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Who Are You' has its market premiere this week at AFM, following its world premiere at the Rome Film Festival.

‘Diabolik’ Franchise Directors, the Manetti Brothers, on Why We Side With the Master Criminal: ‘He Pushes You to Be Free’ (EXCLUSIVE)

So yes, we're off on another trip and are having a great time. We are now on the third "stop" of this holiday. The first stop was a place we've flown thru so many times, but really never took

Where in the world are we - part 1

the partner of Ginko. Bellucci, who has a daughter with former partner Vincent Cassel (1999-20013), was speaking ahead of the presentation in Rome of the documentary of her 2019-2023 stage tour, Maria Callas: Letters and Memoirs. A former top model ...

'Saw man before artist' says Bellucci of new partner Burton

Mushi-shi is a supernatural adventure anime centering on protagonist Ginko, a wanderer who travels about investigating instances involving the supernatural Mushi. Mushi are otherworldly beings who seem to exist in largely rural areas and cannot be ...

10 Most Beautiful Anime Depictions of Nature

Halloween is near, so here's a list of the 10 best psychological horror anime of all time that will surely give you a thrilling experience.

10 best psychological horror anime of all time

Northeast Ohioans are always looking for a new place to celebrate birthdays, anniversaries, and beyond. Here are 35 restaurants prime for special occasion dining in Greater Cleveland.

35 restaurants in Northeast Ohio perfect for special occasions and celebrations

Paytm Insider is built by the same team that created Bacardi NH7 Weekender (us) and we sure know what goes into putting together a great experience. Our technology, marketing and customer support can help you build a community of not just ticket buyers ...

Miss Ginko Presents REWIND - Throwback Set Feat. 8-Bit Culprit & Phreshprince

The veins in the leaf radiate out from the petiole or leaf stem. What a perfectly lovely leaf! Ginko leaves The ginkgo is a dioecious tree meaning that male and female parts are contained on different trees. The male trees have drooping catkins while the ...

Grow Your Own Future

Ginko will be eligible for up to $331 million in milestone payments. Ginko Bioworks and Pfizer have officially announced a partnership focused on the discovery of RNA-based drug candidates, with the pharma giant leveraging Ginko’s proprietary RNA ...

Gingko Bioworks, Pfizer Agree to Multi-Target RNA Discovery Collaboration

Meet the Winners of Startups in North and Central America

The IT market is developing rapidly, and the current trends are changing very quickly, so it is especially important for IT companies to understand what to expect in the coming year in order to plan their recruiting processes effectively. In our first article this year, we will talk about fields within the IT industry, which are currently developing particularly intensively, which specialists are in increasing demand. We'll also talk about which IT professions are in high demand and which are less popular. The fact is that the IT market is still a candidate market. The demand for IT specialists is as high as it was, and companies will continue to compete with each other in hiring candidates. IT specialties in demand in 2022 Recently, the demand for continues to grow: IT specialists of this profile are responsible for the reliability of the site and the creation of functional and high-quality software. According to the international job search portal, Indeed, the average annual salary of an SRE engineer is $131,842. SRE engineers (site reliability engineering) Among the main soft skills that an SRE engineer should have, employers name the ability to work with a large amount of information and to be able to analyze it at a deep level. We share an inspiring fact for those who really want to try themselves in IT and especially love SRE. Jennifer Petoff, head of the SRE training department at Google and co-author of Google's SRE book, has no first education related to IT. Jennifer has a PhD in chemical sciences, but that didn't stop her from becoming a cool SRE specialist :) Therefore, if you are determined to conquer SRE horizons and ready to work hard — go ahead and master a new field. This profession in 2022 will be at the top of demand, so even junior specialists have good chances to build a career. Data specialists are also in demand now — for example, data analytics. The demand for testers has also increased. In 2022, companies will need a lot of QA. It is impossible not to mention that Golang developers are still very popular, and there are still very few of them on the IT market today :) Programming languages such as Java, C++, and Python are not losing their top positions too. Python in 2022 rose from third to first place in the TIOBE ranking, while Java and C++ have 3rd and 4th places respectively, holding positions in the top five. What will change? While certain IT specialties are getting more popular, there are also those for which demand is decreasing. You can observe a similar situation with PHP developers: this is due to the fact that this programming language is now being actively rewritten and changed to meet modern realities. In the TIOBE rating, PHP dropped significantly lower when compared to last year. At the end of 2021, it already lost several positions. As of today, it did not enter the top 10 most popular programming languages, ending up in 11th place. Ahead of the entire planet One of those areas that are actively developing and will continue to develop in 2022 is the biotech industry, which is based on medicine and IT. The biotechnology industry studies the issues of genetic engineering and also considers how biology can be used in solving various technological problems. Among the major biotech corporations are BIOCAD, Amgen, Ginko BioWorks, Bioniq, and others. Biotech, again, primarily requires data specialists — data analysts, big data specialists, biostatistics specialists (biostatistics is applied in the development of statistical methods in biology and medicine). In addition, there is a great demand for cybersecurity engineers. Take into consideration the large amount of data that is currently stored in the digital space. One of the priorities for companies is to ensure their security and protection from cyber-attacks. Up and only up The question that many IT companies are worried about today: What forecasts can we expect on salary forks of candidates? Despite the fact that it is difficult to name exact numbers, the level of salaries of IT specialists, in any case, will continue to increase. The CEO of Lucky Hunter Tatiana Melnichuk advises considering at least a 30% growth. Heading abroad Another trend that has entered with us in 2022 and will not leave the IT market in the near future is the growth in the number of Russian IT specialists, for whom relocation is a high priority. This is partly due to the fact that Western companies have realized the high level of professionalism Russian developers have, and now they are hiring Russian-speaking candidates to strengthen their teams. The countries that most often hire IT specialists from Russia include the United Kingdom, Germany, and the United States. For example, we recently filled a job opening for a senior product designer for a London startup offering business solutions for the effective organization of a telephone support service. In general, we can say with confidence that it will not be boring in 2022 for sure :) Our team wishes both candidates and IT companies a productive and interesting year!

