The final installment.
Outside The Sheep’s Head, December 3, 1903, 8:15 p.m.
Werner was afraid that he had frightened Dr. Reed with all that talk about murder and the end of the world. It didn’t matter. Soon enough the assistant professor would chalk it up to too much wine and forget all about it. What he’d said was still true, though. Someday he would have to answer for it. In the meanwhile, the air was crisp and smelled like trees, which was getting rarer and rarer nowadays, and the stars outside were beautiful. Just outside the reach of the restaurant lights he stopped to look up at them.
A blow to his chest knocked all the air out of him and flung him against a wall. The man who wrestled him to a standstill was too strong to be a beggar, though there was madness in his eyes and it looked like he hadn’t cut his hair in years. Something long and thin prickled at Werner’s neck.
“An island! An island in the Pacific Ocean! Do you even realize how long it took me to figure out what hemisphere I was in?”
Werner gasped, trying to get his breath back. He would have liked to put a hand to his throat but they were both being held down.
“Longer than I expected,” he said as soon as he could manage it. “You’re not the brightest bulb, are you?”
“I’m going to kill you!” The man growled and dug the knife in deeper. Werner winced, but that was all. His attacker looked confused. “Well? Aren’t you going to beg?”
“Why should I? I’ve already had my fun. My life’s been an anticlimax for years.”
The knife slackened. Then the man seemed to remember himself and punched Werner, then shoved him so hard he sprawled onto the icy concrete.
“Yes,” said Werner, not trying to get up. He’d bitten his tongue on the way down and now tasted blood in his mouth. He wanted to laugh, though this was the last possible place for something like that. “You know, I was going to send you to the moon, Albert.”
Albert, who’d been poised to kick him, lowered his boot. “What?”
“Or deep space, or the middle of an iceberg. I had to interrupt the show to change it at the last minute. I still don’t know why I did that.”
There was no reply. No blows came for a while, so Dr. Werner sat up painfully. Albert was standing over him, watching.
“You’ve ruined my life.”
“Oh, yes,” Werner nodded, rubbing his head. “It was quite unfair. The arrangement still holds, you know. If you survive the experience, you’re a free man.”
“God damn it!” Albert flung the knife to the ground and kicked it. “I was going to kill you! All those nights sleeping on rocks, it was the only thing keeping me going…”
“Then do it, already.”
There was a long pause. “I really did you a favor, didn’t I? You got to feel so pleased with yourself, being the wronged one.” He squatted on the ground and rubbed his head. “Now what are we going to do?”
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Friday, March 20, 2009
Girl Genius: Now That's How Steampunk Ought to be Done
Why is it that all the webcomics I’ve been reading lately have been better than the books? I haven’t written any book reviews lately because the last couple of books I read were lackluster. And the disappointing thing is that they sounded like they would be really good. Good Omens, a collaboration between Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, is about an angel and a demon who manage to bungle up the apocalypse. If you’ve ever wanted to know how an angel behaves when drunk, this is the book for you, but otherwise it didn’t light me on fire. And Seventh Son, well, Orson Scott Card is the kind of sf/f author where everybody takes their hats off when you mention his name, and the book had a way cool premise: what would happen to the American colonies … if magic worked? Unfortunately the book read like a big long prequel. Alvin, who goes on to do actually exciting things later in the series, is only ten years old by the time the book closes.
Girl Genius, on the other hand, is another one of those gems you happen to stumble across by word of mouth. It’s a webcomic by Phil & Kaja Foglio that’s been running for many years now. It’s an alternate history where most of Europe is at the mercy of dueling mad scientists. (They call it Europa, but you’re not fooling me, Foglios.) Imagine a Jules Verne book that has been left in the back of the refrigerator for too long and gotten completely out of hand. It’s gotten to the point where, when a crab monster with laser eyes crashes out of the forest, the peasantry rolls its eyes and groans.
Young Agatha Clay, a hapless student at Transylvania Polygnostic University, discovers she’s the sole surviving heir of the Heterodyne dynasty, a family of mad scientists with a particularly strong and checkered reputation. Now, everyone in Europe wants a piece of her. Her madcap quest to assume her rightful place as a heterodyne and keep from getting killed involves blob monsters, airships, robots, talking cats, wasps that will turn you into zombies, and lots and lots of explosions. And did I mention that her house is insane?
