Casa Cabeza

Five Things on a Friday: We're Using BookFunnel, Friends

2026-10-23T07:03:27.323-04:00

Good morning and happy Friday, everyone. I hope you all had a decent week, but even if you didn't, it's Friday now. Wahoo!

The Black Knights have a monster game this week down in Tulsa, Oklahoma, tonight. I mention it because I'm super-excited about it, obviously, but also because I was really happy with the work I did over at As For Football this week as well. With James out learning to fly a new airplane, I've had to do both the Preview and the Keys to Victory for the last two weeks, and I felt like this week's Preview in particular came out really well. Go check that out if you want to see the kind of writing that earned us a following back in the day.

With that out of the way, let's get into it.

1. Dr. Necropolis Preview Plans

Friends, there's a reason you need to sign up for the Dr. Necropolis mailing list, and it's because I'm planning to use the mailing list to send out early review copies of the book electronically to interested friends and classmates as a way of generating early reviews and buzz for the book. Those early reviews are critical! Amazon's algorithm won't push a book until it receives fifteen written reviews.

So. My plan right now is to use a service called Book Funnel to send out review copies starting in early December to members of my mailing list. Because honestly, I don't really want to charge my friends for the book, but I do really need your help telling people about it. You will then have a month to read The Return of Dr. Necropolis, and if you like it, leave a review on launch day, December 29, 2026.

That's it!

As of this writing, my plan is to launch the ebook for $.99 for the first week, so if you REALLY like it and you want to be SUPER HELPFUL, you can then buy a copy for just under a buck and leave me a Verified Purchase review. But honestly, the ask here is just that you leave me a review and tell people what you thought of the book.

In other news, we're almost done working out the final details on the book's cover. I sincerely hope to show that to you before the end of the month. But again, the cover will debut in my newsletter.

Seriously, friends, social media has become an absolutely shit way to get the word out about stuff. If you want to know about the book, get on the newsletter.

Thanks.

2. Corporate sponsorships to cover JMU's record American entrance fee (The Northern Virginia Daily)

JMU, however, appears to be the first to finance its move by delivering new sponsorship agreements at the conference level.

Athletic director Matt Roan somewhat reluctantly acknowledged that the concept was inspired, at least in part, by one of JMU's future conference mates.

Memphis, an American member since 2013, made an overture to the Big 12 last year that reportedly included a financial package worth between $200 million and $250 million, with sponsorship commitments from FedEx forming a significant component.

The Big 12 rejected the proposal, but the concept offered an example of how corporate partnerships could potentially be leveraged during conference realignment.

As much as I welcome JMU's entrance into the American Conference, this development overall does not look good for college football as an institution. The powers seem hellbent on turning what was once the greatest sport on Earth into just another pro league, and I couldn't love it less.

As I've said many times, I feel like I learned more from college swimming than I learned from college classes, and I use it more. College swimming taught me to work my ass off and compete for what I want. College classes, by comparison, often focused on niche subject-matter that I often liked but which rarely intersect with my actual reality. So to the extent that the current changes in the college football landscape are taking sports opportunities away from non-NFL caliber players -- in all sports -- I hate it.

These changes are helping a tiny handful of people at the expense of the other 99% of collegiate athletes, just like every other thing everywhere else on the planet.

Former Army O-Line Coach & current CMU Head Coach Matt Drinkall on CFB's changes.

3. The Return of Dr. Necropolis Playlist (Spotify)

This playlist has been through several iterations. In looking for some music for today's write up, I decided to cut it down to something that you might actually listen to on a single CD.

I really want to talk about all the choices on this list, but that's a project for some kind of spoilerific podcast interview. No idea when the hell we'll actually get around to that.

4. Why Do We Root for Villains? (Page Chewing)

Speaking of podcasts, I was on the Page Chewing's Beyond the Page podcast a couple of week ago, and the interview dropped publicly earlier this week. This was my favorite of the recent interviews I've done to support The Return of Dr. Necropolis because we spent the most time talking about the actual book and about the writing process generally.

The piece is up on YouTube, but I don't think it's particularly interesting visually, so much like my own show, I'm going to give you the Spotify embed below. It's also on Apple Podcasts and wherever else. Listen however you want.

5. Army Football Night Games

As noted in the intro, Army Football plays tonight, and it's the first of a three-game set. They also play on Halloween Night down in Memphis next week, and they'll host Air Force for a crucial Commander-in-Chief's Trophy game on Saturday night in primetime on CBS the first week in November.

I mention this because Army doesn't generally play a lot at night, and institutionally, I don't know that they're good at it as an organization. Granted, they beat K-State for a signature win last season at night, and they took them #4-Oklahoma to overtime at night way back in 2018. Still, playing at night is tough.

It's probably good that they'll get a couple of cracks at it before they host Air Force, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous about tonight's game. They'd probably be favored by a touchdown if they were playing at noon at Michie Stadium. As things stand, however, they're 1.5-point underdogs.

* * *

That's all I've got this week. As I said, you can do us both a favor by signing up for my book's mailing list, and if you haven't, definitely check out some of my work this week over on AFF. We're in for a great game tonight, and I tried really hard to make sure you'd be ready and psyched for it.

Go Army! BEAT TULSA!!!

Page-Chewing: "Why Do We Root for Villains?" with Danno E. Cabeza

2026-10-20T12:32:01.262-04:00

Of the interviews I've done recently to support The Return of Dr. Necropolis, this was probably my favorite just because we spent so much time actually talking about writing and the writing process. Normally, everybody wants to treat me like a straight-up sports guy.

That's mostly fine, but it's hardly all that I am, nor is it necessarily the way that I think about myself. This interview offered a chance to show a different side of my personality and my life, and I felt really grateful for that.

If you're interested, I've embedded versions of the show from YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify, depending on your platform of preference.

Show Notes:

In this episode of Beyond the Page, Steve welcomes author, Army veteran, and podcast host Danno E. Cabeza to discuss his upcoming novel, The Return of Doctor Necropolis, a superhero crime-noir story about a brilliant but deeply flawed supervillain.

Danno shares how an experimental writing project unexpectedly became a novel that took nearly ten years to complete. We explore what makes morally questionable protagonists compelling, the relationship between identity and personal responsibility, and why readers can sympathize with characters who repeatedly make terrible decisions.

We also discuss the challenges of returning to a manuscript after a decade, incorporating military experience into superhero fiction, writing believable relationships, and creating a world where the government has nationalized superheroes.

Danno talks about his love of X-Men comics, the influence of crime fiction, his experiences reviewing comics professionally, and why he ultimately chose prose rather than a graphic novel for this story.

We also get into independent publishing, the realities of running a successful Army football podcast, his terrifying experience at airborne school, unusual food combinations, and the lessons he's learned from teaching people to swim.

Join us for a conversation about supervillains, storytelling, comics, creativity, and why the most interesting fictional characters aren't always the good guys.

Find Danno: https://www.asforfootball.com/

Five Things on a Friday: The Case of the Ad Hoc Rebuild

2026-10-16T05:00:00.000-04:00

What a week, friends. I've been up in Albany all week, and it's been busy as all hell. You wouldn't think missing my thrice-weekly train commute would make that much difference, but it threw off my whole production schedule, and alongside some other incidental nonsense, made this kind of a Thayer Week for yours truly.

My dog is sick, too, so it's been a really tough week to be away.

But what can you do?

1. Inadvertent Website Redesign (AFF)

Aside from all the usual nonsense, we also had our primary editing plug-in crash over on the As For Football website, necessitating a change of theme and therefore something close to a total redesign. Needless to say, this kept me pretty busy. I feel like I did a decent job with it on short notice, but I also know that I'll be picking away at little things all over the site for the next six months.

Screenshot of the redesign

The good news is that the site now runs way, WAY faster. That's actually important. But that comes at the expense of quite a few cool-looking modifications we'd made over the last few years. We may never get some of that back, even if nobody but me will probably ever miss them.

What do you think? How'd we do here?

2. ISBN Number

I wrote about this earlier this week, but I -- finally -- assigned an ISBN number to The Return of Dr. Necropolis and started trying to figure out how to get it out in stores.

At some point during this process, I realized that the difference between publishing this thing through some extant independent press and through the nascent Stratford City Press, a division of As For Football LLC, looks strictly nominal.

No matter what else happens, the basic problem is that no one outside of the extremely online Army Football fanbase knows who the hell I am, and half those people won't care, either. So we're gonna print some hard copies of this thing, sell signed copies all over the place, and basically spend a lot of time essentially touring locally around Connecticut to hopefully give people a chance to find this book. If you really want to help me, the best way to do it might just be to buy a copy off me in person.

We'll see how that goes.

If you missed it, I've got a new description of the book and a new personal biography in the original ISBN Number post.

3. Palace for the People

Greta Van Fleet dropped their new album last week, and I really like it. I can't decide which track is my favorite, but we'll spotlight the first one after the introduction. That's definitely one of the better tracks.

4. Discussion with Paul

My friend Paul Horne came back onto the AFF Army Football Show this week, and then we had a follow-on converation Wednesday night to discuss his Offensive Line grading and modeling tool.

He's got an amazing idea. With apologies for the engineering metaphore, it reminds me conceptually of the SCADA system we use to monitor real-time conditions on the bulk electric system, save that he's using a quality control assistant coach to input data into the system in lieu of a Remote Terminal Unit (RTU). With this kind of objective, real-time feedback, coaches can call plays according to who's playing well and what's actually working as opposed to what their gut is telling them. In theory, this should allow for a much more objective, targeted approach as games develop.

It's an exciting idea. He's got some work to do to get it out to people for beta testing, and who knows what the user-base will say. But I think he's really got something here.

5. Scientists are finding AI may make us remember things that never happened (WaPo)

The experiment began with 24 ordinary photographs: a wedding, a city street, a race. Pattie Maes, a professor at the MIT Media Lab, and her colleagues showed them to 200 people.

After a break, some saw the same photos again. Others saw AI-altered versions — with facial expressions changed, military personnel inserted or signs of climate change added.

Then came a memory test.

Maes winced at the results. Those viewing the AI-altered images had a large increase in false recollections. Even worse, she said, their confidence in the false memories was higher...

New research that involves perception of political events, crimes and even new movies suggests AI-generated images and conversations can implant false details into our brains, even leaving us confident things happened when they did not.

If not proof positive, here at least is real evidence that AI slop melts people's brains. I'm guessing that people remembered more shocking, unusual, or just generally more notable images that the AI "punched up" to make them more interesting or attention-grabbing overall.

Sigh.

I'm not arguing that AI doesn't have its uses because I used it a lot this week during the emergency website redesign. However, this kind of thing is non-productive at a societal level for reasons that have nothing to do with the technology itself and everything to do with the way it's being used.

I don't love it, friends. We're doing this to ourselves. It's not some kind of organic outgrowth of some strange new technology.

* * *

That's all I've got this week, friends.

If you haven't already, sign up for my mailing list and prepare yourself emotionally to have your mind blown when the book finally drops. And if you're going to the game tomorrow, cheer hard.

Enjoy the weekend!

Go Army! Beat FAU!!!

Stop-Motion: Cale Hellums Scoring Run

2026-10-13T14:19:18.823-04:00

Mike K. Heit posted this to Instagram, and it's awesome. Since I've spent some time today writing about Army Football, I'm now super-ready for Saturday's game. Enjoy!

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Michael K. Heit (@mike_k_heit)

ISBN: 979-8-9982084-0-9

2026-10-12T08:06:26.618-04:00

I finally sent the barcode out to the cover artist this morning. Had been putting this off for the longest time because it involves locking some stuff in with Bowker, the folks who sell ISBN numbers to Americans. But we had to do it, so here's what I gave them.

Describe your book (350 words max):

Ten years after his dramatic fall from grace at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Frank McGuinness—once the world’s foremost expert on ultrahuman biology before reinventing himself as the infamous Dr. Necropolis—breaks out of prison. His target: his recently returned ex-wife, Gun Girl Gracie, and his former partner, the Siberian Tiger. Frank took the fall so Gracie and the Tiger could vanish with one hundred million dollars in gold bricks.

If they’re back, there’s a reason. Frank needs to know why.

FBI Special Agent Tiffany Trujillo, formerly the superhero Titania, and First Lieutenant Blaine Winters, poster-boy for the U.S. Army’s new Enhanced Forces Division, are assigned to hunt Frank down. Their high-stakes pursuit takes them from the confines of Sing Sing Correctional Facility to a chaotic Brooklyn bank robbery and onward into ever escalating ultrahuman chaos.

With a global genetic arms race looming, Tiffany and Blaine must find Frank and capture Gun Girl Gracie and the Siberian Tiger before an ultrahuman gang war starts—or worse!

Blending high-octane superhuman action, sharp syndicate intrigue, and complex character dynamics, The Return of Dr. Necropolis delivers a thrilling post-superhero exploration of identity, coercion, and control in a world where yesterday's villains might just be today's necessary force.

I'm not totally sure who can see this book description. Book retailers, obviously, but I'm not sure who else. Anyway, I tried to let folks know what the book is without giving away too much spoilery stuff. Here's hoping.

Biography (350 words max):

Danno Cabeza is an engineer, adventurer, sportswriter, memoirist, and novelist. A 1995 graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, he was a two-time Patriot League champion swimmer before he commissioned into the U.S. Army as an Armor Officer. Following his military service, he has spent more than twenty-five years working as an electrical engineer in New York City. Cabeza is the Managing Partner and Editor of As For Football LLC, covering Army West Point sports and American Conference college football. He is the author of a critically acclaimed memoir about his military upbringing and collegiate athletics, as well as The Return of Dr. Necropolis, a gritty post-superhero crime novel. When he isn't writing, engineering, or swimming four days a week, he can often be found snowboarding in Vermont.

This is a variation of the biography I use on PodMatch. Folks have gotten really interested in my life story based on that PodMatch bio, so here's hoping...

What do you think, friends? Anybody gonna care about this thing?

I'm just gonna drop this here....

2026-10-11T09:10:51.329-04:00

This thing went out to test-readers just this morning. Fingers crossed, friends.

Five Things on a Friday: Lex Luthor, Green Lantern

2026-10-09T08:57:01.245-04:00

Happy Friday, friends!

If you're wondering, I didn't mean to be gone all week. I want to build a better following on the blog with my book coming out, and writing nothing for a full week is not the way to get that done.

What can you do? I got busy this week. Not just with AFF but rewriting Dr. Necropolis's sequel, Gun Girl Gracie. I really want to get that thing out to test-readers soon, but I want to make sure that it's as good as it can be before I send it off, so I wound up kind of falling down the rabbit hole with it.

Anyway. We're back now. Let's get into it.

**1. Dr. Necropolis Update**

I sent the manuscript off to the typesetter, and honestly, sending that thing away was maybe the most nerve-wracking part of the entire writing process. They say that authors never really finish books, they just sort of abandon them, and I feel that. This one has been a part of my life for so long that actually letting it go has made me kind of crazy.

I really hope you guys like the book. I mean, I already know that it's not for everyone, and that's okay. But for folks who like science fiction, crime noir, and/or crazy superhero stories, I really hope you find something in here that speaks to you.

I also got another sample cover from Natalia over at Dawn Book Design this week. I still don't think we're quite ready to show you anything just yet, but it was cool. I'm excited about it.

Finally, I mentioned last week that I'd asked my friend Alan Evans, creator of the webcomic Rival Angels, for a quote for the book. He got back to me maybe three hours after I published last week's column.

“The Return of Dr. Necropolis is a compelling story of sacrifice, second chances, and the self-destructive power of hubris. It sinks its teeth into you and won’t let go until the final page.”

— Alan Evans, creator of Rival Angels

If you've never heard of it, Rival Angels was a long-running webcomic about a women's professional wrestling league. It was a really interesting project that found a lot of fans. Alan's now got something like seven volumes of the collected story up on Amazon. He and I collaborated on a 10-page Halloween Special way back in 2007 or 2008, so if you've ever wanted to know what I'd do as a pro-wrestling booker, now you can find out.

2. Lex Luthor: Green Lantern

Turns out, they've done this one before.

We all watched Lanterns, right? I mean, ten million people watched the finale, so I'm gonna assume you've seen it. I liked the show quite a bit.

I was wondering if/how one might adapt Green Lantern-style ideas into the Necropolis Universe and slowly came around to the idea of Lex Luthor becoming a Lantern. Because let's be honest. Lex Luthor would be the best Green Lantern. Dude has willpower for days, can do everything Jon Stewart can do, and is totally committed to keeping the Earth safe from aliens.

So I got this idea of Luthor getting the ring maybe shortly after getting out of prison. And he sees the ring as an opportunity to go straight. Here he has a chance to do something that he basically believes is right, and with the ring, he can do it above board with the support of the Guardians of the Universe. Lex is a business-guy, so he knows a win-win when he sees one.

But he's Lex Luthor, right? At the end of the day, he can't help himself. Dude is Lawful Evil, with a capital "E", and that lawful nature only goes so far. So we'd do maybe three or four story arcs where he's trying to be a good Lantern, to do the job right, but we'll see him make increasingly questionable choices until things finally spin completely out of control.

I feel like this story could work. I now want to see this thing.

3. Don't Say It - Live

This week's music comes from Samantha Fish's new concert album, Paper Doll (Live). I found myself listening to this album several times during the week, mostly on my way to or from the pool.

4. Four Quarter Thriller: UTSA 31, USF 24 (ESPN)

This game played out more-or-less the way we might've expected. The Bulls got out to an early lead, but they finished with just 288 yards of total offense and UTSA wound up coming back to win with about :15 left on the clock.

