These are an edited copy of ViciousNanite's logs from the blackbox error logger, submitted before the disappearance in compliance with emergency situation protocol. Certain information have been changed or deleted, such as non TGFT parties involved, locations, and pointless 100 chatter. The intent of this public release is to gather information and theories on what may have happened.

(guild) <ViciousNanite> I'm going botting in Odia
(guild) <Broma-Ba Slick> Good luck
(guild) <Screwball> I'll join you in a bit, finishing up my [DELETED]
(guild) <ViciousNanite> oaky
(sector) <Pirate> yarr, it's the heliocene man, i'll catch you if i can
(guild) <ViciousNanite> okay*
(guild) <ViciousNanite> pirate: [DELETED]
*ViciousNanite jumped to [DELETED]*
You have entered an ion storm. [DELETED]
(sector) <Pirate> ion storm fight!
(sector) <Pirate> stop running, let me finish you off
(sector) <ViciousNanite> i hate people who butt ram me with flares
(sector) <Pirate> pirate life gets lonely
(sector) <Pirate> wussy, stop using the bots to kill me
(sector) <ViciousNanite> ouch
(sector) <Pirate> lol, you ran into a bot
(sector) <ViciousNanite> No, it ran into me
(sector) <ViciousNanite> but too late
*ViciousNanite jumped to [DELETED]*
*Pirate jumped to [DELETED]*
(sector) <ViciousNanite> whoa, weirdness, don't shoot!
(sector) <ViciousNanite> my view is all funky
(sector) <Pirate> heck, I can't even find you
(sector) <ViciousNanite> and i can't move
(sector) <Pirate> why is there a lev here?
(sector) <Pirate> i see you! the lev is pushing you through a wh now
(sector) <Pirate> wtf
(sector) <ViciousNanite> shoot it
(guild) <ViciousNanite> help me in Odia [DELETED]
*ViciousNanite jumped to*
(msg) <Pirate> whered you go, it didn't say where you jumped to
(guild) <Screwball> brt
(msg) <Pirate> i got it to chase me, but you're not here
(msg) <Pirate> hello?

*END OF FILE*

Screwball successfully killed the pirate and barely escaped the lev. TGFT scouters could not pick up anything on any scans. The pilot could not reply after the jump, but was able to send the blackbox data. We suspect partial immobilization and/or ship damage. No further reply was made.

Screwball knocked on the door to Gaird's office. This probably could have been handled by the eCom system, but Screwball felt it might be better to visit the TGFT Commander personally.

"Who is it?", came a voice from beyond the door.

"Lieutenant Screwball, sir. I have completed my initial research into the disappearance..." **ssshhwwaaahh**

Before he could complete his sentence, the door to Gaird's office opened. "Come in, Screwball," said the Commander. "So, tell me what you've been doing with all those observers TGFT has been paying for?"

"Well sir," Screwball started, "as you know, artificial intelligence is often very effective at solving certain problems, and usually quite inneffective at dealing with unanticipated situations. We also know that, for reasons unknown, the Hive has been getting much better at combat recently, and has made a sustained effort to expand in the Sedina system."

"Just cut to the chase... Have you found ViciousNanite?"

"No sir, but I believe we are getting closer."

"Damn! How much longer will this take? He's alone out there and for all we know he's dead."

"I understand, sir. He's my friend too. Hell, he's the one who got me involved in this guild, and gave me combat training, and helped me test the prototype of... dammit! Well, the good news is that the hive has never been good at reverse engineering. Perhaps we can use this to our advantage if we can make contact with him..."

"What was that about AI?"

"Oh... right. As I was saying, AI is sometimes very effective, and other times it's as dense as a roid... as dense as a roid. Sorry sir, I was lost in thought for a second. As you know, ever since VN's disappearance, I've been sending in Observer bots to monitor the hive and Leviathans in Sedina. After some adjustments to their AI, I developed a search pattern that allowed them to elude the attacking hive bots for long enough to gather some useful information."

"And...?"

"Well, at first, it was nothing unusual. The hive would sit there and mine, dispatch a bot or two to attack the observer, make Leviathans, get themselves blown up by enterprising pilot or group of pilots, gather the remnants of their forces and start over, etc. So then I started thinking, why would they treat ViciousNanite differently than everyone else?"

"Maybe they were jealous about his mining skills?"

"Ha ha..." Screwball took a deep breath. "Actually, sir, I think mining did have something to do with it. As you know, ViciousNanite was one of the first UIT pilots to earn the Master Prospector's badge, which means he's seen more asteroid fields than most of us combined, with the possible exception of Obsidian. Guess who else has seen a lot of asteroid fields?"

