The cover shows a cyborg raptor of some sort struggling under the weight of an atomic cannon that must be five times its size. To one side, Doctor Developer looks on, as if considering how to fix it. _____________________________________________________________________________ Coherent LL&DD #3 Comics | ADY | AWFUL __ __ "Best Practices" Presents an |__ |__ & | \ OCTOR | \ EVELOPER copyright 2007 ASHistory Tale: |_/ |_/ by Andrew Burton _____________________________________________________________________________ "Tell me something, Deedee," Jennifer asked, looking up from the thick catalog of museum items she was reading through. From where he was sitting on the floor, behind an open computer case, Deedee, Cameron when pet-names weren't in-play, could just make out several pictures from the book spread across the coffee table. "You are beautiful," Cameron said without hesitation. Jennifer smiled back and shook her head. "And you're insufferable." She picked up the book and turned it around to show him the contents of the page. "The museum just got a bunch of old Tinker Ten gadgets, and we're having to sort through them all. The problem is..." she paused, "you know how every mad scientist has their own style?" Cameron nodded. The nature of Violation Physics meant that it was rare, nearly impossible, for two super-powered mad scientists to arrive at the same technology through the same route. "What about it?" he asked, setting his tools on the floor. Jennifer set the book back on the coffee table. "Going through all these weapons, I swear, there are pieces of super-tech invented by one crazy grafted onto other pieces of super-tech by another crazy. It's like one of these guys said, 'Hey, let's put my Atomogun on your Dinoclone,' and the other was like, 'Sure,' and they did it." Cameron nodded again. "So, you're an ex-villain," Jennifer asked, "how do they just up and decide to do it like that?" "Standardization," Cameron explaied. "Only one mad scientist at a time may be able to create a piece of super-tech, but that doesn't mean the super- tech can't communicate with other super-tech through perfectly normal means. If I were going to invent a Dinoclone, and had the Magene to do it, he would no doubt have many sockets for various appendages and upgrades. "By using a standard socket size on my Dinoclone, any other mad scientist would know that his Atomogun will be able to plug into my Dinoclone. If we use standard command codes for the Dinoclone and the Atomogun, combining the two becomes pretty simple." Cameron picked up one of the green cards that had been removed from his computer. "Plug'n'play super- technology," he explained, waving the card. "How do you know what a standard socket size or command codes are, though?" All of a sudden, Cameron averted his gaze from Jennifer. After a second, he quietly added, "I don't think I can safely answer that." He looked intently at his computer, quickly resuming work on its innards. "Oh, no," Jennifer said as she slid onto the floor. "You can't leave off there." She inched around to Cameron's back, walking on her knees, and slid her arms around his waist and throat. "You've got something interesting to say, I know it. Spill." "Nuh-uh," Cameron shook his head. "This is super-secret vilain stuff... super-super-secret vilain stuff. If I tell you this, they'll skip tearing up my membership card and go right to ripping me to little pieces." "Mmmmaybe," Jennifer said in a sing-song voice, "but if you don't tell me, you may skip straight to sleeping alone on the couch for a while. How about that?" Cameron stopped to think for a moment. He was debating which was worse: actual death or just wanting to die? Neither seemed too appealing, but only one currently had their arms around both his throat and...more sensitive regions. "Dammit," he cursed. Knowing she'd won, Jennifer eased her stranglehold on Cameron, transforming her death lock into a less lethal hanging hug position. "There's an...unofficial group...of mad scientists out there known as the S4: Society of Super-Science Standards. While their main work is geared toward fully grasping to mechanics behind violation physics, they regularly release a set of best practices and standards for making villains' technologies interoperable with others." "Are you pulling my leg?" Jennifer asked. Cameron looked down, confirming that there was no way to reach and pull Jennifer's leg, taking away his one final hope that he could derail the conversation with groping. "No, I'm not," he replied, "they invited me to join a while back, given my track record with mixing together true products of mad science. We try not to bring it up very often since...well...it's not very villain-like to spill that kind of thing to the good guys." "So you guys just decided to sit around planning ways to hook Atomoguns to Dinoclones...for what? Fun?" Jennifer asked. Cameron sighed. "Not for fun," he answered, "for minions. It started out as a means of standardizing super-tech interfaces, so every villain wouldn't have to factor re-training time into their plans for world domination." "And mismatched minions are certainly not fun," Jennifer nodded, smirking. "I'm surprised no one on the white mask side figured this out yet, what with all the goon squads and so forth that get captured every month." Cameron shrugged. She didn't seem to want to push it any farther, so no need to tell her. She might not be happy to know that he'd been the one to suggest the self-destruct standards that ensured any captured super-tech lost its more identifiably standardized characteristics. It wasn't his fault if not everyone followed that particular standard.... ============================================================================ Next Issue: Those pesky time-travel stories just keep jumping around! "First to the Future" should show up in LL&DD #4...but you never know! ============================================================================ Editor's Note: Well, the story originally planned for #3 is still being worked on, and might even get split into two issues if it gets any longer. :) Meanwhile, Andy had a quick vignette he came up with, so I decided to slot it in as LL&DD #3. ============================================================================ For all the back issues, plus additional background information, art, and more, go to http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/ASH ! To discuss this issue or any others, either just hit "followup" to this post, or check out our Yahoo discussion group, which can be found at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ash_stories/ ! ============================================================================