Is this the year UTSA Coach Jeff Traylor finally wins the American?

It might be. I think he's a good coach, and I also think he's got the league's best team. I guess we'll see. It'll help a lot if they can play the American Conference Championship Game in the Alamodome. Nobody but Jeff Monken ever beats Traylor's team when they're at home.

The only thing that annoys me about this is that I took Under 50.5 points in this game in AFF's picks league -- because USF's offense is shit -- and the game totalled 55.

Sigh.

5. Page Chewing: Beyond the Page

I did Page Chewing's Beyond the Page podcast last night to promote The Return of Dr. Necropolis. This was -- easily -- the most literary podcast I've ever done. We talked about the writing process for forty-five minutes. That was also really cool. I don't get to stay in that mode all the time. Normally everyone wants to talk swimming or West Point or Army-Navy or whatever. The way this show played out felt almost shocking.

Look for the interview next week. I'll let you know when it drops.

One thing I've realized doing these shows is that I should've put up the pre-order page for my book before starting this little media tour. At the time, I thought I'd promote AFF and then let people get interested in my other work that way, but folks have seemed to want to talk about Dr. Necropolis lately, and while that's great, I'm not totally in position to take advantage of this opportunity.

It seems like a stupid mistake in retrospect, but we are where we are. That said, as soon as I have a final cover for the book, that pre-order link is going up.

* * *

That's all we've got this week. Not much news this time around, but the world is on fire, and I just can't bring myself to dwell on it. Thanks for your time, regardless. God willing, we'll do more than just one column in this space next week.

For now, please go check out my appearance on the FAFO Podcast, and if you haven't already, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE sign up for the Dr. Necropolis mailing list. That is by far the best way to stay up to date with the book and with my future work.

See you next week. Or at Michie Stadium if you're going to tomorrow's game.

Cheer loud, friends!

Five Things on a Friday: Bimbo Boost & Other Stories

2026-10-02T08:47:36.085-04:00

Happy Friday, friends.

We've had a busy week. I spent a little time rewriting Gun Girl Gracie around midweek, and as much as I enjoyed it, that little indulgence put me behind the chains with As For Football as the week developed. We somehow managed to get everything together on deadline this week, but I'm telling you, yesterday got kind of frantic.

Whew!

Thankfully, it's now Friday, and with our weekly mailer out, my work here is done... at least for the next forty-eight or so hours. That gives us a bit of time to ponder the week that was.

It feels like a lot happened.

1. Praise for The Return of Dr. Necropolis

Speaking of mailers, we sent out our second Stratford City Press mailer this week, and I realized at some point during the writing process that I probably ought to send these out bi-weekly instead of monthly. I also need to build a Stratford City Press webpage somewhere, probably as a tab over at AFF, but honestly, I don't have the first clue when the fuck I'm going to get around to it.

I sent out the mailer this week because Cons got back to me with his quote for the book's cover, and I was not only really happy with what he said, I also thought it was interesting to see which parts of the book spoke to him.

“I signed up for chaos mixed with a good, old-fashioned action hero story and got hit with something I didn't expect: a book about carrying a name heavier than your own choices. Blaine Winters is carrying a burden of service that’s all too familiar to many.

“This book is violent, it's unhinged, it's got a submarine fight in it, and somehow, it still nails the part about legacy that actually matters. You don't get to pick the shadow you're born into, but you get to decide what you do standing in it. Heavy.

“Plus, the book ends with 'BEAT NAVY,' so obviously 5 stars, no notes.”

— Connor Crehan (Captain Cons), Host of Barstool Sports' Bold American Podcast

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that Cons liked Blaine. My good friend and classmate Ray Kimball also really liked Blaine, saying that Blaine reminded him of himself when he was younger. This was doubly true in the second book. Even so, I still think it's interesting that this is where most of the West Pointers see themselves in this story.

There's more in the mailer if you're interested. And even if you're not, do me a favor and sign up for it anyway. Friends, I need you to remember to buy the book when it finally comes out. Having commissioned a cover for this thing from an actual professional, I now need to sell a few copies to pay for that work.

Thanks in advance.

I've now got three quotes for the cover, and for better or worse, I only just remembered to ask my friend Alan Evans, creator of the highly successful webcomic Rival Angels, for a quote earlier this week. He was one of my earliest test-readers -- and quite a good sounding board on story design. Once I get his quote, I think we'll be done with this project.

2. Office Selfie

I had to move offices at work last week, and for as much as this was a pain in the ass, I now have my own private office, not a cubicle, for the first time since way back in 1997! The last time I had my own private office, I was a first lieutenant and company XO for Headquarters Company, 2nd Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division.

That was almost thirty years ago!

The office itself remains kind of spartan for now, but people seemed to like this pic when I shared it on Instagram. Go figure.

3. Friday Hair Metal: Bimbo Boost (Thundermother)

Not only is that song a banger, it's hilarious. Plus, they played the Deep Purple riff backwards! Honestly, it's the coolest thing I've heard in weeks.

4. "We are professionals who give a sh*t!" (AEW)

Pro-wrestler PAC died this past week. AEW did a tribute show, of course, and it was amazing. I want to call this part of it out, though, because in a show full of moving moments, this particular bit spoke to me.

"We are professionals who give a sh*t!"

EXCLUSIVE: After an emotional night in honor of @BastardPAC, AEW Continental Champion @JonMoxley thanked the Pittsburgh crowd, reflected on our fallen friend, Ben, and shared one of his favorite lines from our Bastard. We love you, Ben. 🖤 pic.twitter.com/qgvoEl5Qei
— All Elite Wrestling (@AEW) October 1, 2026

5. Beat La. Tech: 5 Key to Victory Against the Bulldogs (AFF)

Friends, I want you to appreciate the amount of technical bullshit that went into this week's Keys to Victory over at AFF. Photographer Mike K. Heit sent us a bunch of practice photos either late Wednesday night or early Thursday morning along with interviews from SBs Zach Mundell and Samari Howard, both of whom have started their season blazing hot.

I knew I wanted to share both interviews on social media and then embed them in the Keys article but only realized late in the process that Mike had sent me the videos as .MOV files -- in 4K, no less -- and most social media sites can't process .MOVs. Thankfully, YouTube allowed me to upload them as they were. I then re-downloaded them as .MP4s, so we got them up on the other socials. From there, the embeds should've been easy, but...

The Mundell interview came out as a Short, meaning that by default, YouTube formatted it vertically, 9x16. When I embedded it into the article, WordPress automatically set it to full-width, and suddenly, we had a poster-sized interview in the middle of an otherwise normal-looking article. I wound up building a bespoke HTML player from scratch, and I know you guys hate AI, but Google's Gemini model did this for me in two seconds, and if I'd had to do it myself, it might've taken two hours. I knew how to do it in theory, but figuring out the actual execution would've been a serious pain in the ass.

The final product looks great, but it felt like getting to that point took some doing. So appreciate that, my friends.

* * *

That's all we've got this week.

Folks have started asking me where they can buy my book, which means that I need to get a pre-order page up ASAP. That's not a thing yet, but you CAN help me right here, right now, by signing up for our bi-weekly mailer and by telling your friends who like science fiction and/or crime noir stories about it.

I'm telling you, friends, social media sucks for telling people anything. That means the mailer is really the only good way to get the word out there, so PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE sign up for that thing and send it around to whoever might care.

Again, thanks in advance. I love you all. Have a great weekend.

Podcast Widget

2026-09-29T08:46:11.107-04:00

I don't know if you guys are interested in this, but I added a new widget to the blog's sidebar today. Have me on your podcast!

Danno Cabeza Book me on your podcast 5.00 (3 Reviews)

I honestly don't know how much these podcast appearances are helping. I get the sense that I've been driving more traffic their way than they've been driving new people to me. But we are trying to get the word out, and I'm not totally sure how else to break out of my little bubble.

What can you do?

If you look at the blog's sidebar, you can see that I modified the basic bitch widget PodMatch gave me. They say it can fit any width between 160px to 350px, but my sidebar is 280px, and it still looked like shit before I fixed it. My way makes better use of the sidebar's potential verticality, and here we are.

Y'know, it was kind of a random decision to do my West Point Engineering Track in Computer Science based on the fact that I'd coded a little in high school. However, I use the basic concepts I learned there all the time. HTML isn't super-difficult or anything, but I'm not sure I'd have ever considered trying to unpack it had I not already had training with BASIC and C. Hell, I had to program in FORTRAN -- a lot! -- in my last job. Even here, we had to recode parts of this basic bitch widget to get it to display correctly given all the CSS bullshit associated with the blog's overall Theme.

Anyway. I can get an affiliate link and perhaps make a little money through PodMatch, but I think this experiment has about run its course. I've got two appearances booked for later this month, and then I think I'm leaving. Certainly, we haven't seen any uptick in traffic either here or at AFF to make me think this experiment has been worthwhile. But I've still got a few weeks before I can leave, so I guess we'll see.

Any thoughts?

Chapter 7

2026-09-28T05:00:00.000-04:00

July 8. Manhattan — Fifteen Years Ago.

“N-Doxy Test Results (trial 2): dosage upped to 20mg. Subjects show elevated mating‑behavior markers compared to placebo group. Increased physical contact (i.e. touching, grinding), synchronized movement, and increased signs of overt desire (i.e. kissing, groping).”

“Or maybe that’s just the way these kids dance,” Frank muttered.

He lowered his notebook and leaned forward, pushing his glasses up onto his forehead so he could rub the bridge of his nose. Down in the pit, bodies writhed and melded together, hands high in the air, hair flying, skin flashing under the lights. The thrumming beat drove them onward into a frenzy. Overhead, a strobe pulsed, and for a moment, the kids appeared to dance in stop-motion. Frank sat well above it, observing from a small, round table that overlooked the club’s pit-like floor.

He’d never heard whatever song the DJ was spinning. It sounded like something about spirits and shadows. Not that it mattered. He needed the rush of the beat, the bodies twisting and grinding, the gestalt fueled by alcohol and the N-Doxy he’d given out in 20mg doses alongside who knew what other drugs.

Frank reset his glasses and pulled his pen back out of his pocket. A part of him envied those kids. Not their youth, but their ease. Their ability to exist without permission. They could be stupid and loud and alive without anyone demanding a grant proposal first. But for better or worse, Frank had never been that guy. He’d never been cool. Besides, whatever else happened, the work wouldn’t do itself. If he wanted to learn something, he needed to pay attention and note his observations.

“Test conditions remain compromised. Controlling for outside chemical variables remains impossible. N-Doxy may be effective in the subject group, but the placebo group has begun mimicking the subject group’s behaviors. Perhaps larger doses will show more overtly obvious results.”

Or they might kill someone, Frank thought wryly. He pulled the bottle containing the fifty milligram samples out of his coat pocket and looked at it. That probably won’t happen, he thought, unless some kid’s already high on a conflicting medication, and it creates an unknown compound reaction.

Which… isn’t entirely unlikely. Dammit.

He could have done this in a lab back at the hospital. Probably should have, really. He could’ve controlled the variables correctly there. If he’d been willing to write a grant proposal, beg the board for funding, and debate the experiment’s ethics with the oversight committee. Oh, and he’d have to cut all the bureaucrats in on a piece of the action once he got everything working for them, too.

He couldn’t forget that. That was the most important part.

Plus, he had to admit that he liked being here. He liked the noise, the heat, and the chaos. He liked pretending, for a few hours, that he belonged in a world that had never once made room for him.

“Hey! You the guy with the shit?”

Frank whirled, slamming the N-Doxy bottle back into his pocket. He looked up quickly, feeling his face heat.

“What?!” He had to shout to make himself heard.

The girl stood maybe five-foot-five. She had a lithe, slender frame and the fiercest blue eyes Frank had ever seen. She’d dyed her hair so darkly crimson that it looked almost maroon, and she wore it in a straight bob, parted on the left with long bangs that hung down like a curtain just below her eyebrows. Below, she wore a thin white tank-top with a single black gear stenciled onto the front. Frank saw a word beneath that gear, “Rage”. Her shirt had long since soaked through with sweat, and Frank could tell that she wasn’t wearing a bra because he could see her nipples standing straight out through the fabric. Her breasts weren’t big, but still Frank had to struggle to take his eyes off of them, to force himself to look her in the face.

Those eyes then held him in a vice’s grip, and his breath fled. He completely forgot about the frustration of his experiment.

She looked maybe nineteen years old. And she was staring right at him.

“Come on, man!” the girl yelled. “My roommate Jackie said she got the best stuff ever off’a you, and now she’s in the bathroom blowin’ some dude. Girl’s a prude like nobody’s business, so whatever that shit was, it must be off the chain. How much for a taste?”

“How old are you?” Frank asked.

“The fuck do you care?” the girl snapped. “I came to score, not get interviewed by some freakshow. You gonna sell to me or what?”

Frank shrugged and tried to act casual. “Just curious.”

The girl stepped in close, letting her body rub up against Frank’s shoulder. “Curious, huh? I think maybe you just want to fuck me and then write about it in your little book there.”

“I’m not the one who came over here looking to score.”

She reached for Frank’s notebook, but he stood and backed a step, holding it away from her. He held it behind him, though, so when she went for it again, she smashed into him, throwing him off-balance. She lunged again as he recovered and snatched it despite his best efforts.

“Hey!” Frank yelled.

She danced back and started reading through the pages. A beat passed before she looked up again. “What the fuck, man? You runnin’ some kind of experiment or some shit?”

“What’s it to you?” Frank asked. He grabbed her elbow and steered her back toward a quieter, less crowded part of the club.

“Says here you got a stronger version somewhere. Where’s that?”

Frank sat her down at one of the corner tables and pulled the fifty milligram bottle back out from his jacket pocket. He held it up where she could see it. “I have the good stuff right here,” he said teasingly. “What’re you gonna gimme for it?”

The girl fished in her jeans pocket. “I’ve got twenty bucks.”

“Twenty bucks? I give you one of these, and in twenty minutes, you’ll be begging to go down on me.” Frank took a deep breath and gathered his courage. “How ‘bout we get outta here instead?”

The girl made a face. “Come on, man, that’s disgusting. What are you, like thirty or something?”

Frank sighed, feeling deflated. He was, in fact, thirty-two, and if he didn’t feel old, exactly, he’d still come to the club wearing an ironed, buttoned down plaid shirt under his blazer alongside plain chino slacks. This girl must think that he looked like a banker or something. He suddenly felt all too conscious of his receding hairline, his wire-framed glasses, and the paunch he’d developed around his middle.

He had to force himself to say, “What’s your name?”

“Jaynie.”

“Yeah?” Frank leaned back in his chair, searching for any sense of the relaxed cool that had never once come to him naturally. “Listen, Jaynie… I’m just tryin’ to pay my bills here, y’know? Genetics is cool and all, but I’ve got some pretty big college loans to think about. Do you have any idea how much medical school costs?”

She threw herself down in the chair across from him. “You’re a doctor?”

“I’m the Head of Biomolecular Research at Yale University Hospital. This shit,” he said, holding up the bottle of N-Doxy again, “is merely a side project. I’ve been trying to field-test it.”

“Jesus,” Jaynie said. “You must be a freaking genius or something.”

“I dislike that term,” Frank admitted, warming to his subject. “It implies some kind of mythic intellectual status or guaranteed success or whatever. In the real world, success takes work. That’s why I’m here. Unfortunately, these chaotic conditions have made my observations decidedly suboptimal.”

“Damn doc. You really are a genius.”

Frank shrugged. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to bore you.”

She leaned forward. “You’re not boring me. Let me have some of the good stuff, and I’ll be your guinea pig. I’ll let you know how it goes or whatever.”

Frank considered just giving it to her and then waiting ten minutes. She thought he was old now, but if he gave her fifty milligrams of N-Doxy, that might change. That was the theory, anyway.

Unfortunately, his conscience nagged.

Idiot, he chided himself. This is no way to become a drug dealer. He couldn’t help it, though. This girl had no idea what she might be doing to herself. Anything could happen, especially in such a wildly uncontrolled environment.

He looked at her and reluctantly shook his head. “I’ll give you the twenty. I’m sorry, but the other shit’s entirely too experimental. I’ve never even tested it!”

Jaynie threw his notebook at him and then leaned back from the table, giving him attitude. “What the fuck is wrong with you, man? I’m not gonna OD or nothin’. I can handle it.”

“I’m not worried that you’ll OD,” Frank said seriously. “I’m worried that you’ll wake up at the center of a six-way gangbang. You seem like a nice girl. I wouldn’t want that to happen to you.”

“Dude, you are obviously trippin’. There’s nothin’ nice about me.”

“Even so,” Frank said, “you want the twenty, gimme twenty bucks. You want the fifty? You gotta come back to my place, so I can keep an eye on you.”

“You’re a perverted fucker, you know that?”

Frank shrugged. He felt an uncanny recklessness grab him and knew at once that he could stare happily into her eyes for the rest of his life. “It is what it is,” he said at last. “Call it field research. You can bring a friend if you’d like.”

She glared at him. “Is that supposed to make this sound less perverted?”

“It’s supposed to make you feel safer.”

“It’s not workin’,” she said. She ran her fingers through her hair, pushing it back away from her eyes. Then she leaned back across the table toward Frank. “Is that shit as good as they say it is?”

“I’m not the one who came here looking to score,” Frank replied, “but it worked for your friend, and that wasn’t even the good stuff. The stuff I’ve got here should be truly spectacular. In theory, at least.” He then put the bottle away and tried to play it cool. He could feel his heart racing within his chest, though, and he couldn’t stop staring at her.

