#title(Hank Johnson)
#contents
*Hank Johnson [#m1c90ae5]
https://plus.google.com/+HankJohnsonNomad/about
**2015/3/19 14:58 [#v2c0f481]
https://plus.google.com/+HankJohnsonNomad/posts/3dehNPW7Jko
''These were my last moments in the 13MAGNUS Cave... and the last time I saw Azmati.''
#hr
Before leaving the 13MAGNUS Nest, I verified that Azmati was dead. I could barely see him in the light, but he was cold to the touch. Unnaturally cold. Shattered remnants of the Shōnin Stone and, for lack of a better term, the ‘transdimensional circuit board’ still pulsed with XM and I suspect Dark XM reactions, as did Azmati’s dagger.
It became clear to me that he had used the dagger to shatter the Shōnin Stone, a lifeless piece of rock when not pulsing with XM. I took its pieces and the dagger with me. The shaking and crumbling subsided.
I am trying to describe what it felt to be like in this space... it was like being inside a heart as it stops beating and finally comes to rest. Bad metaphor, but there was this sense of being within a living thing as it was fossilizing... A clay structure hardening in dry heat.
I crawled towards the light, slowly regaining full use of my limbs. By the time I emerged from the now inert Nest, I was united in mind and body. Fully reintegrated. Awake.
There was one other object on me, for which I had no explanation. It was a coin hanging by a chain from my neck. I have no explanation for it. It looked Macedonian in origin... gold... Outside the cave, I found a more practical object, an AK-47 next to the corpse of one of Jahan’s bodyguards. He’d been shot in the back of the head, either sniped or executed. I popped off a round. It was worth the noise, because I didn’t want to find out at the wrong time that the gun didn’t work.
I turned back and looked into the cave one more time. There would be no purpose in returning ever again. There could be no more fitting burial place for Azmati, and the shattering of the Shōnin stone had destroyed all that was functional about the cave.
My reverie was broken by the sound of movement in the distance...
**2015/3/18 17:30 [#z25ec198]
https://plus.google.com/+HankJohnsonNomad/posts/QuGUHZahBYv
These are my memories from waking up in the 13MAGNUS Nest after Jahan's Shōnin ritual went awry.
I'll try and share as much of it as I can now, but it will likely take me a few days to get all this down. I'm on the move and need to conserve power and time.
#hr
As some of you suggested, I tested myself again with Azmati’s dagger. I am no longer a simulacrum. I am flesh again and presumably I’ll live out the rest of my life this way. What’s it feel like? How is it different than being an entity composed of XM? Hard to describe. A simulacrum sees, feels, hears, smells, tastes things almost like regular person. There’s a shadow in there in the ‘almost.’ Suffice to say that a simulacrum could be utterly unaware that they were not human... I didn’t when I was a simulacrum.
What was is like to return to my body? Flash of light. Darkness. Low hum. Jolting. Pulsating. It felt like I was being ripped in and out of existence. Like a very vivid real dream. I tried to touch my chest. Nothing. Then something. Like waking from a very deep sleep. I suspect that dreams transcend dimensions. At least for sensitives.
My eyes snapped open to reality. Colors flashed. I saw strange, indescribable things. I coughed up black liquid. Glowing dust floated in the air like random pixels, light floated in thin tendrils. I came to what, for lack of a better term, I will refer to as reality. I was in the Nest. The environment was unstable, it was like being inside an egg re-forming itself. Strange things from beyond receded. Plasma tendrils withdrawing.
The first human thing I saw was Azmati’s hand reaching, beckoning out from a body pinned under massive stones.
I stumbled from the rock slab, towards his voice. I was not in command of my limbs. I heard his voice echoing in the chamber. “Go Hank. You are 13MAGNUS now. This has been your home for too long. It’s time for you to live. And someday, to die.”
My own voice spoke,without conscious effort, as if the words were scripted. “Azmati. Hang in there. We can get you out of here.”
Another massive stone fell from above crushing Azmati. It’s cataclysmic. It shattered in sparks and energy, as if still fully resolving itself in this world. I was knocked back, unconscious. More darkness.
I woke again. My lungs coughed up dust. I crawled over stones towards a small glow of light away and above.
**2015/3/11 17:32の投稿 [#l736d2c4]
https://plus.google.com/+HankJohnsonNomad/posts/eHewfbmCtTU
''Azmati sacrificed himself to stop Jahan's Shōnin ritual. I wrote this to pay respect to a great man.''