If you’re going to try Girl Genius out, please wait until you’re partway through Volume 2 before you decide whether you like it or not. The Foglios took a while to figure out what they wanted their comic to be. Early on, characters’ reactions to things are kind of cartoony and flat, and the Jägermonsters resemble nothing so much as rotting pumpkins. It really hits its stride once Agatha gets on the airship and we get some character interactions going. By the time you meet the robot princess you’ll need to start keeping a scorecard.
The graphic novel format means they can do some really neat things you can’t do in a novel, like subtle visual humor. Oh, look, Agatha’s guardians just happen to have bolts in their necks. That guy driving the wagon in the background has a cybernetic hand. That mouse in the cellar is actually a tiny, tiny wooly mammoth – an escaped experiment.
One of the things I particularly like about the story is that Agatha’s a strong female character (with glasses!) who relies mainly on her intelligence to get things done. A few well-made death rays never hurt, either. There are certain limits on what Agatha and Gilgamesh (he’s the romantic lead) can do because they’re the main characters, and they’ve got a heroic job to do. The side characters really make the story shine, and there are a lot of them – it is a sweeping, epic plot. And each one of them gets motivations, even if they’re only there for a few episodes, so you get the feeling that if you looked closer there’d be even more to them.
I love, love the Jägermonsters, though I can’t figure out what the dickens they are. They’re humanoids who come in various shades of purple or green and have fangs and claws, and they’re really hard to kill. And they don’t seem to mind eating glue for supper at all. My running hypothesis is that they’re some sort of highly intelligent breed of Orc. And by highly intelligent I mean about as intelligent as a human, because for an Orc that would be an accomplishment. The cool thing is that at first they look like they’re just stormtroopers, but then they get lines, and some of them even get names, and it turns out that they’re a lot more important to Agatha’s destiny than originally anticipated.
I’m far from the only person who thinks this webcomic is awesome, considering its nomination for 2 Hugo awards, its five Web Cartoonist’s Choice Awards and 8 more nominations, and nomination for 2 Eisner awards. These guys mean serious business. And it looks like Agatha’s going to be gearing up for a final showdown soon, so you’ll want to save your seats.
What can I learn from this, from a literary point of view?
- More explosions always help.
- Make your minor characters shine, not just your protags.
- Always keep the following in mind: how can I make my heroine’s life even more complicated?
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
At Heidelberg University, Part 6
The Sheep’s Head, December 3, 1903, 7:35 p.m.
Dr. Werner had developed a habit of going to the Sheep’s Head for dinner in the past few years. It had nice wood walls, well-lit, didn’t see a lot of riffraff of the city but wasn’t too expensive, either. Since his famous lab accident he’d gotten to working in the lab at all hours, and, well, it was not much of a surprise that he was still a bachelor. He had moved on to other projects than the teleportation machine, of course. It had been too spectacular a failure, too public, to continue the work. It was only because he’d had such a solid reputation at the University that he’d been allowed to keep his job at all. Oh, well.
He scissored away at a veal cutlet across the table from one Dr. Reed, a very new assistant professor who’d barely been added on to the University the year before last. Werner had taken him under his wing so the department would not eat him alive. He had some very promising ideas about the nature of the atom. Werner sighed to himself. He was getting old, wasn’t he? All the good ideas were coming from somebody else now.
“I just received the latest Rutherford paper about radioactivity,” Reed was saying. “He thinks it happens in a mathematically predictable manner. The hazards of the work are enormous, of course, but if the burns–“
“Have you ever done something you regretted, Klaus?”
His friend was so startled by the sudden change of subject that his train of thought stalled. It took him several seconds to decide what to say. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, just an idle thought.” Werner paused, looking at the color of his drink by the light. “Probably brought up by all this talk about radioactivity. We live in dangerous times. The physicists are on the verge of making actual progress in the field. We’re scientists, we’re supposed to be pure, right? Knowledge for its own sake.”
“I should hope so,” said Reed, with a puzzled look.
Then Dr. Werner brought up what would have looked like another non sequitur. “Have you noticed how the great powers don’t do anything but shake their swords at each other anymore? They’re wound up so tight that they will absolutely have to fight each other. Maybe not next year, maybe not for another ten years. But when it comes, it’s going to be the end of the world.”
