Heavy Haul Trucker: The Blog
Three Books
"Dyson Cat"
"The Trucker"
"The Yggsdrasil Highway Saga".
Snippet from Dyson Cat.
1: In which a University Student is Shanghaied
Some days it doesn't pay to chew through the leather straps.
No...I take that back. If I hadn't chewed through the leather straps I'd probably be getting tortured right now in Ryg'hd City. Instead I’m laying in a cage at "Animal Service Center" in Austin Texas recovering from my wounds. So yeah..chewing thru the straps was a good idea, but this week has been ALL mondays.
The bitch. It raises my hackles even now to even think about her. There I was within half a semester of completing my course of study for the "Certification for BioEngineered Polymath in Technology and Engineering:Theoretical, Modern AND Archaic" when this had to happen. I would have been the first genetically engineered cat to do it. Well.. a lion did it once...but that doesn't count. Special dispensation was given to those whose species were extinct at one time and had to be 'brought back', so the lion doesn’t count. Me? I'm what they used to call a house cat, my species is as common as dirt.
The poodle asked me to come outside and help her with a 'problem' . I should have known. Never trust a poodle. She was a blonde too. She turned out to be a real dog.
The poodle asked me to come outside and help her with a 'problem' . I should have known. Never trust a poodle. She was a blonde too. She turned out to be a real dog.
It had happened innocently enough. I was just finishing up a class project and was feeling the urge to unwind. The way I unwind is to fly. I love to fly. The room waldos had just completed dressing me in a flight suit. I was almost ready to go to the lift port when the poodle just “happened’ to walk by.
"Hey Cat" she said. (Cat isn't my name...it's my species...but she was a dumb bitch)
I inwardly cringed. Seeing her was the last thing I needed. "yes" I said politely...trying to inflect my voice in such a tone as to be dismissive without being overtly rude. Ok...I was trying to be rude too.
"I need some help" she said.
Big surprise I thought , blonde poodle....needs help? Wow! Who would have ever thought? "Oh?" I said out loud...inwardly groaning
"Yup..." she said. "Can you, like, come with me for a just a minute and help me out?"
"What is it" I asked
"It won't take but just a few minutes" she said, ignoring my question..."if you'll just hurry up and come ON I'd sure appreciate it. Puh-lease?." she waggled her tail in a manner I guess she thought was suggestive stepped out of sight outside the door.
Perhaps she was promising sex? Had I been gendered there would have been a number of reason’s that she didn’t attract me. Firstly was that she was the wrong species. Then there was the detail that she was dumb as a rock. I never could see why some of the TomCats I hung out with on occasion liked the dumb ones. I guess they did though, but that doesn’t affect me. I haven’t decided which sex I want to be yet so I’ve kept this body on hold so to speak. No pesky hormones bothering me and interfering with my studies.
Knowing that I would regret this later. I reluctantly followed her out of the building. Little did I know just HOW much, or how soon I'd regret it.
Just as I stepped outside the door she gassed me. Luckily, as I said, I was wearing my batsuit. The suit sensed the oxygen deprivation in my bloodstream and immediately activated nostril filters. I no longer inhaled the sleepy gas...a bare whiff was all I got. A bare whiff was enough apparently. It put me down. I couldn't move a muscle and my thinking was affected. I couldn't even put together a coherent thought. Or plan an effective counter move....which might have been the idea.
I was still 'aware'. I could see, hear and knew what was going on. I just couldn't think. Something big grabbed me and stuffed me in a sack. Now I was caught. I was trapped like a fly in amber. Even so, through the bag, I could faintly hear the bitch yapping.
"Take it to shuttle number 12...quickly...the shuttle lifts in ten minutes. Put it in bay one...here's your money"
So...I'd been shanghaied.
I'd been shanghaied for or by the Ryg'heds. They were the only ones who did such things. Ryg’heds are Horrible creatures. I would be treated badly in their so called 'religious' rituals and then tortured to death. What a drag.
My mind knew this. It processed information. I just didn't care. Nothing mattered to me. Whatever drug had been in that gas was potent and it was taking my blood nanites much, much too long to neutralize the stuff, a very ominous bit of information. My ‘give-a-shit’ was totally off line. I just didn’t care. After a time I was tossed, like a bag of mail, into a corner and I heard the door shut.