“Shit,” Jaynie said at last, “I must be crazy. You gonna take it with me?”

Frank’s eyes popped wide with surprise, but he covered it as quickly as he could. He’d come much too far to back out now, and anyway, why should he want to?

“Of course,” he said, hoping to hide his nerves. “We’ll try it together.”

She stood up and grabbed him by the collar. “Come on then, doc. Let’s get out of here before I change my fucking mind. If this shit ain’t the bomb, though, I am so gonna kick your ass tomorrow morning.”

The FAFO Podcast is out!

2026-09-27T09:02:49.669-04:00

I talked about it on this week's Five Things on a Friday, but in case you missed it, I did the FAFO Podcast this week, and my episode dropped yesterday. I don't know if you'd rather listen or watch us talk, but I'll include embeds below.

I'll drop the show notes after the jump.

In Episode 88 of The FAFO Podcast, BD Storm sits down with Danno E. Cabeza—author, adventurer, charity racer, West Point Class of ’95 graduate, former Army swimmer, and Editor & Managing Partner of As For Football.

We get into his time at West Point, Army sports and the culture surrounding Army Football, writing, endurance and charity events, adventure, family, and the strange collection of experiences that eventually find their way onto the page. We also talk about his memoir Swim, Bike, Run, Live, Love, Repeat and his upcoming novel The Return of Dr. Necropolis.

Connect with Danno:

As For Football: https://www.asforfootball.com/

Casa Cabeza — Danno’s Writing & Blog: https://dannos-lair.blogspot.com/

Facts. Truth. No BS. This is FAFO.

#FAFOPodcast #DannoCabeza #AsForFootball #ArmyFootball #WestPoint #GoArmy #AuthorInterview #BDStorm

🔥 Join our Outlaws and support the Channel right here to receive amazing benefits and discounts: https://thefafopodcast.online/

Five Things on a Friday: Joining The Peace Corps

2026-09-25T07:05:21.858-04:00

Happy Friday, friends.

We had a busy week at Casa Cabeza. Among other things, we sent our oldest child off to the Peace Corps on Monday morning. She is now serving our nation overseas!

As you can imagine, we had quite the emotional scene dropping her off at Westchester County Airport, only to see all her would-be flights get cancelled throughout the day until she finally wound up back at home just after 8 pm Monday night. She was then up all night trying to rebook her flights, which continued to get cancelled throughout the night and into the following morning. Thank you American Airlines! She finally made it to staging in Miami over thirty-six hours after we'd initially dropped her off.

Needless to say, she was a tough combination of exhausted and frustrated by the time she joined her cohort. But her follow-on flight went better, and once she finally catches up on all the sleep she missed over the course of those disastrous travel delays, I'm sure she'll be fine.

Sally and I are proud but also sad this week. What can you do?

1. Cover work on The Return of Dr. Necropolis

We started work on the cover for The Return of Dr. Necropolis this week. I wound up going with Natalia from Dawn Book Design based on a recommendation from my friend and former plebe roommate Sean Smith. This same company did the cover for his book, Even A Dog Enlists, Why Not You?

As I've mentioned before, I love this cover.

With that said, my book's cover looks nothing like this. But it's always better to get a recommendation in situations like this, and here we are.

I can't show you anything yet, but it's been pretty exciting so far.

2. 40th Annual Swim Across the Sound Marathon: July 31, 2027!

The Swim sent out a Save the Date email this week, setting the day for next year's Swim. I took this year off but have every intention of doing the Swim again next year, so consider this your Warning Order. I'll be coming to you looking for donations to help BEAT CANCER in maybe six months or so.

3. 2026 Week 4 College Football Predictions for Every Game (Bleacher Report)

They've got Army & Navy both winning this weekend, which makes me nervous. They've also got Texas winning a tight game at Tennessee. We'll see about that as well. I took Tennessee and the points at home on this week's College Football Roundtable podcast. As an aside, I was really happy with this week's Roundtable, so definitely give that a listen if you haven't already.

Fun fact: Bleacher Report runs a TON of AFF Articles on their Army page. I don't know if they've got some kind of RSS feed hooked in, or if it's just an intern or whatever who happens to like our stuff, but we got a TON of traffic from B/R last year. Not a lot this year, alas. Not sure how many people are really reading B/R's college football coverage, honestly, based on the drop-off in referrals, but it's still cool that they found us somehow.

4. I Did The FAFO Podcast Yesterday

Facts. Truth. No BS.

This isn’t a safe space—it’s a real space. The FAFO Podcast is where uncomfortable truths get said out loud, weak excuses get exposed, and reality hits exactly the way it’s supposed to.

With that name and tagline and a host calling himself "Big Daddy Storm," you'd think this was the most MAGA podcast to ever MAGA. With that in mind, I wasn't sure I was even gonna do this show. But a casual glance at their recent interviews revealed that the show isn't remotely MAGA, at least not in its execution. It's just a decidedly macho front-facing brand.

More to the point, combat infantrymen have been arguably the best audience for my book, so I figured I should maybe lean into that and try to reach macho men where they are.

As it turned out, the interview went really, really well. I enjoyed it, and Storm made me feel good about myself, which is a good trick for an interviewer. I gotta say, too, that he has an amazing radio voice. He does local high school football play-by-play and has probably the best sounding show I've ever been on.

As usual, I have no idea when my episode will release. But I think you'll like it. We talked a lot about the actual writing process, which was nice. We even talked a little D&D!

Everybody always wants to talk sports, and while I love sports, that won't sell my book. Plus, I get tired of having to be the same person all the time. I also write, y'know?

5. We asked pro athletes: What’s the one thing a leader said that helped you most? (The Athletic)

"Believe in your preparation, and you have to believe in what you see.”

[Former Steelers LB Levon] Kirkland said those words gave him “all the confidence in the world” as a football player. In his next three seasons, he made two Pro Bowls and twice finished the top six for Defensive Player of the Year...

“I really believe that when you find out your identity, you are able to reduce anxiety,” he said. “You understand your place in this world. If you can do that, you can do anything. The outside won’t get to you. The coach yelling at you won’t get to you. You know your purpose. I really believe that’s trusting your eyes.”

This was a shockingly good article from The Athletic on what it feels like to be a high-level athlete and what it takes to both succeed and stay at the top. Not a lot of sportswriters get this side of it in my experience because most writers are strictly Non-Athletic Regular People (NARPs). This one, though, is really worth your time.

* * *

That's all we've got for Week Four of this new reinvention of Five Things.

As always, if you want to keep up with all the happenings on Dr. Necropolis, go ahead and sign up for my new mailing list. I'm just sending out one email per month, but that's still the best way to make sure you're in the know.

Have a good weekend!

Chapter 6

2026-09-21T05:00:00.000-04:00

Despite his mother’s warning, Blaine found himself in Special Agent Tiffany Trujillo's FBI-issued Lincoln cruiser the next morning, heading north up the Taconic Parkway toward Sing Sing Correctional Facility and Dr. Necropolis. Tiffany had worn a professionally laundered white shirt beneath a plain, dark blue pants suit. For once, she looked more like an FBI agent than one of the world’s most famous former superheroes. She remained quiet to the point of being uncommunicative, however, and after twenty minutes or so, her demeanor started to make Blaine nervous.

“I talked to my mother yesterday,” he said to break the silence. “It seemed like maybe Dr. McGuinness scared her. Any idea why? She’s always been, well, outspoken about whatever I do. But yesterday, she actually seemed… frightened, maybe? I don’t know. It was weird.”

Tiffany didn’t reply. She seemed lost in thought. Blaine was about to try asking his question a different way when at last she said, “I don’t remember your folks ever tangling with Frank. But your mother struck me as a woman who was all about control back in the day. Of herself, her surroundings, her image…

“She’s the Ice Queen, y’know? That’s the way I remember her, anyway.”

“She’s still like that,” Blaine agreed.

“Well, Frank could be like that, too. Every time we went up against him, we wound up walking into an ambush. So maybe your mom’s afraid we’ll lose control somehow? When you deal with Frank, that’s a distinct possibility.”

She lapsed back into silence. Blaine looked out his window and watched the endless green forests of upstate New York blow past on either side. He couldn’t help feeling antsy, but then, riding in a car always made Blaine antsy. Thankfully, the Taconic sat nearly empty that morning, at least in the northbound direction, though it remained a winding, decidedly hilly road. Tiffany drove exactly the speed limit. She seemed in no hurry to get where they were going.

“I don’t know,” Blaine said after a while. “How scary can this guy be? He’s been in a cell for the last ten years!”

“Sure,” Tiffany replied, “but there’s never been anyone like Dr. Necropolis. Not back in the day and certainly not now. The things he did… nobody did that shit. Nobody else could.” She took a deep breath and then slowly let it back out again. “Maybe he’s mellowed over the last ten years, but somehow I doubt it.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Blaine asked.

“Look, can we just drop it? You’ll see for yourself soon enough.”

Blaine sighed. “You guys always get like this whenever you have secrets to protect,” Blaine said. “You always act like you want to protect me from some hard truth or whatever, but in my experience, you’re really just trying to cover your own asses.”

“Who’s ‘you guys’ in this, Blaine?”

“You and the other legends. All you old guard superheroes.”

“Jesus. You make it sound like I belong in a retirement home.”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” he said quickly. “It’s just that I’ve been around enough Society-types to know the brush-off when I hear it.”

“I’m not trying to keep anything from you here, Blaine. There are case files. You can read them. They’re not classified or anything.”

“But that won’t tell me what the man was like. You actually knew him.”

“Like you said, Frank McGuinness has been in prison for ten years. Probably none of this will even matter.”

“And yet, you’re driving us all the way up to see him,” Blaine replied. “Clearly somebody thinks he might know something. And my mother, the freakin’ Ice Queen, got scared silly when I mentioned it to her.

“I’m not asking for state secrets here,” he continued. “I just want a little insight. I’d like to be prepared.”

“It’s not state secrets I’m worried about, Blaine. You’re asking about my life.”

Another long moment passed, and Blaine was about to say something else when Tiffany finally started talking again. “I don’t know exactly what your mother’s deal was, okay? I didn’t know her particularly well back in the day, and we haven’t exactly moved in the same social circles the past few years.

“Your mother, I mean, who knows what goes on in her head? She was an actual supervillain before she married your father, and a lot of people thought maybe she married your old man just to get out of going to jail. But who knows? Maybe that’s just jealousy. Your dad was a rich, good-looking guy, and suddenly, instead of going down for her part in the Radical Robot Rampage, she married arguably the most eligible bachelor in the State of New York. I can see why people found that fishy.

“That’s not the kind of backstory you want to take into a fight with Dr. Necropolis. A story like that? That’s the kind of thing he’ll use. And then you’re screwed, big time.”

“But how can he gain control here? That’s the part that doesn’t make sense.”

“Who knows?” Tiffany replied. “He’s a freaking genius. A real one. We’re talking Einstein or Edison here.

“He started making designer drugs and testing them out on club kids.” She shook her head, and her voice got bitter. “One batch, the press called it ‘Sex’. He pumped that shit into the ventilation system at a rave in Brooklyn and—”

“You’re kidding,” Blaine said, aghast.

“I wish I was. Dude triggered an orgy.”

“Jesus!”

“Four hundred naked teenagers, all gettin’ it on right on the floor of some abandoned warehouse down in Greenpoint. He called it a marketing ploy.”

“So what happened?”

“These were upscale kids, Blaine. Preppies. It sent the press into a feeding frenzy. They nearly had a riot down at one of the big private schools, although what all those pissed off parents thought the school was gonna do is beyond me.”

“I remember that,” Blaine said. “I was just a kid, but it seemed hard to imagine at the time.”

“Believe it,” Tiffany said. “That shit he uses is real. Me and Oberon, we were chasing him this one time, and he turns around and starts laughing. And Oberon starts laughing, too, because, y’know, everything was a joke to Oberon, and anyway, they’d been friends. But then Frank pulls out this gas grenade. Next thing I know, it’s two weeks later, and me and Oberon are married. We lived in this little hut down on a beach in Cabo San Lucas.” She looked over at him. “We were married, Blaine. Me and Oberon, the all-time king of commitment-phobia.”

“Wait. You and Oberon got—?!”

“Yeah. We both went bat-shit insane for two full weeks. Dropped everything and just went for it right then and there.”

“Oh man…”

“I know. But we got it annulled once the drugs wore off.”

“Oh shit. That’s—”

“It was,” Tiffany agreed. Quietly, she added, “Best two weeks of my entire life.”

Blaine didn’t know what to say to that. Outside, trees rolled past. Tiffany grew quiet again, and this time, he decided to respect her privacy. Eventually, though, she started talking again.

“That shit, whatever it was, it scared the hell out of Oberon.” She hesitated. “He was different afterward. I don’t know if he freaked because Frank somehow cracked the code on his DNA, or if things somehow got personal between them. Whatever it was, he was never the same happy-go-lucky guy after that. He got more serious. About Necropolis and a bunch of other stuff, too. And it still took him almost a year to bring Frank down.”

“At the Federal Reserve Bank of New York?”

“Yeah,” Tiffany said. She looked over at him and sighed. “Look, Blaine, story time’s over, okay? You want the rest, go read the reports. Just know that the hype is real. Be careful in there. Frank has a way of turning the tables on you right when you least expect it.”

* * *

Sing Sing Correctional Facility turned out to be a squat collection of off-white brick buildings set down by the Hudson River. The set up reminded Tiffany of a medieval castle, all turret towers and low brick walls surrounding an inner keep, the whole topped by razor wire. The place had been built for defense-in-depth, though the danger in this case came from within. The layout gave the prison an ugly, inhuman vibe, even as talking about Frank McGuinness had put Tiffany herself into an ugly mood.

But at least Blaine had finally stopped with his twenty questions routine.

The trip still seemed an exercise in futility. Necropolis had spent ten years in prison without giving up the real names or locations of his partners, the Siberian Tiger and Gun Girl Gracie, and Tiffany doubted that this would change any time soon. The police knew that Frank and Gracie had been an item, and they had tape of the Tiger talking, so they knew that the man was Russian. Beyond that, they’d never had much. Necropolis had been amazingly thorough back in the day, to the point that whenever the authorities had found DNA or other forensic evidence at any of his old crime scenes, the samples had always degraded to the point of uselessness by the time they’d gotten to a lab. Since Frank had gone down, though, the Tiger and Gracie had made a point of staying off the radar. The Diamond District job was the first anyone had seen or heard of either in over ten years.

Frank McGuinness had always cherished his secrets. Tiffany didn’t think for a minute that Sing Sing would have changed that. If anything, Frank’s secrets were all he had left. If she and Blaine could get out of the interrogation room without inadvertently helping Frank escape or otherwise giving him a chance to showboat in front of his fellow inmates, Tiffany would consider it a win. If they could somehow manage to avoid spending too much time strolling down Memory Lane, that would be something of a miracle.

SAC Casey Walcott had, of course, called ahead, so it didn’t take long for Tiffany and Blaine to get through security. After flashing their identification cards at the front gate, crossing the prison courtyard, and then showing identification again at the prison building itself, a guard proceeded to usher her and Blaine into a sterile interrogation room. Like everything at the prison, the interrogation room had been built using plain, off-white painted brick. The room was little more than a claustrophobic cube running about ten feet on a side. It sat empty when she and Blaine arrived, save for a couple of metal folding chairs and a single metal table that someone had bolted to the floor.

“You ready for this?” Tiffany asked.

Blaine shrugged. “How bad could it be? It’s not like he’ll be bringing gas grenades with him this time. And even if he does, we’re in the middle of the prison. It can’t possibly go all that wrong.”

Tiffany was about to respond when the door buzzed open. A man walked in wearing a bright orange jumpsuit.

Tiffany blinked.

The Frank McGuinness that Tiffany remembered had been a short, kind of pudgy guy with a receding hairline and a perpetually self-satisfied smirk. Prison had changed that man. The man in front of her now was definitely still Frank — she remembered him well enough to be sure of it — but though he still stood a bare five-foot-eight, he was now cut entirely from lean muscle and prison-yard bravado. Even shackled hand-and-foot, his shoulders stood out from his jumpsuit to define a newly found weight-lifter’s build. Incredibly, he now carried himself with the casual confidence of the supremely fit. He’d shaven his head at some point, so that his forehead caught a nasty glare from the room’s harsh fluorescent lighting

Frank’s old self-satisfied smirk looked long gone. Behind heavy wire rim prison glasses, his eyes now came alive with malice. Prison had turned one of the most dangerous men on the planet into a hardened, angry-looking bastard.

Despite herself, Tiffany felt her breath catch in her throat. She had to force herself to take a beat and calm back down. She looked again and saw — finally — that Frank had been beaten up recently. His left eye looked puffy and yellow, and the left side of his cheek was still swollen from where someone’s fist had left a definite impression.

She couldn’t see how this would help, but it was something.

Still, she wanted to at least try to start off politely. “You look good, Frank,” she said, though her mouth felt suddenly dry. “I think prison agrees with you.”

He flopped down in his seat and rattled his manacles. “Who’s your friend, Tiff?”

“Lieutenant Blaine Winters, EFD,” Blaine replied. “I’m the new Centurion.”

“The new…?” Frank smiled, and Tiffany could see that he was now missing a tooth. “Shit. You’re Scott and Emma Winters’ kid, aren’t you? That’s hysterical. I didn’t know your old man, but back in the day, your mom was one hot piece of ass. Huh. The Centurion dragged her off with him like she was some kind of goddamned war prize. What a legend. Damn, it’s a shame he’s gone.”