#hr
I’ll tell you how I first met Mirza Maskeen Azmati. I was taking fire outside a small village just west of Kandahar. I was flying solo... as usual. Comes with the territory. Most of the time these little skirmishes are easy enough to squeeze out of. You find a hole. You hide. You take them out one by one. But they had me pinned and were closing in from everywhere. I slammed in my last clip and prepared for the worst when all of a sudden this ornate, jingly truck calmly rolls around the corner and directly into the line of fire. The truck takes a few hits and a bearded fellow starts swearing at the Talibs in Dari. Then he leans out the front door in my direction.
"You look like you need a ride, my friend." He said, in perfect English.
It was a ride that lasted longer than I ever expected.
I hid in the back of the truck curled up in the choking dust of a half ton of carpets until we arrived in Kabul. He pulled me into his shop and we sat on the floor and ate palau with our hands and drank green tea. I asked him what his name was, he said Mirza Maskeen Azmati, and I (rudely) laughed for about thirty seconds. He smiled and said, “My father was a Kipling fan.” He told me his family had been trading carpets since when the silk route was only a thinly worn path across the continent.
Carpets are storytellers, he said. Ancient myths and legends are hidden within the weaves and the fibers: The secret knowledge of a thousand years. His father had taught him how to read the weaves before he ever saw an alphabet. I told him I believed that without hesitation. He smiled. I wondered for a second if he knew I was going to say that. I thanked him for the meal, and he scrawled a number on yellowing receipt paper and pressed it into my hand.
"You may need a ride again." He said.
After that, I called on Azmati once, then twice. Soon he and I were a fast team. He would be the front man, scoping out an area for me and acting as translator. I shared some of my tradecraft with him. When times were easy, we'd talk about history and technology and physics and myths. There was much shared common ground.
At the time I thought Azmati put himself on the line with me because he was bored, because he craved danger and adventure. Now, things are so much clearer. He had known who I was all along - not just American Spec-Ops, but something more - a sensitive? 13MAGNUS? I don’t know, but he was tuned in to my past and my future. Perhaps it was written into the weaves of one of his carpets.
He shepherded me on my clumsy path towards destiny. And in the end, he paid a price so much higher than I would have ever asked to bring me to here and now. When Jahan began her Shōnin stone ritual, Azmati leapt into action, pushing me aside and stabbing an ancient knife (that he had somehow had the foresight to leave in the chamber) deep into it. He knew it would end him. He looked me in the eye and told me he had left a message for me, and I should find it -- that now was my moment to run. The room exploded in light and energy. I lost consciousness and awoke somewhere else… I was whole again, and I knew everything that I have ever known.
And then I ran. There would be a time to mourn Azmati, but it was not then.
There’s no reason to keep secrets, now that the Shōnin stone has exposed so much. Azmati was 13MAGNUS. His family had carried and preserved ancient knowledge about XM and the Shapers for thousands of years. They had built walls to protect our world from Anti-Magnus and the N'zeer using systems so complex that modern science is only beginning to see its first few pixels resolve.
And somehow, Azmati knew that I was destined to become 13MAGNUS as well. To slowly learn its secrets and carry its mission forward.
Azmati, my friend. I hope the ride you're on now is more comfortable than that damned truck of yours. Goodbye.
**2015/3/8 14:53の投稿 [#ffc2563e]
https://plus.google.com/+HankJohnsonNomad/posts/Zr4TGJKm9Go
I'm alive. And it's really me. I am not the fragment of a being that walked into the 13MAGNUS Nest on February 21st.
>私は生きている。そして、本当に私だ。2月21日に13MAGNUS Nestの中に入った存在の断片ではない。
My time as a 13MAGNUS experiment is over. But I did bring something with me. Memories of lives that I've lived. All of them.
>13MAGNUSの実験としての私の時間は終わった。しかし、私は自分と共に確かに持ってきた。私が生きてきた生命の記憶。その全てを。
And I know where I need to go next.
>そして、私が次に行く必要があるところもわかっている。
**2015/2/21 20:27の投稿 [#r260846d]
https://plus.google.com/117792105926525258257/posts/FfWjLgz7yqg
I found what I was looking for in India. The truth is richer than any of the versions.
Sometimes what you find is not what you want to find.
I sought certainty. I found uncertainty.
I am on this journey, wherever it takes me.
**2015/2/3 17:45の投稿 [#pa251d73]
https://plus.google.com/+HankJohnsonNomad/posts/2y3r7FGeBou
Very interesting conversation between Jahan and Azmati, yesterday. He asked her what she thought was going to happen at the 13MAGNUS Nest. She said that the duality must be restored. That life has been out of balance on the planet ever since the banishment. He scoffed at that. For a minute, I thought they had history.