"Uh, Lecter? IGPK? One of Broma's customers? I have no idea..."

"The Hive, sir. Over the last couple of centuries, they have probably visited nearly every asteroid in the 30 known systems."

"Good point. So how does this relate to the disappearance of ViciousNanite?"

"Well, I guessed that ViciousNanite's mining activities might have triggered some sort of special response by the Hive, so I modified the sensor arrays on the Observers to double as primitive short range mineral scanners, and sent them out to scan Sedina."

"What happened?"

"Scanning the asteroids in the hive sectors didn't seem to produce any special reponse, so next I tried mining. I reused the evasion routine and added a primitive routine to mine 1 cu and move to another roid then repeat, loaded it into some EC-88's equipped with mining beams, and sent them to Sedina."

"Then what happend?"

"Most of the EC-88's died, and I got a small amount of low value ore back. Still the standard response from the Hive. I figured maybe I wasn't recreating the conditions of his disappearance correctly, so I tried the most accurate recreation I could do. I rigged the same model of ship that he was flying with the EC-88 flight code, strapped on the same mining beams and a mineral scanner, waited for a Leviathan to be built, then dispatched it to Sedina."

"And then the hive acted differently?"

"No, then the hive blew it up, just like normal".

"Great work."

"I'm not quite finished, sir." Even though he knew he was alone in the office with Gaird, Screwball looked around the room, just to be sure. He then continued. "I missed a couple of details when I sent that ship out. It didn't have ViciousNanite's ID or cargo." Screwball looked around the room again. "I, uh, forged ViciousNanite's ID code into a 2nd ship with the same configuration, then loaded it with helio, then sent it out."

"Let me guess, the Hive blew it up?"

"Actually, no. Are you sitting down sir? Oh, you are. Good. I had an observer tailing VN-2, and it recorded this vid."

Gaird took the chip from Screwball and inserted it into his workstation. Soon, they were watching the video on one of the large screens on Gaird's wall.

Screwball narrated, "This is where VN-2, the fake ViciousNanite ship, enters the sector. Almost as soon as it enters, it receives an unsolicited hail from the Hive, which I'm still analyzing. It appears to be some sort of binary code, but much longer than their standard response to a hail. Here, VN-2 deviates from it's programmed course and won't respond to commands, but it's still reporting in."

Screwball paused the vid. "Sir, I think we should both have a drink."

Gaird pressed the continue button. "Not now, Screwball. I want to know what happened to my former Lieutenant".

The video from the Observer showed a disturbing sequence of events. VN-2 started flying directly towards the Leviathan, yet it was not attacked by the escorts or the Leviathan. Then, the Leviathan contorted itself into a ring, and the inner turrets started emitting a strange energy pattern. A shimmering blue plane of energy formed inside the ring of the Leviathan. VN-2 passed through the field and disappeared. The blue field collapsed, the Leviathan uncurled, and an escort bot destroyed the observer, ending the video in a shower of sparks.

"I continued to receive a signal from VN-2 for a few more seconds, and then it went silent as the wormhole collapsed," said Screwball. Not hearing a response, he looked over at Gaird.

"I'll have that drink now, Screwball," said a shaken Gaird.

/me considers posting a link to this in the Suggestions forum

THAT would be an awesome gameplay feature!

It could be kinda like the Borg stronghold in Voyager, with tons of Hive bots, multiple Leviathans.... /me goes to get the drool bucket

There was silence for 5 full minutes. Gaird was the first to speak.

"What does this mean?"

Screwball answered in a shaken voice, "I think that VN has become part of the hive."

There was more silence.

"What can we do about it?"

"I don't know, Sir. I just don't know."

"Well thank you for bringing this to my attention, Screwball. You may leave"

As he walked down the hall to his ship, he began to form a plan in his mind. The more Screwbal thought about it, the more he realised that it might be the only way to find out what had happened to his friend.

Somewhere in Sedina...

"Ha ha! Take that orun!" iTripped was having a grand time. He had recently taken to the sport of hive dodging; going into some of the most dangerous bastions, and taunting the bots there by mining small amounts of ore from the roids. His favorite way of doing this was to get an orun following him, and then to swoop around an asteriod just as it was about to fire on him, causing it to crash into the rock. Sure there were more productive ways for him to mine, but this was excitement at its best.