“Be nice, Frank,” Tiffany said.

It was too late, though. Frank looked to be enjoying himself.

“Fuck you, Tiff,” he said. “Be nice, my ass. I’m in here for almost ten years, and the first thing you say to me in all that time is, ‘Be nice’? Come on, I thought we were friends. You could’ve at least called.”

“We were never friends, Frank.”

“Are you serious? Don’t make me start with the old home week crap, Tiffany. You won’t like it, and the boy here might learn a few things.”

“Just tell us where the Siberian Tiger and Gun Girl Gracie are, Doctor,” Blaine said.

Tiffany ignored him, and so did Frank.

“You’ve developed quite a mouth, Frank,” Tiffany said. “Is that why somebody busted your eye open? Or why you’re missing a tooth? Did one of your fellow inmates get a little too tired of your bullshit?”

“Would you believe that the Owl did this?” Frank asked. He smiled, flashing his gap tooth like it was a trophy. “The bastard did me a favor, believe it or not. He didn’t have to hit me quite so hard, though.” Frank rubbed the bruising around his eye and then glared at Blaine. “He sends his love, by the way. Asked me if I could find out why he’s in the joint while the fucking Ice Queen is still out there living the high life.” Frank shrugged. “I told him I didn’t think you’d know. What’d’you think, Blaine? Got any ideas you’d like to share?”

“I think you need to shut your mouth, you bastard,” Blaine spit back.

“Ooo,” Frank said. “I like him. You banged him yet, Tiff? Does he know what kinda girl you are?” He looked at Blaine again and whispered conspiratorially, “She likes ‘em big, my guy. You’re just her type.”

Tiffany went very quiet. She’d known what to expect, and still, she knew a moment’s fury. Blaine started to get up, but she forced herself to grab his shoulder. She pulled him back down and said, “He’s just baiting you, Blaine. Oldest play in the book.”

Frank held up his hands to show off his manacles. “Come on, big guy. I’m no threat. I can’t even move.” He looked back at Tiffany. “So what? Have you just come for a visit, or is there some reason you came to see me? And can we lose these cuffs? Seriously, Tiffany, it’s not like I’m going anywhere. I know they gave you the key.”

Tiffany said, “Tell me about the Neural Disruptor, Frank. How’d the Tiger get it, and how can we stop him from using it?”

Frank held up the cuffs. “I can’t think with these things on my hands, Agent Trujillo. But maybe if you loosen ‘em, something’ll come to mind.”

“I’m not gonna take off your cuffs, you asshole. Be serious!”

“Ah, come on, Tiff! What am I gonna do? These things’re driving me crazy. You can even leave ‘em on my feet if you want. I can’t very well sketch out plans for the Neural Disruptor with my hands shackled together.”

Tiffany started to respond, but Blaine cut her off. “It’s okay, Agent Trujillo. It’s like he says, he’s not going anywhere. And besides, maybe if he attacks us, it’ll give me an excuse to pop him in his other eye.”

Tiffany sighed. “Fine. What can it hurt?”

She pulled the key from her pocket and leaned forward. Frank held out his hands. He smiled gleefully as the cuffs came off.

“Happy now?”

“Very,” he replied. He pulled his glasses off and rubbed the bridge of his nose with the fingers of his right hand. Then he leaned back, both hands under the table, glasses still in his lap. When he spoke, his voice was low. Subdued. “I missed you, Tiff. Truly. But you said you had some questions?”

“Yeah,” Tiffany replied, “about the Neural Disruptor. Your old partner used it to put ten people into a persistent vegetative state the other night. But I don’t remember you ever using it that way, at least not on purpose. What’s he doing differently?”

“He’s a hack,” Frank said.

Tiffany had to lean forward to hear him, but against all odds, she suddenly felt a flash of hope. Maybe Frank had just needed to show off a little before he opened up. That didn’t seem impossible. He hadn’t always been an asshole, after all.

“There’s a reason I used to use all those gas grenades back in the day. The drugs, they open up the mind. Make a person more susceptible to the Disruptor’s effects. If you just go in cold, you have to overwhelm the person. Brutalize them. That’s dangerous. But if you prepare the mindspace properly—”

Tiffany didn’t realize how far forward she and Blaine had leaned until Frank struck. At first she thought he’d just slammed his fist on the table, but then Blaine cried out and grabbed his right hand. For a split second, Tiffany couldn’t process what she’d seen. Then her stomach dropped.

He’d played them. She’d come in ready for it, and he’d played them anyway.

Frank fell back and moved to cover up, but it was already too late. Blaine threw a roundhouse that caught him right at the jawline. Frank flew from his chair like he’d been hit by a truck and bounced off the brick wall behind him. Then Tiffany was moving at superspeed, trying to grab Blaine to keep him from killing Frank while Frank himself cowered with his hands over his head and face.

“What the Hell are you doing?!” Tiffany screamed.

“He attacked me!” Blaine yelled back.

“Not you, you idiot! Him!” She looked at Frank, who now lay bleeding on the ground. “What the fuck is wrong with you, Frank?”

“Fuck you, Tiff!” Frank yelled back. His voice sounded rough, but Tiffany didn’t think Blaine had broken his jaw. “You come in here after ten fucking years and think I’m just gonna tell you everything?! Fuck! You! I’d sooner eat shit and die!”

“That can be arranged,” Blaine fired back.

“Where’s Oberon, Tiff? They got the Owl in here, but not the big man. You wanna know why?”

“Fuck you, Frank! He left. You know that.”

“That’s funny. You know, they asked me how to control him. This was back before the bank job. And then suddenly he was gone. It’s funny how that happened, isn’t it?”

“What?!” Tiffany stared at Frank and saw the truth sitting there, right in his eyes.

Frank smiled.

Tiffany felt the room close in around her. For a heartbeat she couldn’t breathe.

And then the guards came in and separated them. One kicked Frank so hard in the gut that he doubled over. Tiffany and Blaine let themselves be forced out the door, and only once they’d gotten out into the hallway was Tiffany able to start thinking again.

“What the Hell was that?” Blaine asked.

The door slammed abruptly, and Frank disappeared from view. The hallway grew weirdly quiet. Blaine stared back toward the interrogation room, looking angry and confused.

Tiffany shook her head, still stunned by what he’d said about the government and Oberon. Could it be true? Part of her already knew that it was. They’d been so quick with the Enhanced Forces legislation after he’d disappeared. In hindsight, they’d obviously had it ready and had merely been waiting for the right opportunity.

She looked and realized that Blaine was still staring at her. “What?” she snapped.

“Are you okay?”

“Christ, how should I know? I warned you what he was like.”

“Well, did we learn anything, at least?” Blaine asked, still holding his hand. Tiffany noticed that he’d started bleeding a little.

Serves the kid right, she thought. Maybe next time he’ll listen.

“Yeah,” she said aloud. “We learned that Frank is still smarter than both of us, and that he still thinks I’m a slut.” She started walking toward the exit. “C’mon, let’s get out of here. I told fucking Casey Walcott that this was a waste of time. Turns out I was right.”

Five Things on a Friday: Who Made Who?

2026-09-18T10:45:15.640-04:00

Let's start with a banger...

1. This Week's AFF Army Football Show: AD Tom Theodorakis (As For Football)

After a tough loss last week, I was really happy with how this week's AFF Army Football Show went. I felt like we did a decent job of not wallowing in the loss, and more to the point, we turned the page pretty quickly afterwards to give fans a reason to stay engaged. Ahead of the show, I wasn't sure how well that would work, but afterward, I have to admit I felt like we did a good job.

2. The AI Inference Revolution Is Here (IEEE Spectrum)

Friends, I'm not gonna tell you how to feel about AI, but as a matter of reality, it's not going anywhere. In which case, it behooves us all as informed adults to at least understand the basic underlying technology.

The bottom half of the article gets into a lot of chip design stuff, which is less useful to regular people, but the top-half is really a must-read for those who want to live in a world they understand rather than in a world that is strange, scary, and mysterious.

An untrained LLM is like a jumble of Scrabble tiles on a table. Instead of single letters, though, the tiles show fragments of words, called tokens. Everything you’d need to write almost anything is present, but nothing makes sense.

Training a model organizes this jumble using a guessing game played at scale. The model is shown real text with the next token hidden and asked to predict what comes next. After each guess, the correct token is revealed and then compared to the prediction, and the difference is used to calculate the model’s accuracy. The game is played not with a single sentence but over billions of passages.

While a real game of Scrabble can be played over a bag of chips and a few drinks, AI training is computationally intense. The model updates its parameters through backpropagation, a process that repeatedly calculates how each of a model’s billions or trillions of parameters should shift to make the next prediction better. This is why tech giants are building larger data centers than ever before.

It takes a lot of memory to do the next step, called "inference," which ties the statistical predictive components of the model in with what's already come before. The basic algorithm will makes sense at a micro level just because the model is trained. However, the models are only useful if they can remember what's come before. That's where this next step becomes important.

3. Ride On by Monica Valli

I'd never heard of Valli before she popped into my Instagram feed this week, but this song is a good one.

If you're wondering, they're calling Valli a blues singer.

4. Gun Girl Gracie

I copy-edited The Return of Dr. Necropolis this week and then started working on the rewrite of Gun Girl Gracie. I'll be looking for a few test-readers soon, if you're interested. In the meantime, here's a working sketch of the cover concept, based on a picture that a friend of mine took at a Panamanian beach.

5. Microsoft exec called AI scraping the “largest theft of labor in human history” (Ars Technica)

Microsoft Director of Applied Science Brent Hecht repeatedly warned in documents that scraping news for AI training was “an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions,” calling it perhaps the “largest theft of labor in human history,” news orgs said. In another document, Hecht contradicted Microsoft and OpenAI’s argument that training AI on news content is fair use, suggesting that the plan to widely scrape news made “a complete mockery of the idea of ‘fair use.’”

Over at OpenAI, ChatGPT head Nick Turley wrote in an internal message that publishers would face an “existential threat” from commercial products trained on news content that can be used to substitute news providers. One Microsoft document even described a “doom loop,” news orgs said, “that will hurt the performance of our models and the entire web at the same time.”

I'm including this to show that these guys 100% understand the difference between the basic technology itself and its unethical real-world use. We made this same point on the AFF show we did about AI, but it feels like the nuance -- which is only nuanced in an insane world! -- gets lost a lot of time.

Anyway. We are where we are. But this is gonna blow up on these guys sooner or later. It's the cigarette lawsuits all over again.

* * *

That's all I've got this week, friends. If you're interested in test-reading Gun Girl Gracie, let me know. Or just sign up for the Dr. Necropolis mailing list. I'll probably send out a new email late next week.

Enjoy the weekend!

Beers with Engineers Interview

2026-09-15T08:34:38.459-04:00

As promised, the first of my Podmatch interviews just dropped. You can check it out right here.

See the show notes after the jump.

#71 – Danno Cabeza: Engineer, Author, Army football fanatic.

Has written two books. 2nd one, “The Return of Dr. Necropolis”, comes out Dec. 29, 2026.
Has a process for writing, like an engineer would.
Operates AsForFootball.com website and Asforfootball podcast about Army football.
Jeff Kildow is the author of the alternate history book Bert described.
Swam for West Point
Got into electricity putting up power poles.
Essentially became an electrical engineer via on the job training.
Had some good background from West Point.
Had wanted to be a lawyer – hated the first class he took.
Still hears “Book ‘em Danno” from Hawaii 5-0.
He is optimistic for Army football.
There is a real, but very unlikely, path for Army to win a national championship in football.
Earl “Dutch” Clarke is on the NFL 100 year team but did not go to the University of Detroit. His son did.
NIL money; name, image, and likeness; are changing college sports.
West Point is like a family business. As is the army.
Danno also ran Olympic length triathlons.
Explanation of coins at military graves.
Visiting Arlington National Cemetery
Swimming relay across Long Island Sound
Danno makes the best scrambled eggs.

Danno’s website - https://www.asforfootball.com/

Danno’s podcast – As For Football

Bert’s Company – www.dexterityeng.com

Adjustable Inserts – www.bertsinserts.com

Merchandise - www.beerswithengineers.shop

Hat tip to Joseph McDade for free use of his music "Mirrors".

Chapter 5

2026-09-14T05:00:00.000-04:00

First Lieutenant Blaine Winters rolled through the gates of Winter House, his family’s Mount Kisco estate, a little after sunrise. As such things went, the place wasn’t too large — a mere fifty acres set off from the road by a low stone wall and a long, tree‑lined cobblestone drive. Technically, the family still owned the beaux‑arts style Diogenes Building a few blocks north of Columbus Circle, but his father had moved the family up to Westchester shortly before Blaine was born. That made Winter House the only home Blaine had ever known.

He gunned his motorcycle’s engine, flying up the estate’s tree-lined cobblestone lane until it gave way to the long, curving driveway that arced in front of Winter House proper. The manse sprawled across ten thousand square feet of red brick colonial construction accented by classic white wooden gables and windowsills alongside a long white colonnaded front porch. This central section was then flanked on either side by smaller, more intimate residential wings that curled back around the estate’s rear gardens, providing a familial outdoor space well away from prying eyes.

Blaine brought his motorcycle to a halt, kicked down the kickstand, and drew his sunglasses from his face. Though his father had ridden a Harley, Blaine himself preferred the Ducati Panigale Superquadro. Both bikes had been built for relative comfort on longer rides, but only the Ducati’s engine purred doing ninety-five up the West Side Highway. Blaine never wore a helmet. Neither had his father. New York State law might’ve declared helmets a necessity, but as Blaine’s mother was always quick to point out, it was important to find little ways to remind people who you were. Neither man needed a helmet because of who they were, and if that didn’t necessarily set a good example for the little people, well, mundies weren’t Blaine’s concern. Besides, Blaine had yet to meet a traffic cop with the stones to write the freaking Centurion a ticket for riding without a helmet.

By the time he got to the manse’s front door, it already stood open. “Your mother is expecting you, sir,” Antonio said. His butler’s voice remained cool as ever. “She awaits in the salon.”

“She’s expecting me?” Blaine said. “Crap.”

“I believe that she saw the news this morning whilst taking her morning coffee. Said something about making sure we had enough in case we had a guest.”

“Dammit,” Blaine muttered. “I guess I’ll take mine there, too.”

“I’ll tell the lady you’ve arrived, sir.”

Blaine shook his head, wondering what he’d just gotten himself into. He stepped into the foyer, boots clicking softly on the white marble tile.

The family’s move to Mount Kisco had proven fortuitous given that the government had tried to seize ownership of the Diogenes Building through eminent domain once the Enhanced Forces Act went into effect, nationalizing the Diogenes Society and, indeed, the larger ultrahuman community as a whole almost ten years ago. Blaine’s mother’s lawyers had put a stop to any actual seizure, if barely, but they’d failed to retain operational control of the building, nor could they exclude Blaine from the legislation’s impacts. As a result, the government had forcibly leased the former Diogenes Society headquarters from the Winters family in perpetuity, though at market rates as set by a neutral arbitrator, while Blaine agreed to join the ROTC Detachment at Fordham University ostensibly of his own free will.

He passed beneath the chandelier, its crystal facets scattering morning light across the floor. Unconsciously, he braced himself at the edge of the foyer proper.

For his part, Blaine liked the way things had worked out. He’d always wanted to serve and indeed, had wanted to go to West Point, though the government disallowed that for ultrahumans. Still, ROTC remained an acceptable compromise. His mother, however, had worried at the precedent his service set for other ultrahumans. Blaine did not personally want to spend the rest of his life fighting the government, either literally or in court, but he suspected his mother might’ve tried one or both of those things under other circumstances. For that matter, events likely would’ve unfolded very differently had his father lived to testify to Congress during the Enhanced Forces debate. As things stood, however, Blaine’s desire to serve had won the day, though not strongly enough to retain full control of the family’s real estate empire nor to protect the rest of the ultrahuman population from the government’s desire to expand and reinforce its nascent EFD.

In effect, they paid him hundreds of millions of dollars a year to live in a building he already owned, supporting the team that would have been his birthright regardless. Thus, Blaine could serve without putting his family’s financial legacy at risk while the government got an ideally placed ally within the ultrahuman community at a price that was, if not cheap, then at least affordable within the larger defense budget. Blaine could only hope that the downside didn’t put too many of his people at risk down the road.

He exhaled slowly. None of this was what he’d imagined when he first dreamed of wearing the uniform. He wanted to uphold his family’s traditions, not make choices for other people.

The manse’s foyer had been designed to dazzle visitors, but to Blaine it only underscored the weight of his family’s history. He passed two battle scenes, both done in oil on canvas, showing Octavius Winters during the Revolution. The first showed then-Captain Winters at the Battle of Monmouth. In the next, Major Winters stormed the works at Yorktown at the head of General Alexander Hamilton’s command.

Further down, paintings gave way to old daguerreotypes and gelatin silver prints in large gilded frames. In the largest, Blaine’s great-great-great grandfather laid the eventual Diogenes Building’s four hundred pound cornerstone with his own two hands.

Press clippings started at about this point alongside more modern photos of Winters men in uniform. Blaine passed depictions of his forefathers in Cuba during the Spanish-American War and in Europe for the Great War. His great-grandfather’s original “hero’s uniform” stood here as well, dressing a life-sized white marble statue, next to pictures of the man as an Army captain in North Africa.

