- Working at KSC
- NASA Old Headquarters building on KSC destroyed.
- Flintknapping points
- On going writing projects
- Vampires of Kennedy Space Center and the O&C
- Demons of Kennedy Space Center
- Demons of Kennedy Space Center, corpus callosotomy
- Ghosts of Kennedy Space Center, End of Spiders
- Dreams of Kennedy Space Center, lovers and pyramids.
- Witches of Kennedy Space Center
- Cave Bears of Kennedy Space Center
- Aliens of Kennedy Space Center, uninvited guests
- Remembering Kennedy Space Center
Shadows of Kennedy Space Center Launch Control Center vault
This is another tale of the Kennedy Space Center's multiverses, both in the distant past and the far future.
Follow ghosts, demons, gods, AIs, tourists, DNA experiments, vamps, and witches as they travel the multiverse only to discover their interconnections as allies and enemies across an endless history or future.
Every story is the true story.
Sign on the wall of the LCC
Launch Control Center vault
"Oh! Will you write a book about Fred?" she cried, clapping her hands.
Eileen was a darkly drifting storm; she claimed to have abandoned all her witchery, an oath, mindful of her reaction to brilliant scarlet blood, she claimed to have abandoned all her witchery.
"Fred and the weird shit going on around the space center?" Should I write a book?
We were on our smoke break in the Launch Control Center communications room, "Weird stuff," I said. "Ninety years of rocket launches, the big Mars rockets, all the manned and unmanned space shuttles."
"Strangers on base also," said Eileen.
"Have the rockets changed things, you know?" They create their own lightning, you know? What other effects might they cause? Like maybe creating cracks into other places, times or dimensions?
Look, I won't go so far as to say doors or gates or elevators have been opened, but you know leakage?
Like a hurricane blowing water under your front door but not breaking open the door? Things and thoughts are leaking—memories of other times, impossible memories. I know you have seen them, felt them also," I said.
Eileen winced and nodded her head. Strangers on base also.
"Fred the Computer? That old story? Not my fault Fred was murdered. Okay, okay, how to explain Fred; what does it take to create life? The space center is on an island in the longest estuary of North America- brackish water. Lord knows what rocket chemicals have saturated the ground, PCBs, poly-fluorocarbons, PFAS—Tetrachloroethylene and the hundred other chems that end in thylene or zine. The entire center should be a superfund site? Six-legged alligators and all that?"
Then consider Kennedy is a giant battery, a giant spider web of a million miles of cables connecting the NASA space center, Space Force base, the Trident submarine basin, the entire Eastern Space and Missile Test range."
I was losing her interest.
"And god damn, who knows what experiments are going on at the space center, right? At the Life Sciences building, the EDL, or that Rat house?"
I dropped my voice to a whisper and looked around. The girls, er excuse me, the ladies taking care of animals in the NASA mice house; they have told me NASA is fucking around with the double helix."
Eileen gave me a blank stare, stoned for sure, but it was evident she wasn't following, fucking witch.
"They are blending DNAs, toadfish, and mammals, probably vampire bats and blood! Mixing rat and human genes! Scrub jays, for god's sake."
She was interested again, eyes positively glowing. She licked her lips!
"Fred? Take into the effect of the massive Frankenstein lighting storms savaging this network and a million tons of lead, sitting in water, losing electrons to the ground via the cathodic protection system creating initially primitive brain cells and 100,000 alarms, fire alarms, intruder alerts, and personal monitors to serve as the physical touch connections to the outside world.
Evolution man! Evolution, evolving, growing, and changing in the perfect symbiotic soup for life. NASA thinks the vast network of electrons evolved into intelligence, into Fred the AI.
"And the leakage?" she asked, bored with any topic missing shiny, flowing crimson blood, 48-hour murder stories, romance stories, or vampire bats. Wires and cables, damn Greenlee, I don't care about that shit.
"Exactly! That is what I was getting at; Fred was ripe for influences, CPU sacrifices, programming glitches, or something, something good or evil, something, a leak, a quantum leak from the quantum other, a parasite, or imagine a lamprey other."
"An electron succubus?" asked Eileen, suddenly warming to the subject. "A Creutzfeldt-Jakob cyber neurodegenerative disorder from the ether, nether," she giggled.
Eileen was so tedious sometimes; I was being serious. She was stoned.
"Don't you have to eat your brother or something to get that Crud-jake brain-hard shutdown stuff?" I asked.
Eileen perked up at the visualization; she shook her blond braids in the way that always hooked men and women like doomed sea trout.
"Fred the Computer?" she asked. She almost purred.