IT Market in 2022: Professions, Industries, Hiring

Authors: (1) Alexander E.I. Brownlee, University of Stirling, UK; (2) James Callan, University College London, UK; (3) Karine Even-Mendoza, King’s College London, UK; (4) Alina Geiger, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany; (5) Justyna Petke, University College London, UK; (6) Federica Sarro, University College London, UK; (7) Carol Hanna, University College London, UK; (8) Dominik Sobania, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany. Table of Links Abstract & Introduction Experimental Setup Results Conclusions and Future Work Acknowledgements & References 4 Conclusions and Future Work Genetic improvement of software is highly dependent on the mutation operators it utilizes in the search process. To diversify the operators and enrich the search space further, we incorporated a Large Language Model (LLM) as an operator. To generalise, future work should consider projects besides our target, jCodec. Our experiments used an API giving us no control over the responses generated by the LLM or any way of modifying or optimizing them. Though we did not observe changes in behaviour during our experiments, OpenAI may change the model at any time, so future work should consider local models. We experimented with only three prompt types for LLM requests and within this limited number of prompts found a variation in the results. Finally, our implementation for parsing the responses from the LLMs was relatively simplistic. However, this would only mean that our reported results are pessimistic and an even larger improvement might be achieved by the LLM-based operator. Limitations. We found that, although more valid and diverse patches were found with standard edits using Random Sampling, more patches passing the unit tests were found with LLM-based edits. For example, with the LLM edit using the Medium prompt, we found over 75% more patches passing the unit tests than with the classic Insert edit. In our Local Search experiment, we found the best improvement with the Statement edit (508 ms). The best LLMbased improvement was found with the Medium prompt (395 ms). Thus there is potential in exploring approaches combining both LLM and ‘classic’ GI edits. Summary. Our experiments revealed that the prompts used for LLM requests greatly affect the results. Thus, in future work, we hope to experiment more with prompt engineering. It might also be helpful to mix prompts: e.g., starting with medium then switching to detailed to make larger edits that break out of local minima. Further, the possibility of combining LLM edits with others such as standard copy/delete/replace/swap or PAR templates [11] could be interesting. Finally, we hope to conduct more extensive experimentation on additional test programs. The code, LLMs prompt and experimental infrastructure, data from the evaluation, and results are available as open source at [1]. The code is also under the ‘llm’ branch of github.com/gintool/gin (commit 9fe9bdf; branched from master commit 2359f57 pending full integration with Gin). Data Availability. This paper is under CC 4.0 license. available on arxiv

Enhancing Genetic Improvement Mutations: Conclusions and Future Work

These Biotech Execs Made Perfectly Timed Trades in Health Care Stocks 

এই বায়োটেক এক্সিক্স স্বাস্থ্যসেবা স্টকগুলিতে নিখুঁতভাবে সময়োপযোগী ট্রেড করেছেন

Diese Biotech-Manager haben zum perfekten Zeitpunkt Geschäfte mit Gesundheitsaktien getätigt

Estos ejecutivos de biotecnología realizaron operaciones en el momento perfecto en acciones de atención médica

Ces dirigeants de la biotechnologie ont effectué des transactions parfaitement synchronisées sur les actions du secteur de la santé