TGFT headquarters. Nyrius G-2

"So thats what I'm thinking." Screwball had just finished presenting his plan to his commander, and lieutenant Broma-Ba Slick.

They both just sat there with slightly dazed looks on their faces.

"Well, what do..."

"I refuse to put a member of my guild into harms way Screwball." Replied Gaird.

"Yeah, it might work, but think of the price."

"I am fully aware that it could mean losing another life, but I think that the person I have in mind would be fully willing to take on this task. He has shown that he can learn quickly, and is one of our most dedicated members" Screwball was beginning to get annoyed that they wouldnt consider his plan.

"Well if he agrees, I will allow it, but I don't want to hear that he was coercend into this in any way."

"Thank you, Sir. I think we may have found a route back to VN."

"I hope this plan of yours works Screwball. You may leave."

Screwball hurried to his ship. Now that he had approval for this plan, he wanted to get it working as quickly as possible. Once he was in his ship, he immediately got on the guild comm channel.

"iTripped, you out there"

"Yeah. Hey, you would never belive how much fun it is showing these bots how to mine. Its like they forget to look where they are going, they are so into chasing you down."

"Heh, well listen, something's up and I was wondering if you didnt want to help out?"

"Sure, I could do that. What's on your mind?"

So Screwball explained the plan to him.

"You know how VN recently disappeared, and hasnt been heard from in over 2 months. Well I think there is a way to get him back, or at least learn more about what happened to him."

Screwball explained to him how he had created a clone of VN's ship and seen how it had reacted to the hive.

"Here's how I see it. You are one of the best miners this guild has, and also one of our most daring members. I think we may be able to train the Hive to treat you the way they treated VN. It may not be exaclty the same way, but to some extent at least. In essence, we want you to go wherever it is that VN went, and see if you can bring him back."

So VN joined the Hive of his own volition? Take notes, Monk, and say goodbye to your girl, ha HA!

/me takes notes "Note #1: Ignore Jex" "Note #2: Punt Jex"

/me punts Jex out the door

/me says Joyce is going into the Helios sun... she'll like it there.

Hey Void, I have your package, by the way!

Better check the station news btw Jex. Very interesting bounty posted there....

Personal Log - Screwball - November 21, 4433:

ViciousNanite is alive. I don't know how or where, and I don't have any scientific evidence to back this up, but I know he is alive.

Call it a hunch or call it faith, I don't care. Even though I am man of science, I can't ignore this plea from the other side of my brain, and it drives me to find a way to bring him back.

The guild has been holding it's collective breath for some time now, waiting for closure. They are probably expecting me to tell them that I've discovered the wreckage of ViciousNanite's ship. I want to do better.

iTripped has agreed to go on an extremely dangerous rescue mission. I explained the risks to him based on our limited information about this newly discovered facet of the Hive, and he was undeterred. Bless him. He is young and brave. I must now do everything I can to equip and instruct him for his coming voyage into the unknown. I only hope it is enough.

As much as I would like to see ViciousNanite back as soon as possible, there are still a few technical challenges that I must work out before I can in good conscience send iTripped out. Specifically, I need to figure out how he can communicate back to us, and how he can retain flight control of his ship.

And now, I get to the part that made me start this log. The part that is the hardest to write, because thinking about it scares me -- the Hive.

After running the Deneb Run the other day, I went out for a relaxing trade run. While on that run, a distress call went out over the universal comm channel. It was a fresh out of the airlock Serco pilot who had been attacked by a large group of ships while on his training mission in Pyronis. Other pilots monitoring the comm channel theorized that he had encountered a Hive Queen and her escorts.

At first, the Serco government, where orders always come from the top down, insisted that he return to that sector to complete his training. However, he found a loophole in thier regulations and managed to get himself assigned to another sector. Still, I was left with a desire to pay this Queen a visit and teach it a lesson.

After finishing my trade run, I picked up a Warthog MkII and equipped it with a Mega Positron blaster and Axia Accelerated Positron Blaster. Nothing says love better than anti-matter, at least when you're talking to the Hive.

As I arrived in the sector where the young Serco pilot had been attacked, I was disappointed to find it empty. I was dressed to kill and my dance partner had stood me up, so I jumped over to an asteroid sector and waited for one of the mining bots to run home to mama. After a few minutes, one of the Orun collectors near me broke off from mining and made a run for it. Tailing close behind, my scanners picked up it's jump destination. Gotcha! I plotted a course to that sector and pressed the jump button.

The events of the next few hours have left me a little shaken. Conversely, they are also the source of my faith that ViciousNanite is alive.