“You’re acting very strangely tonight, and I wonder if we had not better go home right now.” Reed very nearly stood up from the table. “All this talk about the end of the world. Europe is a civilized place. A few wars would help to blow off steam.”
“That’s because you haven’t seen war, my friend. War is hell.” He put his drink back down. “They left me for dead, you know.”
Dr. Reed gave up his plan to leave the table and blinked. “The German unification?”
“I had to crawl all the way back to camp with a couple of French bullets in my ribs. I was furious with them for it and nursed a grudge for decades.”
“I didn’t realize you were a war hero.”
At that Werner laughed. “There aren’t any heroes in a game like that. Every year the powers develop ever more sophisticated ways of killing each other. And we scientists unwittingly serve them. There is a lot of energy inside an atom. The year we figure out how to get it out, that is when the end of the world will come.”
Reed was beginning to look really frightened. “We work for peaceful purposes!”
“The teleportation machine works!”
“But it was a disaster. And begging your pardon, Dr. Werner, but your career–“
“It works perfectly, on rats and humans. I’ve done it on myself many times. What a miraculous technology, right? We could move food and products across the ocean in the blink of an eye. Troops. We could teleport a bomb into the inside of a certain world leader’s home… But you know how these things go. I had an accident. The machine was a dismal failure, it got put on a shelf, and everybody forgot about it.” He paused to sip from his drink, seeming to remember things from long ago. “I shall have to answer for that someday. Somehow I thought it would be more fun.”
He really shouldn’t have done that, Werner thought. Not out of any fear of getting arrested – it was quite impossible – but the poor assistant professor looked just about ready to flee the restaurant.
Reed calmed himself. “Dr. Werner,” he said finally, looking the older doctor intently in the eyes. “You must tell me something in the utmost of confidence. Have you murdered that convict who disappeared?”
Werner gave that some consideration before he answered. “Probably not. It depends on how smart he is. But with every year that goes by, I think more and more that I have.”
Dr. Werner had developed a habit of going to the Sheep’s Head for dinner in the past few years. It had nice wood walls, well-lit, didn’t see a lot of riffraff of the city but wasn’t too expensive, either. Since his famous lab accident he’d gotten to working in the lab at all hours, and, well, it was not much of a surprise that he was still a bachelor. He had moved on to other projects than the teleportation machine, of course. It had been too spectacular a failure, too public, to continue the work. It was only because he’d had such a solid reputation at the University that he’d been allowed to keep his job at all. Oh, well.
He scissored away at a veal cutlet across the table from one Dr. Reed, a very new assistant professor who’d barely been added on to the University the year before last. Werner had taken him under his wing so the department would not eat him alive. He had some very promising ideas about the nature of the atom. Werner sighed to himself. He was getting old, wasn’t he? All the good ideas were coming from somebody else now.
“I just received the latest Rutherford paper about radioactivity,” Reed was saying. “He thinks it happens in a mathematically predictable manner. The hazards of the work are enormous, of course, but if the burns–“
“Have you ever done something you regretted, Klaus?”
His friend was so startled by the sudden change of subject that his train of thought stalled. It took him several seconds to decide what to say. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, just an idle thought.” Werner paused, looking at the color of his drink by the light. “Probably brought up by all this talk about radioactivity. We live in dangerous times. The physicists are on the verge of making actual progress in the field. We’re scientists, we’re supposed to be pure, right? Knowledge for its own sake.”
“I should hope so,” said Reed, with a puzzled look.
Then Dr. Werner brought up what would have looked like another non sequitur. “Have you noticed how the great powers don’t do anything but shake their swords at each other anymore? They’re wound up so tight that they will absolutely have to fight each other. Maybe not next year, maybe not for another ten years. But when it comes, it’s going to be the end of the world.”
“You’re acting very strangely tonight, and I wonder if we had not better go home right now.” Reed very nearly stood up from the table. “All this talk about the end of the world. Europe is a civilized place. A few wars would help to blow off steam.”
“That’s because you haven’t seen war, my friend. War is hell.” He put his drink back down. “They left me for dead, you know.”
Dr. Reed gave up his plan to leave the table and blinked. “The German unification?”