इन बायोटेक अधिकारियों ने स्वास्थ्य देखभाल शेयरों में बिल्कुल सही समय पर व्यापार किया

これらのバイオテクノロジー幹部はヘルスケア株で完璧なタイミングで取引を行った

헬스케어 주식에서 완벽한 타이밍에 거래한 생명공학 경영진

Esses executivos de biotecnologia fizeram negociações perfeitamente cronometradas em ações de saúde

Эти руководители биотехнологий совершили идеально своевременные сделки по акциям здравоохранения

Bu Biyoteknoloji Yöneticileri Sağlık Hisse Senetlerinde Mükemmel Zamanlanmış Ticaret Yaptı

Những nhà điều hành công nghệ sinh học này đã thực hiện giao dịch theo thời gian hoàn hảo đối với cổ phiếu chăm sóc sức khỏe

这些生物技术高管在医疗保健股上进行了完美的时机交易

Authors: (1) Alexander E.I. Brownlee, University of Stirling, UK; (2) James Callan, University College London, UK; (3) Karine Even-Mendoza, King’s College London, UK; (4) Alina Geiger, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany; (5) Carol Hanna, University College London, UK; (6) Justyna Petke, University College London, UK; (7) Federica Sarro, University College London, UK; (8) Dominik Sobania, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany. Content Overview Abstract Introduction Experimental Setup Results Conclusions and Future Work References Abstract Large language models (LLMs) have been successfully applied to software engineering tasks, including program repair. However, their application in search-based techniques such as Genetic Improvement (GI) is still largely unexplored. In this paper, we evaluate the use of LLMs as mutation operators for GI to improve the search process. We expand the Gin Java GI toolkit to call OpenAI’s API to generate edits for the JCodec tool. We randomly sample the space of edits using 5 different edit types. We find that the number of patches passing unit tests is up to 75% higher with LLM-based edits than with standard Insert edits. Further, we observe that the patches found with LLMs are generally less diverse compared to standard edits. We ran GI with local search to find runtime improvements. Although many improving patches are found by LLM-enhanced GI, the best improving patch was found by standard GI. Introduction As software systems grow larger and more complex, significant manual effort is required to maintain them [2]. To reduce developer effort in software maintenance and optimization tasks, automated paradigms are essential. Genetic Improvement (GI) [15] applies search-based techniques to improve non-functional properties of existing software such as execution time as well as functional properties like repairing bugs. Although GI has had success in industry [12,13], it remains limited by the set of mutation operators it employs in the search [14]. Large Language Models (LLMs) have a wide range of applications as they are able to process textual queries without additional training for the particular task at hand. LLMs have been pre-trained on millions of code repositories spanning many different programming languages [5]. Their use for software engineering tasks has had great success [9,6], showing promise also for program repair [17,19]. Kang and Yoo [10] have suggested that there is untapped potential in using LLMs to enhance GI. GI uses the same mutation operators for different optimization tasks. These operators are hand-crafted prior to starting the search and thus result in a limited search space. We hypothesize that augmenting LLM patch suggestions as an additional mutation operator will enrich the search space and result in more successful variants. In this paper, we conduct several experiments to explore whether using LLMs as a mutation operator in GI can improve the efficiency and efficacy of the search. Our results show that the LLM-generated patches have compilation rates of 51.32% and 53.54% for random search and local search, respectively (with the Medium prompt category). Previously LLMs (using an LLM model as-is) were shown to produce code that compiled roughly 40% of the time [16,18]. We find that randomly sampled LLM-based edits compiled and passed unit tests more often compared to standard GI edits. We observe that the number of patches passing unit tests is up to 75% higher for LLM-based edits than GI Insert edits. However, we observe that patches found with LLMs are less diverse. For local search, the best improvement is achieved using standard GI Statement edits, followed by LLM-based edits. These findings demonstrate the potential of LLMs as mutation operators and highlight the need for further research in this area. Experimental Setup To analyze the use of LLMs as a mutation operator in GI, we used the GPT 3.5 Turbo model by OpenAI and the GI toolbox Gin [3]. We experimented with two types of search implemented within Gin: random search and local search. Requests to the LLM using the OpenAI API were via the Langchain4J library, with a temperature of 0.7. The target project for improvement in our experiments was the popular JCodec [7] project which is written in Java. ‘Hot’ methods to be targeted by the edits were identified using Gin’s profiler tool by repeating the profiling 20 times and taking the union of the resulting set. For the random sampling experiments, we set up the runs with statement level edits (copy/delete/replace/swap from [14] and insert break/continue/return from [4]) and LLM edits, generating 1000 of each type at random. A timeout of 10000 milliseconds was used for each unit test to catch infinite loops introduced by edits; exceeding the timeout counts as a test failure. For local search, experiments were set up similarly. There were 10 repeat runs (one for each of the top 10 hot methods) but the runs were limited to 100 evaluations resulting in 1000 evaluations in total, matching the random search. In