Shortly thereafter I felt vibration...the shuttle was going to lift.
Luckily I had only received a bare whiff of that gas, or my blood nanites had found the winning lottery ticket...or both. As quickly as it affected me it wore off. The drug in the gas must have been extremely 'smart' for it to fend off my blood nannies for this long. Like a light being switched on myh ‘give-a-shit’ came on line.
Once again the fact that I was wearing my flight suit came to my rescue. It had tools and weapons. In minutes I'd cut myself out of the bag. I'd symbolically 'gnawed through the straps. I rushed to the door. It was shut. Luckily I'm a big cat..for a housecat. I stood up on my hind legs and stretched. I could barely reach the latch but it turned when I pushed on it, the door was unlocked and I pushed it open. I was out of the bay in a flash and galloped down the corridor toward the cockpit.
My worse fears were confirmed...this WAS a RagHead shuttle. There was a raghead at the pilot station. I was too late...we were being ejected from the Dyson Sphere. In minutes we'd attain sufficient separation distance to warp through to the RagHead home planet. I was already doomed.
Doomed perhaps but I'm not a quitter. I also had weapons in my flightsuit. I opened the door and used one, a projectile thrower.
About that time the shuttle launched.....and lurched. NOT helping my aim at all. I accidently shot the raghead in the head. I’d been aiming at center of mass. In fact I blew his head mostly off. Oh dear.
Almost everything was on automatic right now anyway, a pilot wasn’t all that necessary. Unless I did something really soon I was going to be entertaining the young ragheads with my entrail colors. Never let yourself be captured they say and NEVER let them turn you over to the Females and the Children.
.My only chance was to change the destination. I aimed my slug thrower at the trans-dimensional Selector Mechanism and opened fire. I shot many times. Bullets bounced around the cockpit...things broke.
I didn't care. I kept shooting. I got the sucker.....The shuttle might translate through hyperspace after all..but very likely it was NOT going to the RagHead planet.
As soon as I run out of bullets, all several hundred of them, I shut the door and ran back toward the rear of the shuttle. I stopped at the first escape pod that I came to and scrambled into it. I strapped myself in as best I could and waited. Either this would work or it would not. If it didn't work then I'd be dead without even realizing what had happened.
We transited...but not to the RagHead's planet. We came here. Planet Earth.
The trans-dimensional shuttle had just exited the portal when..within mere minutes,....it noticed an object in it's path. The object, a missle most probably from it’s behavior, was on a collision course, evasive action wasn’t working...the missile was was tracking us. There would be a collision in seconds...even for the lightning quick reactions of the navigation computers there was no way to avoid it..
Why were we in atmosphere anyway? Why not out behind the moon where there would be no problem with missiles? Well for one thing the raghead thought it was going home. For another it had to do with fuel. Exiting hyperspace was done at randomly high speeds. Perhaps not relativistic speeds but fairly high by atmospheric standards. It had to do with Celestial Mechanics and Intrinsic velocities, not my area of expertise but I was familiar with the concept.
For any given hypothetical jump the location on the other end of the worm hole would most likely be orbiting a planet, that planet would be orbiting a star, that star was in turn orbiting the galactic center...the galaxy itself was in motion and.....so on. The same could be said for the departure point. Oddly enough these velocities are rarely the same nor did they even have the same vector.
Most times there is a large difference. A big velocity. That velocity had to be nullified. Over time it was found that the best way to "match velocities" was to do so at the top of an atmosphere. Drag from the atmosphere helps to slow down the shuttle. If no atmosphere was available it could take weeks to bleed off the inter-dimensional differential velocity....to match velocities. At least that’s what us lower classes have to deal with. It is said that the gods do it different. In all the time I’ve talked to my god we, somehow never got around to that subject. Imagine that.
The poor flight control computer lost it's tiny mind, it was doomed and it knew it.....but at least it did one thing right. It 'punched out' all occupied escape pods...and the pilot's seat.
The pilot being dead it didn't benefit much, it just got more dead. Me being alive, I benefited quite a lot. The escape pod slammed out of the shuttle bare instants ahead of the impact. The missile completely obliterated the shuttle. The collision also made a real pretty explosion and then nothing but very tiny pieces raining down on the planet below, and the escape pods...and the pilot seat. Being in an atmosphere there was a shock wave from the explosion. The shock wave caused my escape pod to tumble....we were THAT close.
