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slippinmickeys · 3 years

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Five Seconds (2/8)

As I mentioned, this is the sequel to Of The Eight Winds. I will be posting the first two chapters today and then one chapter a day until next Monday. You can also read it on AO3 here.

Chapter Two

It was decided the best place to go would be the Midwest -- far from family on the coasts. They’d avoid the biggest cities -- Chicago, Detroit -- but still stick to denser populations; mid-sized cities on the edge of farmland -- it would give them the ability to lose tails in the chaos of town or hit the road quickly and disappear into the woods. A college town where no one would think anything of a new family moving in at the beginning of a semester. It was early May and the summer semester would begin soon at many universities. Frohike said he had a trustworthy contact nearby, so they settled on Lansing, Michigan.

The inheritance from Mulder’s father’s estate would keep them afloat for as long as they needed. Now they just needed to tell the kids.

XxXxXxXxXxX

Frohike handed him a shoebox. Mulder opened it to find new IDs for the whole family. They were now the McDonald family of Okemos, Michigan. The driver’s licenses looked real, as did the passports. Mulder thumbed through everything slowly.

“How’d you get these so fast?” he asked, looking up.

Frohike shrugged. “Best not to ask.”

Mulder leveled a look at the older man.

“If either of my kids ever come to you for a fake ID, I’m hiring a plane and skywriting your location,” he said.

Langly snorted from his chair.

“This is your new address,” Frohike said, handing Mulder a piece of paper that he threw in the box. “Subleased a furnished house from a professor traveling on sabbatical. Darlene will meet you there at noon on Friday. Don’t be late, she gets cranky.”

“Darlene?” Mulder asked.

“Darlene Frohike,” Byers piped in. “Melvin’s sister.”

“You have a sister?” Mulder said, surprised. He pictured Frohike with breasts and long hair and felt one eye start to twitch.

“Go to her if you need help,” Frohike said, “she lives nearby.”

“You have a sister?” Mulder said again.

Frohike glared at him.

“They used to run pacifists over the border into Windsor, Canada during ‘Nam,” Langly helpfully piped up. “She can roll.”

“She can roll?” Mulder asked.

“Her kung-fu’s the best,” Frohike said seriously.

Mulder held up the box of fake documents.

“Family affair, huh?” he said, and Frohike shrugged.

Mulder thumbed through everything one more time before departing the bunker. They’d been generous with Scully’s height and his weight. He could picture his wife’s smirk already.

“Hey, Mulder?” Frohike called out just as he opened the door. Mulder glanced back at the three men. “Be careful.”

XxXxXxXxXxX

Mulder called a family meeting as soon as the kids walked in the door that evening. After the news they’d received the last time their parents had sat down with them like this, they both looked at them with trepidation.

“God, you’re not about to tell us Mom’s having twins, are you?” Lily said, plopping down on the couch in the living room. Will lowered himself down next to her, his eyes darting back and forth between his parents. When neither Mulder nor Scully laughed, Lily’s face fell. “What’s going on?” she asked seriously.

Mulder had debated with Scully how honest to be with them. While he thought they were old enough to handle the full truth, neither wanted to scare them. And yet they needed to know the severity of the situation. A parent’s eternal dilemma.

“Our family is in some trouble,” he started, sharing a look with Scully. “And we’re going to need to leave town for a while.”

“When?” Lily asked, “For how long?”

“What kind of trouble?” Will asked.

“There are some people that are after your mom-” Mulder started, and both kids interrupted him quickly.

“What kind of people?” Lily asked, at the same time, Will, whose voice rose almost an octave, said:

“After her for what?”

Mulder rubbed a hand over his face. He was perched on the arm of the chair Scully occupied, and she reached out and took his hand.

“I think we need to start from the beginning,” she said. “The very beginning.”

She gave his hand a squeeze and began talking. Starting with the abduction of Samantha Mulder, Scully gave a thorough, yet succinct account of the ins and outs of their current predicament, making the whole outlandish tale sound coherent and almost reasonable. Both kids listened to her raptly and remained calm, and Mulder once again thanked his lucky stars for the woman next to him. For all the tumult they’d experienced through the years, there was no one he’d rather have by his side.