“I had to crawl all the way back to camp with a couple of French bullets in my ribs. I was furious with them for it and nursed a grudge for decades.”
“I didn’t realize you were a war hero.”
At that Werner laughed. “There aren’t any heroes in a game like that. Every year the powers develop ever more sophisticated ways of killing each other. And we scientists unwittingly serve them. There is a lot of energy inside an atom. The year we figure out how to get it out, that is when the end of the world will come.”
Reed was beginning to look really frightened. “We work for peaceful purposes!”
“The teleportation machine works!”
“But it was a disaster. And begging your pardon, Dr. Werner, but your career–“
“It works perfectly, on rats and humans. I’ve done it on myself many times. What a miraculous technology, right? We could move food and products across the ocean in the blink of an eye. Troops. We could teleport a bomb into the inside of a certain world leader’s home… But you know how these things go. I had an accident. The machine was a dismal failure, it got put on a shelf, and everybody forgot about it.” He paused to sip from his drink, seeming to remember things from long ago. “I shall have to answer for that someday. Somehow I thought it would be more fun.”
He really shouldn’t have done that, Werner thought. Not out of any fear of getting arrested – it was quite impossible – but the poor assistant professor looked just about ready to flee the restaurant.
Reed calmed himself. “Dr. Werner,” he said finally, looking the older doctor intently in the eyes. “You must tell me something in the utmost of confidence. Have you murdered that convict who disappeared?”
Werner gave that some consideration before he answered. “Probably not. It depends on how smart he is. But with every year that goes by, I think more and more that I have.”
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
At Heidelberg University, Part 5
Heidelberg University Square, August 12, 1897, 10:10 a.m.
“Dr. Werner, are you all right?”
The doctor started at the sound of the constable’s voice. In his head he’d been somewhere else entirely, going over bloody events from long ago. He came to himself a little and turned. The constable who was assisting him with his experiment had climbed up onto the platform. Down in the square, somebody had called the rest of the police and they were doing their best to escort the audience out in an orderly fashion.
“Hmm?”
“I said that I think I’d better escort you home. You must be shaken.”
“Oh, yes,” Dr. Werner said, as if just realizing what they were talking about. “What a terrible accident.”
To be continued...
“Dr. Werner, are you all right?”
The doctor started at the sound of the constable’s voice. In his head he’d been somewhere else entirely, going over bloody events from long ago. He came to himself a little and turned. The constable who was assisting him with his experiment had climbed up onto the platform. Down in the square, somebody had called the rest of the police and they were doing their best to escort the audience out in an orderly fashion.
“Hmm?”
“I said that I think I’d better escort you home. You must be shaken.”
“Oh, yes,” Dr. Werner said, as if just realizing what they were talking about. “What a terrible accident.”
To be continued...
Friday, March 6, 2009
At Heidelberg University, Part 4
Gravelotte, August 18, 1870, 9:45p.m.
It was a losing battle in the middle of a winning war. Albert’s platoon had retreated to the ridgetop for the night, hopefully to lick their wounds and attack the French again in the morning. No fires, of course. Wouldn’t want any of them to get seen from down the hill. Every once in a while sporadic shooting broke out, and they all jumped, but the fighting had mostly died down for the night.
He’d never dare say to his superiors that it was a badly conceived idea to attack the French flank with only a couple of divisions, but he could feel it all that he liked. That day kept rattling around his skull no matter what he did. The French artillery pits. So many of his men dying. And the fear. War, it forced you to do things that were inexcusable if they happened anywhere else. But with war you had reasons.
He knew he’d never be able to stand the sight of the inside of his eyelids tonight, so he sat, awake and alone, on the edge of the encampment, staring out into the dark. It was healthy to keep a certain distance from the regular soldiers. Familiarity breeds contempt, and that would be the end to organization in the Prussian king’s army. The air was muggy. It was pitch black down the hill, but he knew the remains of the battlefield were down there.
The soft crunch of feet treading on the grass. Somebody was out there. Albert froze. A person or a creature moving around unseen outside their camp, erratically by the sound of it, stumbling at one point with a soft grunt, then the feet trudging forward again. Albert knew he ought to raise the alarm, but he didn’t. It was unreasonable, totally unreasonable, the idea that had just gripped him. But still he couldn’t bring himself to make a noise. The scouts would find out soon enough without help.