As I entered the sector with the Hive Queen, the escorts and the queen turned to face me, as they have on every other occassion that I've encountered one. My ship closed on them, and they closed on me. I switched off flight assist, activated a radar auto-scan program, and mentally prepared myself for the fight.

Once the bots got near, I aimed the nose of the ship down and fired the turbo for a few seconds, then reoriented the ship to face the enemy. This left me flying backwards with them chasing. Now all I had to do was wait for them to come into range, shoot them, and dodge any fire coming my way.

Some people say that 2 out of 3 ain't bad. In this case, it was miraculous. They came, I shot, they didn't. At first, I figured that maybe only one or two escorts bots were way out in front of the rest of the pack, but I soon realized that they were all there, at close range, not firing. I decided to turbo right into the middle of the group of bots. As I got extremely close, a few took pot shots and then stopped.

I wasn't sure how long this would last, so I killed all the escorts as fast as my battery allowed. There was the Queen, in all it's grandeur. Stripped of it's retinue, save for a couple of observers hiding 400m behind it, it was following me and just staring with those cold mechanical eyes. I waited for it to make a move, but it didn't. I locked my guns on fire and had a conversation on the public comm channel, while staring this normally fearsome bot in the face as it slowly disintegrated.

At first, I thought it must be a fluke. Perhaps there had been a recent solar flare, and the resulting radiation had corrupted their circuitry, or maybe they had a manufacturing defect.

I tracked down and destroyed a second Hive Queen and her escorts in Pyronis, only to experience the same response. I tried it again in Helios, and again the Hive just didn't seem to have much will to fight.

I decided to count my blessings and call it a night, so I headed back to Ukari to repair, after having been a little too close to an exploding Queen. Just before reaching the station at L-14, I got caught in an ion storm. It was full of Orne Guardians and other Hive bots, and a wayward trade convoy as well. As I started to head to the exit point, I could see some of the Orne Guardians were headed my way, and some were attacking the trade convoy. Wondering if my luck would hold, I let them get close.

Ouch! The Orne's still had some fight in them and my hull was brought dangerously close to breach point. I was about to get the hell out of there when something happened that I still have trouble believing... an Orne Guardian came to my rescue! Really!

I quickly got the hell out of Dodge and repaired. My curiosity was piqued, though, so I flew back to Serco space and picked up a SkyCommand Prom. If I was gonna conduct experiments around Orne Guardians, I wanted something with enough hull to survive. I also started notifying people on the public comm channel about my odd experience with the hive.

As I re-entered the storm, I could see that several other pilots had decided to witness the odd Hive behavior first-hand. However, instead of seeing what I did, the Ornes attacked them, killing Mecha Tourais and wounding Root Baba before he left. How was this possible? I stayed in the sector and soon a couple of Orne Guardians attacked me. Again, another Orne Guardian attacked them, drawing them off of me. I targeted another Orne Guardian that was nearby and shot it. It didn't even turn to face me. Another Orne started closing on me, so I settled into a backward flight pattern and waited for it to attack. This one acted like the Hive Queen's escort, not firing unless it got really close, and not closing close enough to fire.

I flew around for a while in that storm, having trouble believing what was going on around me. I saw the Ornes finish off the stragglers in the trade convoy. I saw more Ornes attack each other outright, not even trying to save me. It was chaos compared to the normally disciplined and aggressive AI that is the Hive.

Having witnessed the bizarre behavior of the "lesser" hive AI, I decided to see how the recently improved Hive AI in Sedina would react. I headed into the inner asteroid ring and soon found a sector with a Hive Queen.

Sadly, for the Hive that is, they demonstrated the same kid gloves that I had experienced in Pyronis and Helios, but none of the outright rebellion witnessed in Ukari. After the queen was dead, the remaining bots fled the sector back to daddy. I followed them, and soon found the large troublemaker, a Leviathan.

If this can be imagined, the Hive in this sector was even dumber than the Hive that hung out with the Queens, attacking me with kid gloves one at a time, rather than in a group. The only damage I took was from the explosion of the queens, when I finally got in range of the Leviathan's turrets, and a few desparate seekers after I had stripped the Leviathan of it's turrets and was slowly chipping away at it as fast as the battery could recharge the Mega Positron Blaster.

My thoughts were swirling. Is the Hive really this broken? And if so, why? Why is most of the Hive not attacking me, yet still attacking other pilots? Hell, why is it protecting me? Why is it attacking itself? My mind keeps coming back to one answer... ViciousNanite.

