Comments on: Painting With Shotguns XXXVII

By: terribleminds

terribleminds — Thu, 27 May 2010 03:18:59 +0000

@Jonathan:

That’s incredible. Congratulations. Are you working on the Department Zero show at all? Very exciting stuff!

– Chuck

By: Jonathan Maberry

Jonathan Maberry — Wed, 26 May 2010 22:58:33 +0000

Chuck…thanks for the smart and funny review. Glad you liked PATIENT ZERO.

ABC announced the other day that ‘Department Zero’ (based on the Joe Ledger novels) is on the shortlist for a mid-season slot. The pilot is being written by Javier Grillo-Maruach (LOST, MEDIUM, MIDDLEMEN).

There are also two free Joe Ledger short stories available online: “COUNTDOWN” is a prequel to PATIENT ZERO (http://us.macmillan.com/CMS400/uploadedFiles/COUNTDOWN_free.pdf) and “DEEP, DARK”, which takes place just before the second book, THE DRAGON FACTORY. Here’s the link: http://jonathanmaberry.com/download-the-free-joe-ledger-story-deep-dark

A third Joe Ledger short story, “ZERO TOLERANCE” will appear in the anthology THE LIVING DEAD 2 edited by John Joseph Adams for Night Shade Books. That story is a direct sequel to PATIENT ZERO, and the anthology will be out in September.

And there are four more Joe Ledger novels: THE DRAGON FACTORY (out now), THE KING OF PLAGUES (Feb 2010), THE OTHERS (2011) and VISITORS (2012).

Hope you stick around for the rest of the ride. Even I think it gets weird.

By: Julie

Julie — Wed, 26 May 2010 19:58:30 +0000

Congrats on the photo and essay, man. That is most excellent.

I am putting Patient Zero in my Amazon cart. Right now.

By: Spidle

Spidle — Wed, 26 May 2010 19:56:15 +0000

You may say that flippantly, my sweet little Wendig, but in your mind you are starting to draw more and more connections. You know it to be true. Out of all the red herrings or potential crimson sardines in that show, the 4-toed statue was the only seemingly rufescent monkfish that pointed to the true nature of what we were seeing.

By: terribleminds

terribleminds — Wed, 26 May 2010 19:41:10 +0000

You’re fired.

By: Spidle

Spidle — Wed, 26 May 2010 19:38:54 +0000

Wait… that statue had 4 toes, right? No biggie – the Simpsons characters have 4 toes. Booyah.

By: Spidle

Spidle — Wed, 26 May 2010 19:37:20 +0000

Here’s the thing that we’ve all missed that just occurred to me…

Ready? This is gonna be huge…
Ready? Ok…

Lost takes place in the Simpson’s Universe.
A Massive 3-toed statue? C’mon… erm… wocka… w-wocka?

By: terribleminds

terribleminds — Wed, 26 May 2010 19:25:32 +0000

Heck, that theory works for me.

The hieroglyphics — man, I dunno. They connect to a larger Egyptian iconography that kind of fails to pay off.

– c.

By: Spidle

Spidle — Wed, 26 May 2010 19:23:31 +0000

The Fucking Button: A Half-Baked Theory
The hatch station was put in place because they drilled too deeply into one of the weak spots in the crust of the island and broke almost broke through to the evil that was being held at bay (corked up) in the cave. In order to fix their mistake, a concrete slab was poured into the shaft (just like all of the rubble dumped into the shaft that the MIB was building back in ye olde times) – which we saw when Desmond had to turn the key on the failsafe when the button could no longer be pushed.
The turn of the key detonated a small nuclear device – exceedingly tiny would be my guess, but it’s also possible that while the detonation would be explosive, it have been contained by the suddenly freed electromagnetic energy of whatever was buried. Luckily, though the force of the explosion would have brought everything down on top of the fail-safe, so nothing would escape. Kind of like a run-flat tire – it gets punctured but then is immediately sealed.
But, I digress… what did the button do? This is a tough one and my best guess – degaussing. When the button wasn’t pressed everything metal was pulled to the weakest part of the room – where the magnetic pull was strongest. So, something had to combat that pull constantly and effectively negate the force of the field. The way degaussing works is that it introduces an opposite magnetic field. Simple – opposites cancel each other out, or at least achieve a balance.
Look at it this way – remember the old CRT computer monitors? The more they were left on, the more the screen would slow become distorted or the colors would be slightly off. You’d hit the degauss button, and BZZZZT! everything would be back to normal. This is where the assumptions creep in, so bear with me.
Obviously, the DI had some way of monitoring the hole or the weakness of the seal and even had a way to utilize the unique properties of what lay beneath (think numbered bunnies). So, either the seal the slab/patch they poured/installed was never strong enough, or they purposefully bypassed their own seal enough to play what was beyond it. In doing that, they then introduced a fault that had to be accounted for – the button and the machinery behind it. My guess is that whatever machinery was put in place to keep the forces at bay while still allowing them to experiment and research, also required a regular degaussing to keep it from overloading and allowing the cork to pop out, so to speak.
I can’t even begin to speak to the hieroglyphics on the countdown timer above the doorway… that one’s beyond me.
What am I missing here?

By: terribleminds

terribleminds — Wed, 26 May 2010 18:52:03 +0000

Also: a College Humor rundown (video form) of the unanswered questions. Funny, but actually a (largely) legit list, not a parody.

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1936291

– c.