“I have a friend -- some friends -- that have set us up with a new life-” Mulder said, when Scully was finally done talking.

He was interrupted by Lily.

“The friends who you visit at Arlington Cemetery? The ones we’re not supposed to know about? Those friends?”

Mulder looked to Scully who wore a surprised smile.

“I haven’t said a thing, Mulder,” she said, looking to him.

“Lily hid in the trunk of your car once,” said Will.

“Will!” Lily shouted at her brother.

“Lil, is that true?” Scully asked her daughter, concerned. Lily wouldn’t meet her eyes.

“I’m not sure whether to be terrified or impressed,” Mulder said. Then shook his head. Back to the topic at hand. He would worry about that later. “Anyway, those friends have set us up with a life in the Midwest for a year, probably less. Until the heat is off. Until we’re sure we’re all safe.”

“Where in the Midwest?” Lily said with trepidation.

“Michigan,” Scully said.

“They’ve got good hockey in Michigan,” Will offered, and Mulder wanted to hug the kid for his optimism.

Lily looked pained. “What about school?” she said. “What about UVA?” She was supposed to start college there in the fall.

“Lil, these people are not above using you to get to us. The only safe thing is for you and Will to come with us. It’s not even for a year. You can defer. Just the fall semester,” Mulder said.

Lily fell back against the cushions on the couch. Scully and Mulder shared a look.

“And we have to leave soon,” Scully said, “before graduation.”

Will reached out and put his hand on his sister’s knee, his face all sympathy. To her credit, Lily looked at her little brother and gave him a thankful look, a small uptick of the lips. Will turned back to his parents.

“When do we have to start packing?” he asked.

“Tonight,” Mulder said.

XxX

A day later found Mulder in the attic with Lily and William, going through boxes, taking the few things that they had in storage that they thought they might need. Mulder had grabbed a tent, a few sleeping bags, a kit knife, various useful odds and ends.

Will was over in the corner and had unearthed a box of old pictures and held one up for Mulder’s perusal.

“What’s this one from?” his son asked.

Mulder came over to take a look. It was a glossy 8x10 of him and Scully facing each other, framed in profile, hovering on the edge of a crime scene. He remembered it, now. It had been taken by a federal crime scene tech who’d finished documenting a scene and had needed to finish off the roll of film. Mulder had seen him snapping and had handed the guy a fiver. Two weeks later it arrived in an interoffice envelope, accompanied by three dollars and a post-it that said “keep the change.”

In the photo, Scully was looking up at him, the sun at her back slanting on her autumn hair so that it shone like a halo of spun gold. She was wearing a dark suit, as was her wont, the bulge of her service weapon at her back, one arm out and gesturing at something out of frame. He was struck, as he always seemed to be, by her exquisite beauty; her face was a composition. A work of art. A call to prayer.

“God,” he said, a little awestruck, “look how young we were.”

“Mom used to be really pretty,” Will said, and though he said it kindly, Mulder turned to him slowly.

“I’m sorry, ‘Used to be?’” he said.

Will looked nervously between his father and Lily.

“She’s still pretty?” Will said, more as a question than a statement.

“God damn right,” he said, “Every day I thank my lucky stars that she still deigns to share my bed.”

“Dad, don’t be gross,” from Lily, who at 18 didn’t mind her parent’s displays of affection so long as they weren’t public.

“Gross?” Mulder said, pointing at each of them. “Gross? You were born of the loins of an ethereal creature of heaven, the both of you. Don’t blaspheme.”

“Says the guy who just said ‘God damn,’” said Lily, cheekily.

Mulder grinned and turned back to the photo.

“To me, fair friend, you never can be old, for as you were when first your eye I ey’d, such seems your beauty still,” Mulder said, looking at it.

“Which sonnet?” Lily asked.

“104,” he said, and they shared a smile. Another silent moment of admiring the photo and he set it down, turned to his children. “All right,” he said, “pack what you need. Let’s get a move on.”

He added the picture to his own cache.

XxXxXxXxXxX

Something caught Lily’s eye as her father was folding up the old box of photos. The corner of a glossy 5x7 was sticking up from the edge of the box -- in it, she saw her father’s face, smiling, looking extremely young.

She helped him shove it back into the corner of the attic with a scrape of cardboard on plywood and he stood, head still bent down in the cramped space so as not to crack his skull on the slanted beams.