God Damn when she purred like that.
"Fred. That is just a name that NASA has applied to whatever lives in those space center cables. Ghosts?"
Eileen passed the pipe back to me, the bowl glowing carmine at my deep inhalation of the smoke.
"You know my talent, Eileen, which results from either an old Gaelic folded gene, or parents abusing Lysergic acid diethylamide, or both. Also, my father liked his homemade persimmon wine. Now that is fucked up," I said with a rueful expression and smokey cough before handing the pipe back to Eileen.
Did she miss my persimmon wine joke? WTF?
"Your talent?" said Eileen. "I only wish an artist could reproduce the shit floating around your aura when you are doused with whiskey ecstasy. Painters would cut off their own ears!"
Or right now, just like sex, your aura colors are shifting like a bioluminescent jimson weed and opium smoke cloud. Greenlee, you enjoyed that murder of whatever the fuck you are talking about.
I took the pipe from her.
"Fred begged me not to power him down, and like most of my girlfriends, I filed the paperwork, dropped the key, and fled."
"You know, I'm receptive to .....signals, signs, hints, shadows, and dimensions, mostly static -but I heard his pleas not to power down. And that is when something evil moved in and took over Fred —a demon? Or a Crud-jake brain electron demon?"
"How many girlfriends?" asked Eileen as she inhaled deeply from the pipe again.
"They were too needy, like a succubus. I will not apologize except to the island ladies who brought guns and lawyers along with their babies."
"You are a bastard!" said Eileen, snorting out smoke from both nostrils. "Oh god damn, let me introduce you to my friend Ophelia. She likes to hear about this kind of stuff and is very pretty when not flopping around on the floor like a sea trout."
Sort of a harsh thing to say, I thought. Guns and lawyers.
We left the Launch Control Communications room, where we had our smoke break, and shut the smoky door behind us.
On the third floor of the Launch Control Center, we walked down the cavernous hallways, bouncing off the rows of children's art, the children of shuttle astronauts who would be old or in the re-gen tanks by now.
In room 3P11, Eileen knocked and walked through double doors—a dying CPU beeped in the shadows.
A tall, well-set technician with several expensive rings on her fingers typed the keyboard as if she were performing some religious function at Stonehenge. Cinnamon-colored hair draped like wings reached her shoulders. Her musing spider-like countenance was severe and stern.
I knew it was an act—I'm sure we had met before.
The paging area warning speaker over her head blasted, "As the Future of space work rolls out across the agency, Kennedy is rolling out a few improvements of our own!"
Eileen snapped her fingers, and the speaker went dead.
How did she do that?
"Ophelia, this is my friend, Greenlee," said Eileen.
"Love will make you immortal; love and coffee," I said, daring to get burned and too high to follow common sense.
Swift as the thrust of a spear, the cinnamon-headed technician inspected the quality of my shoes and gave me a sarcastic, negative nod of her pretty head.
Another materialistic rejection?
Ophelia turned to Eileen and silently mouthed, "Why did you bring him here?"
Then, feeling merciful, she looked at me and said, "Coffee, please."
Yes! A diligent goal, the first crack in her defensive walls. Where do I find the coffee?
But before I could ask about an instant coffee machine, Ophelia wrote her phone number on a blood donation form and held it out to me.
I reached for her note, and she jerked it back, crumpled it, and tossed the paper in her trash.
Frosty, cold, anger behind the azure eyes.
Eileen had warned me that Ophelia liked to inflict pain, yet I did not flee. Was the cinnamon lady suffering the brunt of other men's abrupt adventures?
The whispering winds of a shattered romance? A fucking hurricane-strong heartbreak is more likely.
Exertion to the challenge before me, "Coffee, sure," I said, unfazed by the bully-like gesture.
Her eyes returned to the keyboard, and she apologized with a big sigh.
"I'm sorry for that. Have we met somewhere before, on a cruise ship? I swear I remember writing my number down for you, and you lost it on purpose like a cretin. Silly, I have had a lot of strange dreams lately.
But the biggest problem is these hybrid predators on the space center, with their enormous upper canines. Want to be scared? Just look at their shoe size to get an idea of their fang size. Sixteen gauge needle on some! I couldn't refuse their calling, no."
She leaned sideways as if under the influence of a magnet or invisible river and raised the tresses of her red hair.
"See?"
I nodded, terrified by the marks on her neck. What hybrid predators? Her pheromones of cinnamon washed over me.
"How astonishing!" My voice faltered as if a connoisseur inspecting a doubtful work of art.
"You are turning green, Greenlee!" laughed Eileen.