practice this was 99 edits per run as the first was used to time the original unpatched code. We experimented with three different prompts for sending requests to the LLM for both types of search: a simple prompt, a medium prompt, and a detailed prompt. With all three prompts, our implementation requests five different variations of the code at hand. The simple prompt only requests the code without any additional information. The medium prompt provides more information about the code provided and the requirements, as shown in Figure 1. Specifically, we provide the LLM with the programming language used, the project that the code belongs to, as well as formatting instructions. The detailed prompt extends the medium prompt with an example of a useful change. This example was taken from results obtained by Brownlee et al. [4]. The patch is a successful instance of the insert edit applied to the jCodec project (i.e., an edit that compiled, passed the unit tests and offered a speedup over the original code). We use the same example for all the detailed prompt requests used in our experiments; this is because LLMs are capable of inductive reasoning where the user presents specific information, and the LLM can use that input to generate more general statements, further improved in GPT-4 [8]. LLM edits are applied by selecting a block statement at random in a target ‘hot’ method. This block’s content is in the prompt. The first code block in the LLM response is identified. Gin uses JavaParser (https://javaparser.org) internally to represent target source files, so we attempt to parse the LLM suggestion with JavaParser, and replace the original block with the LLM suggestion. Results The first experiment compares standard GI mutations, namely Insert and Statement edits, with LLM edits using differently detailed prompts (Simple, Medium, and Detailed) using Random Sampling. Table 1 shows results for all patches as well as for unique patches only. We report how many patches were successfully parsed by JavaParser (named as Valid), how many compiled, and how many passed all unit tests (named as Passed). We excluded patches syntactically equivalent to the original software. Best results are in . bold We see that although substantially more valid patches were found with the standard Insert and Statement edits, more passing patches could be found by using the LLM-generated edits. In particular, for the Medium, and Detailed prompts 292 and 230 patches passed the unit tests, respectively. For the Insert and Statement edits only 166 and 91 passed the unit tests, respectively. Anecdotally, the hot methods with lowest/highest patch pass rates differed for each operator: understanding this variation will be interesting for future investigation. It is also notable that LLM patches are less diverse: over 50% more unique patches were found by standard mutation operators than the LLM using Medium, and Detailed prompts. With the Simple prompt, however, not a single patch passed the unit tests, since the suggested edits often could not be parsed. Thus detailed prompts are necessary to force LLM to generate usable outputs. We investigated further the differences between Medium and Detailed prompts to understand the reduction in performance with Detailed (in the unique patches sets) as Medium had a higher number of compiled and passed patches. In both prompt levels, the generated response was the same for 42 cases (out of the total unique valid cases). However, Detailed tended to generate longer responses with an average of 363 characters, whereas Medium had an average of 304 characters. We manually examined several Detailed prompt responses, in which we identified some including variables from other files, potentially offering a significant expansion of the set of code variants GI can explore. The second experiment expands our analysis, comparing the performance of the standard and LLM edits with Local Search. Table 2 shows the results of the Local Search experiment. We report the number of compiling and passing patches as well as the number of patches were runtime improvements were found. Furthermore, we report the median and best improvement in milliseconds (ms). In the table, we excluded all empty patches. As before, best results are in . bold Again, we see that more patches passing the unit tests could be found with the LLM using the Medium, and Detailed prompts. In addition, more improvements could be found by using the LLM with these prompts. Specifically, with Medium and Detailed, we found 164 and 196 improvements, respectively, while we only found 136 with Insert and 71 with Statement. The best improvement could be found with 508 ms with the Statement edit. The best improvement found using LLMs (using the Medium prompt) was only able to improve the runtime by 395 ms. We also examined a series of edits in Local Search results to gain insights into the distinctions between Medium and Detailed prompts due to the low compilation rate of Detailed prompt’s responses. In the example, a sequence of edits aimed to inline a call to function clip. The Detailed prompt tried to incorporate the call almost immediately within a few edits, likely leading to invalid code. On the other hand, the Medium prompt made less radical changes, gradually refining the code. It began by replacing the ternary operator expression with an if-then-else statement and system function calls before eventually attempting to inline the clip function call. Conclusions and Future Work Genetic improvement of software is highly dependent on the mutation operators it utilizes in the search process. To diversify the operators and enrich the search space further, we