Strip 853 -- First Seen: 2011-12-23
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
Cut back to Bert at his desk, talking to his comm.
Bert: After Neanne left, the stay-at-homes talked, even though they were warned not to.
Panel 2
Resume flashback: A pair of talkative aboriginal women sit before a desk behind which sits a Caucasian (white Australian) human rights worker, also female, who listens quietly, taking notes.
Caption (Bert): 'The aboriginals never bought the cover story that the child was mixed, Polynesian and Caucasian – her skin was white and she was more or less red-headed.
Caption (Bert): 'They told some human rights workers in Australia the story.'
Panel 3
Medium shot of the worker at he desk, looking doubtful.
Caption (Bert): 'At first, the rights workers were dubious ...'

Panel 4
Looking at the two aboriginal women from the rights-worker's pov: One of the woman is putting a folder full of 8x10 glossy photos on the desk with one hand while pointing at it emphatically with the other; the second woman is reaching into a cloth bag. We only see enough of the corners of the photos to tell them are shots of a person, but we don't really get a good look of the subject.
Caption (Bert): 'Then they presented their evidence: they had secretly taken photos of Neanne.

Panel 5
The second woman is proffering a 4-inch long lock of hair, bound with a small rubber band, laying within a small, white napkin which the strand had been wrapped in.
Caption: 'But here's the kicker: they also provided hair samples.

Panel 6
End flashback sequence, Cut to Tobi at his desk, smiling at his own joke.
Tobi: Hey, maybe it was just Yeti hair.
Bert (filtered): Ha ha. So, the human rights workers checked out the site of the compound …

Panel 7
One more flashback shot: Same shot as panel 1 of 179, except the compound is gone, as if it had been erased. A bit of concrete rubble here and there is the only marker that anything had been in this place. In the foreground, the human rights worker and a male colleague stand behind their 22nd-Century version of a Land Rover, roughly where the gate used to be, looking puzzled.
Bert: '… but it had been razed to the ground and the soil saturated with bleach. Mount Carmel all over again.'