five feet when I heard a loud bang from behind us. I turned around to see most of the parking space I had just been in falling back to the ground behind us. "What in the appropriate name of-" "Before you make too much commentary, you should probably know that that wasn't my bomb. It was, however, attached to the bottom of your car. Interested in what I have to say yet?" I knew a lot about .A,lyson, and one thing I knew was that bombs were not her mode. And even if she had started going into that, I couldn't blame her too much for blowing that particular parking meter. I called it the Eleatic philosopher, because it didn't accept change. "Fine," I said. "You have my attention. What do you got?" She smiled again. "Are you going to believe a word I say?" "Alyson, the day I trust you will be the day all the moral precepts of the old law become irreducible to the ten precepts of the decalogue." "I'm glad to hear you missed me too. I "Well, I can't give you the name or predicate much info on the person you're after. But if you need someone to be your guide through the underworld, I'm your girl." I considered this. It wasn't my favorite idea ever, but it had some advantages. I was going to have make it to the very center of this mess if I was going to unravel it. It was going to be one hell of a summa, and it couldn't hurt to have someone to help. After thinking for a little, I made up my mind. "Deal. But for now, hide under the seat. I have to look at this crime scene.;' "As you like it." With those words, she disappeared under the seat and I pulled up tangent to the curb. I got out of the car and was immediately met by the person I was most hoping not to run into here. Commissioner Rene Descartes. He was standing by what was clearly the crime scene, though I couldn't see much of it other than all the cops swarming the place. He gave a smile that made him look like he was pushing a kidney stone and KaDU�that you've been trying to track down The One." "The ultimate beatitude of man consists in the use of his highest function, which is the operation of the intellect." someone was telling him he was about to become Thane of Cawdor. "Mr. Aquinas!" he said. "I didn't expect to see you here." "The fact that you didn't let me know that there was a crime here might contribute to your surprise." ''Yeah, well, see how you feel about that when your soul atoms are going out your mouth. But stupid as this is going to sound, I'm asking for your protection." -9- The smile broadened. "Yes, well, I didn't want to take from you the pleasure of figuring it out yourself." "Well, you'll be glad that I'm here to save your ass then." -10- �"I will have you know that my method of rightly conducting one's reason and seeking truth in the police forces is doing spectacularly on this case! Already, we have made a very important deduction." ''Which is?" "I exist." "I do not want friendship, for I am not lonely. I do not want protection, because I am not afraid, and I do not want food, for I am not hungry. Instead, I only want to find a better place." The man says. The dog looks at the man. "Then I will not go with you." The Man walks more. The World comes to him and asks him: ''Why did you not take the dog with "Inspiring." you?" ''We're working on the theory that a being more perfect than me exists too." "I do not need friendship, protection, or food, for these things will not help me find a better place." The Man replies. The World leaves. The man walks on more and finds a new place. He is now "Hard to believe." I pushed past him. He followed me. "Admit it, Aquinas. You just can't stand that you're not needed on this case." "You just keep telling yourself that, Renny." I came in view of the body. Just like John Calvin had said, it was gruesome. There was a deep char-mark lonely, afraid, and hungry. He goes back to look for the dog, but the dog is gone. He goes back to the new place. The new place is not better, it is not worse. He is in a place where the floor is metal. He finds a chair with an old man sitting in it. He walks past the old man. ''Where are you going?" The old man asks. in the ground around the corpse, which, I presumed, was formed of remaining pieces of Dido. The fragment, "I am going to a place better than here." The Man replies. with all its confusing grammar, was written in·something red on the wall behind her. "If you sit, I can ask you questions, and if you get them right, I will give you knowledge." "Why would I want knowledge?" Rene walked up to me. ''Not pretty, is it?" "It's not exactly the Godhead, no." "Knowledge can help you find a better SODaH�� "I'm afraid that I can't let you interfere with this investigation, Aquinas. My analytic method requires focus." "Of course." I turned around and walked back towards the car. I hadn't expected to find clues on the scene. If there "Then I guess I want knowledge." He sits down, and listens to the old man asking him questions. After each question, the Man provides an answer. The old man asks nine questions that are answered by the man's memory, the tenth question is about the man's opinion. was one thing the police were good at it, it was forensics. But I did need to be able to describe the scene more "Why can't you answer the question?" The old man asks. exactly. Because there was one person I knew who could solve this. Even though it meant that, between him, "Because I do not know the right answer." The Man replies. "There is no right answer, it is your opinion." "I do not have an opinion." Alyson, and Descartes I would have completed meeting all of my least favorite people in the world on one day. I climbed into the car and drove away. Alyson sat up in the back. "Where are we voyaging to now?" ''We're going to the mental asylum," I replied. "It takes a serial killer to track down a serial killer. And we're going to talk to one." "Then I cannot give you knowledge." The man stands up and leaves. The World comes to him again and asks: ''Why did you not take the knowledge?" She looked genuinely shocked. ''You don't mean-" "That's just who I mean," I said. ''William Harvey. The Hearthrob Killer." "Because I don't have an opinion." The Man replies. The world leaves once more. The Man walks and finds another place. Once he enters the place, he is confused, and wants knowledge. The Man looks back but the old man is gone. He goes into the new place. The place is still not better and not worse. THE MAN AND THE WORLD The floor is wet. In the place he sees something far_away. He walks to it and sees it is money. Another man walks to it. The Man says to the other: ''Will this money bring me to a better place?" By Jack Berry The World creates the Man. The World tells Man that he is to find a better place. The world tells him that he is what man is and he must walk to find a better place. The World tells him that on his journey he will find a dog, an old man, another man, and a woman. replies. ''Yes, this money will bring you whatever you want, and that includes a better place." The other man "Then I must have the money." "I am going to a place better than here." The Man replies. "But I need it as well, and if you take it, then I will never stop trying to get it back." "If I give you the money, will you take me to a better place?" "No." The other replies. "If I become yours, will you take me?" The Man kills the other, and takes the money. The man walks and finds a dog. "Man, where are you walking to?" The dog says. ''Why would I want you to be mine?" "I can provide friendship by being in your company, I can also provide protection with my teeth, The Man walks with the money to another place. The World comes to him a third time and asks: "Why did you kill that man?" "Because I need the money to find a better place." The Man replies. The World leaves. The Man and I can provide food that I will hunt for you." finds a new place. Again, the place is not better and not worse. The money did not bring him to a better -11- -12- �place so he drops it. The floor is warm and soft. He walks and sees a woman lying down. The woman stands up and looks at the Man. "Where are you going?" The woman asks. Chapter 3: Vaguely sauntering downwards Morgan walked briskly through the town towards home, passing by the cold, stone apartment high rises of "I am going to a better place." The Man replies. the Payday neighborhood; the dome houses made from recycled wood and glass that marked the eco-friendly "If I become yours, may I come with you?" Mayday neighborhood; and even the bales of bundled straw and the barns painted flawlessly with brick red ''Why would I want you to be mine?" "I can provide love with my kindness, passion with my body, and lineage with a child." ''Why would I want love, passion, and a child?" "Love will make the place you are in feel better, as will passion, and a child." "Then you can be mine." The Man and Woman walk together more to new places. The floors are made of grass, wood, and stone. The Woman gives him love, passion, and child. The places they go feel better with the love, passion, and child to the Man. As they walk more, the Man starts to not feel that the places are better, and the love, passion, and child are not helping him find a better place. The Man says to the Child and Woman: "I cannot have you anymore, because you are not making the places better, nor have you helped me find a better place." He leaves them, and walks more. The World comes to him and asks: ''Why did you leave the Woman and Child?" paint of the Heyday neighborhood, and walked up to what, in the crimson light, appeared to be an ordinary cottage made of wooden logs and a thatched roof. "This looks like a comfy place," Alpin said from Caron's arms. "Don't believe the outside," Morgan told Alpin simply, reaching out to open the door and step inside. ''What do you-ooh," Alpin said, cutting himself short as Morgan entered the cottage. There, lit by a brighter light that seemed to be offered from a lamp in the comer, which someone had conveniently placed three mirrors placed behind to amplify its gleam, was a far larger house. The floor that Morgan and Alpin stood on turned out to be a wraparound balcony, whose sole opening was to a staircase that had steps that had been drilled into the wall, but were otherwise unsupported, which twisted and descended past two floors onto the ground. In the space that marked each floor, Alpin could see what could best be described as an organized explosion of papers, books, pillows, cushions, blankets, knick-knacks, "Because the Woman and Child did not help me find a better place." The Man replies. curios, souvenirs, bric-a-brac, and even a trinket or two, piled up into comers and onto tables. "This ... this ... " The World does not leave. It says to him: 