incorporated a Large Language Model (LLM) as an operator. . To generalise, future work should consider projects besides our target, jCodec. Our experiments used an API giving us no control over the responses generated by the LLM or any way of modifying or optimizing them. Though we did not observe changes in behaviour during our experiments, OpenAI may change the model at any time, so future work should consider local models. We experimented with only three prompt types for LLM requests and within this limited number of prompts found a variation in the results. Finally, our implementation for parsing the responses from the LLMs was relatively simplistic. However, this would only mean that our reported results are pessimistic and an even larger improvement might be achieved by the LLM-based operator. Limitations . We found that, although more valid and diverse patches were found with standard edits using Random Sampling, more patches passing the unit tests were found with LLM-based edits. For example, with the LLM edit using the Medium prompt, we found over 75% more patches passing the unit tests than with the classic Insert edit. In our Local Search experiment, we found the best improvement with the Statement edit (508 ms). The best LLMbased improvement was found with the Medium prompt (395 ms). Thus there is potential in exploring approaches combining both LLM and ‘classic’ GI edits. Summary Our experiments revealed that the prompts used for LLM requests greatly affect the results. Thus, in future work, we hope to experiment more with prompt engineering. It might also be helpful to mix prompts: e.g., starting with medium then switching to detailed to make larger edits that break out of local minima. Further, the possibility of combining LLM edits with others such as standard copy/delete/replace/swap or PAR templates [11] could be interesting. Finally, we hope to conduct more extensive experimentation on additional test programs. The code, LLMs prompt and experimental infrastructure, data from the evaluation, and results are available as open source at [1]. The code is also under the ‘llm’ branch of github.com/gintool/gin (commit 9fe9bdf; branched from master commit 2359f57 pending full integration with Gin). Data Availability. UKRI EPSRC EP/P023991/1 and ERC 741278. Acknowledgements References Artifact of Enhancing Genetic Improvement Mutations Using Large Language Models. Zenodo (Sep 2023). https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8304433 B¨ohme, M., Soremekun, E.O., Chattopadhyay, S., Ugherughe, E., Zeller, A.: Where is the bug and how is it fixed? An experiment with practitioners. In: Proc. ACM Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering. pp. 117–128 (2017) Brownlee, A.E., Petke, J., Alexander, B., Barr, E.T., Wagner, M., White, D.R.: Gin: genetic improvement research made easy. In: GECCO. pp. 985–993 (2019) Brownlee, A.E., Petke, J., Rasburn, A.F.: Injecting shortcuts for faster running Java code. In: IEEE CEC 2020. p. 1–8 Chen, M., Tworek, J., Jun, H., Yuan, Q., Pinto, H.P.d.O., Kaplan, J., Edwards, H., Burda, Y., Joseph, N., Brockman, G., et al.: Evaluating large language models trained on code. arXiv preprint arXiv:2107.03374 (2021) Fan, A., Gokkaya, B., Harman, M., Lyubarskiy, M., Sengupta, S., Yoo, S., Zhang, J.M.: Large language models for software engineering: Survey and open problems (2023) Github - jcodec/jcodec: Jcodec main repo, https://github.com/jcodec/jcodec Han, S.J., Ransom, K.J., Perfors, A., Kemp, C.: Inductive reasoning in humans and large language models. Cognitive Systems Research p. 101155 (2023) Hou, X., Liu, Y., Yang, Z., Grundy, J., Zhao, Y., Li, L., Wang, K., Luo, X., Lo, D., Wang, H.: Large language models for software engineering: A systematic literature review. arXiv:2308.10620 (2023) Kang, S., Yoo, S.: Towards objective-tailored genetic improvement through large language models. arXiv:2304.09386 (2023) Kim, D., Nam, J., Song, J., Kim, S.: Automatic Patch Generation Learned from Human-Written Patches (2013), http://logging.apache.org/log4j/ Kirbas, S., Windels, E., Mcbello, O., Kells, K., Pagano, M., Szalanski, R., Nowack, V., Winter, E., Counsell, S., Bowes, D., Hall, T., Haraldsson, S., Woodward, J.: On the introduction of automatic program repair in bloomberg. IEEE Software 38(4), 43–51 (2021) Marginean, A., Bader, J., Chandra, S., Harman, M., Jia, Y., Mao, K., Mols, A., Scott, A.: Sapfix: Automated end-to-end repair at scale. In: ICSE-SEIP. pp. 269– 278 (2019) Petke, J., Alexander, B., Barr, E.T., Brownlee, A.E., Wagner, M., White, D.R.: Program transformation landscapes for automated program modification using Gin. Empirical Software Engineering 28(4), 1–41 (2023) Petke, J., Haraldsson, S.O., Harman, M., Langdon, W.B., White, D.R., Woodward, J.R.: Genetic improvement of software: A comprehensive survey. IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation 22, 415–432 (2018) Siddiq, M.L., Santos, J., Tanvir, R.H., Ulfat, N., Rifat, F.A., Lopes, V.C.: Exploring the effectiveness of large language models in generating unit tests. arXiv preprint arXiv:2305.00418 (2023) Sobania, D., Briesch, M., Hanna, C., Petke, J.: An analysis of the automatic bug fixing performance of chatgpt. In: 2023 IEEE/ACM International Workshop on Automated Program Repair (APR). pp. 23–30. IEEE Computer Society (2023) Xia, C.S., Paltenghi, M., Tian, J.L., Pradel, M., Zhang, L.: Universal fuzzing via large language models. arXiv preprint arXiv:2308.04748 (2023) Xia, C.S., Zhang, L.: Keep the conversation going: Fixing 162 out of 337 bugs for $0.42 each using chatgpt. arXiv preprint arXiv:2304.00385 (2023) This paper is under CC 4.0 license. available on arxiv