There's just one problem with it. The Hive in Sedina got smarter before he went missing, and then it kidnapped him.

[OOC: The Hive behavior described above, including attacking itself and saving me, really did happen two nights ago. It was so perfect I decided to weave it into the story.]

It could also be the little surprise I left in Deep Blue for it to download. Sometimes it's best to let your foes overextend themselves, thinking that they have you at a disadvantage.

"Sir, I was in the lab studying the vid of VN-2 when one of our Observers in Sedina reported another abnormality in the Hive. I really think you should see it," reported iTripped.

[ for reference, see: http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/7/11827?page=3#149206 ]

"I'll be right there. And thanks for calling me about this," replied Screwball.

As Screwball entered the lab, iTripped fired up the display. "Sir, one of our observers captured this video of multiple pilots triggering the Leviathan wormhole and entering."

"They did what!?!" exclaimed Screwball. Screwball smacked his own forehead with the palm of his hand, then ran his fingers down his face in exasperation. "Please tell me that they were not some of our pilots going off half-cocked... wait, please tell me that those WERE our pilots. What in samoflange is going on here?!?"

"I don't know sir!" replied iTripped.

"Ok, step 1, check the logs from the Observer. I want to know who went into that wormhole. I'm going to review the video further."

Screwball zoomed in on the ships entering the wormhole. He replayed it again in slow motion. Frowning, he applied a motion analysis program to the video. He then applied the motion analysis program to the video of VN-2. The two results sets showed different entry points that converged into identical flight paths and velocity profiles going into the wormhole. The look of concern on his face grew.

iTripped looked up from the observer's logs. "Those were not TGFT ships."

"And they lost flight control right around here," said Screwball, pointing to the display where the flight paths converged. "What I want to know now is who they were, how they learned to trigger the Leviathan, and why?"

"It was MonkofAkan, and he had company," replied iTripped. "I'm not sure about the rest."

"Very well, I'll ask Broma to look into the security breach. In the meantime, I want you to encrypt all the data on this. I'm going to see if we can't utilize this situation to our advantage."

A few hours later, Screwball met Gaird, Broma, and iTripped in the docking bay. Next to them loomed a Behemoth transport, decked out in TGFT green.

"This behemoth represents the next phase of the rescue plan," began Screwball. "It is designed to test communications from the other side of wherever that wormhole leads to. I'm willing to bet that there are a few pilots on the other side who would very much like to tell us what they see. If this is successful, we will gain a lot of knowledge, and reduce the risk to iTripped for a subsequent rescue attempt."

"How does it work?" asked iTripped.

"Well, according to the theory of quantum teleportation, two atoms that are entangled can be brought to far away locations and relay information to each other instantaneously, bypassing the normal speed of light delay. It is this principle that allows the galaxy wide comm system to..."

"Screwball, we don't have time for the science lesson," interrupted Gaird.

"Oh, right. Sorry sir. Basically, this Behemoth contains a communications relay system, similar to those used in every system in the known galaxy. Since there is no relay satellite on the other side of the wormhole, that's why we lose communications. I modified this one to be mobile and draw power from the Behemoth. In theory, as long as the Behemoth survives, then we should be able to communicate."

"Nice work," said Gaird. "Given the sensitivity of this mission, we should have an escort for this ship. Broma, please round up some of our pilots. Call Viper for help on this if you feel that's necessary, but keep the true purpose under wraps. iTripped, I want you to personally fly this to Sedina, and dock at one of the local stations. Screwball, you will then program it to fly the rest of the route on auto-pilot. I want you in the lab monitoring the operation. Let's do this."

Screwball chuckled to himself. They hadn't noticed the message "Lost? /join 1-800-IOU-TGFT" painted on the top.

30 minutes later, an escort fleet was assembled outside the station. Half were combat ships and the other half were decoys. Everyone in TGFT knew that this was an important mission and wanted to pitch in. Viper had been contacted and asked to make sure the way was clear through the Latos to Sedina gateway.

As it turned out, everything went off without a hitch. iTripped docked safely, switched the flight controls to autopilot, and bought himself a new ship. Back in the lab at TGFT HQ, Screwball remotely signaled the Behemoth to launch. Sure enough, flight control was lost shortly after entering the Leviathan sector, and the Behemoth gently cruised toward the great unknown.

