The weather was really bad. Night was not the problem; in fact it was of great help, but the rain could become troublesome. He knew that this was not going to be easy, especially with the downpour.
It was a little after 10. He had less than two hours to get the job done because at 12 was the end of the day he thought. “End of the day” he mused; yet he knew it was no joke. Nobody could laugh at time and get away with it.
The wall was not going to be a problem, nor was the way to the main chamber. He had been here many times, but for legitimate reasons. This time was different. He still couldn’t believe what had happened that evening. Nobody in his position would have.
How could The Root be compromised! It was the inner core of The Delta. He silently cursed his luck as he slowly looked beyond the ditch that had been his hiding place for the past half hour. A flash of lightening illuminated TBRS Headquarters written on the granite board next to the eastern gate. Another damn cliché, I must stop watching those spy flicks he thought. A couple of guards who had been there for the last 15 minutes smoking were now moving away. This was it. He checked the battery charge on his equipment. It should last for a couple of hours. He removed a small remote with a touch screen and activated his suit that closely resembled a scuba divers suit. He started to slowly blend into the background until a point when only his eyes were decipherable when open. He started moving swiftly yet soundlessly towards the wall. He knew he was the only one who could pull this off. He had been trained for this after all!
Luckily, The TBRS never really had any sense alarms, which would go off if anyone spoke or touched anything important nor did it have any heat sensors or surveillance cameras. It was the headquarters for the Time Balance Regulation Services, TBRS in short. Surely nobody with the right mind ever planned on breaking into the TBRS. They were, in layman terms, called Time Police who regularly traveled through time to catch criminals. They were the best there was and known to be quite ruthless. If people traveled through time the world as we know changes. Their mere presence creates a parallel universe. But that was before TBRS came into the picture.
He quitely scaled the wall and landed softly on the other side. He had counted 5 officers scouting the perimeter and an officer stationed on the first floor and the terrace. They were all armed with automatics and night vision equipment. What use did it have when the enemy was a chameleon! He walked calmly towards the nearest door absolutely undetected, entered the access code and swiped a fake id in the slot next to the keypad. The door slid open. He thanked his paranoia for the hundredth time that evening.
He quickly moved through the atrium and entered a door almost hidden in the recess at the left corner. Nobody could have spotted the door unless they knew exactly where it was. The narrow passageway took him into the main chamber. There was nobody there. This was unusual, something was wrong. He knew there was no way in hell that this could be so simple yet right at the other end of the atrium was the safe box in which was what he sought.
The Cube.
Dr. Arielle Andréa and her team had developed the Time Cube to solve that problem. Now people could travel through time without disturbing anything as long as the traveler stuck to the certain rules. In fact she was the sole reason for Delta to even have a fighting chance. As he thought about the Cube his mind started to get clouded by the thoughts about Delta, The Root, his friends…. and Arielle. A bitter train of thoughts. There was no happiness in them. He has lost them all. In his reverie he almost destroyed the only hope left, if it wasn’t for a guard’s loud snore. For a moment his heart froze. He slowly surveyed the ceiling only to see that it was transparent like glass unlike during the day and also somehow even sound of the snoring guard sitting on a desk in the corner could also be heard. Immediately he realized that the ceiling was not transparent, in fact it was absent. The guard’s table was the only thing to be supported. This room amplified sound. The roof that was present by the day would absorb the sound waves making it a normal room. But without it even a pin drop would be like ringing a doorbell. The snore that he had been listening to all this while was just the guard breathing, he could now see him slowly scan the outside through a small window next to him. He turned on his anti-gravity shoes again thanking his paranoia for saving him from trouble. Though they were called antigravity shoes, they actually were variable polarity magnets that would align itself opposite to the earth’s magnetic field thereby using the repulsive force to slightly rise above the ground.
He moved to the other end of the chamber and slowly lifted the safe box from its place in a small compartment in the wall. He had to be very careful not to make any sound. The soft padding on his gloves helped muffle even the slightest of the sounds. The guard was still looking out of the window. Its time to get out of here he thought as he looked into his watch. 10:40. He quickly started to head back through the way he had come in.
Within no time he was over the wall and away from the headquarters. The guard had still not noticed the missing box. That was too easy he smiled uneasily, this must be where luck turned its tide he thought when suddenly the alarm went off. The guard must have realized that the box was missing. He cursed under his breath as started to sprint towards his transport, a mini jet.