My escape pod was tumbling, falling, spinning, rolling and heading down. Thru no doing of my own it was jinking all over the sky. It must have been damaged by the shock wave. I was alive but I was cussing the cheap stuff that the Raghead purchased. It got me out of the shuttle but it looked like it was going to kill me it's own self.
Most escape pods didn't take NEAR this long to stabilize on re-entry. I know that for a fact cause I do this thing for a hobby. I used the more sophisticated ejection capsules rather than the simpler escape pods but the principle was much the same. That is....take a fragile organic being out of an orbiting craft and deposit said critter onto the surface of the planet, mostly unharmed. This one didn't seem to be doing that. Then again...it HAD been almost blown up. I held on for as long as I dared and tried to judge how far up I was.
I shouldn’t have bitched. Most likely the only thing that kept me alive for those few minutes was that escape pod and stuttering and corkscrewing from here to there. It made a damn hard target for missiles.
It finally stabilized. We were now in a 'normal' re-entry mode. Fairly high up, and slowing down. Things were looking better.
the escape pod had slowed enough for me to survive an ejection.. I deployed the flight suite so that it completely covered my body but I kept the wings 'tight'. No need having them stripped off in a high speed slip stream.
I was fixing to un-ass the area. I had no idea what the planet below was like but most likely it was advanced enough to note the presence of an incoming escape pod. Someone on the ground might not like it and 'take steps'. I blew the hatch....and jumped..
I curled up as tight as I could into a ball. Since I didn't die I guess I'd slowed down enough. I stuck out a paw here...an elbow there...and tried to attain some symbalence of aerodynamic control. About that time the escape pod blew up. I was far enough away that I was unaffected by the explosion or the shrapnel. A missile finally got it.
I estimated that I was still ten or fifteen miles up. Without my flight suite I'd have suffocated if I didn't freeze to death first. The flight suite kept me alive...again. FINALLY I had slowed enough to deploy my wings. I WAS in my FLIGHT suit after all, with a whoooomp I suddenly slowed dramatically and was gliding under the span of mighty pinions. This was kinda what I'd had in mind doing for fun this weekend... for fun....before the bitch interfered with my plans.
Shortly there-after I was soaring like a bat. A fairly BIG bat.. as I had deployed the wings to max.... a bat with almost no visual, radar or electromagnetic signature. Lucky for me.
Descending upon the town of Austin Texas...on Halloween night.
Naturally someone saw me. Naturally that someone told another someone...and unfortunately they were ignorant and stupid and had shotguns. They shot me out of the sky. The flight suite stopped the pellets but not the bruises...and the broken bones. It kept me alive...again.
I managed to 'flutter-glide' out of their sight and land....in a tree. It didn't help. They found me. They were none too gentle pulling me out of that tree. In fact I think they were trying to hurt me. I fought back...I had the claws deployed on the suit and I got a few good slashes in. I was still partially under the influence of that damned drug and wasn’t thinking at my peak or I'd have deployed a weapon. Because of the gas I didn't think of doing so. The claws didn't help much. I think I only killed one. Very pretty throat slash with a fountain of crimson blood. Artistic gurgly type scream. It annoyed them I guess, having one of their own die in such a messy fashion. They banged me up, broke some more bones. I was nearly unconscious when they trussed me up good, and carried me away.
We took a ride in some kind of mechanical conveyance to a building and then I was pulled out of the vehicle and carried down a flight of stairs. They dumped me on a table.
I was weak and injured and still not thinking clearly. I immediately tried to gouge out some eyes but they were ready, I only got one or two and a few deep face slashes. Oh...I got another throat too. Dumb suckers. Give ME an opening and I’ll slash you every damn time.
For my trouble I got a shackle on one leg complete with chain, and they wrapped all my paws with some kind of tape...and my mouth. Then they drug me over to a piece of wood shaped kind of like a "t". The stretched me out on that "T"...or maybe it was an "X"...and got one arm secured to the cross thingy. Then one guy got out a nail and a hammer. He tried to nail my paw to the cross. That hurt. Didn't work though cause I was in a fully deployed flight suite. Flight suites are smart AND they're made from carbon. Graphene, diamond, buckytubes, carbon fiber...all that's carbon. No mere nail driven by a hammer is going to puncture graphene. It hurt my paw though.
