Seeds of Rajaat      "It's not much, but it's all that's left of the sub."      Garry spit over the side of the drydock, watching his wad of spittle tumble over itself to the bottom fifty feet down, as Colonel Jakobs marched along the railing.      For having been at the center of a U-missile blast... several U-missile blasts, more accurately... the submarine was in pretty good shape. Granted, it was all melted and warped... but Jakobs hadn't come to salvage the sub itself.      "Grand Army soldiers died on that wreck," the Colonel said wistfully. His posture would have made any GSF officer envious. "General Model wants their remains for proper burial. A Soldier's funeral is the least any man who wears the White and Gold should expect."      "Do you have any idea what it'd take to cut through that and get them out? Better to have just left the sub at the bottom of the sea and... I dunno, float a candle on the water or some shit like that."      Jakobs was shocked for a moment. He was surprised that Guardians could be so crude -- they were a people that the rest of the Web sometimes thought of as too ceremonial, too steeped in tradition. Then, Jakobs remembered, these weren't dead Guardians they were talking about.      "You will begin work tomorrow," the Colonel ordered. "Cut it. Dissolve through it. I don't care how, but you will get the remains out of that hull or so help me..." Jakobs stopped. "Just do it." ---------------------       Porre really was a beautiful city.      Jakobs did not come from a very beautiful place. His home was in Scande, and he had joined up with the Grand Army because of how ugly his home was becoming. Now, the Grand Army was his home, and he hadn't been back to the Dragon Dimension in years.      Jaobs had a unique perception for beauty. What others might have taken for ordinary, Jakobs celebrated.      His one consolation in dealing with this matter was that those men on the submarine had died in such a beautiful place. Granted, Jakobs had been here while things were becoming... not so beautiful. Jakobs was with Model when the whole Rajaat thing went down.      It was a terrible time, and it tore at Jakobs because he could not bear to see such ugliness and terror sweep across what he once said was one of the most beautiful places in the Web. It was an ugliness that even the Grand Army seemed powerless to stop. Model refused to engage the Xenos. The regulars panicked when they heard the dimension had been cut off.      Part of him wanted to leave the submarine where it was. But another part of him, a part of him deep inside that he could not silence, demanded that he free the bodies of the Grand Army soldiers, trapped in their watery tomb. He had to cut the hull open and set... them free.      General Model would never know. In the end, he might applaud the Colonel's efforts to give a final rest to his men.      He might hold the funeral here, in Porre. Porre. He looked out onto the ocean and, in the distance, saw the outline of the El Nido islands, dancing on the reflection of Gate III's twin moons.      Porre really was a beautiful city. ---------------------      "Hey, this is our big break!"      Garry and his family lived on the waterfront. They ran a salvage business, a business that had been going steadily downhill as space became all the rage. Hardly anyone used seaships in Gate anymore, except for the Medinans and the fishing firms that supplied all of Guardia's restarauntiers with fresh fish for their sushi bars.      "It might be too big. You could be cutting that thing for days and in the meantime we'd be passing up contracts..." Paula was wringing her hands and occasionally glancing at the window, though never for too long.      "But this is the big haul! One good cut and we're in with the GA. Their subs come through here all the time, and working with us..."      "... I don't like it, Garry."      "Paula, after what happened to us in the war we NEED this..."      "I mean I don't like... it. Garry, that sub..." she looked out the window, longer this time. The night sky framed the twisted wreck in the drydock. It was like something out of a nightmare...      She wrenched her neck and head away, she couldn't keep her eyes on it any longer. "I just don't like it. Something about it feels wrong."      Garry laughed. It was a hearty, salt-o-the-sea laugh that shook the man's sun-scorched red belly. "'Fraid she's haunted, are you?"      Paula shook her head, sighed angrily and stood up from the couch. She stormed over to the fridge.      "Geez, Paula... You knew we'd be dealing with stiffs when we started doing this. You remember when we hauled up that sunk cruise ship and found all those bloated, disfigured..."      "Fuck you, Garry. Don't make fun of me." She cracked open a can of beer and choked it down, stomping over to the room where the couple's baby was sleeping.      "I wasn't makin' fun of you," he said, stifling laughter. "Look. If it'll make you feel better, I'll get someone else to help me cut it. Enright, maybe. Or the droid we just bought." Garry leaned in the doorframe.      