What hybrid predators?
"The wound puzzles me, I admit. A bite or sting" What caused it? Water beetle? Those flying beetles have daggers in their tails," I said hesitantly and looked away, wishing for and missing the weight of a lever-action rifle.
The feeling of nausea, Eileen wore a bandage on the same spot on her neck! She had told me, "Water beetle."
Ophelia was slow to answer as she fixed her hair, strangely aloof, with haunted eyes, her countenance worn as if she were struggling under a spell or curse.
"The road in which I was traveling, my fixation with the darker aspects of life, drugs, spells, you might guess if you are hanging with Eileen. I met him at that VAB roof party."
She broke into a sob, distress on her face, and Eileen hugged her. Of course, I was envious of that hug and offered solace with a large pinch of tobacco.
"He could return to claim his property anytime. The Carnivora guilds travel wide circuits through palmetto meadows, launch pads, nettles- and over beach dunes, for theirs," said Ophelia.
Eileen looked at me. "Marcus is his name. The new stranger may be an example of the leakage you alluded to Greenlee. Quantum leakage caused by rocket blasts and a disturbance to Mother Gia?"
No, I thought, your fearful hauntings of a brain soaked in madness. Phantasms of terror in drug-induced brains?
"He calls again," said Ophelia, "Hungry. He calls from the Launch Control vault."
It was my turn to blanch. No, the vault was only an elevator ride and ladder climb away.
"I don't like confined spaces or that little hatch entrance to the vault," I squeaked. Loath to articulate my terror of tomblike spaces.
Marcus waited in the tunnel.
He waited under the Launch Control Center, fuming because he had woken with a thousand memories that were not his, making him angry.
"Bring me this, Greenlee," ordered Marcus, the fallen angel.
The women explained the request, and I agreed to go as far as the comm room and the Launch Control Center vault entrance.
"This is as far as I go," I said, standing at the entrance to the vault. "I don't have the certifications to go down there. I could be fired."
I was smug in my correctness, and I did not care for that tiny hatch, the narrow ladder, and the dimly lit vault that felt like it could shrink down on me at any second, like some cloudy sandwich wrap.
"Nope," I said smiling, finding a chair and plopping down in it, locating a fourteen-year-old newsletter with the print "KSC mourns fallen astronauts" and the back page, which was far more interesting read: "Test your cybersecurity knowledge with cryptogram puzzles of a hippopotami double helix, worthy of the son of Ra when using this emergent technology."
Ophelia smiled a beatific, heart-breaking cinnamon smile and, in an instant, shoved my chair to the hatch and dumped me into the dark tunnel.
I screamed until the sudden stop and blackness.
Slowly, my return to the living was overshadowed by the sound of the ocean and a wooden ship breaking upon a Florida reef.
Sea water suddenly covered me, and desperate ship rats climbed upon my head in a pointless attempt at rescue. I gagged on saltwater as the ship, a treasure galleon, was riven apart around me.
"He is possessed by the demon dreaming also," said a male voice.
"His aura colors are sexy, hypoxyphilia-like," said Eileen with hoarseness never heard before.
I could feel blood on my forehead or saltwater? I opened my eyes, at first thinking I was looking at the shadowed faces of old gods, Horus, Ra, and Osiris. Isis? The impact to my head had been hard.
"You will be okay," said the red-headed woman who held a rag to my forehead. Her scent was familiar, but I could no longer recall her name.
Eileen crouched, chewing on her wheat-colored braids, and, with her penetrating eyes, studied the aura that swirled about me.
"Fuck!" I yelped when the stranger stepped out of the shadows.
A wild burst of Eileen's laughter followed my reaction.
The man's presence caused an involuntary shudder; he was dangerous-looking, deadly-looking. Dangerous men were not allowed anymore.
"I am Marcus," said the terrifying man.
A hunter?
"I rarely have a discussion with my food. You suffer through such short, meaningless lives; I don't know why you even bother with life," said Marcus.
"Greenlee is my name. Can we get out of this dungeon?" I said, trying and failing to hide my fear.
The two ladies twittered.
"You have theories?" said Marcus, the stranger, "And I just saw, just watched, just lived your dream of dying in a treasure ship right off the shore of this very building," said Marcus.
"We are all having dreams of other lives, dreams that are not dreams but real tales. Here, let me share," said Marcus.
Suddenly, Greenlee was in the co-pilot seat of an antique fighter jet, an F-18. Marcus was in the pilot seat. "Going back around Green. Looks like survivors are fighting off the Vamps."
"Copy Falcon-man," I said.