Ultrahuman genetics had remained the stuff of legend through the early part of the twentieth century, but the advent of fast film photography alongside widespread scrutiny had all but forced Horatio Winters to go public with the family genetics. A showman at heart, Blaine’s great-grandfather had responded by designing a uniform straight out of the Saturday morning radio serials and proclaiming himself the first Centurion. He’d then headquartered the nascent Diogenes Society right there in his own building, which he’d rechristened the Diogenes Building to reinforce the Society’s brand value. Even after Blaine’s father, the second Centurion, had moved the family to Mount Kisco, the Society had stayed in the City in their erstwhile building. This cemented both their legacy as a New York institution and the Winters’ place at their head.

But that’s all ancient history, Blaine thought. We live in a new world now.

Even so, Blaine always felt like his great-grandfather watched him whenever he came through the manse’s front door.

Blaine’s father’s uniform stood across from the original, complete with its famous eighties-style domino mask, zippered pockets, and red leather trim. Framed press clippings surrounded this newer uniform. The largest showed his mother, then a bikini-clad teenager, climbing onto the back of the Centurion’s Harley at the end of the Radical Robot Rampage. That shot had famously appeared above the fold on the front page of the New York Times. “Centurion Saves City!” The photographer caught the moment just as the sun was coming up after the climactic battle.

Unsurprisingly, none of the displayed clippings showed that battle’s beginning, when Emma Jean Winters, the infamous Ice Queen, rode a robot tripod-tank alongside Dr. Destructo. This particular slice of history was careful to show only the aftermath, once she’d switched sides and helped the Society send her former paramour to a supermax prison. She and Blaine’s father had then literally ridden off into the sunrise.

They’d married a mere six months later, to the eternal delight of New York’s tabloids.

Unfortunately, Blaine could think of no one else from whom he could get perspective on what he’d seen the previous night. The world had changed a lot since Blaine’s parents’ day, but his mother remained well-connected. Indeed, with his father gone, she had become his best and perhaps only real resource for understanding his place in the world.

Blaine took a moment to check himself in the mirror. The Army had designed its ACUs to be wash-and-wear, so it was hard to make them look good. Still, he wanted to at least try. Experience had long since proven that he should always look his best when visiting the Ice Queen. But his uniform looked about like it always did, which was just as well given that he couldn’t do much about it now. He kept his hair in a close high-and-tight, so even that didn’t look mussed from the ride over. His mother would still find fault, of course, but Blaine had lived with that for as long as he could remember.

He was a soldier. His mother would never truly accept that, nor would she agree with his decision to acquiesce when the government had started trying to nationalize the superhero business. Against the value of Blaine’s legacy and his family’s future, his actual desires mattered little in her eyes.

Rehashing that debate would change nothing now, however.

“Mother,” Blaine said when he walked into the salon.

A relatively intimate space given the size of the manor house, Blaine’s mother’s salon nevertheless remained her favorite room. Its great glass windows overlooked the rear gardens, providing pristine outdoor views and plentiful natural light. The room’s simple, white-painted trim accentuated this effect to the point that the view could become distracting at midday. In the morning, though, it caught the light perfectly. A little-used white leather loveseat sat at the room’s center, looking out onto the garden, but Blaine, of course, found his mother sitting off to one side in her favorite white upright armchair.

She looked up from the Times, and Blaine felt like he’d come under a cobra’s gaze. Her expression remained placid enough, but her eyes held their habitual icy blue stare, and Blaine could almost imagine her tasting the air, probing for any hint of weakness or fear. He could see at once that she truly had been expecting him and not just because she’d seen the news. Her white-blond hair was down and curled at the bottom in a hard set, the result of several hours spent with Sophia, her ladies’ maid, and a well-worn curling iron. She also wore so much makeup you’d think she was expecting to do television later in the day. Considering that the hour had not yet reached nine in the morning, Blaine’s visit provided the only possible reason she would have gone to this much trouble so early in the day.

Thankfully, she’d not formally dressed. Instead, she wore a white silk dressing robe trimmed in a blue that matched her eyes along with her favorite white fur slippers. This merely confirmed that she’d dressed specifically for Blaine. Had she been expecting real visitors, she would have worn business attire, meaning a white pants suit and pearls.

“Why, what an unexpected surprise,” the Ice Queen said. “To what do I owe the pleasure this morning, lieutenant?”

Blaine didn’t let her play dumb. “Antonio told me that you saw the news. I came to talk about Tiffany Trujillo and Dr. Necropolis.”

“Yes, of course,” she said, standing to kiss him on the cheek. “You came on business. Well, it’s good to see you in any case, darling.”

“What can you tell me about them?”

“Not very much, I’m afraid,” his mother said dismissively. “Neither rose to the level of your father’s notice. Well, not very often, in any case.”

“You must remember something,” Blaine insisted. “Titania was a member of the Diogenes Society.”

“Yes, fine,” his mother acknowledged. “I knew her a little. Haven’t thought of her in ages, though.” She shooed her hands outward, as though flicking the memories away. “I never liked her. She was a little slut, if you must know, and practically a mundie. She’d never have been anybody if she hadn’t been screwing that infernal Oberon. Why your father ever allowed her into the Society in the first place I’ll never understand. Don’t get me started. I mean, Oberon, he could afford to be eccentric because he had such exquisite superpowers. You know, he was really ultrahuman. But Titania—”

“Wasn’t Oberon an alien?” Blaine cut in.

“Oh whatever, Blaine. You know what I mean. He was a superhero. A real one. Not some slut off the streets who could barely fly.”

“Well, Ms. Trujillo is an FBI agent now,” Blaine said. “I met her last night at the crime scene.”

“They put her in the FBI?” Blaine’s mother asked. She sounded horrified. “I’m surprised the FBI’s not investigating her. She and that Necropolis were supposedly thick as thieves once upon a time. There’s another asshole, that Dr. Necropolis. He really is a mundie, you know. Another jerkoff scientist trying to play God in a world nature never intended for him.”

Taking his coffee from Antonio, Blaine sat across the table from his mother. The coffee tasted rich and bitter.

No surprise there.

“Did you know Necropolis? I mean, back in the old days?”

“Phaw! Your father and I might’ve chased him a time or two, but the Diogenes Society wasn’t founded to chase mundies, darling. Your father fought Necropolis’s partner a couple of times, the Siberian Tiger. You know, toward the end of his, uh, career. But McGuinness himself remained strictly bush-league. An actual human. We let the police handle that kind of trash.”

“But I thought Oberon—” Blaine began.

“Well,” his mother said, cutting him off as though he hadn’t spoken, “I suppose they’ll be sending you after that Siberian Tiger here in a bit. The EFD may not know their heads from their asses, but it’s the obvious play. It’ll be good for you, I suppose. Get your face in the papers when you finally bring him to heel.”

Blaine blinked. “But wasn’t Oberon the one who finally brought in Necropolis? I mean, if he was just some small time mundie—”

“Oh, please!” his mother cried, cutting him off. “The man was an alien. There’s no telling what went on in that outer space brain of his.”

“But that’s right, isn’t it? That Oberon brought in Necropolis?”

“Yes, of course! Now will you shut up about Dr. Necropolis? You need to worry about the Siberian Tiger. He’s the one they’ll be sending you after. McGuinness is rotting in jail.”

“I can’t,” Blaine said. “Agent Trujillo asked me to go with her to see Dr. Necropolis tomorrow morning up at Sing Sing.”

“What?! No! No, don’t you dare. You’re going after the Siberian Tiger. Why would you waste your time with that asshole—”

“Because the Tiger used one of Necropolis’s inventions. It’s called the—”

“Who cares?” his mother said, voice icy. “The Siberian Tiger is a Russian mobster with some real juice. And he’s practically an animal. He’s perfect for you!”

“But—”

“No!” His mother almost yelled it at him. “You stay away from goddamn Frank McGuinness, do you hear me? The man is a delusional psychopath, and he’s capable of anything. You think you’ll be safe just because he’s in some cell in a mundie prison? The man is psychotic. Stay away from him!”

“But you just said—”

“Now you listen to me, Blaine Cornelius Winters. There is nothing for you there, trust me on this. You just worry about going one-on-one with the Siberian Tiger, and you’ll be fine. Do you hear me?”

Unsure what else to do, Blaine nodded slowly. “Yes, ma’am.”

“I’m serious, Blaine. Stay away from McGuinness. Nothing good can come from getting mixed up with him. He is an absolute madman. Let that slut Titania worry about him. You need to stay focused on the Tiger. That’s who you need to go after. He’s the one who will make your reputation. Not some mad scientist who’s capable of God knows what.”

“I understand, mother.”

“Good. Make sure you do. Now, tell me who you’re dating. The tabloids have been remiss regarding your love life.”

Five Things on a Friday: Dear Mr. Fantasy

2026-09-11T06:36:58.872-04:00

How are we doing, friends?

I've been busy this week. It feels like there's a lot going on. I wrote a new prologue for Gun Girl Gracie this week, but as of this writing, I've not even had time to go back through it for its initial rewrite. Right now it's just sitting there, like an itch I can't quite scratch.

Anyway. Let's talk.

1. Private equity faces existential crisis in US as unsold companies pile up (The Guardian)

"Retail stalwarts Saks and Eddie Bauer filed for bankruptcy. Kmart and JoAnn Fabrics are gone for good, a trail of layoffs and disappointed customers in their wake. Hospital giant Steward Health Care collapsed, costing thousands of jobs and leaving several communities without a local hospital.

"These once-trusted US companies have one thing in common: they were owned by private equity investors, who load companies with debt when they buy them and squeeze out profits as they restructure.

"The business model is now facing an existential crisis that may have profound ramifications across the US... Private equity funds are sitting on a “record number of unsold companies, many of which they’ve been unable to sell … or at least unable to sell at the prices that they’re looking for”, said Jim Baker, the executive director of the Private Equity Stakeholder Project, an industry watchdog."

This is my shocked face. It's like buying a used car, stripping it for parts, and being surprised no one wants to buy the husk.

Well. At least we can all look forward to the eventual bailout.

2. UN votes to adopt new map that makes our world look very different (CNN)

"The United Nations General Assembly voted on Friday to adopt a new world map that reflects countries’ true relative sizes, after African nations urged the UN to right a centuries-old wrong.

"The “Correct the Map” resolution –– put forward by African Union member states, as well as the Bahamas –– passed with overwhelming support: 164 member states voted in favor, six abstained and only the United States voted against it."

Via the Equal Earth Project. There are five version of this thing. This one is "Oceana".

Of course the U.S. voted against a map that made the world look more like what's actually on the ground instead of what American's believe the world looks like. What's truth next to the power of belief?

Sigh.

3. Friday Music Project: Dear Mr. Fantasy

Sally and I saw Steve Winwood in concert on Wednesday, and let me tell you, what a show! I would not have said that I'm a huge Steve Winwood fan, but he played an electric set that we both thoroughly enjoyed. "Dear Mr. Fantasy" came right before "Higher Love", and for my money, that was the show's highlight.

Enjoy!

I mentioned Gun Girl Gracie earlier in the piece because I got an idea for a scene rewrite while we were at the show. I'm dying to put it together to see how it works, but I've gotta find a couple of free hours first.

This second book uses music in several places, and once I get done with the rewrite, that music will include Winwood Greatest Hits Live. But like I said, I gotta find the time to put it together.

4. Five Ways to Beat the Bulls (As For Football)

"But many of these same South Florida players only just transferred into the program. It didn’t work out wherever they were before, and — perhaps subliminally — they’ve got to be wondering if maybe it’s not going to work out again.

"That’s a lot to process for a twenty- or twenty-one-year-old kid. Sure, it’s easy to shut out the noise when things go well. But that same noise can get pretty loud when things start to go badly.

"This is why Army needs to throw the first punch this weekend."

Via AFF Photographer Mike K. Heit.

I wanted to write a bit this week about the psychology and angst of being a Power 4 transfer playing at a new school. I don't know if this quite caught it, but from where I'm sitting, it doesn't look easy.

I'm really curious to see how tomorrow's game goes. Between you and me, I think the Black Knights should do well.

5. I've Only Just Remembered Today Is September 11th

Ugh. I really need to stay off of social media today. 'Nuff said.

* * *

If you're wondering, last week's Five Things didn't do nearly the number that the first edition of this reinvention did. As of this writing, last week's edition has found 90 readers, versus 153 for the first one.

I don't know if talking about social media algorithms made the real algorithms demote the posts advertising these things or if folks just weren't as interested last week. Readership on the blog is up overall -- not surprising given that I'm writing here a lot more now -- but we haven't hit any kind of sustained increase. At this point, we're just seeing spikes from occasional posts.

So. If you like this column, do me a favor and send it to a friend. I like writing these, but it's more fun if we can engage the audience. Plus, if you're here, chances are we know each other, so you can even mention that I brought this thing back from the grave. Deal?

Thanks in advance.

Enjoy the weekend, friends. See you next week.

YouTube Short: Army's 648-Yard Offensive Explosion vs Bryant

2026-09-09T09:58:25.961-04:00

This clip didn't make the cut for AFF's social media this week. But I still liked it, so here...

If you want to catch the rest of the show, you can find that on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever.

Chapter 4

2026-09-07T05:00:00.000-04:00

By the time Exercise Period rolled around, Frank knew what he had to do. The only drawback? He’d need some help. And a trip to the infirmary. And also, potentially, an addiction to a powerful but dangerous hallucinogenic combat drug. All of this assumed that he could pull off a covert distillation in the first place. But Frank wasn’t about to let Anton run wild with the Neural Disruptor — nor with Jaynie, for that matter. Not when a little of the old mad science might change things, even here, stuck within the grotesque confines of Sing Sing Correctional Facility.

When his cell finally opened for Exercise Period, Frank headed straight to the weight room.

The sights, sounds, and even smells of the place brought Frank the first sense of calm he’d known since seeing the previous day’s paper. Dozens of convicts worked out amidst the prison’s many open-plan free-weight stations, all wearing orange jumpsuits, most with their tops down around their waists to expose either white undershirts or, more often, bare, muscular chests. A low buzz of conversation filled the air, punctuated by the occasional clank of bars dropping onto racks or onto the concrete floor. The place smelled reassuringly of oiled metal and perspiration. Those smells represented the closest thing to freedom that these men could know, often for years at a stretch.

The weight room sat inside a central pit where men worked the various stations in groups of three or four, all surrounded by a perimeter set of simple wooden benches where more convicts gathered in extended knots of conversation, mostly segregated along racial lines.

Frank saw the Owl sitting ready at one of the flat benches but ignored him for the moment. For all that the Owl had once been a violent vigilante with a decided mean streak, a tragic history of family violence, and a penchant for beating up people exactly like Dr. Necropolis, he — Davis O’Connell, once a superhero calling himself “the Owl” — remained the closest thing to a friend that Frank had within the prison. Which didn’t exactly guarantee that O’Connell would agree to help Frank bust himself out. In fact, it probably meant quite the opposite. But the Owl, at least, remained someone that Frank could talk to. Plus, he might agree to help… if he could be made to understand the circumstances correctly.

Business came first, though. Frank’s attempt at manipulating his only friend would have to wait.

Instead of sitting next to the Owl, Frank headed for the weight room’s far side. There Sammy “Razor” Jefferson sat holding court. Razor was serving three consecutive life sentences for a home invasion and triple homicide in a swank, upscale neighborhood in Bronxville, New York, and like a lot of crime bosses, he was a big guy who’d long since gotten good at using his size to intimidate. He stood maybe six-feet-two with dark skin, dark eyes, and plenty of dark tattoos, all offset by his blond-dyed eyebrows and cornrowed hair. He had a muscular enough build, but he didn’t put in the kind of consistent work that a true weight room aficionado like the Owl usually did. Instead, Razor’s strength came from the power and influence he wielded, both inside the prison and elsewhere.

Six young dark-skinned men sat around Razor, though Frank couldn’t immediately place their ethnicities. Not that it mattered. Razor had famously built his empire on neighborhood lines rather than as a function of race or ethnicity. All six got up when Frank approached.

“Razor,” Frank said. “You mind if I sit?”

Razor didn’t look up. “Suit yourself, Doc.”

Though Razor’s attendants all pointedly walked away, Frank let the moment stretch. Eventually Razor got edgy enough to ask, “So. This a social call? Wha’chu need, my man?”

“It’s not what I need, Razor,” Frank said. “It’s what I’m offering.”

Razor finally looked over and cocked one gloriously blond eyebrow. “You cookin’, dog? I thought you said you was out of that business.”

Frank shrugged and tried to keep his voice casual. “Times change. A man gets bored, wants to make a little extra cash from time to time.”

“Yeah. And sometimes a dog’s bitch makes it into the papers. So what? What you offering, dude?”

“Crank.” By which Frank meant crystal methamphetamine. It would be easy enough to make, and anyway, Frank needed it as a base ingredient for his real project. But Razor didn’t need to know all that.

“Seriously? Fucking crank? Come on, dog, ain’t nobody want that shit in here. Dudes be wantin’ to mellow in here, maybe get loose. Dream, you know what I’m sayin’? Ain’t nobody want no damn crank, Doc.”

“Uh huh,” Frank replied. “So Hillbilly Jim and his boys, none of them ever did any crank back in the day? There’s no market for it?”

“You think I give a fuck what some bunch’a skinhead-lookin’ crackers want? Fuck them assholes. I ain’t doin’ business with no Hillbilly Jim. Try again, Doc.”

Frank sighed. “Materials aren’t exactly easy to come by in here, Razor. That’s why we’re talking. Crank is what I can cook.”

“How’s that my problem?”

“You’re making a mistake here, Razor.”