Paula was kneeling next to the basinet over her sleeping child. The beer was clutched in one hand, while the other was stroking the baby's browline.      "I'm sorry," Garry conceded. The image of his wife huddled over their child was overpowering. She'd given him so much, and he'd no right to laugh at her. She was a sailor's daughter; Garry was more landbound, born on terra firma. He hadn't even been to sea till he was a teenager, when his folks moved their shop down from Bangor to the Porre dockfront district. Paula was born on a boat, or so the legend went. She could sail before she could walk, and Garry knew what people said about how superstitious sailors can be. He knew firsthand, dealing with Paula and her folks, who wouldn't let him take the boat out without that rusty old horseshoe.      "... No, I'm sorry," Paula said, setting the beer down on a crate behind her. Save their own bed, the baby's basinet and the dining room set, most of their apartment's furniture was comprised of empty fish crates. "I'm being silly. This is our big break, Garry..." the woman stood and walked into her husband's arms. She nuzzled him and kissed his neck. "I love you, baby... just cut that thing open and get it out of here."      Garry folded his arms around his wife. He sighed as a warmth filled him, and reached up his hand to stroke her long, black hair. He planted a kiss on his wife's pale and perfect forehead.      "With Archon's sword, and the speed of lightning, my love."      She melted when her husband danced on the edges of being poetic. They carried each other to their bedroom. ---------------------      Garry wanted to get the better part of the work done before the sun got too high. It was noon, and his saws had barely scratched the blackened, warped hull of the submarine.      "Mister Ysbed," came the call of the Colonel as the saw died down. Garry's eyes rolled. He reached a single, blackened finger under his goggles and wiped his eye. A dark smear was left behind on his cheekbone.      "Keep cutting," Garry said to the R-Series his company (read: he and his wife) had purchased for the work, "I'll get him off our backs."      Quincy (serial# R-815Q) acknowledged the order and reactivated the saw. Sparks flew as the blade ground against the hull, to no apparent effect. Garry ascended the ladder, dripping with sweat from baking in the noonday sun. He raised up his goggles when he reached the top of the drydock; the strap held them in place so they kept his matted, sweaty, grimy blond hair out of his eyes. He wiped his hands on his white (now grey) tee shirt before extending a hand to greet the officer.      Jakobs did not take his hand.      "I want news. How is it coming?"      "I'll give you this, Colonel... you GA boys build them hulls up tighter'n a Chorran schoolgirl. That twisted bitch's wrecked three of my best-grade sawblades already."      There was a loud snapping sound from below, followed by the stilted robotic cursing of the R-series.      "And that makes four, I suppose," Jakobs thumbed his nose and looked down over the edge. "Have you even made a dent in it yet?"      "... Small dent. Knick, I'd say, better describes it, since we're cutting and all..."      "Semantics, yes, I see. Listen Ysbed, if you can't do what I've hired you to do maybe I should take my business someplace else."      "Right. Like anyone else's saws are tougher than mine."      "Well can you do it or can't you?"      Garry took off his goggles. His hair was stiff with dried sweat and standing straight up. He rubbed his forehead with his glistening wet forearm, then scratched at his stubbly face. "Yeah. But not with saws. I think we've proven that the saw is getting us nowhere."      "Very well. What do you need and how long will it take you to get it?"      "Well, I alredy got it, is the thing. When I told you I was the best you better believe I wasn't kidding... I got a military-grade cutting laser in my warehouse. Been saving it for a job just about as hard-assed as this one. Wife called me a dork for buyin' it, but I knew it'd come in handy someday. It'll take a couple of hours to set it up down there, but we should be back on schedule once it's running."      The Colonel nodded. "All right. All right, Ysbed, that sounds fine. So get started and set it up already."      Garry started heading back down to collect Quincy and the saw... but stopped on the ladder.      "Hey... Jakobs?"      "You will address me as Sir, Colonel, or Colonel Jakobs."      "... Right. You and your men are gonna want to get inside this baby first, right?"      Jakobs paused. "... What?"      "You and your GA boys, you guys have first run of the interior, right?"      "... No. I... do not have any Ômen' or Ôboys.' You and your Ômen' will have to help me with the collection job. For extra pay, of course."      Garry shook his head. "Not the most savory part of the job, I'm guessing... but sure, if there's extra G's involved consider us in."      What was a Colonel doing here all alone? Shouldn't he have a retinue or something?      It didn't seem right to Garry, but he wasn't a military man. He was just a working stiff. "Quincy, get that saw up here. We're gonna bring out the big guns." ---------------------      Water.      