I said?
"Circle back around, and I will take out Tower A of the VAB with a single missile. I could peel that building like a lime," I said over the radio helmet. I said?
The jet bucked as the missile fired, and below the circling jet, the west side of the VAB exploded in a ball of fire, incinerating hundreds of vampires.
"Autologous Blood!" snapped Marcus, standing in the dark LCC vault. That was you and I! But I have never been in one of those mechanical flying death traps, yet the story was true!"
"You poisoned me in another story, and I thought you had the hots for me," said the redhead.
"But you were a velociraptor!" sputtered Greenlee. His head hurt from the fall.
"The space-time continuum- it is leaking," said Greenlee.
Marcus felt Eileen falling into a dream and shared it with the three.
In the pyramid of Kukulkan, Eileen climbed the steep stone steps that had not seen fresh blood since the Spanish conquest.
Obsidian knife in hand, she chanted to the stone stairs that begged her for blood.
"Give us even a sparrow or mouse," said one block of stone.
The sharp smoke-black-clear blade in her hand pleaded for just a little cut. "A tiny cut, pleasssse."
She stopped to catch her breath and continued the chant, "Self-invented NASA chimeras soaked with the heavy fragrance of datura flowers, entrance to time-space continuum computed metaphysical systems of the universe, temple of the feathered serpent, the embodiments of the double-helix in the glittering sanctuary of deterministic chaos shaken by rockets lifting from a space center launch pad."
The obsidian blade hissed and cajoled, "I am the cure for the hurt we call living."
"Digital Age of Risk Prediction," she said in a silvery voice.
The temptation to end, the hard shut down, her cheeks were spangled with tears as she considered the vast number of years and ice ages she had lived, the parade of wandering souls through the centuries, the dead, her only constant company. Her search for another immortal, another god, another love.
Marcus, Greenlee, and Ophelia stared open-mouthed at Eileen at what her dream implied—the tremulous dream of a god thirsting for her self-destruction.
"What the fuck?" snarled Marcus, his sixteen-gauge fangs displayed in all their glory.
Other tails of the Space Center:
Vampires of Kennedy Space Center
Demons of Kennedy Space Center
Demons of Kennedy Space Center, corpus callosotomy
Ghosts of Kennedy Space Center
Dreams of Kennedy Space Center
Aliens of Kennedy Space Center
Director of Kennedy Space Center
Hitchhikers of Kennedy Space Center
Witches of Kennedy Space Center
Cave Bears of Kennedy Space Center
Chimeras of Kennedy Space Center
Gods of Kennedy Space Center and the Nile
Dinosaurs of Kennedy Space Center
Kayakers of Kennedy Space Center
Remembering Kennedy Space Center
Shadows of Kennedy Space Center
Starman of Kennedy Space Center
Gate Jumpers of Kennedy Space Center
Allies of Kennedy Space Center (Pt 2 of Gate Jumpers
Savants of Kennedy Space Center
Ferals of Kennedy Space Center
Return HOME from Shadows of Kennedy Space Center
For pet lovers around the globe, "It's a Matter of Luck" is a collection of heart warming stories of horse rescues from the slaughterhouse.
Available on Amazon:
It's a Matter of Luck: Inspirational, Heartfelt Stories of Horses Given a Second Chance.
by Kim Ryba & Lina T. Lindgren
Warning: This book may cause your eyes to water in a good way. (speaking from experience after reading it)
Please give Kim and Lina a heartfelt review on Amazon!
Author Bruce Ryba at Kennedy Space Center Launch Pad 39B & Artemis 1. "We are going to the Moon!"
Author's discussion (that's me) on You Tube of a book review on Amazon
For the video versions of information, please check out my YouTube Channel (Turkeys, Flintknapping, dive stories etc.)
My fictional series/stories on Florida history:
Freedoms Quest (book one)
Struggle for the northern frontier and other lost tales of old Florida.
Available on Amazon
Desperate times call for bold action.
In a desperate move to retain Florida and protect the treasure-laden galleons on their dangerous return journey to Europe, the King of Spain issues a royal decree offering refuge to all English slaves who escape Florida and pick up a musket to defend the coquina walls of Saint Augustine.
In another bold gamble, the King offers refuge to the dissatisfied Indian nations of the southeast who will take up arms against the English.
Clans, traumatized by war and disease, cross the Spanish Frontier to settle the cattle-rich land and burned missions of Florida.
Follow the descendants of the conquistador Louis Castillo in remote Spanish Florida, a wild and swept by diseases, hurricanes, and northern invasions.
Book Two: Available on Amazon!