Egalitarian Deceit: 4-7
by **************


4: 'Do you have dedication? How much?'

'On the path. Intensely focused. Adherence to commitment.'
'No distraction. No division. Focus on achievement.'
'Set a goal. Make a goal. Persistence is my virtue.'
'I won't stop. I won't quit; My patience is a statue.'

'Call me stubborn. Call me Boring. Your names and labels fail, '
'Obstinate. Recalcitrant. Equally as stale.'
'They matter not, are meaningless; you're wasting time: tock-tick'
'I'm on path, intensely focused; my dedication is atomic.'


5:58 P.M. Dedicated. This is Jyl. Twenty-five years old with two years spent on post doctorate research in biochemistry; more specifically, synthetic molecules designed to block specific neural receptors. Her dedication isn't natural, or maybe it is; understanding which is true is what motivates her.

Like Jyl, you know dedication; you are compelled to commit yourself with a singular focus on any task. Commitment to learning: being the master of your objective. Are you more dedicated than Jyl, or is she more dedicated than you?

Jyl clicks, 'record,' and speaks, "several synthetic molecules RB2235, RB2236 and RB814 will bind to receptor sites and block selected neural-transmitters, but none of the delivery methods select desired targets at the exclusion of untargeted sites in other regions. Trials 25600 through 25700 failed to produce desired results."

Such tedious and repetitive work would drive any other human to boredom and risk mistakes, but not Jyl. However, exhaustion is a risk, and her 12 hour work-day is complete. Jyl cleans her lab, locks her journals in a firesafe, packs her backpack and exits the lab to the R&D corridor of labs.

6:00 P.M. Welcome to ProtoNeuroMed (PNM) R&D Lab's high tech security, with security as impressive as claims from any main-stream television program for the masses about flashy international spies or a brazen “look at me! I'm robbing a bank!” bank heists using fire, explosions and fast cars. Of course, not all impressions are good, but you know that.

Emotionally insecure office-gossips in this building say this, "security-show," is for investors, but they also say Jyl's department will be losing funding next month. Less accurate with predictions than drunk weathermen reading tea leaves, these gossips said the same thing last month, too. Oblivious to both rumors, Jyl is never included as a node in these meat-space, social networks. Her indifference to coworkers and lack of interest in lives of these mooks has isolated her from office cliques, and the overhead incurred by being a router of such addle-brained traffic; these oxygen-wasting entities are the demographic and target audience of those that make so-called, "Reality Television shows," and their pseudo-authentic dramatic events , choreographed nearly as much as those over-the-top wrestling programs. 

Nearing the end of the corridor, Jyl passes through a card-controlled door and visits a security desk for her floor. Two guards sit behind a desk. One is typing some sort of report while occasionally glancing at video surveillance displays on his second screen. A second guard focuses on "securing" a deck of virtual playing cards on his computer screen by applying his ineffective sorting algorithm. To any outsider, he appears to be playing a game of solitaire on his computer, but sometimes things are exactly as they seem. On his second screen, he has a, “live,” Internet-news video-feed from a local TV station with the audio turned up loud enough to heard but not loud enough to be understood by Jyl. She visits the self-service status board to mark herself, "out," and arms the alarm to cover the zone for her lab: "Ready. Clear. 60 seconds until...", then she presses another button and the readout informs, "skipped. Armed." Jyl thinks, "whoever thought it a good idea to put arm/disarm pads outside the zone being, 'secured,' is an idiot."

6:05 P.M. The tinny sounds of news from this second guard's tiny on-board computer speaker whines into the hallway loud enough for Jyl to understand as she approaches the desk. "Investigators say Tom, the person of interest, is not a suspect, but he is wanted for questioning. Tom ....", begins the news reporter as a picture from Tom's student ID appears in the video. Jyl recognizes Tom as a neighbor boy she was permitted to play with when she was younger, but that was before the accident. Upon observing Jyl walking by the security desk, the second guard attempts to hide his game of solitaire, then turns down the volume of his computer, but none of this matters to Jyl.

Walking down three flights of stairs to the second floor, Jyl visits the empty employee exercise room. Using her card-key, Jyl gains access and begins her workout. 6:07 P.M.