One thing I did discover. Jahan may have once been a student of Devra’s. Interesting but not sure what to make of it.
In any case, it seems that she is dead set on going ahead even though she is not clear on the exact outcome. I, of course, was at a loss for much of the conversation. They have been steeped in the battle between 13MAGNUS and Anti-Magnus, and by extension, the battle between the Shapers and the N’zeer. For them, it has been a central feature of their life. For me, it was an academic pursuit that I was drawn into.
Only now, it’s become so much more. Will try to share again later.
We’re on the move.
**2015/1/22 16:48の投稿 [#kaee7d06]
https://plus.google.com/+HankJohnsonNomad/posts/LhzHLWA1QJv
Don’t bother looking for clues. As you might guess, Jahan wasn’t fooled by my rather sophomoric code. I didn’t really expect her to be. She led it slide, I think she found it more amusing than threatening. It was an act of defiance in a pinch because I don’t much like being compelled to do things by people of intrigue and their heavily armed and well-trained associates.
>手掛かりを探そうと悩むな。察しの通り、Jahanは私のやや未熟なコードに騙されなかった。彼女がそうなるとは本当に期待していなかった。彼女はそれを滑るように導いた、私は、彼女は脅かすよりももっと面白いそれを見つけた、と思う。それは少しの反抗の行為だった、なぜなら、私は多くの陰謀の人々と彼らの重武装とよく訓練された仲間によって物事を行うことを強制されるのは好きではないからだ。
Yes, I’m angry at Jahan. That is to be expected, but what I said last time wasn’t a lie. She is passionate about what she believes in, and she needs my help. She knew I would never agree, and had to resort to extreme tactics to get it. I don’t like it, but I understand. I can communicate with the world, as I am doing. She knows I’m not stupid enough to leak our location. It would just get us all killed. Half the time I don’t know within 20 miles where we are, and besides, the lines in the sand aren’t clear. I don’t know who's listening. I don't know who to trust anymore.
>そう、私はJahanに怒っている。それは予想されることだが、私が最後に言ったことは嘘ではなかった。彼女は彼女が信じていることに熱心に取り組んでいて、そして私の助けを必要としている。彼女は私が同意することはないとわかっていた、そしてそれを得るために極端な戦術に頼らなければならなかった。私はそれが好きじゃないが、理解はする。私は、今しているように、世界と通信することができる。彼女は、私が自分たちの場所を漏らすほど馬鹿じゃないとわかっている。それは、私たち全員が殺されるだけだろう。私は、我々がいる20マイル以内がわからない、そしてまた、砂の境界もはっきりしない。私は誰が聞いているかわからない。私はもう誰を信じればいいかわからない。
Nevertheless, it’s not an unpleasant journey, even if it is a bit serpentine, designed to throw people off like a giant shell game. You know…. The old who’s in what car in the convoy, who’s in what chopper gag. Thorough and paranoid even by intel community standards.
Jahan believes that she has a legitimate position and has only done what she did because all other avenues had been pursued.
>Jahanは、正当な位置を有していて、全ての道を追求したために、唯一彼女がしたことをしただけ、と考えている。
Sure. Maybe.
>もちろん、かもしれない、が。
It’s one of those things that sounds like hokum at one level and yet makes a little bit of sense.
>それは、あるレベルのくだらない話で、まだほんのわずか理解できるようなものの一つだ。
**2015/1/13 18:55の投稿 [#k40f2fd8]
https://plus.google.com/+HankJohnsonNomad/posts/3B2JWn4W7EK
Please ignore transmission problems I am in a difficult place to communicate. I am br e aking s ilence for obvious reasons. It would be very easy to misinterpret the video captured through some unknown means of Jahan and I. Do not mistake her passion for treachery. I realize the need for the N’zeer to be summoned and the duality to be resolved. I understand that the battle between the N’zeer and the Shapers is not a c hess game where one side is checkmated, but it is more like Go in which each side mu st e ternally a ckowledge the z en of the existence of the other, and in fact can only proceed with this acknowledgem ent. I intend to proceed to the A nomaly sit e and be returned to my mortal coi l to live out life naturally. I ask that none interfere.
***この投稿の謎 [#l0ec8065]
不自然に空白が空いている単語を並べる。
- br_e_aking
- s_ilence
- c_hess
- mu_st
- e_ternally
- a_ckowledge
- z_en
- acknowledgem_ent
- A_nomaly
- sit_e
- coi_l
空白の前のアルファベットを並べる。
- rescueazmAti → rescue azmati
「Azmatiを救出してくれ」となり、Johanに捕らえられたAzmati救出を依頼していると思われる。
**コメント [#wbb1fea8]
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