They did. There was sudden confusion in the camp of just-woken soldiers stumbling about without lights. Then somebody got a lantern on. Albert stepped forward; he needed to get that thing turned off and bawl Ackerman out before it gave away their position to the French. Godard had his rifle pointed out into the darkness down the hill. The thing out there had stopped momentarily. Then it started moving again.
It must be wounded, surely, to be traveling so slowly. A wounded man. No, it was impossible. Albert was imagining things, because of the awful memory of that afternoon. Godard used the sound to aim into the dark.
Yes. Yes, just shoot him, shoot him and get it over with…
“Wait!” Ackerman grabbed Godard’s arm. The creature got far enough into the light of the lantern to be recognized. It was one Franz Werner, common soldier, whom everyone knew to have been killed on the battlefield today. He was staggering and clutching his bloodied side.
“Mein Gott!”
One man lost control of his wits entirely. “He’s come back to take revenge on us all!”
“No, you idiot, he’s alive,” said a more practical one. “Somebody get the medic!”
The men had to act by themselves. All this time Albert was failing to command them, because he was unable to speak. There was his mistake, staring him in the face. Franz, having accomplished the goal that was holding him together, collapsed and passed out. His compatriots rushed around to help him. Nobody was any the wiser. Nobody knew, and Albert’s job was not in danger. They would think it was a perfectly honest mistake.
Unless Franz recovered, and he chose to tell…
“Sir?” It was Ackerman. He must have noticed that Albert had been doing nothing for several minutes. “Sir, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Gravelotte, August 18, 1870, 4:03p.m.
The battle was going wrong. Their infantry platoon had been sent to cut off the French from the side, so the king’s armies could continue their steamrolling advance into Gallic territory. It was a strategy that had worked all summer. But something was wrong out there, and Albert’s platoon found itself outnumbered two to one and isolated from the rest of the Prussian Army, and the French were slaughtering them out there.
Albert couldn’t take it. He never should have taken a military career. But that’s what you had to do to get ahead, wasn’t it? He should have been a clerk. Could have been. Rifle fire. Death all around. The smell of blood. Fear for the men of his platoon, but above all, in a dark corner of his mind, there was the fear that he was going to get shot.
So it was then that Albert decided, without consulting his superiors, to order a retreat.
Word got out and the men started turning around. He would get exonerated for this in the end, surely. They could not do any good here, and to stay longer would only get more soldiers killed. Soldiers who could serve the Prussian state better if they lived, and fought in another battle. They fled.
In that disorganized charge back up the hill to the safety of the ridge Albert didn’t look back to see if the French were chasing. There were so many corpses they couldn’t run in a straight line for dodging them. He stepped on a stuck-out foot, and heard a groan.
It was one of their own. Franz Werner, common soldier. He vaguely recalled the man’s name, but didn’t remember that he had ever distinguished himself for anything. Shot in the ribs, but still alive.
He’d have to get some of the men to carry him and see what they could do for him once they were safe. Albert looked back. The French looked like they was about to give chase. Carrying a wounded man would slow them down considerably. And if they got caught – there would be even more lives lost.
For someone who– He might be going to die anyway, right?
Two men of his platoon saw that their commander had stopped, and they stopped, too, though he knew they would have liked to keep running. Ackerman looked at him questioningly.
“I found Franz,” he said, by way of an explanation.
Franz was still semiconscious despite the shot. He moved his head a little and looked up at him. Asking for help.
Albert swallowed. “He’s already dead. Let’s get out of here.”
It was a losing battle in the middle of a winning war. Albert’s platoon had retreated to the ridgetop for the night, hopefully to lick their wounds and attack the French again in the morning. No fires, of course. Wouldn’t want any of them to get seen from down the hill. Every once in a while sporadic shooting broke out, and they all jumped, but the fighting had mostly died down for the night.
He’d never dare say to his superiors that it was a badly conceived idea to attack the French flank with only a couple of divisions, but he could feel it all that he liked. That day kept rattling around his skull no matter what he did. The French artillery pits. So many of his men dying. And the fear. War, it forced you to do things that were inexcusable if they happened anywhere else. But with war you had reasons.