William was already heading back down the rickety ladder onto the landing below them, the hollow sound of his steps on the aluminum like the beat of a drum.

“You okay, Lil?” her father asked, his eyes squinted at her in concern. She was still kneeling by the box.

“Yeah,” she said, smiling at him, and glanced around the attic, at the memories their family had built up over the years. She hoped they’d be able to revisit them one day. Deep down she was afraid this might be the last time she saw some of these things -- an old box of her brother’s LEGOs, her Raggedy Ann, the doll’s black button eyes fixed and sightless, a wispy cobweb hanging limply off her yarn hair.

“Let’s get out of here, then,” he said, and reached down to help her up.

Before she took it, she reached out and pulled at the glossy photo, sliding it easily out of the box and slipping it surreptitiously into her back pocket as she stood. It crinkled in her jeans as she walked toward the attic ladder with her father behind her, as she moved on toward she knew not what.

XxXxXxXxXxX

Scully sat in her car with her keys in her hand, staring at the woman’s house, debating whether or not to get out.

She had faith in her husband and all her things in a suitcase, but there was still a small part of her that didn’t quite believe the tale Olivia Kurtzweil had told them. In all their years working together on the X-Files, Mulder had always been the engine, and she had always been the brake -- and the impulse to tap the pedal when faced with the fantastic had never left her, even after more than a decade out of the basement office.

She drummed her nails on the steering wheel once and then made a decision, shoving the keys into the pocket of her coat, double checking that her service weapon was in order, and sliding out of her car and onto the sidewalk. She wanted one last talk with the woman before committing to this drastic course of action.

It hadn’t been easy to find Kurtzweil’s address -- even with the Bureau’s resources at her fingertips. She’d had to call in a favor to a friend with ties to the State Department to get it.

The street Kurtzweil lived on was quiet, just outside of Pentagon City. Parking on the street was by permit only, and there were hardly any cars. The house was a one-story ranch with a long porch, big enough for two rocking chairs, which were tilted at an angle toward each other just-so. The landscaping was impeccable and there weren’t any bugs in the porch lights. Olivia ran a tidy ship that Scully could appreciate.

She hesitated one last time at the door before reaching for the doorbell. She’d debated the merits of coming unannounced and had settled on the element of surprise -- hoping if the woman were lying about anything, unprepped and unrehearsed, Scully might be able to suss out lie from truth.

She heard the bell ring inside the house and waited for muffled footsteps or perhaps the bark of a dog. She was met with silence. She gave it about another ten seconds before ringing the bell again. When there was still no answer, she walked over to the garage and stood on tiptoes to peer through the window. There was a BMW parked inside. Scully made her way back to the door, and reached up to give it a knock. When her knuckles hit the wood the door gave an inch and suddenly feeling unsettled, Scully pushed it slowly the rest of the way open.

Just inside the door there was a purse laying on its side and a cascade of unopened mail fanned out on the floor. A chill ran up Scully’s spine and she reached for her sidearm, suddenly glad she’d brought it.

“Olivia?” she called tentatively, before taking a step inside, the gun held out in front of her, listening sharply for any hint of sound. None came.

She swept the perimeter of the entryway, all her senses on high alert. Hearing nothing, she called out Olivia’s name again. Still silence.

She turned the corner into the main part of the living area -- an open concept living room, dining room, kitchen, and nothing looked out of place. She edged her way slowly into the kitchen, and that’s when she saw it; two feet sticking out behind a large island in the kitchen.

Scully darted forward and slid to her knees next to the woman, quickly taking in what she saw before her: Olivia Kurtzweil had been shot, a double-tap to the head and one to the heart--a professional kill. Knowing she wouldn’t find it, Scully reached out to feel for a pulse in the woman’s neck. Her body was still warm.

XxXxXxXxXxX

Mulder stood in the elevator, his finger hovering over the ‘12.’ It was one of the newer office buildings outside the district, a high rise of dark glass and steel. He thought maybe he should have called first, but hadn’t wanted to risk it. Finally, he depressed the button and the elevator lurched to life.