After a ten minute warm-up and stretch, Jyl stares into a mirror, and flatly
whispers, "happiness." Jyl looks around the room to verify she is still alone, and begins her workout. 6:59 P.M. Using her card-key, she checks-out of the exercise room, and walks down to the first floor. 7:03 P.M. She passes the front desk at 7:05 P.M., unlocking her bicycle to ride home. 7:07 P.M. Ten miles to get home. Pacing her speed to match the timing of stoplights she has memorized, and taking advantage of present traffic patterns, she arrives at her apartment complex. It is now 7:35 P.M.

7:37 P.M. At the doorway of a half-open door to Jyl's third story apartment, splintered wood around the door frame describes how much force was used to pry open her door. Compression of wood at two points in the door frame suggest a crowbar or similar tool may have been used. "Irritating. This is not part of my routine, " thinks Jyl. She listens for anything out of the ordinary, but hears nothing strange. She quietly leans her bike against a hallway wall outside the door to her apartment and pushes the door completely open to discover what is left of her landlord on the floor. Bloody hand-prints on the drapes, carpet and a broken glass table bear witness to the violence that transpired here. The smell of freshly brewed coffee drifts from the kitchen, and two cups of hot coffee steam while sitting on the dining-room table. 

7:38 P.M. "What a mess!" thinks Jyl. "This will take hours to clean, and I probably won't get back my full deposit."

Red and blue lights traverse the window, warning of the approach of an emergency vehicle, but Jyl hears no sirens. "I really don't need this inconvenience to end my day. I have to get up early for work tomorrow. This not part of my routine." Jyl backs out of the apartment, picks up her bike, and walking quickly, and silently, she passes the stairs she took to her third floor hallway. The sounds of many heavy footsteps can be heard quickly stomping up the same stairs she took to her third floor apartment. She opens a door that leads to an attached parking structure, passes through, mounts her bike, and rides towards the exit. Not looking back, she speeds away from her apartment building. 7:40 P.M.


5: 'Jack and Jyl went up the hill, in a vacation van.'

'Reflect upon our past, we choose our colored paint.'
'Blue is cold, black depressed, and brown is often quaint.'
'What colors do you choose, when you have no notion, '
'How to feel, not re-lived, a genuine emotion.'


At age 12, Jyl completes her GED and is accepted to college. Her parents Jack and Maureen, and her younger brother Samuel are packing a minivan to vacation in Yellowstone for the summer. Jyl has just 15 minutes of allocated free-time with Tom before she must pack her items in the minivan and return to her studies.

"Yellowstone? That place with geysers that stink like farts?" asks Tom.

"Yeah! An Archaea was found there living in really hot water in the 1970's -- hotter than previously predicted possible for life. It is so awesome to know about life living in extreme environments!" replied Jyl.

"Blah blah blah Biology says you, Miss Geeky-Pants." replied Tom with a smirk.

Jyl proceeded to punch Tom arm. "Since you are not interested in Biology, would you prefer another demonstration of Physics?" Jyl asks and she bunches up her hand into a fist and feigns a scowl toward Tom.

"Einstein was a masochist; learning Physics hurts, "replied Tom as he rubs his arm and chuckles while dodging the next attempted, 'demonstration,' following-through to grab one of her arms and place her in a neck-lock until she stops.

"Jerk! And I don't mean a change in acceleration over time!", complains Jyl, and she flails around with her free arm, searching without success for another effective, 'demonstration.' Finally ending her lesson for Tom, Jyl asks, "what will you do over summer?"

Tom releases Jyl and quickly steps to the side, in case she changes her mind. "Ah. I found an old computer in the garage. I'm going to take it apart and try to make it work. I want to know what's on it, " replied Tom. "I don't have much time, because my parents are going to throw it away before we move. We'll be gone by the time you get back from Yellowstone."

Jyl's watch alarm signals the end of her allocated free-time and she frowns. "We can always email each other when I get back," says Jyl, trying to reassure herself as she walks away from Tom.

Jack and Maureen rent a minivan for their summer vacation to Yellowstone. For Jyl's family, a vacation is a change of location and scenery, not a chance to relax. Jyl is expected to continue her home schooling to prepare for college. Maureen continues to review legal documents while Jack works on complex problems related to efficient use of materials when mass-producing products. Jack and Maureen take turns with lessons for Jyl and Samuel following a state approved home-schooling plan. In addition to home schooling plan, Jyl's parents test Jyl and her brother on the material covered as part of guided tours through the park.

