Strip 828 -- First Seen: 2011-11-18
Escape From Terra is updated with new pages every Monday through Friday.

QV on a short break

QUANTUM VIVE is taking a break for a few weeks, as we prepare for Part 2 of the Novo Palermo story, and also for a Kickstarter campaign for Part 1, which will start in September.

In the meantime, Not-Safe.Space will continue, as a murder mystery begins and the relationship between Eithne and Diana develops in unexpected directions.

Not-Safe.Space is a NSFW strip but more than half the pages are SFW so I've set those to *not* require a Patreon membership. Readers should be able to follow the story without seeing the NSFW pages. If I've done this right.

Kickstarter successful and closed

The Kickstarter campaign for Not-Safe.Space Chapter 3 concluded successfully on April 21, and Scott extended the time allowed for late pledges until May 19.

Books have been ordered from the printer and Scott will be spending the next week or so setting up and sending the PDF files to those who asked for them.

(There are still six of you who have not responded to the survey asking for e-mail and snail-mail addresses, he'll do the best he can.)

Thanks to all for supporting this Kickstarter!

The Transcript For This Page

Panel 1
The hearing room, re-establishing the scene: Pablo (camera is facing him this time) seated at his desk: before him sit Guy Caillard, to Pablo's right, and Emily Rose, to his left. Behind Guy and Emily the room is packed full of witnesses. In the front row, not far from Emily, sits 'Madame Defarge,' a woman looking like she came straight out of A Tale of Two Cities, but with some 22nd-Century updates. She is knitting something unrecognizable.
Pablo's manner now is softer than before.
Pablo: Emily, I cannot in good conscience cut you loose, because it was an 'accident.'
Pablo: And you cannot in good conscience turn your back on what you have done, can you?
Panel 2
Emily sits in her chair, slumped forward a bit, looking defeated.
Emily: No, I can't.
Emily: But I don't have any money – what can I do to make things right?
Panel 3
Flashback panel: Libby (still bruised and bloody from her fall) and Emily holding a stretcher carrying the comatose Anton and lowering it into an auto-medic. The auto-medic looks something like a sleek, futuristic, open coffin, with six fat little impellers where the wheels on an earthly ATV would go; the body is large enough to hold a person laying flat, and has a clear retractable canopy.
Caption (Pablo): 'Well, I am going to give you credit for helping Libby get Anton into the auto-medic, once you understood how badly you fouled things up.
Caption: 'Damn, girl, you cut his spine and destroyed his aorta.'
Panel 4
More flashback: The canopy is closed over Anton, the auto-medic activates, various lights flash. The girls look at the lights expectantly.
Caption (Pablo): 'He was clinically dead from blood loss in less than a minute.
Caption: 'Only Libby's – and your own – quick action stopped this from being a far worse tragedy.'
Panel 5
Medium shot of Madame Defarge in the front audience row, knitting, and listening to Pablo speak from off-panel.
Pablo: As it is, Anton is in an induced coma in an autodoc until it can micro-splice most of his spinal cord and rebuild his aorta.
Pablo: But the emotional trauma of feeling himself die, will be much more difficult to make right.

Panel 6
Emily and Pablo, focus on Emily. He can see that she is now looking very ashamed.
Pablo (thought): Shame. Good.
Pablo (thought): This opens the opportunity for Emily to grow, ethically.

Panel 7
Close-up of Pablo, standing up and speaking to the audience.
Pablo: Okay, unless anyone else wants to put their 2-mill's worth in, I'm going to recess this hearing for four centimes while I deliberate.
Pablo: Be back by noon, if you want to see how this gets wrapped up.
Pablo: Hearing recessed.