On the twelfth floor, the doors opened to a brightly lit lobby, the walls and floor all stark white granite. There was a sleek reception desk ahead, manned by an even sleeker looking young blond woman, who looked at him expectantly as he approached.

“Hello,” she smiled, not showing teeth, “Can I help you?”

“I’m here to see Lauren Williams,” he hedged, and the woman’s eyebrows shot up.

“Do you have an appointment?” the woman asked.

“No,” he said, and started to wonder if he should have come at all.

“Okay,” the woman said slowly, narrowing her eyes, “I can call her assistant and ask if she can see you. Your name?”

Mulder felt like a bug under a microscope.

“Tell her it’s Fox,” he said.

She nodded.

“One moment.”

Mulder glanced at his watch. They were supposed to be on the road in four hours. This was a last minute stop for him, a barely thought-out ‘what if’ plan C in case the whole thing went to shit.

When he glanced back up, the receptionist was looking at him expectantly.

“She’ll be out in a moment,” she said, and Mulder smiled his thanks and took a few awkward steps back.

There was a small waiting area to the left of reception, but the seats looked more modern than comfortable, and the entire space had a disinfected don’t-sit-here vibe to it. Set dressing.

After a moment he heard the efficient clicks of approaching heels, and turned to see his ex-wife coming out of a metal door that he’d thought was a wall.

“Fox?” she said, her face one of pleased surprise.

“Lauren,” he said, as she leaned in and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, “I’m sorry to drop in on you like this. You look well.”

She did. She was in a crisp grey suit that was likely Chanel or Hermes, and trim as ever. Her face looked sculpted and her skin clear and bright. Not a wrinkle to be found. A mild cloud of the same perfume she always wore clung to her, lending her an air of sophistication where it may have made other women seem like they were trying too hard. She leaned back, holding onto one of his forearms and gave him an assessing look.

“You look… worried,” she finally said, her eyes narrowing a bit in concern.

He didn’t reply, and she turned to the receptionist.

“Thank you, Amanda,” she said smartly and inclined her head toward the metal door/wall which clicked open as they approached it.

She led him down a long hallway, with glass conference rooms lining one side and open concept work stations along the other. At the far end, she opened a floor-to-ceiling glass door and led him into a large and immaculate corner office.

Mulder raised his eyebrows, impressed.

“You’ve done well for yourself,” he said, “it’s been a while.” She shut the door behind them and gestured to a small sitting area off to the side of the office. It was more welcoming than the lobby seating had been, and he slid into one of the chairs gratefully.

“Executive Vice President,” she said proudly, and took the chair opposite him. She settled into the leather of the seat and leveled a look at him. “You okay, Fox?”

Mulder glanced at the door, at the bustle of the office beyond it. No one seemed to pay them any mind.

“I’m…” he started, “we’re in some trouble.”

“You and Scully?” Lauren asked kindly, “Is she okay?”

“Yes,” Mulder smiled, “she’s good, she’s…”

He fumbled a bit. Not quite sure where to start.

“Is it money?” Lauren asked. “Do you need-”

Mulder cut her off, laughing uncomfortably. He and Scully both made a very good living, and his father’s estate would have kept them more than afloat even if they didn’t. He huffed a deep sigh, and she sat quiet and patient, looking at him in concern.

“Our family is in danger, Lauren,” he finally said, “and we need to disappear for a little while.”

Her brow furrowed.

“Is it Scully’s work at the FBI?” she started, “Is it-”

He once again cut her off.

“Listen, I don’t want to tell you much for your own protection. The less you know, the better.”

She nodded, her brow furrowed with concern.

“The reason I’m here is… we’re going away for a while. Headed to the Midwest.” She remained silent, waiting for him to continue. “Do you… does your aunt still have that hunting camp up in Michigan?”

He saw a small smile crack through her unease. Lauren’s Aunt Clio was half Williams Family Secret, half Williams Family Legend. A bright, effusive personality, she was blustery and smart, and unpretentious to the point of embarrassment, as far as Lauren and her upper-crust-endeavoring parents were concerned. She lived in Ohio, where she and Lauren’s father had been raised, ten years the man’s senior. She kept a hunting camp in the eastern Upper Peninsula of Michigan called Camp Hi Early. She hunted deer throughout the state’s archery season and had told a story at Mulder and Lauren’s wedding reception about running at a bear with an axe from the outhouse. The story had mortified Lauren at the time -- Mulder had just been delighted. Aunt Clio had been drinking straight whiskey at the party, and had just been about to tell Mulder a story of running ‘shine when Lauren had pulled him away and to the dance floor. Mulder had never forgotten it, or her.