After two months at Yellowstone with her parents, and nobody but family to share her thoughts and ideas, Jyl feels the unhappiness in realizing one of her two free-time friends back home will have moved elsewhere by the time she gets back.

"Issac Newton-Super-Fist Attack!" Jyl yells as she punches a pillow. "Passive Resistance is no match for my Fist of Physics!" she continues as she breaks an uneasy smile and sighs.

"Jyl? Are you alright in there?" asks Maureen from the living room.

"Yes mom. My pillow was threatening me with an attack of inertia, to encourage me to remain at, 'rest,' but my forceful application of Newton's Laws of motion has defeated it," replied Jyl.

"There is some soup on the stove that would be less carbonized if you introduced a little entropy or at least redistributed its molecules," said Maureen.

"Ack! My soup is burning!" exclaimed Jyl as she runs to rescue it.

Without others to share it, Jyl spends the rest of her free-time eating soup and staring out the window of the cabin, trying to imagine what life will be like at college. Tomorrow, it will be time to return home and prepare for her first Fall semester at college. I wonder if my books for fall classes will be waiting for me.


6: 'What goes up, must enter darkness.'

'Sweet slumbers: beyond time's grasp'
'Awoken for a moment: blood, thud, crash'
'Now dark slumber: colors they fade'
'"Please wake up!" Voices, they said'


"What else do you remember?" asks Doctor Fedge. She is a psychologist, holding a pen and pad, scribbling something too small for Jyl to read from her bed. Doctor Fedge looks up to see Jyl as Jyl is now staring at the ceiling. Some of her hair has grown back, but does not fully cover the scars and evidence of stitches and staple tracks that march jagged trails across her head.

"We packed the minivan, and headed home. I fell asleep in the back seat next to my brother, and then there was a bright light, and I tasted something like a 9 volt battery, and smelled buttered popcorn, and then darkness. The next thing I remember is waking up at this care center." replied Jyl.

"Do you understand what has happened?" asked Doctor Fedge.

"Yes." replied Jyl.

"Would you like to talk about it?" inquired Doctor Fedge.

"There is no value in talking about what cannot be changed," stated Jyl flatly.

Hoping for a reaction, Doctor Fedge pushes, "You know your father and brother died in an accident on the way back from Yellowstone."

"Of course. I have been told this, and I've been told I was in a coma for six months, and several MRI showed serious brain damage. Parts of my skull were removed to decrease risk for more brain damage due to swelling. Doctors did not think I was going to survive, and I nearly died several times while at the hospital. Once my condition was considered stable, I was moved to this convalescent home, and was never expected to leave my comatose, and non-responsive state. I know that my mother ended her own life when she was told there was no hope for me, and my brother and father died in the accident. You continue to prod and push me, to inquire about my mental health, but you can plainly see I am not emotional, and am very much in control."

"Do you blame doctors for providing what we now know as incorrect information to your mother? Your mother may not have ended her life if she thought there was a chance you would recover."

Jyl looks at Doctor Fedge. "Blame implies fault, but there is no evidence to suggest there was any intent by doctors to misrepresent my case to my mother. Unless that changes, there is no fault and therefore no blame."

"How do you feel about being the only survivor in your car?" inquires Doctor Fedge.

Jyl looks up towards the ceiling. Her eyes dart left, and right, providing evidence of new thought, and contemplation on this new question and after a brief silence, "only my brother and father died while in the car; mother took her own life, later." Pondering a little longer, Jyl continues, "I don't feel good or bad; accidents happen to everyone."

Both Doctor Fedge and Jyl are silent for several minutes. Doctor Fedge shrugs, and externalizing her own feeling asks, "Do these questions cause you to feel frustrated?"

Jyl looks at Doctor Fedge and thinks for a moment. "This, 'feeling,' is like an irritation more than frustration, but it is similar. It is the perception that an attempt is being made to repeat the same dialogue, or better described as interrogation, with hopes to yield a different response this time, and this futility, or insanity, in repeating the same discussions we have every week, in juxtaposition with your expectation that somehow this week will be different from last week, makes me feel my time would be better spent reading or learning something new than talking with you."