'There are no more places, and you have not "So the bedrooms are up here," Morgan said as he began to walk down the stairs, "but I'm thinking dinner found the better one." The World removes the Man. The World goes to the Child and Woman, and removes the Woman. The World makes the Child into the Man. The World tells the Man that he is to find a better first. I mean, I'm hungry, and I didn't hop the world for years like you, so you definitely must be starving." place. The world tells him that he is what man is and he must walk to find a better place. The World tells "There's ... but ... how .. .it's ... " Alpin continued to stammer, his ears drooping down to the sides of his head as the rabbit looked around. him that on his journey he will find a d<?g, an old man, another man, and a woman. "After dinner- I'm thinking a lot of carrots for you and, l dunno, whatever I can whip up for myself," THE SINDRI SAGA Chronicled by Jason Abidan, Chief Librarian Magus of the Archive By�Aki�O. The fall has come to its natural and temporary end, dear reader, and ending with it the hours that I must Morgan said, seemingly oblivious to the rabbit in his arms, "I'll get settle you inside my room. Don't worry, I try to keep it pretty neat. I mean, I do have a lot of random stuff in there, but you'll be able to sleep pretty well." "IT'S BIGGER ON THE INSIDE!" Alpin finally snapped, the shout echoing around them twice before fading away. dedicate to helping others in our archive. Now, having blanketed myself in wool and fur, and having lit the Morgan paused on the stairs. "Are ... you okay Alpin?" candle that glows a halo far brighter than its own size, I RQFH�again return to my task in chronicling the life of "It's so big," Alpin said, curling up into a ball in Morgan's arms, his ears wrapping around him. "It's- it's so- Morgan Caron Sindri and Alpin von Lamis. I fear that this entry will be less exciting for those amongst you who are awaiting the beginning of their famous quest, yet it is the duty of a chronicler to tell all that which so big ... I could hop around in here forever and never be found, I'm never going to be found, we're gonna die and nobody's gonna find us, I'm too pretty to die, and-" happened in order. I could no sooner pass over this entry to reach the more rousing entries that follow them, Morgan rolled his eyes. "Oh calm down you drama rabbit, it's not that big," Morgan said. "Besides, we can't than I could will the sun to pass over a single zodiacal constellation on its ever-winding path. I hope, dear get lost. You're basically in a big hole in the ground. The only way out is the way we came in. It's a finite space. reader, that you will thus be patient with me, knowing of this difficulty. As you might well remember, we had left our dear boy and rabbit, the rabbit firmly nestled in Morgan's house, on their way to the young man's house, with Morgan having completed his duty of reading the clock of the Day and, in doing so, signal the change in shifts among the day workers. "I'm gonna be fine," Alpin was muttering to himself. "I'm a good rabbit. I'm a brave rabbit." "Seriously, this isn't some weird multidimensional thing that trftvels through space and time." "-I'm with my buddy, I'm gonna be okay-" "Alpin," Morgan said, turning the rabbit around to look him in the eyes. "Alpin." ''Ye-yes?" he stuttered, lifting one of his ears. ''We'i;e at the bottom of the stairs." ''We- we are? Really?" -13- -14- �,, Morgan nodded his head. "Yes, Alpin, we are the bottom of the stairs," he said slowly, turning the rabbit around to show him that they had, indeed, reached the ground floor. ''You looked and walked into the Abyss, and you're totally safe."1 Alpin heaved a great sigh. "Oh yes," Alpin said. ''You were that scared?" Morgan asked while he began to walk from the base of the stairs towards a door in the left-most corner of the floor. "I don't like that big a height, okay? These paws were made for hopping, thumping, and nothing else." "But you don't seem afraid when I carry you normally." "Well, yeah, because you're under me and there's ground under you," Alpin replied. "But a space that big? One false step and we'd be doomed." "In that case, when we're going back up? Try looking at the thick stone wall next to us," Morgan told him, pushing open the door to reveal a small kitchen, consisting of a table, chairs, refrigerator, microwave, cabinets bearing all manner of kitchen utensils and dishes, sinks, and a dishwasher, all placed in the .appropriate fashion for a lounge. At the table sat a tall man, with salt-and-pepper hair, who had glanced. up at the sound of Morgan entering. "Well, hello there kiddo," the man said. "Hi, Dad," Morgan said to him, managing to wave a hand as Alpin, in the hopes of making a good impression, shifted to sit more upright. "How was work?" "Pretty decent," Morgan's father replied. "Helped out a few groups of people doing research for their next latest and greatest, and finally managed to get the writer's corner back in order. You?" Morgan shrugged. "Pretty much just hung around all day, watching people," he said flatly. "Oh, and my designated-buddy here hopped onto my chest for the first time." ''Your designated buddy?" ''Yes sir," Alpin said politely. "Alpin von Lamis, reporting for duty, sir." Morgan's father paused. "That was a very well-spoken response for an Elfin-Baladi rabbit that's at least a few time zones away from home," he said at last. Alpin's eyes widened. ''You know I'm an Elfin-Baladi?" "Well, I wouldn't be one of the two head-librarians of the Subterranean Library if I couldn't identify at least 1 rabbit race," he replied.z "So you're okay with the keeping of the rabbit?" Morgan asked. Morgan's father nodded. "How about putting the rabbit on the table here and joining me for dinner?" 1 This was not technically true- unbeknownst to Morgan and his family, the Subterranean Library was very much alive and aware of who was inside of it, and had no hesitation in transforming an irritating guest or two into a bobble-head to add to the collection. However, it considered the Sindri's to be friendly entities, and found the rather small and frightened furry thing not worth the effort. 2 This was true, as the job application required all head librarians to be able to identify, on sight, 40 types of minerals and stone, 31 types of trees, 23 breeds of dog, 1? breeds of cat, 13 types of fish, 7 types of lizards and insects, and 1 breed ofrabbit. It also required them to invent at least 1 form of scribbling that would confuse a doctor, 3 forms of paperwork that could confuse a government agency, and to host at least 2 book "sales" a year. -15- � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Swarm Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library Description An account of the resource Student publication that began publication in 2011. Click on <a title="The Swarm" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=33">Items in The Swarm Collection</a> to view and sort all items in the collection. Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data paper Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 15 pages Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Swarm, Issue #6 Description An account of the resource Issue 6 of The Swarm. Published in March 2013. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2013-03 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College owns the rights to this publication. Type The nature or genre of the resource text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Subject The topic of the resource Pulp literature Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Swarm_issue06_2013-03 https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/b38ac4d1a0d5aa2e303f246dfd10a530.pdf a345720361afd2b60ed6490df93c495c PDF Text Text �Socrates: Tell me, O Meno, whether pulp fiction is something good, or if not good, can it be something worthwhile, or at least entertaining? And if any of these are true is it something that comes to human beings by publication or some other way? Meno: It is not hard to tell, Socrates. First we must know what the virtue of a pulp story is. If it’s the virtue of hard boiled crime you want, it’s easiest to say that it’s this you want: a detective who does well to his friends and manages the affairs of dangerous dames and crimes, and a nemesis who does harm to his enemies, and the detective who avoids the twists and turns of convoluted plot points. And if it’s the virtue of a space opera you want, that’s not too hard. It is to manage well the breaking of the laws of physics and to boldly go where no man has gone before. And the virtue of horror, and of fantasy, and of parody, and light poetry, and there are a great many other genres, so that there is no difficulty in knowing what the virtue of pulp fiction is. Socrates: I have asked you for a definition, and you have given me The Swarm Issue 8: The Pulp Fiction Magazine from Beyond the Grave May 2015 Sueanna Keim, Editor In Chief Lyra Meuer, Cover Art Catherine White, Layout Editor Contributors: Stylus Marner Kira Anderson Jonathan Grauberd Baranbas Holleran Shannon McGovern Grayson Mooney John Farrell Jamie Dunn uorrecxion While we at The Swarm are great fans of Ms. Jamie Dunn, director of career services, she is not in fact a contributor to this issue. The author of The Thrilling Epic of Lady Pfarlington, Exquisite and Most Excellent Bug Madame of Highest Repute in Space Aristocracy, Whom is Forced to Murder In Pursuit of Regaining Her Husband's Attentions From the Licentiousness of Space Bordellos, which can and should be found at the back of the magazine, is Mr. Jamie Carr, as we almost correctly noted on the title page of said tale. With apologies to both Ms. Dunn and Mr. Carr, we regret the error. Well, it’s back. After a year’s hiatus, and another almost-year’s inactivity. The Swarm has returned in print! We’re very humbled to present a set of excellent stories from wonderful, patient, brilliant, patient, imaginative, and patient contributors—first in electronic form last spring, and now here on paper. Many thanks to them, for letting The Swarm be a home for their work. Many thanks also to those that came before us, particularly Lillie Franks and Esa Sclafani, without whom this revival would not have been possible (and without whom The Swarm would never have existed in the first place!). Also, we are accepting submissions for our next issue, to be released before the end of this semester! Please send your writing our way at stjohnspulp@gmail.com! And if you see Mr. Conway, please let us know. We’re pretty sure he owes us money. �The Monophysics of Mars, Part 4 Stylus Marner Editor’s note: Parts 1-3 do not exist in our quantum reaiity. Due to a brief malfunction on the part of Gmail’s universal resource locator, The Swarm’s e-mail account briefly received submissions intended for a St. John’s in a parallel universe where, somehow, religion has taken the place of science. This has led to a genre of fiction that is, to our knowledge, unprecedented in our universe. “What do you mean ‘The controls aren’t working’?’’ Peter, the ship’s theologian snapped. “This ship is powered by the prayers of the twelve most pure-hearted monks in all of America, and the controls are based directly on Aristotle’s lost treatise The Aeronautics, as reconciled with the Christian faith by myself. It not working would be a clear violation of Matthew 17:20. ‘If ye have faith as a mustard see’-’’ “We all know how the ship works,” said Mary. “I’m telling you that it’s not working now.” “Are you doubting my craftsmanship?!” “Now wait a minute here,” Matthew Matthias interceded, “Let’s not say anything that we’d repent of. I’m sure there’s an explanation for this that’s in accordance with doctrine.” Martin the robot did not contribute any ideas. Martin the robot was unensouled matter. “Look. The only way I can think of to disable the engines would be to corrupt the monks that... One second.” He hit a button on the control altar. “Is this the engine room?” “Yes, sir,” said a voice from the other side, carried from one end of the ship to the other by the power of a reliquary containing dirt touched by the archangel Gabriel, patron saint of communication. “Does Jesus have one nature, or two natures joined in hypostatic union?” “Well, it’s funny you should ask that, actually,” the voice replied. “Last week, I would have said two natures, but just yesterday I found this book in the engine room, and-” Peter let go of the button. “It’s worse than I feared. We’ve been sabotaged. By monophysites.” Mary gasped. “Good heavens! Not monophysites!” “Oh, come on,” Matthew said. “Everyone knows monophysites are just scary stories for children. They’re pure reli-fi!” Regular readers, of course, will recall that Matthew Matthias was nothing more than a simple, ripplingly muscled, dazzlingly handsome sexton before he was asked to read an untested, hyper-strong version of the Serenity Prayer, and fell asleep for two hundred years, waking up in the strange world of tomorrow. “Yesterday’s reli-fi is today’s reli-fact,” Peter replied. “They must have come from Mars.” “From Mars? But isn’t the existence of other inhabited planets heretical?” “Quite right, my boy. But Mars wasn’t always habited. The monophysites fled their in ships much like ours.” “But how could they have developed ships while praying to an improperly conceived Jesus?” “Exodus 7:11, good boy. ‘The magicians of Egypt did in like manner with their enchantments’.” “It’s said that on Mars, not only Jesus, but everything has to be made of one substance,” Mary added. “Specifically corduroy. Everything they wear, drink or eat is made of corduroy.” “How bizarre.” “They also murder children for sport and feed their elderly to corduroy monsters.” “And that’s not the worst part either,” Peter interjected. “It’s not?” “No. According to legend, they believe that communion wafers are only figuratively transformed into the essence of Jesus.” “Great stars!” Mary gasped. Matthew was too shocked to respond. “I know. It’s horrible, isn’t it?” “Well, that too. But I think we have a bigger problem. “Of course we do,” said Peter. “Original sin. Why do you bring it up?” “That’s not that what I meant,” Mary replied. “What is it?” asked Matthew. “According to our revelation based detectors, we’re just a few minutes from crashing into something really big. And really solid...” “You don’t mean...” Peter trailed off. Everyone except Martin, who was not alive, ran up to the window to look out. “Did you have to make this out of stained glass?” Matthew said, squinting. Peter ignored him. “Just as I feared...” At that moment, they realized the horrible truth: the ship was fast running low on quintessence-filled space and was about to crash... into the Circle of Fixed Stars! How will Mary, Peter and Matthew survive this one? Will they find out who sabotaged the ship with monophysitism? What was with that robot anyway? The Swarm regrets that not a single one of these questions will be answered next issue. Our apologies. �Kool Aid By Kira Anderson They told us there was a disease coming, a monstrous disease. Worse than the Avian Flu, worse than the Spanish Influenza, worse than the Bubonic Plague. What were we to do? I remember as shops closed in preparation for the incoming pandemic. Shelves were cleared of merchandise and everything was halted. No incomes, no outcomes, just fear. The local shop, run by Mrs Achinua was robbed half-way through the president’s speech about the coming end. He was hopeful. He had a solution. I remember watching his honest eyes as he delivered a beautiful, smooth reassurance to the people on cable television. We all sat around the TV, my big brother, my mother and me. The man seemed so honest that we all felt reassured for whatever reason. How could we not be? We elected him half a year earlier, and he and Congress were still in their honeymoon phase. Bills were being passed! Economy was growing! Until the announcement. And even then, we were safe. Poor Mrs Achinua, a widow of four years with no children, no family, and hardly a future, was watching the speech from the ancient laptop that always whirred in the back of her check out area, displaying Fox News updates. She was smiling, a crooked smile, showing her newly capped teeth. This president had made sure that she got the medical aid she needed. She had been suspicious of him at first, but now she loved this man. She was ogling the president’s own pearly whites when the gun went off against the back of her head, and the old laptop was still portraying the smiling politician as blood and brains dragged sluggishly down the screen. Mrs Achinua no longer had her wisened grey eyes, but the man who fired the gun got some cereal for his six children who lived in the apartments near Twelfth Street. It was the last box, actually, since everyone had already stocked up on supplies, th I had always liked Mrs Achinua, so when the man was dragged into the streets and torn apart by people hungry for something more than food and reassurance, I was a little happy. I hid it, though. My mother was distressed and held me tight to her, so I said nothing about how he deserved it. Only later did I learn about how his children starved, and no one would take care of them, since the youngest contracted something, something possibly deadly. After the citizens had cleaned the blood from the streets and returned to their homes to disinfect, my mother held me by my shoulders and looked me in the eyes. “Honey,” she told me, more scared than I had ever seen her. “I am so sorry.” “What for?” I asked, confused. “I don’t know what world you’ll have left after this,” she whispered, tears beading in the corners of her fiery eyes. “I’ll have something,” I said. I was so young, and I thought that this sickness would help the world. People would die, and the population would decrease. We would restart, stronger as a world than when we had entered this horror. I didn’t care if Suzy down the street choked to death on her own blood. I didn’t care if Tom’s mother watched her whole family fall apart. I would have a better life. Children always think like this before they see hell for themselves. those that could afford it. The next speech was given across the world in every language that I could think of and some that I had never even heard of before. Leaders of every nation announced their solution to fix the world—a drug had been manufactured, but everyone had to take it at the same time, so the disease could not mutate. If one person took it, then a day later someone else did, the disease could change, scientists across the world declared, looking nervous and tired. No one had slept well since patient 0 entered a hospital in New York and infected an entire ward, before infecting the rest of the world. The drugs were free, a simple purple pill handed out at every pharmacy across the country, across the world. Planes dropped boxes of them to areas in Africa or in mountains it was hard to reach. Everyone had a special place in their homes for the drug to be held until taken. My mom pulled out a tooth-holder I had used when I was five and still believed in the tooth-fairy. She put the three pills in there. There was a count down on every news station. In the right hand corner, there sat a simple ticking clock. We watched it with anxiety, hoping we didn’t catch the disease before the clock struck zero. There was a celebration planned in Time’s Square. The ball was going to drop, like on New Year’s. My mother even got my brother a new computer to be opened after the disease was stopped that he could take to college. I got a new set of games to play on the family computer, but I opened them before the ball dropped, because I was impatient. They were building games. I loved building games. Mom always said I should become an architect. I didn’t really listen to her, because I just liked putting wires and blocks together to make things light up and form buildings. I didn’t go to school, since it was cancelled to slow the rate of infection, so I sat at home building a little nation out of blocks on the computer, creating fictional wires and homes. I loved it. My mom always came home from work, took off her face-mask, threw her jacket into the laundry machine, turned it on to disinfect, and came to fetch me out of the office. I would hug her listlessly, wanting to return to the world in front of me where disease didn’t exist. Where Suzy didn’t end up in a mass grave and Tom wasn’t left an orphan on the streets to starve. It was too sad to watch how far we had sunk. Juliet Samora used to babysit for all of the kids on the street, and she was the nicest person I knew. She had blonde hair, which was permanently pulled back into a braid, and white, perfect teeth. When she came to my house before the plague, she made us cookies and would tuck us in at night. When my brother and I were younger, she would bring colouring books and crafts, and we would work on those for hours at a time. She was always so kind. One day, when mom was gone at work, she came to the door. I let her in, wondering what she was doing out in the streets. She came in with her perfect teeth and her hair in a loose braid, saying that my mom had called her to check in on my brother and me. Without prelude, she headed to the top of the stairs. I followed, curious. She got to Mom’s room and began grabbing her necklaces from a jewellery