“Was that a threat?” Razor asked softly. “‘Cause I know you’re friends with the Owl and all, and I will agree that he is one legitimately scary dude. But for real, I don’t think he gon’ start no war over your skinny ass. I bet if it came down to it, he’d let me stab you just to show he could, and then maybe he’d throw me a beat down on general principles. But that’d just be for show. You know what I’m sayin’? I don’t think he’d actually save your ass or nothing.”

“Christ, Razor, don’t go gettin’ ideas. All I meant was that you’re missing an opportunity to expand your sphere of influence.”

“Shit. Why don’t you let me worry about my sphere of influence, mutherfucker. Unless you got something else to offer...?”

Frank shook his head. He didn’t want to do this, but he knew that he either risked everything here, or he’d spend the rest of his life rotting in a cell. The time had come, like it or not, and only Razor could get him what he needed. To all outward appearances, Razor looked like little more than an unrepentant thug, a rapist, and a murderer. However, everyone knew he ran a disciplined, highly effective criminal organization. Even after eight years in prison, the man still commanded an army, both inside Sing Sing and out in the real world, too. Razor’s empire represented Frank’s only real chance.

Unfortunately, they both knew it.

Frank pulled a slip of paper from his breast pocket. He’d written a few long, technical names there, the names of both the reagents he’d need and the stabilizing protein that would form the base of the overall reaction he’d planned so meticulously over the course of the previous night.

“You know, Razor,” Frank said slowly, “we stole one hundred million dollars from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.”

“Oh lordy,” Razor groaned. “Here come ancient history.” He looked at Frank. “Come on, Doc. Everyone knows you blew that place to shit and got caught. This conversation is startin’ to bore me, man.”

“No,” Frank said. “We hit it twice. Got away clean the first time. That heist didn’t even make the papers. The Feds covered it up. I only got caught ‘cause we went back. My point is, Razor, we got away with it the first time.” Frank looked Razor right in his eyes. “I still have all that money. Millions of dollars’ worth of gold bricks.”

“Uh huh.” Razor sounded skeptical. “So where is it? Why ain’t you livin’ like a king in here, Doc?”

“It was two tons of gold bricks, Razor. Where would I put it?”

“Come on, man. This is a fairy tale.”

“Is it? And I suppose it was just pure coincidence that Oberon himself just so happened to be in the area when we hit that place?”

Razor ran his hands over his face and sighed. “I can’t believe I’m listening to this.”

Frank knew he had his man. He slid the list of reagents across the bench. “I’m not just some skinny punk, Razor. I can be a good friend to you.”

“What the fuck is this?”

“That’s what I need. Just a couple of drops of each.”

“And for this you’ll give me a hundred mil.”

“Well” Frank said, “I’ll treat you fairly.”

Razor raised his eyebrows.

“More than fairly,” Frank added.

“And how you know it’s all still there?” Razor asked.

“If they’d found it, the explosion would’ve made the papers.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yes I do.”

Razor looked over, and his eyes got hard. “Doc, you don’t tell me where that money is right now, I’m’a slit your throat.”

“Uh huh.”

“I’m serious, asshole.”

Frank got up. “Come on. Be smart here, my man. That stuff’s not even expensive. Just get me what I asked for. And a couple of stamps of PCP.”

“Like, acid? Old school, seventies shit?”

“Yeah. Can you do that?”

“You fuck with me, Doc, and you’ll regret it. That I promise you.”

“Yeah man. I could say the same. But let’s not, okay? I’d rather be friends.”

“I’ll remember you said that.”

Frank walked away before Razor could threaten him again. He’d have to watch his back for a while, but he thought Razor would come through. The man might be a thug and a murderer, but he wasn’t at all stupid. Far from it, in fact.

Frank crossed to the other side of the gym. He noted a few eyes following him, but just as many pointedly looked the other way. Once he joined the Owl, the gym seemed to settle, its denizens content to get back to the usual status quo.

“What was that shit with Razor?” the Owl asked. He sat up from where he’d been working on the bench, an easy two-twenty-five sitting on the bar.

There was no point in lying. The Owl could read lips.

“A little commerce,” Frank replied.

The Owl gave Frank a hard look. “Yeah? So what’re you cooking?”

Frank tried not to shudder.

Lots of convicts tried to use physical intimidation in prison, but the Owl was arguably the scariest guy in the entire place. He stood a mere six feet but weighed a solid two hundred and twenty pounds and maintained a professional athlete’s ripped, efficient musculature, seemingly out of sheer force of habit. His glare scared people because it came from such a relaxed, ready place. He knew he could fuck you up.

The man had been a legend back in his Diogenes Society days. Trained in a dozen different martial arts, geared up with the finest equipment that his trust fund could provide, and seemingly always madder than a demon from Hell, the Owl had once terrorized New York City’s underworld relentlessly. Even now, he constantly seemed to be looking for an excuse. But though a few had tried him when he’d first arrived at Sing Sing, years had passed since anyone had been that stupid.

“What’d’you care?” Frank asked. He tried to put some muscle into his voice.

He pulled a forty-five pound plate off of one side of the bar, and across from him, the Owl removed another. That left one-thirty-five, a strictly mortal bench by prison standards, but Frank needed to warm up before things got serious. Besides, even one-thirty-five remained a hell of a lot more weight than Frank had been able to lift before he’d been sent to prison. Becoming friends with a legitimately badass superhero could work changes on a man’s physique.

Frank got down on the bench, hefted the weight, and let it settle. He then began banging out repetitions, working but not too hard, letting his muscles warm. In the back of his mind, he could still feel his shock and anger at seeing the previous day’s paper. At Anton and Jaynie, at the system, at everything. Against that, the simple physical exertion of lifting weights became a tonic. Rage simmered below the surface for every man in prison, but the Owl had taught Frank to channel that rage, to use it to make him stronger — physically — in the moment. To get something out of the injustice of the world besides a supervillain’s maniacal laughter and a life sentence inside a concrete box. As he started lifting, Frank thought about Anton and Jaynie being together and about ripping his former partner’s face right off of his skull. The thought made him growl. He let his rage flare and pushed it out through his arms and chest, giving it back to a universe that had done nothing but shit on him for far too long.

He sat up once he’d finished his set, feeling marginally better and far more emotionally focused.

“Don’t treat me like I’m one of these cretins,” the Owl said once they’d started changing the weights again. “You’re not the only man who reads the papers, you know? Hell, even Razor saw it. And now it just so happens that you’re cooking something? Shit, man, I bet every con in here knows you’re up to some bullshit, Frank.”

Frank looked the Owl in the eyes. “So what?”

The Owl pointedly put another forty-five pounds back onto the bar and then stared at Frank until Frank did the same on the other side. Ninety more pounds, and the bastard just settled into place like it was no big deal. Which, of course it wasn’t, Frank knew. Davis O’Connell might not have been born with any superpowers, but that hadn’t stopped him from scaring the shit out of those who were. He’d been a superhero and a member of the Diogenes Society in good standing long before the government had abruptly decided to throw his ass into prison for working outside the law.

The Owl got down, lifted the bar off the rack, and briefly held it there. “Don’t make me do something we’ll both regret,” he said to Frank. He then started banging out reps like he could do it all day.

Frank shook his head. This wasn’t the conversation he wanted to have.

“Look,” Frank said when O’Connell had finished his set, “that bastard used a Neural Disruptor. I don’t know how he got it, but he did. It must be one of my early prototypes, I don’t know. But you know how dangerous those things can be. Especially the early ones, before I built in all the safeguards.”

The Owl scoffed. “Before you built in safeguards?!”

“Fuck you, Davis.”

“No, fuck you Frank.” The Owl sat up, and now it was his turn to stare. “You really want to help people? Help the FBI. When they come here to ask you about it, and you know they will, draw up a copy of the plans and give it to whichever agent comes around to interview you. Otherwise, don’t sit here and pretend that you care about the little people. I told you, I’m not one of these cretins. Stop treating me like one.”

“You’re insane, do you know that?”

“I used to dress up like an owl and beat the shit out of street criminals. My emotional problems have been well documented.”

They switched out the weights again, and Frank added a ten pound plate to each side. He banged out a set at one fifty-five, and for a while they just worked like that. The Owl placid but menacing; Frank furious but determined not to lose his cool. He couldn’t stop thinking about it, though, and the Owl never stopped eyeing him sideways.

Finally, Frank couldn’t take it anymore. “Doesn’t it piss you off, man? I mean, you were the fucking Owl. You were a badass.”

“I’m still the Owl, Frank. Don’t make me prove it to you.”

“But that’s exactly what I’m saying! All those times you saved the City, all that shit with the Diogenes Society, and what do you get? They locked you in a box with Doctor Necropolis! You call that justice?”

“I knew what I was doing was illegal.”

“Oh bullshit! If that’s the problem, then where’s the rest of the Society? Why aren’t they in here with us?”

The Owl gave Frank a hard look, but he didn’t say anything. He clearly didn’t want to give Frank the satisfaction of seeing that he knew Frank was right.

“That’s what I thought,” Frank said, pushing his point. “You didn’t want to lick their boot heels, and that’s what scared them. Shit, Davis, you’re not even ultrahuman. You think I don’t get it? I’m the only man in here who gets it, and you know it as well as I do.”

“You were trying to sell secrets to the Chinese!”

“I was trying to sell an invention of my own design to a willing buyer. Those assholes talk about the power of the free market, but you try to do something that they don’t like, and fucking forget about it. That example only proves my point.”

“So fucking what?” the Owl snapped. “Life gave you a raw deal. So? That doesn’t excuse the rest of it. You turned the Federal Reserve Bank into a smoking hole in the ground, and thirty-two people died! You deserve to be in here.”

“That is not what happened.”

“They died as a direct result of your actions!”

Frank blew out a breath, forced himself to sit back down. He ran his fingers over his scalp and breathed, trying to get himself back under control.

“Fine. I deserve prison,” he said at last. “I’m here, aren’t I? That still doesn’t change the facts. Oberon hit that place like a burning freight train, and the government used the ensuing disaster as an excuse to nationalize the Diogenes Society alongside an entire class of its own citizens. If you’re ultrahuman right now, you have to join the Army, period. Refuse, and good luck getting a job, paying taxes, living your life… whatever. It’s harassment straight down the line. And even if you’re not ultrahuman, you still might have to join if you scare them badly enough.”

“It’s about power, Davis. It always has been.”

“And these are the people you want me to trust with plans for my Neural Disruptor? Come on, man, you didn’t get put in here because you’re some stooge. Those assholes will weaponize the Disruptor on a scale I’d never even consider. I’m not doin’ that shit, man. No way in hell.”

The Owl shook his head. He looked tired, for once. Frank wondered if maybe prison’s harsh realities had finally gotten to him. “What do you want, Frank? ‘Cause I’m not gonna help you turn this place into a pen full of drug-addicted zombies or whatever. Honestly, I can’t imagine what you’d even get out of something like that.”

Frank smiled. “Dude. That’s not what I’m asking. Not at all. I just need you to send me to the infirmary.”

“You what?”

“You know, I need some stitches. Eight, maybe ten. Something to get me there and a reason to stay for a couple of hours.”

The Owl smiled, and in that smile, Frank saw a kind of pure, unlooked for joy sitting right alongside the man’s naturally violent malevolence. The Owl fell straight into a ready stance, and all at once, Frank felt far less sure of his plan.

“Shit Frank, you should’ve just led with that. I’ve been wantin’ to beat you down for a good, long time, you piece of shit.”

Cover Quotes for Dr. Necropolis

2026-09-05T07:21:37.440-04:00

I've got two right now, and while I can't put either full quote on the book's actual cover, these are still really cool. They're going in there somewhere.

"An exuberating rush that is both familiar and different in the same breath.

"The world that Danno E. Cabeza lays out for readers within the pages of The Return of Dr. Necropolis both pays homage to the great superhero stories from the past, while at the same time drawing you deep into a world of new superheroes and supervillains, in a way that entices you to become emotionally invested in their lives. In a landscape filled with unoriginality, this story is a refreshing change of pace that will have you on the edge of your seat, flipping your allegiances back and forth between rooting for and against the 'Good Guys' and 'Bad Guys' right until the very end. The Return of Dr. Necropolis builds a NEW world that will satisfy any superhero junkies' need for the next great story. An absolute hit in the making, I want more.

"TRUST ME, I fucking loved it."

Joe Troutman, author of Gods of War: The legend of Blackhawk Company 1/23 Infantry

"Dr Necropolis takes comic book tropes that have been done to death and twists them like a pretzel, spinning a back-alley supervillain tale with unexpected bite. While its warped super-history and neo-Noir York grit recall Alan Moore’s Watchmen, to his credit Danno E. Cabeza has his own thing going here, crafting a world that somehow feels both comfortably grounded and vividly, defiantly weird. Crucially, he does this without losing sight of why this stuff was so much fun in the first place, never thinking himself too serious an artiste to gift us with a Radical Robot Rampage when the situation calls for it."

Sean M. Smith, author of Rank Absurdity and Even a Dog Enlists, Why Not You?

For the actual cover, I'm thinking, "TRUST ME, I f__ing loved it." and "[C]omfortably grounded and vividly, defiantly weird..."

Thoughts?

Five Things on a Friday: College Football Begins!

2026-09-04T06:36:52.120-04:00

Friends, I've been busy as all hell this week.

My wife and daughter Hannah went to Bar Harbor, Maine, leaving me to water the plants, watch the dog, and mind the house. Not a big deal, really, except that I've also been working, swimming, and gearing up As For Football for Week 1 of the college football season. Thankfully it rained pretty consistently through the back half of the week, but finding an extra half-hour to water the plants became a real challenge on Monday. In addition to everything else, I wound up doing three podcasts this week, two for AFF and one to promote AFF and The Return of Dr. Necropolis.

All of that was great, but it definitely kept me jumping.

Thankfully, things slowed down later in the week, giving me enough time to breathe a little.

1. You Seemed to Like Last Week's Column

Last week's column garnered 134 readers as of this writing. That's not a patch on what Five Things used to do back in the day, but it's not bad for 2026. I post here way less often nowadays, mostly because of how hard it's gotten to get the word out about little projects like this one via social media. It's therefore understandable that folks are out of the habit of reading this thing.

That's something we've can work to fix.

Back before I did AFF, wrote here a lot and frequently garnered hundreds or even thousands of readers on some of my more popular posts. But like I said, that was back when I posted stuff here several times per week and long before social media companies started throttling link-sharing to force content back onto their own platforms.

If you share just pictures, those guys are happy to show those pictures to your friends because that 100% drives their traffic and therefore their ad revenue. Nowadays, though, if you share links -- or anything else that takes you off the big social media sites -- they'll throttle your stuff to the best of their ability. AFF actually had a link blow up a bit a couple of weeks ago, and Facebook told me we needed to promote it -- as they often do -- offering to let it reach as many as *2* additional readers.

Friends, it had already gotten as big as they were going to allow it to get, pretty much no matter what.

If you make content for your own sites, it's best to think of social media as a shakedown. This is part of why I'm trying to post more content here. I need people thinking my writing and especially my book ahead of its release, and we're just not going to get there by posting about it on the Faceyspaces. But if we can get folks in the habit of reading Five Things on a Friday, that will provide a much more effective launch point.

2. Beers with Engineers

In addition to the two As For Football shows, I did the Beers with Engineers podcast this week. This was the first show I've booked using PodMatch, a service I was all set to cancel before things suddenly picked up maybe a week or so ago. You may remember that I wrote about it a couple of times last month.

Bert, the show's host, initially said he was planning to schedule the episode for November. But then the interview went so well that he told me he might move it and run it sooner. That was cool. I agree that the conversation was a lot of fun. Not much about my book, but we talked quite a bit of sports, both college football and racing sports in which we actually competed.

3. How to spot a psychopath (The Guardian)

"People from very different fields say alarmingly similar things: there’s one question about whether the interviewee had themselves ever been frightened of a persistent predatory personality (bear in mind that these weren’t victims, they were seasoned professionals) and the answers came back: “I constantly worry that he will ruin my career” (from an HR person); “I worry that they will … want to seek revenge” (from a social worker); “I am pretty sure there are no lengths to which this man would not go to, to see that I am destroyed” (expert practitioner from the charity sector). These and arguably every statement from the interviews are so extreme that you can’t imagine saying them socially because you would sound mad – which some testimonies explicitly address. “People can’t get it. People who don’t work in our fields … often don’t hear about or see the kind of evilness perpetrated on others, and just can’t believe it. Whereas, unfortunately, it’s commonplace in my work.” (That’s from one forensic expert practitioner)."

Fascinating article and arguably the basis for the adage that you should always stand up to a bully. Because to a large degree, these folks survive and thrive by being so awful that bystanders literally cannot believe how awful they are and try to explain it away. This is the same idea we see in propaganda, where the Big Lie is SO BIG that people can't help but believe it precisely because it's so outlandish.

What's worse is that our understanding of these personality types largely comes from studying low-functioning prison populations. However, plenty of these folks are high-functioning, ruinously successful people.

Anyway. The article is a great read if you've got a little time.

4. Bee Gees Blanket the World (Spotify)

We used to do Friday Hair Metal back in the day. This doesn't exactly count, and yet, I was totally psyched when I saw that they'd just put this album out. The album starts with a Saturday Night Fever retrospective, but there are thirty-nine songs here. I dug it.

5. UMass Beat Rutgers Last Night

If you missed this game, it was incredible. The Minutemen used an read-option power running game, punctuated by just enough downfield passing, to get out to a 27-7 lead at halftime. They never looked back. They absolutely smoked the Scarlet Knights right in their own building. Incredible.