THAT specific pain was enough of an impetance to clear my head. I realized where I was and what was going to happen if I didn't DO SOMETHING. I Tried very hard to DO SOMETHING. There I was...a thirty pound cat, being held by FOUR two hundred pound monkeyboys...and they were having a hard time holding on. Well the ride was just beginning boys. I deployed all claws to max length. they all slit right thru the tape and I commenced to slashing, some more. They'd taken their heavy clothing off when we come indoors so I was drawing blood. They backed off a bit and gave me the second or two that I needed....to deploy my plasma popper.
I was spitting fire now. A plasma Popper projects bb sized sphere's of plasma. I'll go into the details some other time if you like but...suffice to say it gathers it's energy from quantum space, kinda like the Casimir Transducers,and therefore it never runs OUT of energy .
Plasma is HOT. Core of the sun type hot. I shot them all. The entry wound was tiny...right between their eyes if I could manage. There was no exit wound. Their heads exploded. Brains turned instantly to steam...caused great pressure on the skull...they popped.
Unfortunately I got careless and missed a few times. I set the building on fire. After I'd killed all the monkey boys I lay there tied to that cross thingy too tired to move....while the building went up in flames around me. Then the building collapsed and everything fell into the basement. Good thing Flight Suits are fireproof.
Some time later there were loud noises and later still voices and movement nearby. Someone saw me.
Great emotion and turbulence ensued. I passed out from the pain before I could kill anyone. Else. Perhaps that was a good thing. These were the good guys.
When it all settled down I woke up and find myself here.
In a cage.
The bitch.
***
I'm also working on short stories...
an abstract...
***
StormRiders
Synopsis: Four old, old men share a bond of blood, passion and profession. They also share the same father...but different mothers, from different times and cultures. The genetics of their father is pure Æsir yet oddly presented as complete recessive on most obvious physical characteristics with earth women. Each brother look like a male version of their mother. Their Father was not from earth . He was an IceMage.
The hearts of storms and particularly IceStorms are composed of a tight, intense ball of negative energy. This Fluxation Kernel is interdimensional. On advanced planets all up and down the Gravity Stack Groups of IceMages do battle with the Jötnar by means of the Fluxation Kernel. The Jotnar seek to impose cold and entropy on the worlds by removing heat. The Fluxation Kernals use negative energy to do so. . The IceMages seek to divert the cold. One mage or group of mages on one side of the dimensional veil, another mage or group on the other side works best in order to prevent the Jotnar, on the third side from overwhelming their defences.. They oppose the Frost Giants such that minimal damage is done to their worlds.
The hearts of storms and particularly IceStorms are composed of a tight, intense ball of negative energy. This Fluxation Kernel is interdimensional. On advanced planets all up and down the Gravity Stack Groups of IceMages do battle with the Jötnar by means of the Fluxation Kernel. The Jotnar seek to impose cold and entropy on the worlds by removing heat. The Fluxation Kernals use negative energy to do so. . The IceMages seek to divert the cold. One mage or group of mages on one side of the dimensional veil, another mage or group on the other side works best in order to prevent the Jotnar, on the third side from overwhelming their defences.. They oppose the Frost Giants such that minimal damage is done to their worlds.
Earth, not having IceMages,had presented a problem to the adjacent world.. A lone IceMage, their ancestor, hundreds of years ago was overreaching and attempting to do too much when he got sucked thru to this side. He was lucky to live thru the transfer...few beings survive a screaming wormhole dive thru a Fluxation Kernal. He was badly burnt by the cold and would not have survived had it not been for the girl. She gave him reason to live. Given the major impetus to survive that she provided, his very robust immune system first kept him alive and then healed his wounds. For a hundred years he was the ice mage of earth and he lived among the tribes in north africa. They never even knew what he did or what he was, no one did. He was just the mysterious white man who had appeared from nowhere.
Alas the girl died. In their long life he’d sired a son..black as the night who, thru great trial and tribulation hundreds of years later became a Methodist Pastor in Kansas. He’d kept his wife alive beyond her normal span of time and yet she died. Despondent he left his people and journeyed north to be captured by Arab Slave traders sold to the Egyptians.