“Aunt Cli died last year,” she said with a begrudging smile. Mulder marveled. The woman must have been close to a hundred years old. Lauren’s eyes met his. “But she left me the camp.”

“You still have it?” Mulder asked, amazed, “it doesn’t seem like your kind of… scene.”

Lauren laughed.

“That it’s not. But there’s a mining company that has its eyes on the northern 100 acres, and if they get their hands on it whether from me or from someone I might sell to, Clio Williams will haunt me from the grave.”

Mulder laughed, felt something loosen in his chest.

“If you need it, it’s yours, Fox,” Lauren said, the humor dissipating from her voice.

He leaned back in the chair.

“We probably won’t need it,” he said, “it’s just something I thought of as a distant Plan C. But if we need to get out fast -- if we need to go somewhere we can’t be found…”

Lauren nodded and stood, moved over to her desk.

“It’s rustic, Fox,” she said, and sat down in the chair, pulling open a desk drawer. “And not charming-rustic. It’s rustic-rustic. And likely in disrepair. I sent a local handyman out there this past spring. He assured me that the roof doesn’t leak and the windows aren’t broken, but that’s about it.” She was rifling distractedly though the drawer. “I’m not sure how well outfitted it is, and It’s probably overrun with mice and squirrels. He said it looked like a moose had been gnawing on the siding…”

“It’ll be a last resort,” he said seriously.

Lauren paused and looked at him.

“Bad?” she asked.

“Pretty bad,” he nodded.

She winced and stood, an envelope in her hand. She made her way over to him and raised it.

“This is the key to the padlock on the cabin door,” she said, “and a map to the camp. The handyman I hired drew it up for me, not the other way around, mind you. I haven’t been out there since I was a kid and Aunt Cli took me up there to teach me to shoot. There’s the boondocks and there’s this. I’m talking county highway to a dirt road to a two-track. A seasonal road that the county doesn’t plow. I don’t even know if an SUV can get in there. The road to Camp may be impassable...” she handed him the envelope.

“That’s what I’m counting on,” he said.

Lauren reached out and squeezed his shoulder, the concern on her face cutting rare lines into her perfect skin.

“I want you to check in with me, let me know you’re okay,” she said, “do you feel safe doing that?”

Mulder nodded, put his hand over hers where it rested on her shoulder, squeezed.

“Yeah,” he said.

“I’m serious, Fox,” she said, “if I call, you answer your fucking phone. I’m scared for you. For the kids and Dana.”

“I promise,” he said, giving her hand one last squeeze before he rose to leave. “I’ll send you a number when I’ve got one.”

His phone rang then, like a premonition. He answered.

“Mulder?” Scully said into his ear, her voice shaky with panic. He heard the slam of a car door. “We have to leave. Now.”

#MSR #AU #Of the Eight Winds #My Fic #Fanfic #X-Files

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entergamingxp · 4 years

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Beyond a Steel Sky review

It’s the insidiousness of Spankles that bothers me at first.

It’s a small thing at first, of course. It almost always is. Even before you breach Union City’s walls, there’s a kiosk giving away free cans of the stuff – actually, there’s a lot of vending machines that give away the stuff. “Wow!”, you think, dispensing a can for gratis for the first time. “A benevolent government that gives away free refreshments? I’m in!”

Beyond a Steel Sky review

Developer: Revolution Software

Publisher: Revolution Software

Platform: Reviewed on PC

Availability: Out now on PC and iOS as part of Apple Arcade.

And then you’ll spot another ad. And then another. The Spankles mascot – a nightmarish hybrid of Ronald McDonald and the terrifying clown from Poltergeist that haunted my early years – leers at you from… well, everywhere. You start pondering why there are advertisements at all given they’re issuing cans for free, anyway. Later, you might realise the tagline – “Explodes your mind!” – is a tad sinister. You wonder why they’re pushing it so hard. A health scanner will eventually recommend it, and that’s when it becomes impossible to ignore the distant alarm bell chiming in the back of your head.