Doctor Fedge writes several words onto her pad. "It is great to see you communication skills, vocabulary and ability to reason appear unharmed by the accident." Doctor Fedge scribbles a few more notes on her pad and looks up. "Your Aunt Sharon is executor of your parents' estate and accepted lawful custody of you. She has handled the burial of your parents and brother. She asks how you are feeling..." Doctor Fedge pauses at this point, and clears her throat. "She wants to know if you are well enough to have a visit from her. As you know, she employs me to assess your condition, and I think this is a very good time for you two to spend time together. Would you like her to visit you during our next session tomorrow?"

"I don't care. I would really like a book to read. It is really boring in here," said Jyl. "My books for the fall semester at college should have arrived through the mail. If more than six months have passed, I have missed my fall semester,  and most of the spring semester. I want those books so I can start while I am stuck here. I wish to contact the university about my being accepted last year, and see if they will permit me to enter this fall."

"I understand; let's see what happens tomorrow, and maybe we will consider these topics when we talk with your aunt," answers Doctor Fedge.


7: 'Repetition, practiced skills, fish out of blender'

'Specialize, learn it well, and master one more skill, '
'Cost is time, time is spent, and spent to pay this bill.'
'Once it's spent, won't return, forever it is lost, '
'In economics, it is named: opportun...ity cost.'


7:40 P.M., Jyl is riding away from her apartment. Abrupt changes bother Jyl. "It is difficult to optimize a schedule for peak efficiency when variables beyond my control thwart my attempts to recognize patterns in the chaos and bring some order to what otherwise appears random," thinks Jyl. "I must consider these new events and plan a new routine to route around these inconveniences."

For the first time this evening since leaving work, Jyl looks at her watch: 7:45 P.M. "Food, shower, clothes and sleep are what should be next. I have my old student ID. I have my university routine. The university is nearby. I can use the wireless Internet there. They have vending machines. I can also use the 24 hour study room, take a dorm shower, and use the dorm laundry room to clean my clothes.”

Jyl looks at her watch again as she arrives on campus on her bicycle: 7:59 P.M. She rides to the dorms, to lock her bike. 8:08 P.M. The south door to these dorms had a, 'feature,' to open it without a key: pull it quick and hard while lifting up with the handle. After trying it, she find school maintenance never fixed it. While entering her old dorms, she glances at her watch again: 8:09 P.M.

Finding the, "Lost & Found box," in the laundry room, she grabs a long, heavy coat with a hood.  She also spots a current student ID and peels the current year sticker from this ID, and affixes it to her ID. Borrowing the coat, she tosses her clothes into a washing machine with a "soap ball" someone left behind and wears the coat. Heading for the shower, she considers it strange that nobody else is in the dorm and she can't hear anyone else in the building. 8:11 P.M. Remembering how theft was an issue when she was a student, she hangs her backpack on a high hook on the shower wall. Though the showers have no soap dispensers, the sinks have them. Prying open one of these reveals a plastic bag of soap that she takes to the shower and returns back to the dispenser when finished.

8:18 P.M. Shower complete, she puts on the long coat, grabs her backpack, and heads to the laundry room, stopping by the announcements bulletin board. 8:20 P.M., here is where they post credentials for guests accessing the university's wireless network. A notice proclaims that the dorms will be closed today and tomorrow for mold inspection. A vending machine emits a quiet buzz as it sits next to the announcements bulletin board. With quarters from her backpack, she buys a sandwich and chips, eating them while walking back to the laundry room.

8:19 P.M. She knows she has approximately 20 minutes before the washing machine completes its cycle. She pulls her laptop from her backpack, powers the laptop, gets on the university wireless network, enters credentials from the hallway board, and begins browsing the library's on-line resources. 8:21 P.M., and she has found the university's college of law, law library web services. She finds several papers written by law professors of the law college at the university, and links to several of their blogs. One details with far too many words, some of the biggest mistakes made by clients in criminals cases.

"Law enforcement can't help your client. They gain absolutely nothing in talking to police when they suspect your client of a crime. Even seemingly innocuous questions can lead to serious problems in defending a client if they are answered by the client..." The blog post continues within this paragraph, providing examples of problems associated with talking to law enforcement, or district attorneys.