There he had taken up with a Jewish lass and they had a long, long life (by human standards) together. ( He’d sired a son by her who, thru great trial and tribulation hundreds of years later became a Jewish Rabbi in Kansas.) They had won their freedom together and lived as Freedmen until Moses took the jewish slaves and left. The political climate became inhospitable and too much for his wife, she was elderly and frail and died...he stowed away on a boat and escaped to Rome.
In Rome he lived hundreds of years, doing his job at keeping the Ice Storms at bay during which time he’d met, fallen in love and married a nice italian girl. They’d lived together as man and wife far beyond her alloted time. ( He’d sired a son by her who, thru great trial and tribulation hundreds of years later became a Catholic Priest in Kansas.) Rome Fell and she died...he turned north and fell in with the Germans.
He lived among the ancient germans for a long time. He saw much and witnessed great works and great horrors. The horrors were not great enough to prevent him from marrying a nice german girl. (( He’d sired a son by her who, thru great trial and tribulation hundreds of years later became a Lutheran Minister in Kansas). and they lived together until she died shortly after the time of Martin Luther.
He was old now...old old even by the standard of his own, otherworldly race. He died.
Without his intervention the StormGiants pushed thru the Ice.
Things were getting cold.
The Peoples of the adjoining worlds were suffering. Through great trials and tribulation they, now significantly more technologically advanced they they had been formerly, and MUCH more technically advanced than the humans…..managed to insert four vehicles.
These vehicles homed on the genetic resonance of the ice mages children.
The Ice Receded as the Old Men repeatedly fought the Jontun and held back the Ice.
Until the year 1997 when the four engage in a decisive victory over the Frost Giants but unfortunately allow themselves to be killed in the process.
It’s sixteen years since the earth quit warming...it’s begun to cool. The Frost Giants have returned and there are no IceMages to stop them.
***
oh...of course there are Dragons. Everyone likes dragons don't they?
Snippet from work in progress.
Chapter 1: Reconnaissance gone wrong
The ambush was totally unexpected, to their shame. The recon flights had become almost ritual. They had been flown from time before memory with no results so everyone had become slack. The recon flights had become more of an extended picnic outing than a surveillance mission. Not this one, this one was different. One moment Dragon Four was flying over wooded hills, placid streams, open meadows and shallow valleys. All was calm. The dragons were paying very little attention to the terrain below. They were mostly bantering among themselves, gossiping and visiting. Situational awareness was absent. In other words they were NOT doing their jobs.
They paid for their inattention. The next moment, with absolutely no warning, all hell broke loose. There was blood and broken bones, pain and agony.. Two of the dragons were badly hit and began falling, writhing and twisting in agony, toward the ground.
Tardostav and Vasrid struggled and thrashed in blinding, mind numbing pain as they attempted to curl around themselves to reach the source of their agony. They had been hit, many times, by high velocity projectiles.
"Aieeee!" Vasrid screamed and he spiraled downward to the land far below.
Tardsostav said nothing...he was barely holding onto the bloody shards of consciousness. He faded in and out of awareness as he plummeted toward the ground below.
Instants later the staccato reports of heavy caliber gunfire echoed across the land. Supersonic rounds traveled faster than the sounds of the gunshots.
With but a moment’s hesitation the less seriously hurt dragons dove after their falling comrades. They split into two groups,...one for each falling warrior. Each group managed to intercept the wounded ones and break their fall.
The dragons happened to fall into a thorn patch. That was good, a thorn patch didn’t bother the dragon’s tough skin a bit and might serve as a good defensive position. The wounded curled up on the ground. Their lovers stood guard over the bodies..they would protect them until their own deaths.
Strange behavior..but Thebans were like that.
The other dragons streaked off in search of revenge.
The guns that had shot the dragons out of the sky were heavy, crew served weapons on gun carriages. Nothing less could reach that high and hit hard enough to do the job. The gun carriages were NOT very maneuverable...not against dragons streaking in at ground level. The gun crews tried....and died.
The vengeance seeking dragons homed in on the gun crews at high velocity, blades drawn. Blood began to flow. Blood not only flowed it gushed and squirted . It pooled on the ground in large puddles covering various detached body parts. The mass of rats had no chance against the highly agile, armored and extremely lethal, hovering, darting, bobbing and weaving dragons. The rats outnumbers the dragons by a huge margin but they were devastated. A few, a very few, rats escaped. They threw down their weapons and high tailed it for the tall grass.