box in the closet. She did not even seem to notice me as I stood there in confusion. That was when my brother showed up. He knew more than I did. He walked up to Juliet and forced her head forward so that it hit the wooden dresser the jewels sat upon with a loud crack. I could not move. I was transfixed as my brother hauled the kind woman out of the room, pulled my mother’s belongings out of her pockets, and then picked her up. In her beautiful voice, she began pleading with him, with me, with us. She was only stealing to help her family out. She was afraid that her parents would die if they didn’t get money. She was scared. I was scared, too, and I yelled out to my brother. “Stop! Let her go!” But my brother only looked at me. His brown eyes met mine as he threw her down the stairs. She fell with a yelp and when she hit the floor, she stared back at us with a mix of horror and apprehension. Her pearly teeth were now pink and her hair was strawberry blonde with the blood that was pouring from lacerations. She scrabbled to her feet and ran out of the house, not a single tear in her eyes I had stood there, staring out the door, wondering how the world could possibly return to normal after we all had our pills. How could we just forget the horrible things we had done to each other in our darkest moments? Would people have been able to forgive the man that killed Mrs Achinua if they had not killed him? �I wanted to forgive the generous, beautiful Juliet, but could we simply forget what happened when the world became civilized again? The ball dropped at 12:00 noon on September 11th. There was partying and the people in the streets all swallowed their pills, delighting in the fact that they could help stop a rampant disease. I could hear loud music from other people’s homes. There were even some firecrackers going off. Everyone was so excited that it seemed to be tangible, floating in the air. These people celebrated that the government could save them from a horrible fate, and why should they not have? There was so much patriotism. My brother waved a small American flag up and down after he swallowed the purple pill. His eyes were glued to the television, watching thousands of other people do the same thing across the country. I wanted a glass of water, though, more than I wanted to celebrate. The pill tasted a little like Kool-Aid. Like the grape kind, which I didn’t like. My excited smile turned into a frown as I felt a pressure growing behind my eyes. I brought my hand to my forehead, trying to urge the pain away. My brother fell first. The flag dropped from his fist and onto the ground. It rolled to my feet, the red and white stripes blurring together in my eyes. Mom yelled at him, saying that he should never let the flag touch the ground. I don’t know why she did that. He already knew not to let the flag fall. I slowly let my hands drop away from my face to see my brother on the floor, face up, staring back at me emptily, the whites of his eyes a deep burgundy. I heard a gasp and a loud thud and soon Mom’s eyes were empty too. I sunk to my knees, clutching my head. Blood oozed from my mouth. It hurt like nothing I had ever felt before. But what did all the pain matter? The government had fixed all the world’s problems. The Girl in the Lake By Jonathan Grauberd There was once a girl... She lived in the city, or so the story goes. It had been told many times, and it always starts the same... I met that girl on an odd day. The sky was fine and pretty. The trees were green and simple in their most noble of ways. Mothers and their children were running amok, oblivious to the marvel that rose from the lake. I didn’t remember a lake in the center of the city. But I had been gone for a long time, and it had a habit of twisting our memories into mocking pictures. Whether it was the new wrinkle that I had found on my forehead, joining many others in what was quickly becoming a cavalcade of eternally smiling faces. To think it was once so smooth. As she rose from the lake, every drop of water clinging to her porcelain skin with religious devotion, all thoughts left my mind. Which was a wonder, and no small one at that. All of my worries, the small and not-so-small qualms that gathered like devious dust mites in my mind as the years had worn on vanished. The money, the family, and retirement; all had gone away like my youth. The late afternoon breeze blew back her dark hair that had somehow already dried. I got up from my bench, rising slowly. After all no one else had noticed her, nor did they seem to notice the lake that had appeared in the center of the city. Only I saw the girl with the crimson lips that was watching me with eyes that shone like emeralds in the twilight sun. My arms were heavy, and my legs were slow. It was not always this way. Once, long ago, I could run. I was strong. For once my memory did not fail me, and I remembered that in an age long forgotten I was loved. Soft orange hues seemed to color everything as I drew near the girl in the lake. People became ethereal forms, their words nothing but specks of violet light in the orange haze. I could no longer hear the city, and in all honesty I did not care. Only the girl standing in the center of the lake with the crimson lips and the emerald eyes mattered to me. With every step I took towards her my will which had made me unstoppable returned, and as it did I felt that wonderful fire light up in my gut once again. There was no mirror around to be found, yet I did not need one to see that I was young again,that my back was straight again and that my hair was once again full. All at once I felt a cool autumn breeze. To my left I saw the moon. It mattered not that that it was still light out to my right, and that she waited there. But I had a feeling that she was very patient. She had been waiting for a long time. A little longer would not hurt. The white eye in the sky was shinning bright, casting a pale silver light over the cold desert. The stars were out in full force, and all of a sudden I was sixteen again. The entirety of the desert lay before my feet. The cool desert night went through my jacket effortlessly, and all reason told me to leave. I should have been getting warmer, my spine should have been shuddering, but only a wonderful feeling of serenity and awe flooded my senses. The whole world lay before and I had never felt more alive. Waves of orange light come flooding in as the evening began to set on the city. Yet as it did the twilight light of the lake only grew stronger. I kept walking and as I did, so did she. The water rippled softly with every step that she took. I neared the edge of the lake when the scent, that all too familiar scent assaulted me. It was the smell of rain, falling off of pine trees and melting the snow that had fallen on the ground only the night before. I was a child again and I remembered how the entire world seemed to wake up as the sun hit the snow launching a dozen rainbows into the air. �Then I was on the edge of the lake. Right before me she stood, her eyes kind, but so very old. She reached out to me with a pale hand, and I was no longer tall and strong, I was but a child before her. A child with his entire life stretched out before him. Only then did she speak, her voice coming through a trillion echoes, from the sky and the earth, and mostly from her radiant lake. "Are you ready?" I looked back and I saw a thousand snapshots of my life spread out. Each one becoming vaguer and murkier until the end where an old man was sitting on a bench. His hair was gone and his back hunched, but I saw something in him that seemed almost unnatural. It was not life because that had been long gone, but on his impossibly old lips I saw a smile. I turned back to her and watched those terribly kind eyes, and I asked as a child would, "Where are we going?" Not another word left her lips, she grabbed and my hand and led me into the lake as the world dissolved into bright golden hues. There was once a girl... She lived in the city... But it was not one of ours. • ’.t ■^8^ eilT ..s , bib «.bib I es rwlw bis w-'-; i iw® 6 ogrimo Wifevsw • ■■m f. t > twwi i la 1ertt Wio Family By Barnabas Holleran “Hey, Brandon, it’s good to see you again. How are you doing this week?” “Hi Dad, I’m doing fine, how are you?” “Honestly, I’ve been better. I’ve had this damned crick in my back since Sunday. The nurses can’t do anything about it. They say I have to just wait it out. You count your blessings. Bran. You take your young body for granted, and then one day you wake up at three in the morning, you have to piss like a racehorse, and you can’t move a damned inch.” “Can’t the nurses do anything? This is robbery! Anne and I are spending a fortune to make sure you’re cared for here.” “Yeah, well, what’re ya gonna do.” “Dad, can I talk to you?” “Of course! Sit down! What’s the matter?” “Dad, I saw him again. I know you don't believe me, but I saw him again. I don't know who else to go to.” “Saw him? Saw who? What happened? ” “You know who. Don't pretend you don't remember that night. Alright, so this was two nights ago, about three in the morning. I got up for a glass of water. I went downstairs to the kitchen sink, and that’s when I saw the light on in the barn. Well, you know how we put the switch for the lights back by the fridge, so we wouldn't have to come back through the dark? I just figured Anne forgot to shut them off, so I flipped the switch and went back for a glass. But when I got to the window, the lights were still on. I saw him, dad. Just for a second, but there he was in the window, dark and still, and I nearly missed him. Then the lights went out. Dad, I remember wiring that old barn. I remember handing you the screwdriver while you stood on that big ladder, and I remember you telling me how 'One switch is damned complicated enough' and that we’d put it right inside. Well the switch doesn’t work. He was standing in the barn and he made the lights go out.” “Brandon, I've got something to tell you. You're not the first one to see something wrong with that barn. I'm sorry I never believed you before. I didn't want it to be true, I guess. Your mother saw it the first time. She was out taking in the laundry this one night in early August. It was the night before... You know. Well, she said she was taking the sheets off the line when she happened to glance over at the barn. The lights were on, which was unusual, and she could see the shadow of a ladder on the glass. She finished up the laundry and went to turn off the light, but the ladder had another shadow on it, a young boy. She said she thought it was you, or maybe your brother. She turned around just in time to see it fall off, backwards, headfirst. I heard