Enhancing Genetic Improvement Mutations Using Large Language Models

বড় ভাষার মডেল ব্যবহার করে জেনেটিক উন্নতির মিউটেশন বৃদ্ধি করা

Verbesserung genetischer Verbesserungsmutationen mithilfe großer Sprachmodelle

Mejora de las mutaciones de mejora genética mediante modelos de lenguaje grandes

Améliorer les mutations d'amélioration génétique à l'aide de grands modèles de langage

बड़े भाषा मॉडल का उपयोग करके आनुवंशिक सुधार उत्परिवर्तन को बढ़ाना

大規模言語モデルを使用した遺伝子改良突然変異の強化

대규모 언어 모델을 사용하여 유전적 개선 돌연변이 강화

Aprimorando mutações de melhoria genética usando grandes modelos de linguagem

Усиление мутаций генетического улучшения с использованием больших языковых моделей

Büyük Dil Modelleri Kullanılarak Genetik İyileştirme Mutasyonlarının Geliştirilmesi

Tăng cường đột biến cải thiện di truyền bằng mô hình ngôn ngữ lớn

使用大型语言模型增强遗传改良突变

THE CAMEL’S BACK

Studies and Sketches for Pictures and Decorations

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a great boom in VC funding in the biotechnology sector. According to , VC companies increased their investments in biotech startups from 2,200 globally in 2016 to 3,100 by 2021. a study This highlights the growing importance of investing in science, especially in the biotech industry. Although VC biotech funding slightly declined since 2022, the number of industry-driven startups only keeps growing. shows that the number of biotech businesses increased  by 4,8% in 2023. A study Having a biology degree and working in a biotech startup, I am sure that those numbers will become more and more each year — such companies contribute to society by finding solutions to granular issues in the spheres of health or even ecology. So, here's a list of biotech startups I find useful and innovative as hell: Eagle Genomics Eagle Genomics is a biotech startup that drives and aligns emerging big data, AI, and microbiome data standard frameworks to deliver scientific insights and innovations. Food and Nutrition, Beauty and Personal Care, AgBio, and Biopharma Key markets: Since its founding in 2016, the company has raised $39.9M Investments: In 2021, the company won as AI Champion in Business Weekly Awards and was ranked within the top 60 of 500 global food tech companies Awards: Eagle Genomics helped a global Unilevel company that sells over 400 brands (food, personal and household care, etc.) to find a scalable solution in enabling data-driven product development and providing parallel computing capabilities to keep up with R&D demands. Success story: The company decided to transform Ulilevel`s biological research activities to bring innovative products to customers faster. In order to do so, a biotech startup created a cloud-based system architecture that provided an opportunity for limitless expansion and enabled parallel analysis. Given that, Unilevel reached the following results: Enabled the digital transformation of life sciences R&D Increased productivity, reduced product time to market Boosted innovation and turned data into product and IP Enabled effective collaboration around data assets Enabled the first-of-a-kind microbiome scientific product claim, for a Unilevel toothpaste product Ginkgo Bioworks Ginkgo Bioworks is working to program cells and make everything from therapeutics to materials or edible food. It uses custom microbes and proprietary processes to develop an array of cutting-edge biological engineering products and even custom microbes. One of the problems the company is eager to solve is the possible lack of food in the future, caused by a rapidly growing population on a warming planet. At Ginkgo, specialists are working towards a future, where genetic engineering can help make sustainable, healthy, delicious, and accessible foods