To put this in perspective, UMass went 0-12 last year and 1-11 the year before. They have been truly awful. They came into last night's game as 30+ point underdogs. They snapped a freaking 16-game losing streak last night!

That's all we've got this week. Happy Friday! Enjoy this weekend's college football, and let me hear from you. More to the point, consider subscribing to my Mailing List to keep up with the latest on Dr. Necropolis.

If you're wondering, the best thing that *I* wrote this week is Beat Bryant: 4 Keys to Victory Over the Bulldogs over at AFF.Com. You can give that a read if you're so inclined.

Thanks. See you next week!

Chapter 3

2026-08-31T08:04:08.839-04:00

It took nearly three-quarters of an hour for Tiffany to peel off her cocktail dress, climb back into her Titania gear, and pull her too-long auburn hair back into something she could legitimately wear as an investigative professional at a crime-scene. Showing up in her old gear would be bad enough, she knew, but if she did it with her hair done up from the baby shower, she’d never hear the end of it from Casey fucking Walcott.

By the time she got to the Diamond Exchange, the hour had grown truly late. She looked down at the clock on her dashboard. Two-fifteen a.m. Unfortunately, the Diamond Exchange still hopped with activity.

So much for my day off, she thought wryly.

Manhattan’s Diamond Exchange wasn’t just a single building, it was a tiny neighborhood located on Midtown’s east side. Also called the “Diamond District”, it had once served as the nation’s primary import/export jewelry exchange and wholesalers’ market. Some of that still occurred, but nowadays the District survived more on its reputation than on its real-world relevance to the precious stones trade. In some ways, though, that made the place an even flashier target, especially in an era of Internet sales and just-in-time delivery. High end tourists came here to experience buying truly outrageous jewelry first-hand.

As Tiffany drove up, she could see that the Siberian Tiger and Gun Girl Gracie had made a mess of the entire area, hitting a half-dozen glass-windowed storefronts on both sides of the street up and down that one block. They’d torn through protective metal grating like so much gossamer and then leveled whatever security had tried to intervene. The resultant mess looked as though a series of grenades had gone off in rapid succession, throwing glass, blood, and even some people out onto the sidewalks. In response, the City’s police department, the FBI, and the New York National Guard’s new Enhanced Forces Division had all converged, turning this two-block stretch into a constellation of flashing lights and crime scene tape. Seeing this made Tiffany feel like some amateur astronomer spotting an unwelcome star cluster in a sky she’d hoped would stay clear and dark.

The Enhanced Forces Division hadn’t been called the “EFD” back when Tiffany had been part of that life. Back then, they’d just been the Diogenes Society, and they’d have all laughed at the idea of Federal oversight. But that had been a very different time. They’d had Oberon, for one thing, and Oberon hadn’t liked taking orders. More to the point, no one could make Oberon do anything he didn’t want to do.

Tiffany sighed but pushed those thoughts away. Thinking about it would only make her sad, and no force on Earth could put things back the way they’d once been.

From where she parked, she could see at least a dozen cop cars clustered in and around the District, completely blocking traffic across Fifth Avenue. The area looked like some kind of midnight street circus laid out exclusively for law enforcement professionals. A massive olive drab command tent dominated the scene, becoming the circus' big top while smaller canopies offered lesser attractions around the edges. The big top would hold the command center while the outer tents might house forensics, ballistics, site photography, crowd control, and a host of other services. Seemingly every agency under the Federal umbrella had found an excuse to shoehorn its way onto this particular scene.

Though the investigation would unleash holy Hell on early-morning commuters, for now, Tiffany didn’t see as many onlookers as she saw NYPD beat cops standing around drinking coffee and soaking up as much easy overtime as their departments would allow. But while most of the uniformed officers loitered aimlessly outside the barricade, ostensibly doing crowd control, inside Tiffany noted a completely different vibe. Whole masses of techs scurried everywhere, busily analyzing, taking pictures, taking notes, and documenting the scene down to the minutest detail. These all wore the Bureau’s trademark blue windbreakers with “FBI” stenciled onto their backs in big yellow letters. They came and went like ants circling the command center’s central hive. Tiffany knew all too well that she’d find Casey Walcott inside that central tent.

She felt a low, unformed dread just thinking about it. She remembered Walcott’s face and the feel of his hands on her skin. His gravelly voice and the way he always needed to take control.

She shook her head. God. What is wrong with me tonight?

Thankfully, a pair of young men diverted her attention before she had time to fully consider the coming confrontation. They stood outside the command tent, wearing standard Army Combat Uniforms and clearly waiting for something. The first stood at least six-foot-three and looked like he could’ve played linebacker in the National Football League. He had fair skin, a strong, lantern-shaped jaw, and a light blonde crew cut alongside surprisingly soft, azure blue eyes. The nametape across his chest read “Winters”, and he wore a single black bar stenciled onto a green band that looped through the central buttonhole at his mid-chest. This marked him as a first lieutenant in a leadership role.

Lieutenant Winters, then. She’d spoken to him on the telephone.

Winters’s partner was black, not quite as tall, and more athletic than muscle-bound. Tiffany guessed that he could have run ten miles without undue strain. It looked like he’d shaved his head, too, though that was hard to tell beneath his uniform cap. The black man wore a gold second lieutenant’s bar, his eyes looked older than Winters’, and his expression was both sterner and far more impassive.

Both men were so young that they made Tiffany feel positively ancient. She would have guessed that neither Winters nor his partner had yet passed twenty-five. That made her at least ten years their senior.

A lot had happened in those ten years.

Tiffany suddenly felt self-conscious. Lacking the patience to put on a full-on pants-suit back at her apartment, she’d instead thrown her old Diogenes Society gear back on because she’d still had it out after the raid. But this put her into kevlar-lined black leather matched with the titanium bracers that ran all the way up her forearms. She’d always liked the look because of the way it complemented her golden‑brown skin and dark brown eyes, but in this case, it also made her stand out. Everyone she could see wore some kind of simple, government-issue uniform. By contrast, Tiffany felt like a relic from a bygone age.

There was nothing for it, she knew. She climbed slowly out of her car, hung her badge around her neck, and headed inevitably toward the crime scene. A couple of beat cops stared, but she ignored them and instead went straight for Winters and his partner. They at least might see her as something other than a freak circus attraction. When she got to the crime tape barricade, she even made a point of using her powers to glide over the barricade rather than just ducking underneath.

Winters noticed her immediately, and she felt a moment’s satisfaction watching his mouth drop open in surprise. But then Tiffany’s own mouth nearly dropped open as well. She recognized him, too, and not just because she’d spoken to him on the phone.

Of course you do, Tiff. He’s Blaine Winters. He gave you his name when he called. You’ve seen his picture in the papers a hundred times. The scion of royalty. He’s the son of Scott Winters, the Centurion, and Emma Jean Winters, the Ice Queen. Dude’s the uncrowned prince of the entire ultrahuman community.

The government had gotten a real coup when Winters had voluntarily joined the EFD after college ROTC instead of going the celebrity route. His cooperation had proven that the government wasn’t just trying to control ultrahumans, that Uncle Sam was also willing to sponsor their efforts if those same folks were willing to work within the Federal system. After the heavy-handed way the government had forced the Diogenes Society’s nationalization — what with Oberon leaving, the Owl going to prison, and a whole lot more hard feelings besides — Winters’ voluntary recruitment, and the tacit familial approval it implied, had done a lot to keep the peace. Other ultrahumans had fallen in line, making the EFD’s ROTC detachment an actual pipeline for this new national force.

And now here he was. Like Tiffany, he’d become just another attraction at some midnight crime scene circus.

“Titania?” Winters asked. “What in the world are you doing here? I thought you’d retired.”

“You called me at home,” Tiffany replied. “Don’t you remember? I’m Special Agent Tiffany Trujillo, here because you seem to think I’m some expert on Dr. Necropolis.”

“But—”

“I’m assigned to the New Haven field office. But I figured that if we’re here talking about Dr. Necropolis, I might as well wear the old uniform. I take it that your friend here is the new Kid Zulu?”

“It’s just ‘Zulu’ now,” Winter’s partner replied. He had a formal African accent, the kind a person got from learning English in a one-time Colonial school run by British expats. “I have never understood why Dr. Mbeke allowed people to refer to him as ‘Kid’. In any event, I myself am Lieutenant Jacob Aboyie from the South African Army, here on permanent loan to the United States as part of the Enhanced Forces initiative. But you, of course, may call me Zulu. Everyone else does.”

“But...” Blaine said, “I don’t understand. How come you’re not a part of the EFD?”

“Just lucky, I guess,” Tiffany replied. “Oberon always… objected… to the idea of us joining the Army. Didn’t want to do anything with the government at all, really. And it’s not like they could force him. He used to wear those crazy Hawaiian shirts just to make the point that he wasn’t gonna be who or what you expected, and there was nobody on Earth who could make him do anything different.” Tiffany shrugged. “When he left, though, my protection more-or-less went with him.

“But people knew, right? I mean, Oberon and Titania. People knew we’d been a thing. So the Feds came up with this as a compromise. I’m not the only one. Leapfrog and Butterfly are both down in the DC office.”

Zulu’s face remained stony, but Winters looked decidedly confused. Tiffany wondered if she hadn’t just overwhelmed the kid with all that ancient history.

In a way, Winters reminded her a lot of Oberon. He was a big guy and both rich enough and powerful enough to be whoever the hell he wanted. No one could tell him what to do. But Winters apparently wanted to be a soldier. He could dress exactly the way he wished, and yet he chose to wear the uniform.

Tiffany didn’t know what to make of that.

“What’s your story, Zulu?” Tiffany asked. “How does a kid from South Africa wind up in the EFD?”

“We are not so different, I suspect,” he said, voice cool. “My government is… less comfortable with ultrahumans than they could be. Easier to send me here and to perhaps garner some good will with the Americans than to let me run loose at home, potentially stirring up trouble.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Tiffany said.

“It’s okay,” Zulu replied. “Truthfully, I’d rather be where I’m wanted and where there are others of my own kind.”

“Yeah,” Tiffany agreed. “I get that.” She looked over at Winters. “Alright kid, you got me here. Are we doing this or what?”

Winters looked suddenly abashed, and Tiffany wondered if she’d somehow hurt his feelings. He said, “Sorry about that, Titania. It’s just that SAC Walcott—”

Tiffany cut him off. “Please, Winters, call me Tiffany. The old days are gone. We’re all just people now.”

“Yeah, sorry, ma’am. It’s just—”

“It’s fine,” Tiffany said. The kid looked like a hurt puppy. “I know it wasn’t your fault.”

Winters shook it off and visibly forced himself to stand a little straighter. Tiffany didn’t think it was anything she’d said. Rather, he seemed to come to some kind of decision within himself. He stuck his hand out to her.

“Please, call me Blaine.”

They shook. “Tiffany,” she said in return.

Blaine followed her into the command center tent, leaving Zulu standing outside like some kind of ultrahuman security guard. Tiffany didn’t know what to make of that, either, but she had a sneaking suspicion that Zulu had gotten the better of the exchange.

From the outside, the command tent looked like a big top circus tent. Inside, though, it felt stuffy and crowded. Bare electric light bulbs hung low from plastic ceiling rafters that arched up beneath the tent’s central dome. Beneath its apex, clusters of FBI techs sat hunkered over computer screens, all wearing either those same trademark blue FBI windbreakers or once‑sterile blue Tyvek coveralls and booties. Between the computers’ waste heat and all the FBI bodies mashed into such a tight space, the tent’s atmosphere felt oppressively close and hot. The air stank of perspiration and nerves. The buzz of a dozen tensely held conversations overlapped, becoming a roar in Tiffany’s ears.

“I can’t believe you called me out here for this, Blaine,” Tiffany said over her shoulder.

To his credit, the kid didn’t reply.

Special Agent in Charge Casey Walcott stood on the tent’s far side, perhaps fifty feet away, hovering over a tech reviewing surveillance footage. Just seeing him dropped a pit into Tiffany’s stomach. Walcott had gotten noticeably older since she’d last seen him, and he’d let himself get a little paunchy, too. However, his slicked back black hair remained unmistakable, though it now grayed at the temples, as did the cut of his thousand dollar gray suit and his steel-rimmed aviator’s glasses. The set of his mouth turned down, giving him a hard, serious expression that Tiffany had once found intriguing. Now, though, she could see the temper lines that his professional veneer kept hidden. Unbidden, she again remembered the feel of his hands in her hair, his body pressing against hers…

She fought down a shudder. It had been years since she’d seen him, but those old memories still lingered somehow.

Unfortunately, she couldn’t go home until she’d at least talked to the guy.

She turned back to Blaine. “You know what?” she said. “I think you’d probably better wait outside. SAC Walcott and I have some history, and I don’t think you want to get involved with that if you can avoid it.”

“Yes ma’am, er, Tiffany,” he stammered. “I’ll go wait with Zulu.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll come find you afterwards. This is all just some bullshit power play. You’re not gonna miss anything. ”

“If you say so,” he said. He suddenly looked eager to escape.

Great Tiff. Either you just scared that kid, or he thinks you’re a lunatic. Either way, mission accomplished. Now go see The Man and take what’s coming.

Her stomach dropped again at the thought of it, but she forced herself to turn and walk steadily in Casey’s direction. He was so engrossed in whatever he was watching that he didn’t see her coming. That was something, at least.

“Okay, Casey, you got me down here,” she called out as she approached. “What was so insanely urgent that you called me out at two in the fucking morning?”

Casey started and then whipped around, looking first shocked then angry that someone had interrupted him. He mastered it quickly, however, and then looked more appraisingly, taking in the way Tiffany had dressed. His eyebrows rose in brief disapproval, and then his scowl returned in full force.

“Did the circus come to town, Agent Trujillo?” he asked, voice cold.

“Come on, sir. It’s late. I went on a raid today, as you must surely already know.”

“And you couldn’t change clothes afterwards?”

“Gimme a break,” Tiffany snapped. “You’re the one who pitched a big top tent and called out the clown cars. The way you called me down here, I figured you maybe had a hostage situation or some shit, so I came prepared.”

Casey looked at his watch. “Well, it certainly took you long enough. But don’t worry about it. You’re back on the clock now.

“And since you asked, no, I didn’t call you down here just because you used to like to play dress up. I called you because we need some actual information. That’s in short supply just now.”

“And this couldn’t have waited another six hours?”

“Do you think an ultrahuman murder spree is some kind of game, Agent Trujillo?”

“Come on, Casey. I’m not the one who’s playing games.”

Casey looked around and realized that the techs were all staring at them. “Okay, Tiff. You win. Let’s take this outside.”

Tiffany followed Casey outside reluctantly, but she was surprised when they got more than a few yards away from the command tent and he kept on walking. “Where the hell are you going?” she asked.

“What is your problem?” he said, turning to face her. He looked genuinely surprised and more than a little pissed off. “I’m taking you to the crime scene, Tiffany. It’s why I called you. Now are you coming, or would you rather question every goddamned move I make for the rest of the night?”

Tiffany hurried to catch up, boots clacking loudly on the ground.

“Goddamnit, those things are ridiculous,” Casey snapped.

She shrugged. “Dramatic effect. They were the Owl’s idea.”

“Christ, Tiff, grow up. You’re an FBI agent, not some fucking has-been superhero.”

You used to like fucking a superhero, Tiffany thought savagely. It was your wife who had all the objections.

It was no use thinking like that, though. He was what the FBI wanted. He’d gotten promoted because he looked the way they wanted him to look, and he thought the way they wanted him to think. Meanwhile, she still languished in the New Haven Field Office because no one knew quite what to make of her — or of who she’d once been. It didn’t help that she’d fucked her former partner a few times, breaking up the poor guy’s marriage.

Anger flared just thinking about it, but she’d been so young and so, so alone after Oberon left. She couldn’t feel bad about it, even after all this time. He’d been the senior officer, and he’d let it happen. He’d been there every bit as much as she had been.

But no one saw it that way, then or now.

Still, at least Tiffany no longer felt nervous. She forced herself to take a breath to get her emotions back under control. “Alright Casey. What do you want to show me?”

He lifted the line of crime scene tape and stepped underneath. Tiffany followed reluctantly and again when he opened the door to one of the Diamond District’s shops. On the floor inside, she saw several chalked outlines where bodies had fallen. She saw just three here, but she knew there were more elsewhere. The bodies themselves had been removed, but even in the dark, Tiffany could see where blood had spilled from the victims’ throats or heads. From there, it spread widely, staining the shop’s tightly-knit white carpeting and leaving behind a sickly, coppery scent she knew far too well.

“What happened?” she asked quietly.

“The Siberian Tiger somehow weaponized a Neural Disruptor,” Casey replied. “At least, that’s what we think happened.” He pointed to the chalked outlines. “He ripped these three open with his claws, but we found ten more bodies scattered around the rest of the district. Not a scratch on the lot of ‘em, but they’re all neurologically unresponsive, and they were all bleeding from the ears when they fell. We’re not sure if they’re braindead, or if their condition might still be reversible somehow. The doctors say that they’ve never seen anything like it.”

“But—”

“That’s why I called you. Because not only is the Siberian Tiger back, he’s also kitted up with some of your buddy Frank McGuinness’s old tech.”

“But Frank would never do something like this,” Tiffany said.

Walcott stared at her like she’d lost her damn mind. “Are we forgetting about the Federal Reserve Bank? I seem to remember him dropping quite a few bodies back there.”