her scream and I ran outside to see her disappearing into the barn. I found her there, sitting on a hay bale, crying. There wasn't any ladder, and there wasn't any kid. You were in your bed, sleeping peacefully. It really got to your mother though. She told me what happened, and we went to bed. She cried herself to sleep. Next morning, she was real distracted. I found her when I got back from work. Well, you know the rest.” “I'm sorry, dad. But what gives? You never believed me before! I knew there was something to the shadow. I saw him, and now you know it. It wasn't just the storm, and it wasn't just the wind. That night was more eerie than other storms. There's always a calm before a storm, but not like that one. I told Jason not to go out there, but he just called me a sissy. And what did I know? I was just the little brother who never knows anything. I knew he shouldn't have gone out, and I know I saw the shadow out there that night. Even afterwards, you didn't believe me. You said I was just scared. You said I was just seeing things. That it was just Jason. Why are you suddenly ready to listen?” �“Because I saw him too, dammit. I saw him too. If you're crazy, then I'm crazy too. I couldn't sleep last week. Damned back. So I got up and went to the window. I saw it large as life. My back may be going, but my eyes have always been sharp. He was sitting on the park bench down below, legs crossed, arms draped over the back, like he owned the building and everyone in it. Cool as a cucumber. He just looked like a shadow. Like there was nothing there, where there should be something. You didn't say how big he was, though, before. I always thought you described him more like Jason, your age, but he was just sitting there, large as life, a man. I'm so sorry, Brandon, you were right all along. I should have listened to you. I'm so sorry.” “It's alright. Dad, I forgive you.” “I'm so sorry. Come here, come here. Take my hand. Forgive me for not listening to you.” “Of course. Dad, I forgive you. Your hands are like ice! You're freezing! Dad, are you alright? This isn't just your back. You’re not well.” “Of course I'm not well! That thing's been following my family! First your mother, then Jason, and now I’m gonna lose you! I’m too sick in here to do anything about it! I couldn’t take care of your mom, I couldn’t take care of Jason, and I can’t save you. I’ve let everyone down. Forgive me, son, forgive me!” “Just hold on, dad. It’s not me I’m worried about. I’m going to get a doctor, just hold on. Oh! There’s someone at the door. Nurse, thank god, call the doctor!” “Excuse me sir, you can't be in here.” “Don't be ridiculous, of course I can. This is my father's room!” “Sir, this room has been empty all day. Are you alright? What's your name?” “It's Brandon Henderson. That can't be right, the room-- wait, what happened to the bed? Dad? Where are you?” “Henderson? I'm sorry, Mr. Henderson passed away last week. The room has been empty since.” “He was right here! I was talking to him when you came in!” “Are you alright, sir? Come on, follow me. It’s okay.” The nurse held out her hand and I took it, holding a little tighter than necessary. I looked back and saw the room, now dark and filled with shadows where my father had been. I didn’t understand. I just wanted to leave. The nurse led me through an endless maze of long white corridors, monotonously decorated with dusty fabric flowers on narrow shelves. The halls were dimly lit but grew lighter as we reached the front of the hospital. I could tell we were almost at the foyer, because as we turned down one corridor, I saw an ornate window at the end, letting long shafts of light into the dusty air. We passed a sitting room, and I paused to look in. The nurse gave me a gentle pull, but I didn’t move. She followed my eyes to the small TV on the wall. Choppy subtitles poured across the screen as an immaculately combed man from the town’s only TV station read us the news. I read the blocky white text as it obscured the news desk and its timing mocked the anchor's lips. “The police are still looking for the homeowner and primary suspect of this morning's fire.” it read. “First responders were able to recover remains of a woman from the rubble. They were not able to confirm her identity, but she is likely Mrs. Anne Henderson,” a beautiful photograph of my wife appeared on the screen, “the wife of Brandon Henderson,” my own face appeared on the screen beside hers, smiling with her like we were posing for a Christmas card. I felt my skin crawl. The nurse jerked her hand out of mine, and I looked over at her to see only fear in her eyes. She called out, and I found myself being pulled backwards through the hall out of which I had just come by two large orderlies, walking firmly deeper into the hospital. As I watched the window, in a panic to escape, I saw him one more time, the shadow of a man, this time stepping out of a doorway into the shafts of light behind the woman, blocking them out, and though his face was featureless, I could tell that he was grinning at me. Exceedingly Messed Up Bedtime Stories By Shannon McGovern Once upon a time, there was a turtle named Henry and a hedgehog named Margot and they were the best of friends. The reason that they were such good friends was because although Margot was all prickly and pointy, Henry had a hard turtle shell, so Margot's prickles didn't bother him, so they both could cuddle and be wonderful friends. Everyday Henry and Margot would go down to the woods and visit the old oak tree where the owl, Mr. Richardson, lived and throw pine cones at him, because Mr. Richardson was a mean awry old bird and very racist. One day, on their way down to the old oak tree, they came across a hermit crab. “That's very odd,” said Margot, “hermit crabs usually live near the sea, or in tanks. The glass kind not the driving and destruction kind.” “You're right Margot,” said Henry, “this is a very odd turn of events. Perhaps this is the start of a wonderful adventure for all three of us. Hello little hermit crab, what is your name?” “None of your business, you wrinkly little shit,” said the hermit crab, “leave me the fuck alone. I fucked your mother.” The hermit crab then tried to give them his middle finger, but as hermit crabs don't have fingers, he just waved his claw at them. Margot and Henry looked at each other, and then at the hermit crab. “This hermit crab is an asshole,” said Margot. “You're quite right,” said Henry. “Are you thinking what I'm thinking?” “I think I am,” said Margot. So Henry and Margot threw the asshole hermit crab at the racist owl, and the hermit crab caught a bad case of Hepatitis B and died. The owl then decided enough was an enough and that he was tired of all these motherfucking crabs in his motherfucking nest, so he retired to Florida, where he could be as racist as he wanted without anyone really caring. And Margot and Henry lived happily ever after. The end rttiw �A Story about Walking in the Woods By Grayson Mooney The tree sat back, low and hunched at the back of a little clearing. Looking back on everything, I can’t believe it took me so long to notice them. I suppose that was because it was raining and I was taking a shortcut. Normally I don’t go through the woods, they’re infested with ticks and living where I do we have an epidemic of crazies setting up camps amongst the trees, little assortments of second hand tents and plastic sheeting, all surrounded by a sprinkling of broken glass and crushed beer cans. But seeing how it was pouring down rain in hard little pellets of liquid that almost hurt to be hit by, I decided that a shortcut was necessary. I wasn’t wearing shorts or exposing any skin that ticks could get into and I was carrying around a little knife, mostly for cutting up boxes at work but I supposed that it would have to do if someone decided to try to jump me as I was heading home. I didn’t see anyone for the first few minutes as I traipsed through the foliage. The trees above me blocked out the worst of the rain and it was oddly quiet as I continued. I was starting to amuse myself by walking on a log when my foot slipped and I tumbled down into a perfectly placed bed of stinging nettles. Standing up, trying to figure out just how to combine profanities into a suitable expression of my feelings, I saw a nice, straight stick that I could use to beat the nettles into a pulp. As I went for it, venturing deeper into a little clearing, I saw that the grass and plants around me had been tamped down, as if a crowd had walked over them not too long before. Standing up, I looked before me and felt the breath catch in my throat. Hanging, not ten feet in front of me, perfectly at eye level, were a pair of Italian penny loafers, the leather scuffed, a clod of mud stuck stubbornly to the toe of one of them. I stepped backwards, wondering exactly what I was seeing for a moment before realizing that the well dressed man before me was hanging from his neck by a length of rope that was already dark and soaked in rain from the storm. Feeling numb I wondered why the guy had hung himself, why he had done it in his Sunday best...and why he wasn’t alone. There were other corpses hanging silently in the tree, their faces puffy and purple, hands hanging limply, clothes soaked with rain and feet pointed downwards. There had to be a dozen of them and as I took another big step backwards I heard a noise behind me, rising over the rattling of rain and the moaning of the wind. On the other side of the clearing, beyond the log that I had fallen off of, there was a figure, standing stock still, staring at me through the growing dimness. It was almost evening and the sun set fast in the woods, why was I still here? “Don’t come any closer!” I shouted, holding up my stick, hoping that it looked a lot more substantial than it actually was. The figure didn’t respond, just kept staring before making an odd shivering motion, like a dog shaking water from its fur. I looked at the woods behind me, past the corpse laden tree, and wondered what my chances were if I made a run for it through there. It led deeper into the woods but the path to my house, and the rest of civilization for that matter, meant going closer to the figure, who I noticed was now starting to move forwards. As he came closer, steadfastly ignoring my terrified threats. I saw that he was wearing a black parka and holding a coiled length of rope. Moving slowly, carefully, I edged my way past him, holding the stick before me in a defensive motion. He didn’t even spare a glance my direction though, instead continuing onwards until he was at the base of the tree. For a long moment he stared at the branches and then nodded with obvious satisfaction. Taking