A dystopian cityscape is nothing new, of course. You’ll jog gently along, weaving between the unhurried folk with their multicoloured hairdos and futuristic fashions, camera flicked upward to take in the full majesty of this stylish metropolis and its neon lights, and there’s a jarring sense of deja vu here. Ryan’s Rapture. Comstock’s Columbia. Cyberpunk’s Nivalis. And now we’re in Beyond a Steel Sky’s Union City.

The Council wants you to think Union City is a clean, pure place where your comfort is always at the top of its priority list, but it sometimes feels like the buildings don’t stretch up as much as they glare down at you, heavy and imposing and watchful. Monopods flick all around you – the omnipresent whoosh as they pass by will buzz and irritate in your ears like digital mosquitoes – but you’ll never know who’s in them, or where they’re going. You start to wonder if the shiny veneer of this beautiful place is precisely that; a veneer – a fake front concealing something altogether darker in the undergrowth.

It doesn’t seem to bother the guy we’re playing as, though. This is my first venture with Robert Foster as I didn’t play the predecessor, Beneath a Steel Sky, and while he’s likeable enough in a superficial, forgettable kind of way, I didn’t particularly warm to him, despite his noble mission to locate the missing child, Milo.

It’s the same for the eclectic supporting cast, too. They’re all fine; nothing terrible, even if their accents occasionally are a little wobbly, but I don’t feel any emotional connection to anyone I encounter, either. Like the slow, oddly animated NPCs who idle past you along the piazza – or occasionally on top of your head when the collision mechanics go hilariously wrong – they’re all a touch shallow. A touch irritating. A touch over the top.

You’ll spend a lot of time in the company of those NPCs, though, whether you want to or not. Building upon its point-and-click foundation, Beyond a Steel Sky’s story is character-driven, and your progression is typically gated by one of two things – character interactions or a hacking mini-game. For the latter, this means you’ll spend much of the game darting from one character to the other to gather intel, or exploring the environment to glean clues. This can be anything from luring fowl away from truck doors to exploring an apartment to find out more about the man who lived there, and it’s to the developers’ credit that the tasks you take on are varied and usually, if not quite always, fall short of laborious.

Foster’s never in a rush, however, and his lack of urgency doesn’t half sap you of yours, too. The hour I spent to-ing and fro-ing outside the city walls felt endless at the time, and while there’s a good variety of dialogue options to help you tease information out of the folks nearby, the UI doesn’t automatically grey out options you’ve already taken. This means you might inadvertently initiate a conversation you’ve already had – ugh – or worse, miss or delay an interaction because even though you’ve already spoken to say, Pixel, and figured you’d asked everything you could, there are numerous conversations that can be triggered by the same word prompt but there’s no way for you to know that without trial and error.

Worst still, your companions have a tendency to wander off, so initiating conversations can be a lengthy, frustrating affair that will see you trail after them, desperately waiting for the button prompt that lets you converse with them to pop up again. There are certainly worse crimes than this, I know, but given so much of your progress here depends upon character interactions, it’s a shame those interactions aren’t more polished.

The hacking game, on the other hand, is a neat idea, and one that slides perfectly in to a narrative that requires you to exploit (or circumvent entirely) Union City’s borderline obsession of automation and AI. You use it to help the city’s AI do your biding – say, inverting the permissions of a door to open when your ID would typically lock you out, perhaps, or changing the route of a cleaning robot to aid in a rescue mission – and while the museum, particularly, outstayed its welcome with this mechanic, I can’t deny it’s not enjoyable… at least, when I finally figured out what I’m supposed to do, anyway.

Thankfully, Beyond a Steel Sky has a fabulous hint mechanic that drops a new clue every thirty seconds upon your request, starting with gentle tips and evidence that, eventually, become full blow-by-blow instructions. It’s a fantastic addition that should ensure you’ll never prematurely end a session simply because you don’t know what to do next.

And, oh, it’s beautiful here. Bright and bold and full of colour, Union City is a stunning backdrop to Foster’s story, and while there are perhaps fewer places than you might like to explore – you’ll revisit many places instead of visiting new ones – you can’t help but gaze up at the art deco motifs in awe. The Cel-shading isn’t as novel a style as it once was, of course, but Foster’s world is well-crafted and well-realised, ably accompanied by its score and good voice casting.