Fire, then water.      "The missiles, they're going to blow!"      "Rajaat has control of the sub. He's blowing the missiles!"      So bright. So hot.      "We're going to die! We're all going to die!"      Fire.      "... I have a wife... Children... die, I'm going to die, we're going to..."      Water.            Jakobs awoke drenched in sweat. He reached up and cupped his face in his palms.      He had had this same dream every night since the Gate Dimension was reopened.      Fire.      Then water.      Then oblivion.      Through the eyes of the sailors Jakobs had relived the horrors of their final moments aboard that submarine, that underwater hearse. Every night. Every time he closed his eyes.      Was he doing this for them and their peace? Or was it his own sanity he was trying to save? Was it his own soul that he was trying to purge of the devils that had claimed it, or the sailors... was he trying to lay their souls to rest?      Jakobs did not care. Not at night, not in a post-nightmare panic. Not when he knew that to succumb to sleep again meant going back there... into the maelstrom. All he knew was that the only way to make them be silent forever, to drive the screaming, doomed sailors from his dreams and let him sleep soundly again... the only way to be sane was to open the sub and bring them out.      He stood from his bed, the hotel bed with the sheets that smelled so flowery when he'd first arrived, and walked over to the mini-bar.      Medinan Fire Water. They used this stuff as an engine purgative in the Medinan Army Motor Pool, or so popular legend had said. The hotel had provided it for Jakobs on request... as a Colonel in Model's Sixth Army, he had become accustomed to the various foods and drinks of the Gate Dimension and he knew that, for his money, this stuff was the strongest of the local brews.      Maybe drunk, he could find some peace. Maybe inebriated, the demons of his dreams would not scare him so much.      He ventured a glance out his window.      Porre really was a beautiful city.      He yelped as the first shot of Fire Water tore down his throat.      Second shot of Fire Water.      Third.      Then oblivion. ---------------------      Garry had nicknamed his laser-cutter Church Key. It was a reference that baffled his wife Paula; of course, she wasn't very keen on the purchase to begin with. But at the same time, her father had taught her to open cans and bottles with knives and her bare teeth.      She remarked immediately that the name Church Key was inappropriate; but Garry was the one holding the airbrush, and so the name stuck in bright blue lettering along the barrel.      Progress was to be had from the moment that Church Key was first let loose upon the hull of the submarine. The knick that Garry and Quincy had made at the expense of four Dreamstone-alloy sawblades quickly turned into a glowing orange gash as the laser turned the sub's hull into its personal bitch. The cutting crew was now three: Garry Ysbed, part owner of Ysbed's Salvage, Quincy R-815Q, the company's robotic employee, and Dax Enright, a high school dropout whom Garry had taken on as a protege of sorts (or at least as a strong extra set of arms).      Quincy was there to aim the laser. His eye was much more precise than either of the human employees of Ysbed's Salvage, and his hand was several times steady. Enright's job was to watch the power guage. If the laser took too much heat to its core, they'd have to shut it off and let it cool or else there'd be an explosion and Church Key would send them all to heaven. Garry was there pretty much just to supervise. He took silent pleasure in watching his investment, the mighty Church Key, in action. He was also checking the power guage over Enright's shoulder just to make sure the kid didn't fuck up.      They worked the rest of the first day until nine at night, when they shut off the laser, let it cool down and then hauled it back to the warehouse. Garry was home by 11:15, where his superstitious wife was once again in need of comfort. So Garry did not get to sleep until around 3:00 am... but when he did sleep, he slept happily.      Four hours was enough sleep for any working man. Four cups of coffee and a cold shower made up for the rest, and Garry was out the door by 7:35. Thankfully he didn't have a very long commute. Enright and Quincy had the Church Key set up by the time Garry got to the drydock. And it began again.      At 11:00 am Colonel Jakobs showed up. The progress by then was visible; and the Colonel seemed visibly thankful for the work that Ysbed's Salvage had done for him.      By 3:00 pm Jakobs was down in the drydock with the three cutters. Church Key was mere inches from completing an oval-shaped portal into the starboard side of the sub's hull.      "I just want you to know, Colonel, that this doesn't mean we're through yet," Garry cautioned. "Once we're inside, we may have to cut some more. I have no idea what shape the corridors and walls and doors are in on the inside. But it's progress, Sir... You're sure getting what you're paying for now!"      