Shortly there were no more live enemy in sight. That ratpack had been obliterated. The flying dragons returned to their companions on the ground.
Sogah, the leader hissed at the two Thebans " Kajrio, Dohor...you bleeding Thebans. I'm so proud of you my heart could burst but you are idiots. Let us transfer your fallen lovers to a more defensible location. If you insist on dieing I have a plan."
Puzzled, the dragons did as their leader had suggested. Shortly they were back at the site of the slaughter.
"Now let's get those guns repositioned...get those rat bodies stacked...come on...come on...move it". hissed Sogah in frustration.
Dragons didn't carry guns because of technical difficulties. Muzzle loading weapons weren't easy to use by flying dragons. The dragons were, however, familiar with guns.. The rat guns were much more sophisticated than those known to the kindred. The few remaining firearms of the kindred were awkward muzzle loaders. The rats had breechloaders with metallic cartridges. However, after a few moments of study the principles of operation became clear.
After some incredibly intense work a crude fort was constructed....it's signature feature were walls of stacked rats between the guns. The captured guns were arranged in a circle, hub to hub, their trails pointed inward at a central point and staked to the ground. All the ammo and many of the rat supplies were in the center of the gun circle . There were a great many more guns than there were dragon gunners.
The two badly wounded dragons were made as comfortable as possible on makeshift pallets and shaded as best as could be arranged. Tardsostav was unconscious and lay quietly. Vasrid was restless and kept pointing to the sky and mumbling. Kajrio, his lover, was concerned and bent to listen closely. After a few minutes Vasrid was scanning the sky himself.
"By Odin's Beard" shouted Vasrid "Look at that...an Elder"
For a moment the group thought they were rescued and were elated. However one of them said.
"I don't think it's alive....I think that's a spirit-elder"
The tiny speck was too far up for even the sharp eyed dragons to see clearly. It was extremely hard to see any details. It soon became evident, however, that the elder showed no signs of seeing them. Had the elder been alive it would have come to their aide. It WOULD have seen them, nothing evaded the gaze of an elder.
Elation became despair. Another horde of rats appeared over the horizon and attacked.....again. Despair became rage. The defensive circle worked perfectly. The dragons operated the rapid fire carriage guns with ease. The rats died in droves. More bodies were added to the walls further strengthening their fortifications.
The original rat commander who had sited the guns had picked a wonderful location. It was easily defensible, as the rats were learning to their dismay. The dragons were now protected by walls of dead rats. The dragon gunners could see their attackers clearly before they became a threat.
Dragon hide is extremely tough. Additionally they all wore light armor. The rats had to be very close for their small arms to be effective. The rats were not allowed to get that close. When the dragons sighted a group of rats those rats were obliterated by their own captured heavy weapons.
It was a stand off. The rats could not advance without being seen and then destroyed. There were an awfully lot of rats and they were suicidally persistent. The dragons had an awfully lot of captured ammo and were delighted to help the persistent rats commit suicide.
"You know I kind of like this gun" said Tarsrid , as he casually turned the crank for about ten seconds. That ten second burst annihilated a platoon of rats that were attempting to advance.
"I do too, " said Phakva. as he did much the same thing with a different gun pointed in a different direction.
The rat body count mounted....into the thousands. Another horde of rats gone.
It seemed odd that there were no other heavy weapons brought to bear. Their good luck could NOT last.
After a couple of days it began to get a little thirsty. Their belt canteens had been emptied. There had been no water in the captured supplies. No one mentioned it because no dragon wanted to be the first to cry 'enough', but it was becoming obvious that the lack of water would be their downfall. They wouldn't starve..if worse came to worse, rat meat was readily available. This problem was solved by night flying dragons dipping canteens into streams under the very nose of the enemy. A few dragons were hit but the bullets from the small arms were insufficient to seriously injure the armored flyers.
They were, however, on borrowed time...and it was only a matter of time before the rats brought in more heavy weapons.
Sogath knew this. He had known it from the beginning. His eyes kept wandering back to the spirit elder high above. A plan was forming in his fatigued mind. Those damn Thebans.
***
As always...everything written, pre publication, is subject to being revised.
As always.....any critiques, remarks, or spare change is extremely appreciated.
Evmick
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