Screwball whispered "this one's for you, VN", then counted as the ship entered the wormhole, "3...2...1..." The wormhole collapsed and the ship was now out of sight of the Observer circling in the distance. Screwball looked down at the telemetry monitor. Hull 100%, Battery 100%, Velocity 40 m/s. He kept waiting for the data stream to show "n/a", but it didn't. He issued a ping command, and the Behemoth responded. It was working... IT WAS WORKING!!!

Almost without thinking, Screwball jumped out of his chair and pumped his fist in the air. "Take THAT home and suck on it, Hive bitches!", he yelled across the lab. Then he looked around, regained some composure, and sat back down. Zathras ducked his head into the lab to make sure everything was ok. Screwball gave him a slightly embarrassed look, followed by a big grin and a thumbs up.

Moments later, Screwball trasmitted "WOOHOO!!!" over the guild channel. No elaboration was necessary.

After a few minutes of congratulations between everyone involved, Screwball sent a private message to ViciousNanite. The comm net reported that ViciousNanite was not online. Screwball thought to himself, well, everyone has to sleep. Hopefully he'll power on his comm system at some point... hopefully.

Screwball then tested the flight control on the Behemoth, attempting to set the throttle to 0. The speed remained at 40m/s. "Dammit!" Oh well, he thought, the primary purpose of this mission was a success. Getting them back, though, will be a challenge.

Screwball contacted iTripped by private message, "Phase 2 is on hold. No flight control on other side. Please execute flight test alpha. Good luck."

iTripped replied, "Roger. Got my pressure suit on just in case. Initializing prototype now." iTripped launched from the docking bay and headed to the Leviathan sector.

Meanwhile, Broma informed the escort group that they had a new mission. iTripped would be conducting a test in the Leviathan sector and might need to self-destruct his ship. Should that happen, it would be up to them to scoop him up under extreme hostile conditions.

Screwball then sent a private message to MonkofAkan. "Hello MonkofAkan. We saw you with the Levi. What is your status? Do you have flight control? Are you under attack?" The message was not rejected. This meant that MonkofAkan's ship had survived the last few hours and was acknowledging communications requests. This meant there was some solid hope for ViciousNanite's survival.

Soon, there was a frantic reply from MonkofAkan, "OMG! Help! We are in an unknown star system and cannot steer our ships." He continued, "There was a Leviathan here where we entered, but it did not attack. We have drifted away from it now. It keeps hailing in binary."

Screwball then sent: "I'm glad you are safe. We sent through a comm relay and are working on a rescue plan, but need to figure out how to regain flight control first." Followed by, "While you're in there, please see if you can contact ViciousNanite. Also, please relay hail from Levi."

MonkofAkan wrote back: "Roger. Please hurry. Joyce's life is in danger."

I took a left when I should've went right. -.-;

OOC: I planned to write up the escape this morning, so you could go on your own rescue attempt. However, my cat has a potentially severe problem and I need to drive him to a vet that's far away.

In the meantime, here's the short version: The prototype that iTripped is equipped with allows him to regain partial but sufficient flight control to stage a rescue operation. He takes in the special TGFT frigate mentioned in http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/7/10892#127138 and tractors the stranded pilots back to the entry point. Meanwhile, Screwball analyses the Hive's transmissions and figures out how to reactivate the jump sequence from the other side. You all make it through alive, and through details TBD, you are able to resume flight control after arriving back in Sedina. Now go save Joyce. And, oh yeah, you owe TGFT a big favor and an explanation on the security breach. Still no sign of ViciousNanite.

Love the rushed ending, Screwball. Heh. Hope yer kitty is OK.

Heh, that's not the ending. The end is far away. This was just the first successful return from that system. There's a lot more to it, which I'll probably get to starting in early December when I return from Vacation.

As for my cat, thanks for the well wishes. He is about 17 years old and recently went blind, which is apparently due to two detached retinas. That was apparently caused by his blood pressure hitting 220 on the high number (it's supposed to be about 120), which in turn is probably due to impending kidney failure. Sigh. He's now on blood pressure medication, which actually gives him a good chance of allowing his eyes to heal and regain some sight. No word on the kidneys yet.

<sermon>Note to humans: Your body works the same way. You can have high blood pressure and not notice until a lot of damage has been done. If you're over 30, get it checked regularly. Really. Also, if you notice stars or flashes of light around the edge of your vision, it can be a sign of impending retinal detachment. Go see an eye doctor immediately. If your vision suddenly goes black, like a curtain dropping in front of you, that IS retinal detachment, and you have about 24 hours to get treatment or your sight is gone for good.</sermon>

(And while I appreciate any further well wishes, let's please not turn this into a thread about my cat, or health issues in general.)