The Colonel was moved by this sentiment. He ventured to place a hand on Garry's shoulder.      "Thank you," he said simply. The Colonel's bloodshot, sleepless eyes conveyed more thanks than his emotionless speech did.      Garry was moved by this. It was a new kind of respect he had for the man. Those eyes... those sleepless eyes. That he had been losing sleep over the bodies of these bomb-blasted sailors... He must have been some heroic kind of officer, or else the GA picks all its Colonels just right.      Garry placed his own hand on the spotless white uniform of the Colonel. Both men ignored the sooty smudges such a gesture bred. ---------------------      "We're in."      No one heard Enright's declaration over the clatter of metal as the section of hull they'd cut through fell inward. Garry strapped a headlight onto his forehead and flicked it on. Quincy's robotic eyes blazed like the highbeams of a car. Jakobs brought no illumination with him; he dwelled in the darkness behind the others as they slowly moved inside the submarine.      Enright remained behind with Church Key.      The smell of burning plastic hung in the stale, damp air of the sub's interior. A rapid series of clicking noises eminated from within Quincy.      "Radiation levels are normal," the robot said, affirmingly. "We can move in."      The rooms that the group passed through were unidentifiable... and no remains of sailors were yet evident. Jakobs had slowly migrated, as the group made progress, to the front of the possession.      Garry and Quincy, despite their lighting, could hardly see in all the gloom... but Jakobs... he seemed to know where he was going, and so the two followed.      "The bridge," Jakobs announced, as he came upon a room and stopped.      Garry's light swept across the room. Blackness. Everywhere was twisted, melted, disfigured blackness. It was a landscape in Hell, or else in the twisted mind of some surreal painter. This room was an ugly, demonic thing not built by men. It was a corruption forged in the hellish conflagration of war.      Corpses, for the first time, were rather evident. Garry moved into the room, as did Quincy, both looking to take a count of the number of bodies that had to be removed.      Jakobs moved deeper into the room. Garry watched him go, keeping his light on him as a courtesy, so he wouldn't trip and hurt himself. Why hadn't that fool brought a light with him?      The Colonel knelt beside what looked to be ashes. He delved his clean hands into them and sifted through them. His white uniform, smudged about the shoulder previously by Garry's hand, was now more heavily stained. He seemed, rather uncharacteristically, not to care. He dug and he dug, until finally he seemed to come away with a prize.      Garry could not, at first, tell what it was... but when the light hit it for the briefest of moments before Colonel Jakobs had shoved it into his uniform coat's pocket, he thought what he saw was a bell.      "There are at least twenty bodies in here," Quincy reported. "There may be more elsewhere aboard. I will go see some of my Slicer friends on the Net tonight and see if they can't break me out some deck plans for this model sub, so we may focus our search."      "Yes," the Colonel said hastily. "Yes, that's a splendid idea. We've made progress today boys... what say we take the rest of the day off... rest up a bit, come back tomorrow morning for the bodies?"      Something was not right. Garry looked at the Colonel.      "You know, Quince," Garry said, "Slicing is a serious offense. Slice against the GA and you're likely to incur the wrath of Celpo. We have a GA Colonel right here... I'm sure he could provide us with the deck plans we need."      Jakobs faltered. "... What harm could a few deck plans do? I'll see what I can come up with... but keep your plan in mind... errm... Quincy. In case I don't come through with the goods."      Quincy was startled at being directly addressed by the Colonel. It was the first time the man had deemed to acknowledge him. "Yes... Sir," the robot managed. ---------------------      "A bell?"      "Uh huh," Garry said between kisses. Paula sat up in bed; Garry whined and pulled her back down.      "... baby, c'mon... don't start beating this out now..."      "Isn't it the strangest thing though?... You finally get inside this blasted sub... and the only thing he takes out is a bell?"      "I didn't get a good look at it baby. It could've been a jawbone or a badge or... I dunno." He kissed his wife's breast and pulled her to him. Still, her mind lingered. He snarled at his failure to arrouse her.      "That Colonel freaks me out, Garry."      "What else is new? Everything freaks you out these days..." Garry began to plant kisses on his wife's neck. His hands explored her body beneath the covers.      "I'm serious... you need to... find out what he's up to..."      Aha! She was weakening. Her body began to squirm and press up against his. Her thoughts became garbled, more confused as her husband stimulated her.      "... Garry... oh Garry..." She was pleading now. He took her...      A baby cries.      A mother leaps into action.      A grown man whimpers.      "Son of a bitch, if it's not one thing it's another."      Garry stood and threw his robe on. Walking awkwardly, to prevent himself from poking through the robe's folds (Garry was... errm... still arroused, shall we say), he moved into the living room and sat on his favorite crate (which he had nailed onto a backing and added armrests). Setting his legs up on a second crate, he snagged the remote from the coffee-table-crate and flicked on the television.      Alliance Congress. Commercial for Bahamut's new movie about Rajaat. War in Alter. Yadda yadda. Oh great, another Boy Band... that's all the Web needs. And here's that Khalid Morris fellow talking about that stupid K-plan again...      Garry's home was a first floor apartment in the building that Paula's family bought and gave to them as a wedding present. The building had a few other tenants, and was right next store to the warehouse that Ysbed's Salvage was based out of. So, from his place in the living room in front of the television, Garry was able to hear the crash that resounded from... the warehouse?      He looked over at the wall, questioningly. Then he heard it again, and another crash, and then a shot.      Garry flicked off the TV and ran outside, his robe flying up and revealing his jumblies to the world.      But that didn't matter now. Someone was crashing and shooting things in his warehouse!      The warehouse was torn to pieces. Church Key was safe, but crates and boxes were smashed in, old pieces of salvage kept for sentimentality were overturned and, in some cases, broken. Garry's antique Enertron (one of the first ever build, c. 1952 AD) was in pieces... and Enright was shot dead on the floor. Quincy was nowhere to be found.      Garry staggered over to his desk and picked up the warehouse line.      "Police?... I'd like to report a break-in... someone's dead." ---------------------      "I didn't understand at first. But now, now I do. You were the cause of the dreams. You were the source of my suffering. I wouldn't have helped you on my own... but I fear you. That fear has driven me to abandon my duty... to kill a civilian, one of those I am supposed to protect."      Colonel Jakobs held the bell above his head. Stretched out on the bed, the hotel bed with the sheets that smelled so flowery when he'd first arrived, was the robot that the salvage man had called Quincy. His head was smashed open. The circuitry spilled out. A needlegun with an empty clip lay on the bed beside the cold, empty robot.      "You were one of them," Jakobs said. "You were one of the Fallen. You took the sub, killed the crew and blew the missiles. And this bell... this was your token. Yes, I know how the Archons are bound to their tokens. It must be the same with you Fallen Ones. You are alive in here, somehow. And you called out to me. You summoned me. You tortured me in dreams and made me retrieve this for you. Well, I have done so. And look, I have even procured you a new body. I understand, Fallen One. I have seen your power. The power to destroy beauty. I have resisted it for so long... I was afraid. But I saw your power when I entered the sub. It was... it was like a journey into Hell. I can't fight it any longer, Fallen One." The Colonel placed the bell in the hollowed out brain cavity of the dead robot. "Rise again. Finish what your master started! Live!"      "Close... but far from the mark."      The voice was almost as invasive in his waking hours as the nightmares had been in the Colonel's sleep. Jakobs turned, and a man stepped out of the shadows. He was dressed in a black cloak which covered him thoroughly. Only his eyes, his shining green eyes were evident.      Jakobs faltered. "Who are you?"      "My name is not important. Not to you anyway." The man extended a hand. "Give me the bell."      The words were overpowering. The Colonel could not resist them. He plucked the bell out of the robot's head and walked slowly, fighting with every step. As the last of him was conquered by the command, he set the bell in the stranger's outstretched palm. The stranger smiled and hid the bell somewhere in his shadowy cloak.      "Now you must die, to complete the ruse and cover my tracks. The gun on the bed. Pick it up."      Jakobs wept. But he could not disobey. He reached for the gun.      "Reload it."      Jakobs struggled, but found himself reaching into his coat pocket for his spare clip. His hands were now against him; they loaded and cocked the gun.      "Goodbye, Colonel."      Jakobs resisted long enough to look out on the bay one last time.      Porre... it really was a...      One more shot.      And in its wake, the stranger disappeared. --------------------- NOTE: This AFTERword should be read after the other nine posts in the story, as it discusses events that take place in the story "Seeds of Rajaat". Actually, I could give a flying fuck when/if you read this. There will be a test later, though. ~Seeds of Rajaat~ Shamelessly Self-Promotional Afterword      I didn't start writing "Seeds of Rajaat" until late in the day on the 15th. It was meant to be my contribution to the Iron Writer competition... but though I worked tirelessly on it, I did not finish it until... what is it now?... 4:30 am. Too late for the competition, I decided that this story would be seen instead on the regular Kupopolis board as part of the story itself.      