to everyone. Agriculture, Biopharm, Governments, Industrials, and Nutrition & Wellness. Key markets: The company has raised $800.4M since its founding in 2008 and had 1 exit. Investments: The company is highly recognized in the world. Ginkgo Bioworks got the Rosalind Franklin Award in 2019, the Online Audience Reward at the Fiction Science, Art and Film Festival in Vienna in 2011, and DARPA Award with $9.5M in 2018 Awards: The global biotech community has come together during the pandemic to develop and deliver multiple effective and safe vaccines for COVID-19. Success story: However, more than two-thirds of the global population had not been vaccinated — one way to reach the rest was by enabling more scalable production of the raw materials needed to make vaccines. Ginkgo Bioworks collaborated with Aldevron, a world leader in manufacturing mRNA vaccines and raw materials, to optimize the production of an important component often required to manufacture mRNA vaccines and therapies: the vaccinia capping enzyme (VCE). Through this collaboration, Aldevron is now able to produce over 10 times more VCE per batch than the previous process. Bionaut Labs Bionaut Labs uses a precision-targeted method to transform the way brain disorders are treated. The company develops microscale robots to deliver biologics or small molecule therapies locally to targeted disease areas. It allows the treatment of such diseases as neuro-oncology, brainstem glioma, neurodegeneration, and some others. Health Key market: The company has raised $63.2M in total since it was founded in 2016. It was funded by prominent companies like Khosla Ventures, Gaingels, Upfront Ventures, Bold Capital Partners, etc. Investments: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted the company orphan drug designation for BNL-101 for the local treatment of all malignant gliomas. Awards: Currently, the Bionaut Labs team keeps raising financing to fund the first clinical trials of the tiny, drug-carrying robots. Success stories: Gelesis Gelesis is a biotechnology company developing first-in-class therapeutics to safely treat obese, overweight, and diabetic patients. Health, Biopharm Key markets: Gelesis has raised $312.8M in total since 2006. Investments: Gelesis got a €2.9 Million Award from the Italian Ministry of Economic Development Awards: With the use of biomimicry, the company developed 2 products to help people change their diet, lifestyle, and health: Success story: Plenity It is indicated to aid in weight management with a safety and efficacy profile. According to a pivotal study, 59% of adults had a clinically meaningful response to Plenity, losing on average 10% of their weight. Overall, it helped over 200,000 people on the weight loss journey since its launch. The Gelesis Platform The proprietary Gelesis platform is the first and only superabsorbent hydrogel made only from naturally-delivered building blocks. It stimulates the fullness of users` stomachs to help them eat less. Motif FoodWorks Motif Foodworks is a biotechnology company that helps to make plant-based foods with improved taste, texture, and nutritional values. Food & Nutrition Key markets: The company has raised $343.5M since its founding in 2019. Investments: Motif Foodworks has created plant-based burger patties made with the company's breakthrough ingredients HEMAMI and APPETEX — which provide rich, meaty flavor and delicious, juicy texture. Success story: The technology was tested among customers, and the results showed that 55% of consumers would eat the demo burger regularly, while 63% preferred the demo burger over a leading plant-based product at retail.

Scientific Boom: 5 Innovative Biotech Startups That Will Change Our Everyday Life