Long ago, Jyl learned about how skilled professors and academics understood the value of structured writing, and how this can be leveraged by intelligent readers. Each paragraph in this blog is a topic of discussion or complaint. To save time, reading the first line of each paragraph will provide a summary of complaints, and if details on a specific complaint is desired, then further reading of that paragraph is possible. Graduate work requires optimizing time spent reading since there is always too much to read. It is necessary to skim or skip sections that include content that is already known and understood. Order makes this possible.

After 17 minutes of reading, it is 8:38  P.M., Jyl starts the dryer to warm it up in anticipation of the washer completing its cycle.

8:41 P.M., the washer buzzes its cycle is complete. Jyl moves her clothes to a dryer, and returns to reading. For such a small load, she estimates 15 to 18 minutes, and while she waits, she reads about techniques used by law enforcement to convince or encourage witnesses and people suspected of crimes, to talk about their experiences and provide evidence to be used against them at a trial. "Police will lie, even go so far as to claim you can go home once you tell them what they want to know. This is almost always a ruse. Clients should never trust police when they are suspected by police of committing a crime and...."

"The police will not stop looking for me because my landlord's body is in my apartment," thinks Jyl. "If I flee, I lose my research. I can't avoid the inconvenience of being involved unless I give up my work: unacceptable. The fastest path to limit time wasted by law enforcement is to use a lawyer. My Aunt Sharon is a criminal lawyer; I will contact her tomorrow morning during my first lunch break. This is irritating; what a waste of time and money." 9:00 P.M.

Jyl checks her clothes, and they are dry. Changing to her clean clothes, Jyl powers down her laptop, packs up her things and leaves the dorms to grab her bike and head to the library's 24 hour study room. 9:21 P.M.

9:25 P.M., her bike locked up outside, Jyl finds a remote corner-desk in the library's 24 hour study room with a front privacy/noise guard, sharing one side with a wall, another wall behind the seat, and exposing only her side to people walking by this desk. She finds several reference books and encyclopedias on biology, and scatters them on the desk, opening them to random pages. She wears the long coat to warm herself from the air conditioned space, and drapes the hood over her head to provide shade from the lights. She slumps her torso over her backpack on the desk, hugging it like a pillow, and winds its straps around her arms to make theft difficult without waking her. Campus security won't bother students that fall asleep studying unless they look too homeless or drunk. Her stage was set. It is time to sleep. 9:28 P.M.

Being back at the university, Jyl's dreams center on time here both as a student and a student employee working in the library bindery department. Unlike her peers, she applied for her advanced degree at the same university she earned her BS in Biology and was accepted with a fellowship and research grant. Memories returned of sabotaging her classmates in classes graded on curves. She sees herself hiding library books on subjects of study before people could check them out, denying them access to material. Dreams being what they are, her undergraduate scheming transforms to her advanced degree sabotage of her classmates. She sees herself creating false experimental data to store on university web pages. She uses authentication credentials to university on-line accounts, "left behind," in the computer labs by students and faculty, then links to them with on-line sites like Wikipedia. All of this is part of her disinformation campaign against anyone researching these topics. She sees herself altering library books by inserting incorrect content and re-binding books after-hours in the library as a student employee. "This is the game. I wield chaos as a weapon to slow the advancement of those that claim to be my equal, and bring order to my house," she thinks as she stands on top of the library. "Cross me, and suffer consequences. I have are no allies, only enemies and occasional agreements made for personal advantage. I will win at any cost." Dark clouds circle above her as a miniature vortex appears above the campus, and suddenly, the landscape of the dream changes. She is back in the warm light of her apartment, looking over the body of her landlord, smelling the freshly brewed coffee, seeing two steaming coffee cups, and there on the kitchen floor is a shadow of what looks like a human form, then a smell of buttered popcorn and the taste of a 9 volt...”

5:00am, Jyl is awoken by the sound of the alarm on her wristwatch as her dream ends. Remembering pieces of her dream, she wonders about the purpose of these events that have ruined her routine, and interrupted her work. "Is someone doing to me what I have done to other people for so many years? No. That makes no sense; nobody in their right mind would go to so much trouble, and they would have nothing to gain. Was someone actually in the kitchen when I was there, or was that a displaced artifact of dreaming? None of these questions are important now. It is time to go to work, and call Aunt Shanon to make an appointment; it is time to resume the game." 5:01am. She has 59 minutes to get to the lab and start another 12 hour work-day.