That said, it’s not faultless. NPCs slope by slowly and vacantly. Gang-gangs – the vicious wildlife often preventing you from simple tasks – slide across the ground, never mind the sky. Though admittedly amusing, it’s yet another indicator that perhaps another month or two of testing and polishing could’ve elevated Foster’s story from okay to outstanding.

Sadly, that’s not the only technical issue I encountered, either. There were plenty of quirks and glitches in my press build of Beyond a Steel Sky. Dialogue often stuttered or dropped out completely, and there was one instance where despite both the waypoint and Foster himself telling me I had completed the prerequisite investigation, it still wouldn’t give me the prompt to progress. Without a convenient save, I ended up losing several hours’ progress – which is a lot, given the game only lasts a dozen or so hours – by loading in a significantly older manual save. That time, I was able to proceed without a problem.

Which leads me to conclude that Beyond a Steel Sky is a pretty mixed bag, really. Despite lofty ambition, gorgeous visuals, and an intriguing premise, for every positive, there’s a negative, too. I loved Union City but couldn’t explore it as much as I wanted. I loved Foster’s sassy companion but found most characters a tad shallow, lacking nuance and personality. I loved digging into The Council but found hacking into MINOS a tedious, repetitive experience that rarely innovated.

That said, it’s an unhurried, intriguing adventure that will likely attract new fans as well as satisfy existing ones; it’s just such a shame it’s marred by uneven pacing, questionable UI choices, and just one too many performance issues.

And I’m still having nightmares about the Spankles clown.

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/07/beyond-a-steel-sky-review/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=beyond-a-steel-sky-review

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monkeyandelf · 6 years

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New Post has been published on Buzz News from Monkey & Elf |

New Post has been published on https://www.monkeyandelf.com/7-minor-arguments-that-led-to-laughably-ridiculous-crimes/

7 Minor Arguments That Led To Laughably Ridiculous Crimes

What’s that saying about making a mountain out of a molehill? The cliche is important to keep in mind when someone does something that gets your blood boiling, so if you’re the type of person who vows revenge when your waiter accidentally puts ice in your drink after you asked for no ice, then may we recommend you take it down a notch or two thousand.

During the course of any given day, you’re bound to have any number of minor disagreements, so it’s vital to keep your cool, no matter how idiotic you think the other person is because there are plenty of yokels who go off the deep end for the pettiest of reasons.

Check out some of them below and while you do, we’re going to figure out just what the heck a molehill actually is.

“But, Mom, I Don’t Want To Go!”

Kids fighting with their parents is older than time itself, but at some point the child needs to control his or her emotions. Like, say, when the kid is a full-blown adult.

A 39-year-old woman in Indianapolis attacked her mother with a cheeseburger after the mom told her she could no longer stay with her. Because unless they’re named George Costanza, no 39-year-old should be shacking be up with mom or dad.

After the mom broke the news to her daughter, the two got into a fight at a McDonald’s drive-thru and then got their order. And then police can fill you in on what went down:

“While her daughter was seated in the front passenger seat she took a bite out of her cheeseburger,” an official said. “The victim stated her daughter yelled ‘B—h I outta kill you’ and hit her in the left side of her face with her hand and the cheeseburger.”

The daughter then fled the scene. Hopefully, whomever took her in knows they run the risk of getting pummeled by greasy cuisine when they ask her to leave.

Kirk Is a Jerk

These two knuckleheads almost put the “die” in “Jedi.” A man in Oklahoma City was arrested for roughing up another fella after they got into an argument over whether “Star Wars” or “Star Trek” is better.

Twenty-three-year-old Jerome Whyte got into it with the unidentified victim in an apartment when the dispute erupted. Hard to believe they weren’t in their parents’ basement. We’re just as surprised as you are.

The two exchanged some insults before things turned physical — shoving and choking, to be precise. In fact, Whyte choked the vicim so much he nearly passed out and he cut himself when he tried to grab a knife the victim had grabbed to defend himself. Police later beamed up Whyte (that’s Trekkie lingo for “arrested”) to the station on charges of assault and battery, possession of marijuana and other warrants.