He knew he’d never be able to stand the sight of the inside of his eyelids tonight, so he sat, awake and alone, on the edge of the encampment, staring out into the dark. It was healthy to keep a certain distance from the regular soldiers. Familiarity breeds contempt, and that would be the end to organization in the Prussian king’s army. The air was muggy. It was pitch black down the hill, but he knew the remains of the battlefield were down there.
The soft crunch of feet treading on the grass. Somebody was out there. Albert froze. A person or a creature moving around unseen outside their camp, erratically by the sound of it, stumbling at one point with a soft grunt, then the feet trudging forward again. Albert knew he ought to raise the alarm, but he didn’t. It was unreasonable, totally unreasonable, the idea that had just gripped him. But still he couldn’t bring himself to make a noise. The scouts would find out soon enough without help.
They did. There was sudden confusion in the camp of just-woken soldiers stumbling about without lights. Then somebody got a lantern on. Albert stepped forward; he needed to get that thing turned off and bawl Ackerman out before it gave away their position to the French. Godard had his rifle pointed out into the darkness down the hill. The thing out there had stopped momentarily. Then it started moving again.
It must be wounded, surely, to be traveling so slowly. A wounded man. No, it was impossible. Albert was imagining things, because of the awful memory of that afternoon. Godard used the sound to aim into the dark.
Yes. Yes, just shoot him, shoot him and get it over with…
“Wait!” Ackerman grabbed Godard’s arm. The creature got far enough into the light of the lantern to be recognized. It was one Franz Werner, common soldier, whom everyone knew to have been killed on the battlefield today. He was staggering and clutching his bloodied side.
“Mein Gott!”
One man lost control of his wits entirely. “He’s come back to take revenge on us all!”
“No, you idiot, he’s alive,” said a more practical one. “Somebody get the medic!”
The men had to act by themselves. All this time Albert was failing to command them, because he was unable to speak. There was his mistake, staring him in the face. Franz, having accomplished the goal that was holding him together, collapsed and passed out. His compatriots rushed around to help him. Nobody was any the wiser. Nobody knew, and Albert’s job was not in danger. They would think it was a perfectly honest mistake.
Unless Franz recovered, and he chose to tell…
“Sir?” It was Ackerman. He must have noticed that Albert had been doing nothing for several minutes. “Sir, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Gravelotte, August 18, 1870, 4:03p.m.
The battle was going wrong. Their infantry platoon had been sent to cut off the French from the side, so the king’s armies could continue their steamrolling advance into Gallic territory. It was a strategy that had worked all summer. But something was wrong out there, and Albert’s platoon found itself outnumbered two to one and isolated from the rest of the Prussian Army, and the French were slaughtering them out there.
Albert couldn’t take it. He never should have taken a military career. But that’s what you had to do to get ahead, wasn’t it? He should have been a clerk. Could have been. Rifle fire. Death all around. The smell of blood. Fear for the men of his platoon, but above all, in a dark corner of his mind, there was the fear that he was going to get shot.
So it was then that Albert decided, without consulting his superiors, to order a retreat.
Word got out and the men started turning around. He would get exonerated for this in the end, surely. They could not do any good here, and to stay longer would only get more soldiers killed. Soldiers who could serve the Prussian state better if they lived, and fought in another battle. They fled.
In that disorganized charge back up the hill to the safety of the ridge Albert didn’t look back to see if the French were chasing. There were so many corpses they couldn’t run in a straight line for dodging them. He stepped on a stuck-out foot, and heard a groan.
It was one of their own. Franz Werner, common soldier. He vaguely recalled the man’s name, but didn’t remember that he had ever distinguished himself for anything. Shot in the ribs, but still alive.
He’d have to get some of the men to carry him and see what they could do for him once they were safe. Albert looked back. The French looked like they was about to give chase. Carrying a wounded man would slow them down considerably. And if they got caught – there would be even more lives lost.
For someone who– He might be going to die anyway, right?
Two men of his platoon saw that their commander had stopped, and they stopped, too, though he knew they would have liked to keep running. Ackerman looked at him questioningly.
“I found Franz,” he said, by way of an explanation.
Franz was still semiconscious despite the shot. He moved his head a little and looked up at him. Asking for help.
Albert swallowed. “He’s already dead. Let’s get out of here.”
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