It was only by 11 that he was with the box in his jet and at a safe distance from the headquarters. They had not picked up his trail. Putting the jet on autopilot he started to hack the code to open the safe box. Within 10 minutes he was through. Proclaimed the best, not for nothing eh, he mused. He now had less than 50 minutes to do whatever was left to do as per the plan. That would be more than sufficient. He still couldn’t believe it, how could this have happened to The Core? How did it come down to this? Well he had to put the plan into action. There was no turning back now. He was going to use the cube to go back in time. But this time he was not going to do it by the book. He was going to break the rule on purpose.
He was going to create a parallel universe....
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Friday, May 30, 2008
Shawn Lane - Powers Of Ten (1992)
Shawn Lane (1963-2003) born in Memphis, Tennessee; began learning guitar at the age of 10. By then he had spent quite some time learning piano, but decided that guitar would be his natural instrument. He along with bassist Jonas Hellborg have worked on many album between 1995 and 2003. This guitar virtuoso suffered from psoriasis and arthritis through out his life, which made walking very difficult. In 2003 he passed away in a hospital in Memphis.
Shawn Lane is best know for his solo album Powers Of Ten released in 1992. Most of the music was composed on Piano initially as he considered it his main writing instrument. Like most virtuoso guitarists Shawn Lane's compositions are very vivid. Unlike regular virtuoso instrumentalists he had 2 instruments with which he was proficient. The Piano compositions on Powers Of Ten are very impressive. He preferred keeping the music quite soft, using distortion in a very pleasant manner. The composition very often have jazz and progressive elements in them. Songs like Not Again, West Side Boogie and Paris cover a wide range of musical styles. To me, he is an artist who closely resembles Eric Johnson. On the whole a must try for people interested in instrumental music.
Shawn Lane auditioned for the lead guitarist spot in the band Black Oak Arkansas at the age of 14. Youtube has a video of him shredding at the age of 16. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXADYMCreLg Shawn Lane matured from that point on and went on to be a virtuoso.
The Tri-Tone Fascination is another of his solo albums that is quite interesting. Unlike Power Of Ten this album is slightly less palatable, although the album lives upto ones expectations.
Spheric Universe Experience - Anima (2007)
Vince Benaim (guitarist) with his friends Sam (drummer) and John Drai (bassist) came together to form Gates of Delirium in 1999. It was only by 2001 that keyboardist Fred Colombo and vocalist Alex joined in to form a complete band and was renamed as Amnesya. In August 2002, the band split because of musical disagreements leaving Vince, John and Fred to continue under the name of Spheric Universe Experience (S.U.E.) with Franck Garcia as the new vocalist. Thus an awesome, yet unheard of, French progressive metal band was born. Influenced by bands like Dream Theater, Symphony X, Angra and even older progressive bands like Pink Floyd, S.U.E. has magically combined progressive metal with a tinge of jazz and classical to produce something brilliant. Keyboardist Fred Colombo adds a symphonic touch to complex riffs built in very interesting time signatures.Their album Anima (2007) is perhaps the best progressive album in recent times. The songs have deep lyrical sense and are quite poetic. Songs like The Key and End Of Trauma have odd time signatures while Black Materia has Fred running along chromatic scales. It takes some time to actually get used to their sense of music, which at first might appear absurd. On the whole, it is a treat for the progressive metal lovers but it may not be very palatable for the newbies.
A montage on the song Being uploaded on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWs52NTkJp8 is a must see.
They have an older album called Mental Torment (2005) which has always been unavailable to me untill now. I've heard to the song Burning Box Gala for which is an instrumental and it definitely speaks tons about the album itself. With great expectations I leave its review pending for now.
Wintersun - Wintersun (2004)
Wintersun is a band conceived and nurtured solely by Jari Mäenpää (ex-Ensiferum frontman). He employed only a session drummer (Kai Hahto) to perform the drums and percussion, while he himself performed the vocals, bass, guitars and synthesizer alone in the self-titled album Wintersun released in 2004.This Finnish band could be superficially classified as melodic death metal, but the musical interludes and lyrics have a progressive touch in them. Jari is pretty crazy to try and do a nearly one man album by ditching Ensiferum (as the dates for the Ensiferum tour and recording dates of Wintersun clashed), but the result is an outstanding album full of harmonic progressions of the guitar and synthesizer, some simple yet elegant riffs and some quite complex. One the whole its a must try for melodic death metal lovers.
In 2008, Wintersun is expected to be back with an album titled Time. This time Jari is not alone. The band now consists of:
- Jari Mäenpää − vocals, guitar (studio keyboards, bass on Wintersun)
- Teemu Mäntysaari − guitar
- Jukka Koskinen − bass
- Kai Hahto − drums
Well I am definately waiting for this one.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)