A Killer Story

Breaking news: people still read the newspaper. A 51-year-old man in Germany wound up dead after he got into a fight with his 42-year-old newspaper delivery man. Yeah, you read that right.

The two had repeatedly gotten into tiffs before because the customer was annoyed the paper didn’t show up on his doorstep when he wanted it to be there. Things reached a fever pitch and the delivery man stabbed the customer with a knife. A relative of the victim saw the whole incident and called police, who arrested the delivery man. The customer went to the hospital where he was pronounced dead.

All of which begs the question: can you imagine how upset the ones of other people in town who still get the paper delivered must’ve been when they woke up the next day to find nothing waiting for them on their driveway? Here’s a hot tip for them: get the Internet and read the news online like everyone else.

RELATED: 10 Shocking Butt Crimes

Hotter Under the Collar Than the Food on the Plate

Some people just can’t take criticism. Jodi Ecklund, of Merrimack, H.H., got into a standoff with police after she metaphorically lost her raviolis when her boyfriend said the spaghetti she cooked for him was just “okay.”

After he used that fateful word, Ecklund punched Jason Martin in the face, arm and hand. Martin skedaddled out of the apartment while Ecklund, who had two guns, barricaded herself inside while cops rushed to the scene.

Give Ecklund credit because if the cops are going to come to your door, you might as well go full-blown loony tunes. She threatened to kill officers if they entered the home and threw some of her boyfriend’s stuff out of the window. She’s a swipe right on Tinder if ever there was one.

Eventually, officers weaseled their way into the house and arrested Ecklund after a few hours. Our guess? She gave up because she was hungry.

There She Is, Miss Demeanor

Assault is this beauty pageant hopeful’s talent. Police in Stuart, Fla. arrested a 24-year-old contestant in the most definitely prestigious Miss Sailfish Regatta Bikini Contest for bopping a rival in the show with a high heel shoe.

Miss Congeniality, indeed.

Erica Miza claims the 23-year-old victim had engaged in some real trash talk by saying she was going to whoop her butt. After the pageant ended (we don’t know who won), the two continued jawing at each other before they indulged in every man’s fantasy and got physical — come on, you know you’re picturing two bikini-clad babes coming to blows in some sort of soft porn Cinemax after dark flick come to life. Miza shoved the woman and then swung her shoes, which hit the victim.

As if that’s not juicy enough, the victim claims Mize told her “you should go to the gyno because you’re in for a rude awakening.” That, ladies and gentlemen, is a serious diss that the judges should’ve taken into account when giving their scores.

Pretty Sure the Birthday Wish Did Not Come True

Well, this crime certainly takes the cake. Police in New Britain, Conn. arrested Carlos Gonzalez-Oliver after he killed a man during an argument over birthday cake. Not too many crimes can hold a (birthday) candle to this one.

Gonzalez-Oliver, 41, was returning to his boarding house with a birthday cake for a resident when another tenant, who would be the one to die, started harassing him.

“The victim banged on his door with an ax, destroyed the birthday cake and threw some of it at the door,” reports the Hartford Courant.

Gonzalez-Oliver, who has racked up a whopping 20 criminal convictions over the last 21 years, says he stabbed the man after the victim tried to go at him with the ax. He fled the scene before cops tracked him down.

It’s like they say: it’s not a birthday party until someone starts swinging an ax? Oh, wait, they don’t say that? Well, they will now.

Dog Poop and Bullets

Being neighborly has gone to the dogs. A Tampa, Fla. man shot his neighbor after the neighbor’s dog pooped on his lawn.

Joshame Sewell, 20, became so incensed that Donte Roberson’s pooch went number two in his yard that he grabbed a rifle and opened fire on Roberson, hitting him in the leg and hand.

Sewell remained on the run for a few days before police captured him.

Aside from being too loud, letting Fido do his business on someone else’s property is probably the worst thing a neighbor can do, so we can understand why the guy was ticked off. And while you’ve got to have some level of sympathy for Sewell, you can’t side with him here.

Picking up the poop with a shovel and flinging it back onto the neighbor’s property? Yes. But reacting like some hothead in a Quentin Tarantino movie? No. You’ve got to draw the line (of fire) somewhere.

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