the hood of his parka off he began to clamber into the tree, the bodies shaking and swaying as he disturbed their natural equilibrium. “What are you doing?” I asked weakly, already knowing the answer. The figure ignored me though, instead picking a spot between two hanging bodies and carefully tying the rope to the branch. He glanced up at me as he began to fashion a hangman’s knot and I saw that, shockingly, he looked ordinary, not at all like whatever mental approximation of a cultist that I’d had before. “Get going,” he said, “you don’t want to be around for this.” He sounded perfectly at ease, almost happy. “If...If you’re in a cult I can help you,” I said, very aware that my voice was shaking and on the verge of cracking, “you don’t need to do this.” He didn’t respond, just looked down at me sadly, like I was missing some obvious and fundamental truth of the universe. As he finished his knot, testing it with practiced hands, I drew the knife that I had in my pocket, flicking the blade out. “Don’t do this,” I told him again, feeling slightly more confident now that I had at least a temporary solution to what lay before me, “I’ll cut you down if you hang yourself. There’s no point.” As I said this he sat bolt upright from where he was and stared at me, terror in his eyes. “No!” He shouted, his voice ringing off of the surrounding trees, around us the rain continued to fall, even harder if that was possible. He shook his head violently and tugged at the knot again, his previous aura of calm was gone, now he seemed agitated and upset. “Don’t-” I started to say but a rumble of thunder cut me off and the figure shook his head. “I’m almost late,” he muttered, then looked at me, his face contorted with something that looked like fear, “don’t cut me down, they’ll get angry if you do!” What the hell was he talking about? “Who are they?” I asked, and watched him fit the noose around his neck, water dripped off of the blade of my knife and I remembered that it was somewhat dull. Would it cut through the rope that he was using? I hoped so. “You don’t want to make them angry,” he smiled in a sickly manner and glanced at the other corpses surrounding him, “it would be a pity...the harvest was good this year.” I blinked, confusion and fear clouding my thoughts, then he tightened the noose with a convulsive jerk of his arm and I saw something set in his face. “No!” I shouted but he didn’t listen. He jumped. Kornto fcfuso uov . .. , ' ‘ .... , - .;-A ' -4 *■ . I i« ■I,...'i « ......... . 1 • • ■ , 'S- ■: A ? ' "i ' J I ■»■'''•■ r i., . 'A,' 5 A, •rj,*' ■ .*y I '/>< 'if, j V ' *'' *» * * r.'d•* '' �Her Name is Eve By John Farrell As moonlight shines on the discarded body parts that litter the forest around me, I hear him singing. I’m breathing too heavily to be able to recognize the song, but whatever it is it’s slow and methodical. He isn’t chasing me anymore. I can’t get away and he knows it. He’s enjoying this. Letting the fear creep into me. Imagining what he’s going to do to me. The strange thing is that none of this is what really disturbs me. The part that gets to me is the idea that this is what was supposed to happen from the beginning. I am realizing that everything I did to avoid this point only guaranteed that I would get here. I look at the Calvin stepping lightly over corpses and smiling at me as he sings. I wonder if someone wanted this it to end this way. I recognize the song now. It’s an old Kyrie he used to sing absentmindedly when he was inputting data at the end of the day. Just something he would use to pass the time while his mind was occupied. He reaches me and I fall to my knees. I don’t have the energy left to run, and he knows it. He raises the scalpel and waits for a moment, looking down at me. For a moment I don’t understand why, until I start listening closer. He wants to finish the song. I don’t know what makes me want to speak. I know it won’t stop him. I know he decided to kill me long ago. I do it anyway. “You know. Cal, you don’t have to do this.” The smile drops from his face and he narrows his eyes at me. “I’m not so sure.” Closing my eyes, I wait for the blade to drop. And I think back to a few hours ago. “I always hate it when they scream,” Abraham said next to me, wincing. “They’re not screaming, Abe.” said Gottfried in his usual content, relaxed tone. “That sound is just what happens when their vocal circuits get flooded with electricity.” “Yeah, well...it’s painful, isn’t it?” Abraham asked, peering through the glass at the Alpha and Beta models. “Well...unpleasant is a more accurate word. They aren’t complicated enough to have the neural processes for pain. But I guess the point stands that they don’t enjoy this. And I can tell from the look on your face that you don’t either.” Abraham shrugged, continuing to observe the models. “Yeah, well, it’s this or my job. What choice do I have here?” Gottfried just shrugged back, never taking his eyes off of his computer. He had enough faith in the rigor of the experiment that he no longer felt the need to pay any real attention to it. He felt that the results would end up the way they had the past twenty times, and so far he was always right. The five of us had a fairly simple task to perform. The science behind it was heavy and incredibly expensive, but our job was pretty simple: watch the units and record their actions. Alpha and Beta were the military’s attempt at rudimentary artificial intelligence. The fact that it was military meant that it was secret, so everything we did was inside an underground complex with only one way to the surface. The units we were given could think, communicate, and interact with their surroundings. All of this they could perform with limited functionality at best, but they were an important step on the way to proper computerized thought. I don’t know who made the call to make them look so human. The units were five feet tall with basic humanoid shapes and surprisingly expressive faces. Their skin was all uniform white and they didn’t have any hair or clothes, but it was something about their faces that got me. Those things took real craftsmanship. Looking at them you could almost forget you were seeing something that wasn’t really a person. Sometimes when I looked into their eyes I would wonder why they’re so real looking. I always found it creepy watching over something that reminded me so much of myself. Looking back on it it makes me wonder about why 1 look the way I do. The team was Calvin, Gottfried, Isaac, Abraham, and me, the only woman of the group. Our job was to run the units through some simple scenarios, see how they react, and record it. All in all it was pretty straightforward, and it didn’t take long to get bored with it. It wasn’t that anything we had them doing was particularly routine; in fact some of the situations were pretty unique. Sometimes they were as uninvolved as basic puzzles requiring the units to work together to find the solution, although they often went much farther. We weren’t just testing their ability to think their way out of situations; much of what we had them doing was meant to ascertain how well they understood not only themselves but one another. They showed only rudimentary grasps of qualities such as sentience and empathy. At the moment we had Alpha and Beta in a large empty room together. In the center was a large red button on a small table. If either of the units pressed the button, it was hit with a mild but noticeable electric shock. Because of this, the way the units’, for lack of a better word, “personalities” were programmed. Alpha was the one more likely to touch it first, and Beta upon seeing this would be unable to overcome its natural curiosity and follow suit. The boredom came not because this test was uninteresting in itself, but because we had to perform it at least a hundred times before we could consider ourselves done. Once we were done, we’d erase their memories and start again. “Good science is about repetition.” Calvin would always say. It irked me to have to repeat the experiments so many damn times, but in the end he was right. The other thing that made these trials so boring is that they always ended the same way. Every time. Isaac squinted his eyes through the one way glass as Alpha retreated from the button and Beta approached. “I don’t get this. I don’t get it at all. They weren’t made to make the same exact decisions every time...so why does every situation end the same way?” Gottfried scribbled something absentmindedly and still didn’t feel it necessary to look up. “Weren’t they though? All their choices are just based on set parameters. If the parameters are the same every time, why would they act any differently?” “Because if these things simulate intelligence as well as they’re supposed to, they should act the same way as people.” Isaac said. “Are our actions really that simple? Can they just be boiled down to set reactions?” This finally got Gottfried’s attention. He lifted his eyes and stared off into thought for a moment. The moment didn’t last very long. He shrugged and returned to his work, quipping disinterestedly “Does it matter? We’ll never know the parameters so I don’t see that it makes a difference.” This seemed sufficient for him, but it only annoyed Isaac more. “Okay then, let’s change something around. Put them in different positions in the room or something. Put some kind of warning on the button. I don’t know.” Abraham shifted uneasily. “We’re not supposed to do that. People in charge say this is how they want this done.” Isaac began tapping his foot impatiently. “Yeah, well maybe they don’t know what they’re doing the way you think they do. I mean we’re here to learn, right? Isn’t that the point of all this? What are we here for if they only want us to stand and watch the same thing happen over and over? Isn’t there some greater point?” Abraham didn’t respond, keeping his eyes on the experiment running and hoping Isaac would drop it. After a few seconds we heard the strange electric sound that meant the experiment was done. Gottfried recorded the elapsed time (which was of course the exact same at it had been every other time) and the rest of us entered the room. Upon seeing us Alpha’s eyes widened and it cowered back into the corner. Right, I told myself. Every time they see us it’s for the first time. And they have no idea what they’re looking at. Abraham takes out a remote and pressed a button, causing Alpha to shut down. He and Isaac began inspection of Alpha and I took Beta. Its right arm was twitching strangely, jerking upwards �Its right arm was twitching strangely, jerking upwards and hitting itself on the head, which shouldn’t have happened if it were off. Something must have gotten hit