As you probably have already decided, the title is a bit inappropriate. It wasn't when I first came up with the idea... in fact, in my original conception the ending was entirely different. The ending, half-assed as it was, was a conscious u-turn on my part because I wanted to avoid the obvious resolution that was my original conception.      All this hubbub about a bell is, of course, referring to the Mesmerist, one of Rajaat's Fallen Archon minions. He was neat because he could psych people out with his wacky psychic voodoo; mind control was his power, which he enacted by ringing his bell. So my idea was: the Mesmerist takes control of some GA officer's brain, and the officer has the ruined GA sub hauled up to free the Mesmerist. It was basically a story to resurrect one of Rajaat's minions and bring him back so I could play with him. And that was what I was building to right up till the last "chapter." Rajaat was there in the title to make you think "Scen can't let go of that badass villain, can he? This is really a Rajaat resurrection!" And then when it ends up being the Mesmerist I go "HA! Fooled you! Wrong badassed villain!"      Like with the title, I ultimately decided to scrap my original idea and trick you with the ending. Why? Because I think all of us here get a kick out of doing the unexpected for its own sake. We LOVE the idea of feinting out the reader... being able to say "GOTCHA!" when the reader thinks we're going one way and then we whip around in the other direction. So at the last minute, as I was writing that last chapter, I though: "Well shit. Let's play with this ending a bit. It's not set in stone!"      What I came up with was nothing short of brilliant. To me, anyway. It was inspired and I really impressed myself with it. You, the reader, see none of this brilliance in the ending to "Seeds of Rajaat," because I leave the ending purposely nebulous. Why? So I can have fun later introducing this "stranger," this dark and mysterious badguy over whom I was so impressed... A few of you may know who this fellow is because you've seen him before. Hint: his eyes are green. Some hint, eh? Well it's all you'll get from me.      What I enjoyed the most about this story was writing the scenes with Garry at home. I like Garry. This is why he gets laid by his wife a lot, and also why I didn't kill him off at story's end (believe me, I could have... writers sometimes get it in their heads that they are showing off their writing prowess by being able to so detach themselves from their protagonists that they can kill them for no apparent reason). I also liked writing for Colonel Jakobs... but who doesn't like writing for the dark, disturbed, mind-controlled military officer who doesn't know why he's doing what he's doing? No one? All right then. I'm glad that, once again, I am a holder of the majority opinion here in Kupopolis.      I'm going on and on in this afterword like my writing was so good, all that, the big shit. It wasn't, really; I know that. It's short compared to most of the Iron Writer posts, and I could have worked harder at making some of these characters... more real, more character-y instead of just flat people, names for me to tack onto strings of dialog and actions. But the story doesn't take place over an exceptionally long span of time when you think about it, and there really aren't that many characters to dwell on. Still... Enright? Hello? I could have done something with him. I said he was a high school drop out, he gets one line and then he gets shot by Jakobs. Why? I dunno. I thought a gunshot was the best way to get Garry to discover that the robot had been stolen. And gunshots are usually used to kill people. And I only really had one person I wasn't using all that much in the story. so there you go. Bye bye, Enright! Bang.      Okay, it's almost 5 am. I need to sleep for a bit. I'll just post this and see how y'all like it. Consider this as close as I will EVER get to writing a megapost... I will not be surprised nor offended if no one reads this amid all the Iron Writer posts we have to sift through :) I hope that, if you have read all of this, the afterword was at least entertaining. I endeavored, when I decided to write a shamelessly self-promotional afterword, to make it as entertaining as humanly possible to make up for the nonsense-in-nine-posts that you had to put up with before getting to this... dare I call this afterword a comedic gem? No no no, I leave that for the critics to say. David Manning*? Are you out there?      Peace. *David Manning, you will remember, was the fictitious film critic whose non-existant raves Columbia-Tristar pictures used in posters and ads for films such as "The Animal." Yeah, like a Rob Schneider film needs false praise from a fictitious film critic invented by the studio! I mean, am I wrong here? Rob Schneider is a... genius! He is... hysterical[ly]... funny[!] This was a [good] movie! Am I wrong, people?