“Sure, but that wasn’t—”

“Damn it, Tiff. Obviously McGuinness wasn’t here,” Casey said. “We know he’s still in prison. We checked.” But then he reached inside his coat and drew forth a handful of color photographs. “Here, have a look at these.”

Surveillance cameras had caught the Tiger and Gun Girl Gracie multiple times. The Neural Disruptor sat conspicuously above the Tiger’s eyes, a thin gray headband with a large disk at its front. Behind him, Gracie, now either blond or wearing a blond wig, looked older, harder, and somehow harder-used than Tiffany remembered her. Tiffany could see it in the set of the woman’s face even though she’d worn sunglasses to hide her eyes. Still, she remained unmistakable in that outfit. She also carried the same silver-plated pistols she’d used back in the old days.

Tiffany couldn’t help wondering what Frank would make of all of this.

“What do you know about the Neural Disruptor?” Casey asked quietly.

“Not as much as you’re hoping,” Tiffany replied. “Frank McGuinness is, like, a fully functional mad scientist. You do know that, right?”

“But you knew him? You worked his case?”

Tiffany shook her head and looked away. She did not want to get into this with Casey Wolcott.

“Tiff?” Casey pressed.

She sighed and hugged her arms close to her chest. But he would never just let it go; she knew that. “Yeah. I knew him,” she said at last. “But I didn’t work his case. Not the way you’re thinking. This was back in the old days, Casey. The Diogenes Society, we didn’t work cases like that. He and Oberon and I… it was complicated.”

“Because you knew him from before?”

Tiffany turned away, feeling as sad as she’d felt in a good long time. She stared out the shop’s front window, saw the many floodlights standing on tripods all across the street and all the techs working furiously to collect evidence beneath them. Somewhere in her memory, an oft-forgotten teenage girl stirred and then shuddered, as if holding her knees to her chest.

“I… had a medical condition,” Tiffany said softly.

She’d been terrified. She’d had a disease that no one understood. Then she’d walked into a white-tiled clinic at Yale University’s New Haven hospital. Dr. Frank McGuinness had run that clinic. He’d just become the youngest department head on the hospital’s staff. He’d started doing some new kind of gene therapy work that very few people understood.

He’d been her only hope.

“And…?” Casey pressed.

* * *

“You’re pregnant,” Frank said. He smiled gently. Tiffany didn’t see any judgment in it. “I take it that you’re the girl we saw on TV a few weeks back? The one this ‘Oberon’ character saved from that burning building?”

Tiffany nodded. “How could you possibly—?”

“I’d thought as much. Thought that Oberon might be an alien, I mean.” Frank cleared his throat. “I, uh… Look, why don’t you sit down.”

Tiffany sat, and Frank pulled his chair up next to hers.

“I’m sorry to have to be the one to tell you this, but… you and Oberon, you can’t be together. He seems like a nice enough boy, but the fact is, his baby is killing you.” Frank put a hand on Tiffany’s shoulder to cushion the blow. “I don’t know that I’d even call it a baby. Not really. It’s behaving more like an alien infestation. Your genotypes aren’t remotely compatible, and the embryonic growth that your mating has produced has, well… It’s rewriting your DNA at a fundamental level. It’s created a fascinating RNA transcriptase mechanism that… But I, uh, I can see that you don’t really care. That’s okay.”

“What does this mean?” Tiffany asked. She felt herself go numb, unable to face it.

“Well, we’ll have to terminate the pregnancy, of course. It was never viable regardless. And… I don’t know that you’ll be able to have children, you know, afterwards. We can run some tests. I don’t want to rule anything out prematurely, but…” He trailed off and shrugged.

“Will I die?” Tiffany asked. Her hands trembled.

“Not if we move quickly. But you’re lucky that you came to see me. We’re in uncharted territory here.”

* * *

Tiffany looked back at Casey and then slowly forced her mind back to the present. “And Dr. McGuinness helped me control it,” she said.

“He gave you your powers, didn’t he?”

“He helped me survive them,” Tiffany admitted. “The powers, I did that to myself.”

Casey looked dubious. “But I thought—”

“How is any of this relevant? It’s ancient history.”

“We need someone to go talk to him,” Casey replied. “I’m sending you.”

“That won’t work.”

“Why not? You have a history with the man. Use it. Get him to open up.”

“Frank McGuinness is not gonna ‘open up’, Casey. Not to me, not to anyone. He’s been inside for ten years and hasn’t said shit. Whatever you’re thinking, it’s not gonna work.”

“Please, Tiff. We need something here. If you have to play on the man’s emotions, then do it. That’s the job.”

But that’s not what’s gonna happen, Tiffany thought. I’m not gonna play on his emotions. He’s gonna play on mine. That’s why he’s Dr. Necropolis, and I’m still just Special Agent Tiffany Trujillo, ex-ultrahuman superhero now stuck in the lowly New Haven Field Office.

Tiffany knew that Casey wouldn’t see it that way, though. She could argue with him all night, but he’d already made his decision.

“Fine,” she said at last. “I’ll do whatever I can. Just don’t expect too much.”

“Just do your best,” Casey replied. “That’s all I’m asking.”

And then, at last, Tiffany was free to go home.

Four Things on a Friday: A Personal Round-Up

2026-08-28T09:01:23.247-04:00

I want you guys to appreciate how busy I got this week. It's college football Week 0, both AFF podcasts ran over an hour this week, and I'm looking for a cover artist for The Return of Dr. Necropolis. And let me just note that as much as I love that title, "The Return of Dr. Necropolis" is long and a bit cumbersome for an actual book cover.

Sigh.

If you missed it, we had a truly outstanding AFF Army Football Show this week. Shannon Horne's husband Paul Horne joined us for an in-depth dive into Army's O-Line. I can pretty much guarantee that you've never heard anything like this before.

It got surprisingly mathematical. Paul went straight for my engineer's heart.

Anyway. I am trying to write here a little more often, so here goes.

1. My Buddy Sean Gave Me a Quote.

I love this cover so much
it sent me down a rabbit-hole.

Sean Smith, my plebe year roommate and author of Rank Absurdity and Even a Dog Enlists, Why Not You? gave me a quote for Dr. Necropolis this week. I can't possible put all of this on the cover, but here's where we are right now.

I'll own that Sean owes me a slightly more concise re-write, but I still found this pretty damned flattering.

2. I Hit the Mountaintop Yesterday

I had good stuff in the water yesterday -- for once -- and wound up doing my entire swim workout as one long set. Basically, I did 3 x (3 x 200 Free) on descending intervals, 3:05, 3:00, 2:55 plus one extra, aerobic-paced 200 to give me an even 2000 yards. With that, the set went almost exactly half an hour.

I hit an incredibly powerful, almost manic runner's high about midway through the set and tried to ride it up through the back half. Friends, I felt really good and got faster as the set got harder. Then I went into the gym, still riding the high, and cranked out another forty-five minutes of weights to the sweet, sweet sounds of Rage Against the Machine. By the time I left, I felt better -- and higher -- than I'd been in months.

The upside, obviously, is that I had a good workout, to the point that I can still feel the faintest aftereffects this morning. Part of me is still glowing. The downside, though, is that it can take eight or even twelve-plus hours for something like that to wear all the way off, and as noted, I can still feel. Which means that I also still felt it when I was trying to sleep last night -- and even when I woke up to go to the bathroom at 4:30 am this morning.

I'm now in a weird headspace. My mind feels sluggish, and my eyes hurt, but my muscular and aerobic systems are ready to crank out a metric century on the bike for a PR.

At some point, I am going to crash, and it's not going to be pretty.

3. AFF has a New Marketing Intern

My daughter started with us this week. She's a senior Psychology major at Clark University in Worcester, MA, working in a 4+1 Master's Program that will eventually see her with an MA in Marketing. So she needs a portfolio, and for the time-being, she's building it with AFF.

So far, she's taken over most of our social media, pulled and recaptioned this week's clips from the College Football Roundtable, and rewritten and reorganized our weekly mailer.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Army Football News & Podcast (@asforfootball)

For what it's worth, I told her that I didn't think recaptioning these shorts was worth the time it takes, and she responded that, "They look the way I want them to look." That was a good answer.

Long term, Emma wants to design an Army-Navy t-shirt for us and maybe eventually put together a one-minute Tik Tok-style weekly show summarizing the biggest key points from that week's content. We'll see how that goes.

4. Stratford speed cameras ticket thousands of drivers in first month (CT Post)

The following is strictly local news:

Nearly 4,900 motorists were ticketed here in July by the half dozen new automated speed cameras.

According to data provided by Mayor David Chess' administration, 4,861 violations were issued between July 1 and July 31 within the three targeted school zones at Nichols and Second Hill Lane elementary schools and Bunnell High School.

Prior to that period, drivers just received warnings for travelling 10 miles or more above the limit.

Nobody likes Big Brother, but this is such an obvious, common-sense approach to traffic enforcement that I can't see how anyone can be mad at it, especially since it's only targeting school zone.

***

That's all I've got, friends, but if you haven't yet, do me a favor and subscribe to the newsletter I put together last week to support Dr. Necropolis. I promise to send you just one email per month, and anyway, I'm gonna need your help getting the word out about the book.

Happy Friday!

Chapter 2

2026-08-24T11:35:19.748-04:00

Tiffany stumbled going up the stairs to her apartment. She loathed wearing heels, but she’d been in them for almost four hours now, and the light outside her apartment had gone out almost two months ago. She needed to call the super about it, but she’d barely been home enough to make the phone call. Maybe it would’ve made more sense to fly, but she felt bone weary, and using her powers took effort. With the traffic around Stamford, the drive out to her sister’s place had taken almost two hours, and then she’d needed to summon the energy to look happy watching all those mindless suburban housewives fawn endlessly over Dorothea’s pregnant belly.

But that wasn’t fair, was it? Those women weren’t stupid or even vapid. Some of them were smart, surely, or accomplished in their own right. They just weren’t agents in the FBI. Instead, their lives revolved around sippy-cups and playdates and the mundanity of suburban life in northern Westchester County.

That wasn’t a bad thing. But it also wasn’t a life that Tiffany had ever understood.

At last, Tiffany reached her front door. She turned her key in the lock, opened it, and called out, “I’m home!”

Neither of her cats stood waiting, however, and even calling out like that took more effort than Tiffany felt like she had to give right then.

She let herself slump against the doorframe. Dorothea had a house, a husband, and furniture that matched. Soon, she’d have a full-on family. By comparison, Tiffany still lived in the same two-bedroom walk-up she and Dorothea had shared back when Dorothea had been a student at the University of New Haven. Back when Oberon had still been Tiffany’s handsome superhero boyfriend. After all that time, Tiffany had two cats, a cheap sofa, and a bed that still felt too big for just her. Sure, she could’ve afforded more on her FBI salary — a bigger place and matching furniture, too — but when would she have needed it?

No one on Earth could ever replace Oberon. No one else could ever feel that much larger than life. No one could make her feel that safe and that special. Tiffany wished that she didn’t know that as well as she did.

She threw her keys down and shook her head, hurrying across the room. She grabbed a glass off the shelf, opened her fridge, and tapped the box of Sauvignon Blanc that was her refrigerator’s only edible occupant. The wine tasted stiff but drinkable even after two weeks — three cheers for vacuum packaging! — and with an effort, she pushed the past away. She kicked her heels off and focused what little energy remained within her. With a grunt, she jumped and left the ground, gliding like a queen with her arms outstretched. She crossed her living room in style, floating some six inches off the ground.

So what if Dorothea is having a baby? she told herself. I’m still the only one in this family who can fly.

She landed lightly on her couch, put her feet up, and finally let herself relax. She’d need to get out of her dress eventually, but for now that seemed like entirely too much effort. Her feet hurt, and her head hurt. She never wanted to go anywhere, ever again. She took a long pull from her wine glass and luxuriated in the exquisite feeling of not having to be anywhere.

Her phone rang. She picked it up reluctantly.

“Hello?”

“Good evening, ma’am. This is Lieutenant Blaine Winters, EFD special liaison to the FBI field office in Manhattan. Is Special Agent Tiffany Trujillo available?”

He sounded impossibly young, even over the phone.

Tiffany lay back and closed her eyes. “This is Trujillo, lieutenant. Do you know what time it is?”

“It’s twelve-fifteen a.m., ma’am. Sorry for calling so late.”

“Are you fucking kidding me? Tomorrow — check that, today — is supposed to be the first day I’ve had off in two weeks. What the hell do you want, Winters?”

“Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry, ma’am, but SAC Casey Walcott directed me to call you about this evening’s incident at the Manhattan Diamond Exchange. He said you were something of an expert on, uh, Dr. Necropolis.”

Tiffany pulled the phone away from her ear and stared at it in sheer amazement.

“Frank McGuinness is in Sing Sing, kid. Tell Walcott that he can go fuck himself. I sincerely doubt that the good doctor had anything to do with whatever bullshit he’s gotten himself into down there.”

“Yes ma’am. Umm... SAC Walcott said you might say that. He, uh, still wants your opinion on the crime scene.”

“My... what?”

Tiffany looked at her watch then shook her head. She reluctantly decided to agree to whatever would get this Winters kid off the phone, even if that meant doing a favor for an asshole like Casey fucking Walcott.

“Fine. Whatever,” she said sourly. “Just tell Casey to email my boss, and I’ll be down first thing tomorrow morning.”

“Umm...”

“What?” The moment stretched out. “Don’t tell me. He wants me down there tonight?” It wasn’t really a question.

“Yes ma’am.”

“What an asshole. You guys couldn’t have called an hour ago?”

“I’m sorry, ma’am. He just—”

“No, it’s okay. Jeez, Winters, even the Diogenes Society never kept hours like these.”

Surprisingly, Winters laughed. “That’s not what the old-timers say, Ma’am.”

“Yeah?” Tiffany said. “Well then they’re lying to you, pal. Nobody fucks you like the government, trust me.”

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2026-08-21T05:00:00.000-04:00

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Five Things on a Friday: We're Using BookFunnel, Friends

1. Dr. Necropolis Preview Plans

2. Corporate sponsorships to cover JMU's record American entrance fee (The Northern Virginia Daily)

3. The Return of Dr. Necropolis Playlist (Spotify)

4. Why Do We Root for Villains? (Page Chewing)

5. Army Football Night Games

Page-Chewing: "Why Do We Root for Villains?" with Danno E. Cabeza

Show Notes:

Five Things on a Friday: The Case of the Ad Hoc Rebuild

1. Inadvertent Website Redesign (AFF)

2. ISBN Number

3. Palace for the People

4. Discussion with Paul

5. Scientists are finding AI may make us remember things that never happened (WaPo)

Go Army! Beat FAU!!!

Stop-Motion: Cale Hellums Scoring Run

ISBN: 979-8-9982084-0-9

Describe your book (350 words max):

Biography (350 words max):

I'm just gonna drop this here....

Five Things on a Friday: Lex Luthor, Green Lantern

1. Dr. Necropolis Update

2. Lex Luthor: Green Lantern

3. Don't Say It - Live

4. Four Quarter Thriller: UTSA 31, USF 24 (ESPN)

5. Page Chewing: Beyond the Page

Five Things on a Friday: Bimbo Boost & Other Stories

1. Praise for The Return of Dr. Necropolis

2. Office Selfie

3. Friday Hair Metal: Bimbo Boost (Thundermother)

4. "We are professionals who give a sh*t!" (AEW)

5. Beat La. Tech: 5 Key to Victory Against the Bulldogs (AFF)

Podcast Widget

Chapter 7

July 8. Manhattan — Fifteen Years Ago.

The FAFO Podcast is out!

Five Things on a Friday: Joining The Peace Corps

1. Cover work on The Return of Dr. Necropolis

2. 40th Annual Swim Across the Sound Marathon: July 31, 2027!

3. 2026 Week 4 College Football Predictions for Every Game (Bleacher Report)

4. I Did The FAFO Podcast Yesterday

5. We asked pro athletes: What’s the one thing a leader said that helped you most? (The Athletic)

Chapter 6

Five Things on a Friday: Who Made Who?

1. This Week's AFF Army Football Show: AD Tom Theodorakis (As For Football)

2. The AI Inference Revolution Is Here (IEEE Spectrum)

3. Ride On by Monica Valli

4. Gun Girl Gracie

5. Microsoft exec called AI scraping the “largest theft of labor in human history” (Ars Technica)

Beers with Engineers Interview

#71 – Danno Cabeza: Engineer, Author, Army football fanatic.

Chapter 5

Five Things on a Friday: Dear Mr. Fantasy

1. Private equity faces existential crisis in US as unsold companies pile up (The Guardian)

2. UN votes to adopt new map that makes our world look very different (CNN)

3. Friday Music Project: Dear Mr. Fantasy

4. Five Ways to Beat the Bulls (As For Football)

5. I've Only Just Remembered Today Is September 11th

YouTube Short: Army's 648-Yard Offensive Explosion vs Bryant

Chapter 4

Cover Quotes for Dr. Necropolis

Five Things on a Friday: College Football Begins!

1. You Seemed to Like Last Week's Column

2. Beers with Engineers

3. How to spot a psychopath (The Guardian)

4. Bee Gees Blanket the World (Spotify)

5. UMass Beat Rutgers Last Night

Chapter 3

Four Things on a Friday: A Personal Round-Up

1. My Buddy Sean Gave Me a Quote.

2. I Hit the Mountaintop Yesterday

3. AFF has a New Marketing Intern

4. Stratford speed cameras ticket thousands of drivers in first month (CT Post)

Chapter 2

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