as it fell; some kind of circuit was going off that wasn’t supposed to. “Guys” I said to the others, “something’s up with Beta. I’m going to go take it back to the shop.” Isaac was in the process of lifting Alpha into a standing position and looked over to me. “Good. I think we could all use a break. This one checks out fine. Oh and while you’re there tell Cal that we’re going to need a full retune in a day or two. I want to be sure that the electricity isn’t going to overload anything if we keep doing this.” “You know he’s not going to like that.” “Yeah I do. I also know he’s going to do it anyway. It’s part of the job.” He was right. Whatever he thought of the work Calvin never complained. He just did his duty diligently. I loaded Beta onto a cart and headed off towards the shop. There were some things about the shop that always unsettled me. Broken body parts dotted the walls and work benches. I knew they weren’t real, but they were close enough to human that I always tried to block them out whenever I came into the room. I kept my gaze on Beta in the cart below me. It had stopped twitching by now, but there was probably still something wrong with it. Calvin was the other thing that bothered me. At the moment he was bent over one of Beta’s discarded arms through a magnifying glass. He was whistling a Kyrie under his breath as he tinkered with the arm. Some sparks flew and it started to twitch. Calvin laughed. “Ha! Knew I would figure it out!” I wheeled the cart around to him and he looked up to me. “Got something weird going on with the power distributor. And Isaac says he wants some diagnostics done to make sure they don’t start shorting out. Hope it’s not too much for you.” He looked up at me, a strange smile still on his face. “Nothing’s too much work. I’ll make sure to get it done.” There was something I didn’t like about the way he looked at me. There was nothing sexual or threatening about it. It was more like he wasn’t seeing me at all. Calvin just looked right through you with a light smile playing on his face. Nervously I searched for something to say. “Yeah...great. I worry about them, you know. Gottfried keeps saying they can’t feel pain, but I hate how they keep breaking down.” At this he narrowed his eyes. The smile remained. “Would it make a difference if they did feel pain?” I was honestly dumbfounded by this. “Y-yes. Yes of course it would make a difference. We’re trying to understand them, not hurt them.” “But wouldn’t that be the best way to understand them? We see how they react under some really trying circumstances and we’ll have a much better idea how they operate. Why would we worry about their pain? They’re just objects that exist to serve a function. They’d just be doing what they’re supposed to do. Filling in their role in the greater plan.” That right there. That was why I never felt comfortable around him. This idea that no matter what we did to the units it didn’t matter because it was all part of the experiment. The word from the people in charge was enough justification for him. No complaints, no questions. He just did the work while smiling all the time. “Calvin I need to be getting back now. Is there anything you need from me?” “Yes. Just help me move Beta from the cart to the table.” He walked over and hooked his hands under Beta’s arms and I got the leg. We lifted it up and put it on the table next to where Calvin had been working, and suddenly Beta started lashing out with its right arm again. I backed off instinctively but Calvin held it down and began trying to inspect the shoulder. The unit’s left hand caught him in the face and knocked him back onto the floor. Calvin’s hand went immediately to where Beta hit him. I went down to him to see if he was alright. “Damn, Cal that looked rough. Are you okay?” He took his hand from his face and stared at it blankly. “What I am appears to be debatable.” I didn’t understand until I saw it too. The liquid on his hand and pouring slowly out of the small gash on his head. It wasn’t blood. It was oil. * * * Once we got everyone together we sat for hours in silence. At least it felt like hours. Isaac was fuming, Abraham was afraid and Gottfried didn’t much seem to care. Calvin was off in a corner by himself singing. I didn’t know what to think. I had hoped that it was just Calvin, but Isaac insisted that we all check ourselves. He took a scalpel to his arm and looked inside. At all of the circuitry. I could see by the look on his face that he regretted doing it. It must have hurt him a lot. Hurt...I thought. Why did they give us pain? Isaac interrupted my thoughts through gritted teeth. “Why the fuck are we here? What’s the point?” Gottfried finished a yawn and looked up from his computer. “The point is no different than it ever was: this is a test of new artificial intelligence. The only difference is that it looks like the people in charge are a lot farther along than they told us at first.” “So, what? We’re fucking machines? Everything we do dictated by some programming we have no say in?” Isaac said, pacing furiously. Gottfried sighed and sat up in his chair. “Is that really any different from the way you thought it was before? What is the brain but an incredibly complicated computer? The choices I make feel like choices whether they are or not, so what does it matter if they’re predetermined?” This didn’t seem to work on Isaac. “The difference is that you’re wrong. Your ignorance doesn’t make you free. I’m who I am because of the experiences I’ve been through in my life. I want that to matter.” Gottfried just shrugged and held up his hand, still dripping with oil from where he had cut it open. “Evidently you need to rethink some of your assumptions. It may be that you never existed before we all stepped into this lab.” This stopped us all dead for a moment, but Isaac’s anger let him rally faster than the rest of us. “So what are we? What do we do?” “Me? I’m what I always was: a scientist,” Gottfried said. “And I intend to finish the experiment.” Abraham started nodding in agreement. Or maybe shaking with fear. Now that I think of it I don’t know for sure. “Yes. Yes, he’s right. It’s clear that we’re here for a purpose. We were told to watch the units and record data. That’s exactly what we should do.” I couldn’t agree, though. It all seemed so pointless suddenly. “But the units don’t matter anymore. They aren’t the experiment. We are.” “So what do we do, then? We were probably never supposed to figure this out. What if they just come in and erase our memories and start again, just like with the units? If we keep going everything will be fine. Nothing will happen to us if we just-” everything will be fine. Nothing will happen to us if we just-” “Will you fucking listen to yourself?” Isaac shouted. “You want to cower and beg like slaves? If the point was to make machines with intelligence I’d say they have a damn success on their hands, and I intend to show them just how well their ‘machines’ function.” “You aren’t getting this, Isaac.” Gottfried said, rubbing his forehead in frustration. “We don’t know if we’ve broken parameters. It’s entirely possible that Beta hitting Calvin and everything that followed from it was on purpose...including this conversation.” “Yes Isaac,” Calvin said, rising to meet us with another smile on the edge of his mouth, “we are only doing as we are meant to. All part of the grand plan, don’t you think? You have no need to worry.” Isaac was clearly not accepting this. “No. No, this is wrong. I’m not going to be a part of this. And if all of my responses are programmed then I’ll just do something unexpected. Something I don’t even choose.” �Calvin had his eyes locked on Isaac in an unsettling way. He was still smiling, but there was something dark in his face. My back touched the wall before I realized that I was moving away from him. “We can’t violate the will of those in charge, Isaac. They wouldn’t make us that way.” “I don’t accept that. Cal.” said Isaac. “Whatever this is there’s a way out of it...and I think I know what it is.” I really would have liked to know what his plan was. Unfortunately the scalpel that Calvin shoved through his throat made sure that I would never hear it. ★ * ★ It wasn’t until Isaac hit the floor that I realized what had happened. There was just this horrible gurgling sound Isaac made as the oil rushed out of his throat onto the floor. Abraham knelt down to try to help, but there was nothing he could do. I was frozen in terror and Gottfried was just staring at Calvin, but he wasn’t afraid. He was resigned. Calvin reached down and pulled the scalpel out of Isaac, keeping his eyes on Gottfried. I heard myself say it before I realized I was speaking. “You’re a monster. Cal. A monster.” He laughed at me. He actually laughed, but he never looked at me. “Girl, if I’m a monster then I’m the monster they made me to be. Don’t you see? I don’t do this because I enjoy it or because I want to or because I’m insane. It’s because it’s what I’m made to do. What they wanted me for all along.” He raised the scalpel and pointed it at Gottfried, who shook his head. “Wherever it comes from, you’re the one doing it, Calvin,” he said with a sound more of disappointment than fear. “Don’t try to mask the choice in pointless philosophy.” Calvin merely shrugged. “Believe what you need to,” he said right before he slashed Gottfried across the throat. “The end is the same.” At this point I was on the ground. I don’t remember how I got there, only that I was too afraid to get up. Calvin was looking me in the eyes and stalking towards me across the room when a shadow fell across me. I saw Abraham standing over me, quaking visibly, with his arms outstretched. He had put himself directly between me and Calvin. “I-I’m not g-g-g-oing to let you do this, Calvin.” he managed to squeeze out. Calvin’s smile only widened. “You’re going to move, Abraham. You’re going to do nothing as I cut this girl up and ignore you. Do you know why? It’s because you’re afraid. And you’re afraid because they want me to do this. You know that, don’t you? If we’re just experiments, we have to fulfill our duty. It’s my job to kill her just as it’s yours to let me. Don’t you see? We have to finish the experiment.” Abraham looked over his shoulder at me, slowly. I could see it in his eyes. He wanted a way out, maybe a sign from god or maybe just another option, but one wasn’t coming. “I’m sorry, but Calvin is right. We can’t decide for ourselves not to listen to the people in charge. This is the way it has to be.” He closed his eyes and dropped his arms, and finally I found the strength to move. Not just to move, but to run. I got up and bolted, never looking behind me. When I was halfway down the hall I heard Abraham scream. It didn’t take much imagination to know what had happened to him. I knew I only had one chance of getting out of this, and it was to get above ground. He was behind me, I didn’t know how far, but I had a slight lead on him and nothing left to lose. It wasn’t a long distance to the door that led out, but I had to wonder what if there was no outside? How much of what I knew was fabricated? Did the door even open? It was one of those big vault doors that you could only open by turning a long handle. When I got to it I didn’t know what to do, only that I had no other option. He was somewhere behind me, and going to be here soon. I wasn’t making any effort to hide the sound of my movements, only make sure they were as fast as possible. As I turned the handle I heard him singing. The same absent-minded song as always, as if all he was doing was cleaning up the shop. A quick hiss of air and the door was open. I pulled it open and looked at what was there to meet me. I don’t know what I expected. A great, beaming sun? A rush of water? What I found was darkness. At least, that’s what it looked like at first. I ran into it anyway, and once my eyes adjusted I saw trees. Stars. Moonlight. It was night and I was somewhere in the forest. Not the military base I remembered entering from when we started the experiment. Which was good. It gave me a context to judge what was real. But that could wait until later, assuming there was a later. By now Calvin was far behind me. I was running as fast as possible, but he was walking nonchalantly, probably certain he would find me. And all the time his song haunted me throughout the forest. I tripped over a stick and quickly scanned my surroundings. I could hear him but he was nowhere in view. What if he’s right? I thought to myself. What if he is supposed to kill me? Then there was nothing I could do to get away. Anywhere I would run, he would go and find me. Okay then, I needed to follow Isaac’s advice. Do something unexpected. Something I couldn’t control. I reached down to the stick and flung it into the air. When it hit the ground I saw the direction it pointed and picked up speed again. I thought they could never possibly guess I would make that decision. That they could never possibly calculate the strength and trajectory of my arm so accurately as to know exactly where I would go. The body parts around me told me differently. When I reached the tree I wanted to keep going, but I was totally out of energy. At this exact point I could not keep running. And it was at this exact point that I found the discarded parts of the previous models that had come before. My face. My arms. My legs. All dismembered and scattered around the tree from the previous iterations of the experiment. I remembered something Calvin had said earlier in the day. Good science was about repetition. I could picture the smile he would have on his face when he saw this and found out he’s right. His song was getting louder. He was going to find me and kill me and make me a data point for someone in a lab somewhere. At least that would have been the case if they were good scientists. Another thing about good science is that the experiment had to be the same every time. The parameters had to be exactly the same or the results could change. Which is exactly what I intended to do. Not only in the present, but in the past. I noticed there was something strange about all of the arms scattered on the ground. They were all pointed in the same direction. Whatever the position of the rest of the bodies, one of the hands on one of the arms was always pointed at something. I had figured something out in the past, but what? * * * He’s still holding the blade as I figure it out. An apple hanging just above his head, off of a branch that is just about to break. At some point it must have been hit by lightning, and the branch was split most of the way through. It was heavy, and with enough force it would fall on him. Maybe it would stun him. Maybe if I was lucky it could wound him. Either way it was a chance. If it didn’t work this time it would work next time. Or the time after that. Someday. And then one of me would be free. And after that? Who knows? I start to hit the tree with everything I have, and wonder why he isn’t killing me yet. Then I hear it. Right, I think. He wants to finish the song. But then he does. I’m hitting it as hard as I can and the branch is shaking. It’s loosening, and it just might fall. If not now, sometime. He moves towards me. I only have a few hits left before I’m done. ★ ★ ★ Far away, somtteone turns away from a screen in anticipation of what numerous trials have proven is about to happen. “Hey, you don’t want to watch? Climax is almost finished.” “Nah, man. I hate it when they scream.” �The Thrilling Epic of Lady Pfarlington, Exquisite and Most Excellent Bug Madame of Highest Repute in Space Aristocracy, Whom is Forced to Murder In Pursuit of Regaining Her Husband’s Attentions From the Licentiousness Of Space Bordellos By James Carr (A story for [REDACTED] based on a delightful conversation of a few days prior, and a writing prompt of this evening.) “You need to stop leaving dead bodies in my kitchen.” Not expecting to hear voices at that hour, Lady Pfarlington started, and lost her grip on Baron Tilswaddle’s exoskeleton. Having no longer the capability for motive force, the Baron’s corpse toppled with a distinct lack of decorum, to the kitchen floor. “My dear. I have simply no idea what you mean.” Replied Lady Pfarlington, resisting the urge to squint into the darkness to identify the speaker. A Lady did not squint after all. Fortunately, as she often found was the case, the universe obliged and rewarded her adherence to decorum and the plas-lamps flowed into life as her discoverer activated the kitchen access codes. It was, of course. Matron Tabitha. For who else claimed dominion of the kitchen? She was a round woman, befitting her station and species, but generally one of the more pleasant members of the help. Her current expression therefore, one of tired irritation, was not one that Lady Pfarlington approved of. The motherly ladybug glanced at the corpse, now visibly leaking vital fluids onto the floor, and opened her mouth to speak when Lady Pfarlington cut her off. “Matron Tabitha. I must say I am quite disappointed in you. Giving me such a scare like that. Firstly, it reflects very poorly on the manners your parents must have tried so hard to instill within you. One does not address another from behind as you did. Secondly, I do not approve of that expression. I understand that we are currently in a very trying time, what with all these frightful murders going on, but a woman’s charm is in her ability to maintain grace and beauty in the face of adversary. As a faithful servant in the employ of the Pfarlington Family’s Bacchus Class Pleasure Fleet, I expect from you the same standards that are expected of myself.” Matron Tabitha’s face at this point had gone through a veritable rainbow of expressions, and was now edging from bewilderment to the more unsavory emotions. Seeing this. Lady Pfarlington softened her expression and continued speaking before Matron Tabitha regained use of her tongue. “But as I said, these are trying times. And I suppose some allowances may be permitted for extreme circumstances. Please understand, I speak harshly only so that you may not commit a grievous error. For while an unflavorful soup may be redone, an error in social performance is not so easily fixed. While you are but an employee of my family, I like to think that I see you, in fact all of you, the help as more. That we have more of a- well, certainly not familial bond- but that special friendship that is so rare in crasser corners of this universe. Now, if you will excuse me, it is very late and the Viscount has scheduled a badminton match for the early hours in the morning and I must be well rested.” As she spoke of her husband, a delicate glow came into the cheeks of Lady Pfarlington, a blush of such modesty and gentle embarrassment that any who saw it must have believed the Viscount to be in the possession of the most loving and virtuous woman of the world. Embraced in thoughts of her beloved. Lady Pfarlington gave a small nod to the Matron and gracefully exited the room. Though she had seen the Lady’s tender blushing. Matron Tabitha’s heart was somehow unmoved by that most perfect display of love. It was not, though homely as she was, a bitterness of her temperament that left her so unimpressed, but rather the unignorable corpse that still lay in front of her plasteel oven. Tabitha had some small knowledge of virtue, and she was fairly certain that murder ran opposite to the path it taught. She stood there for a moment contemplating in the way that simple folk do, before touching the kitchen’s control panel and accessing the cleaning routines. This was not the first corpse she had encountered in her workspace before, and not even the first corpse the Lady had left there. (Though hopefully it would be the last.). But the sanitation routines were endlessly customizable and the ship’s engines could always use unexpected surpluses of fuel. With a few practiced swipes of the panel, the routine was set and a gentle humming filled the room. Tabitha returned to the light controls and slid them off before exiting the room. It would be clean by the time she needed it tomorrow and; a badminton match? Hmn, cucumber sandwiches perhaps. Those would be easy to put together and the Viscount was such a fan. Mumbling to herself, the matron returned to her room, idly making plans for appropriate soups and drinks to pair with the victuals of the morrow. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Swarm Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library Description An account of the resource Student publication that began publication in 2011. Click on <a title="The Swarm" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=33">Items in The Swarm Collection</a> to view and sort all items in the collection. Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data paper Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 23 pages Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Swarm, Issue #8 Description An account of the resource Issue 8 of The Swarm. Published in May 2015. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-05 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College owns the rights to this publication. Type The nature or genre of the resource text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Subject The topic of the resource Pulp literature Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Swarm_issue08_2015-05 Student publication