The featured image of this article, titled , is a captivating piece of art generated by photographer and artist Boris Eldagsen with the aid of artificial intelligence (AI), which recently . The Electrician got the championship in the Sony World Photography Awards This marks a momentous achievement in AI, pushing beyond its traditional role as an analytical tool and showcasing its potential to generate aesthetic creativity. Though it is not entirely a novelty, precedented by the victories of AlphaGo and the iconic Deep Blue, it is nonetheless significant and points to the dawn of a new epoch. Enthusiasts are effervescent with anticipation, eagerly foreseeing the expansion of AI into uncharted realms of creativity. Nevertheless, the advent of AI-generated content raises concern about the future of original content creators, as some see it as a harbinger of "computerized plagiarism" on a massive scale. While in the court, the matter remains controversial. numerous copyright litigations await final decisions As technology progresses, we must engage in meaningful discussions regarding the use of AI in creative pursuits. The potential for AI to disrupt conventional approaches to art and creativity is undeniable, but whether it can genuinely rival human innovation or merely represent a more advanced form of plagiarism is yet to be seen. Not Generative AI but Derived, Synthetic AI Plagiarism is an unwavering taboo. The commitment to this serious misconduct can have a devastating impact on the entire careers of diligent creators, whether they are involved in academic research, music composition, article writing, or image creation. It is not only confined to a word-for-word or a pixel-for-pixel copy but is also applicable in cases where the content is merely paraphrased, or the structure is manipulated from the same piece of artifact. The perpetuation of plagiarism counts on the vast amount of data sources that can be copied from the internet. Given the human mind's finite capacity to remember unlimited information, aspirants may seek the aid of fast computers and expansive local and cloud storage to facilitate their plagiarism. Now, with the technological evolution of hardware, the development of AI—more specifically, generative AI models that create fresh content—is being furnished. Generative AI models are pre-trained from a ginormous corpus of text, images, video clips, and audio tracks, depending on their types. For example, the Stable Diffusion text-to-image model has been trained on various subsets of , a large dataset comprising nearly 6 billion CLIP-filtered image-text pairs; other competing models like DALL-E, Midjourney, and Imagen are similar. LAION 5B Source images are crawled from numerous online domains, from stock image sites and art print and poster marketplaces to social media platforms and blog posts. By recitation of data, models are supported with an extensive cogent structure—new content derived from multiple image sources by just a text prompt in seconds. You may further study and other models if interested, but I want to illustrate that perceiving this as "generating" new content is not always accurate. the technical logic of Stable Diffusion Instead, these models synthesize the contents based on whatever they have learned from the pool of pre-existing data fed by humans. Processing enormous amounts of data is manageable for the models because they are equipped with advanced computing power, unlike humans, who cannot deal with billions of images one by one. Some of the synthetic by-products—the generated images—look very familiar to most people because of the source data the model picked; be it a famous painting or a classic meme. On the contrary, some of the contents may seem rare and original. Marred by the nature of synthesizing, generative AI at the moment is a rhetorical speech of marketers, despite its robustness. The vigorous dichotomy about proper source data collection implies "AI creativity" is not from origination but derivation. That said, generative AI's formidable mix-and-match capability has been convincing, illuming people as AI creativity. The Four Stages of AI Creativity Leading to the quest for the essence of AI creativity, the extent of AI autonomy without human intervention is one objective assessment criterion for me. AI creativity can be roughly classified into four stages, according to the degree of involvement: 1. Fully Human-Instructed Creativity Traditionally, humans have been creative since the primitive age. Most creative works are created for survival and fulfilling basic physical needs. The discovery of fire in ancient times brought humans warmth, cooked food, and safety; then, the wooden drill was invented as a kindling device inspired by natural fire. Fast forward to The Renaissance and beyond The Industrial Revolution, human creativity spans different subjects—literature, art, science, mechanics, etc.—to computers and AI. The mere usage of computers and AI does not inaugurate AI creativity. Analogize it with pens and pencils. It is the artist—which is a human—who uses pens and pencils as tools to draw a picture. The origination comes from the artist's imagination, not from the instruments. So, using computers and AI to calculate, search, and analyze data is insufficient to assert AI creativity. Most generative AI features arguably are no different from the above. Still, we cannot comprehend how the synthesizing works, leaving us room for the fantasy that AI has certain self-imagination over creativity. 2. Human-Instructed AI-Assisted Creativity We often encounter situations when our knowledge and skill limit our idea execution. Recent AI development empowered that a lot. unleash the potential for human creativity by encoding and decoding a specific form of presentation into another one. Transformer models For instance, creating artistic graphics or writing codes used to warrant months of training; now, with generative AI's assistance, you can make it happen by setting instructions in plain language. Regrettably, AI still cannot stand alone for now. The output of generative AI relies heavily on the input (the prompt). Simply put, it requires humans to commence the process, and decision-making remains in humans' hands. AI awaits human instructions and guidance to complete the task, similar to what Microsoft named its recent AI application—a "co-pilot" or, precisely, a secondary pilot. And you are the captain. This secondary pilot will not always work as intended. Depending on your input, it often produces sloppy and buggy results if you are clumsy on prompting. Works have to be regenerated according to refined prompts; it is iterative. Even with the latest fancy AI agents like —a Python application to use GPT-4 autonomously—we still need a human to define a goal or kick off a first prompt, then feed into the AI agent to set the machine in motion. AutoGPT 3. AI-Instructed Human-Assisted Creativity In this stage, AI has transcended its prior limitations and now possesses an exquisite level of autonomy. It is able to carry out designated tasks with finesse, or even complete sets of multiple tasks with its own discernment, acting independently and making decisions with exceptional precision. In reverse, the role of the human is degraded from the captain to that of a co-pilot. AI is now the one in command—or forfeits its control on intention. Much like Tony Starks and J.A.R.V.I.S., this enchanting AI partner displays a kind and accommodating nature, willingly accepting human feedback and suggestions to improve its decision-making abilities continually. Some relate it to the current trend of autonomous AI, which is notable for its design of devices like those found in self-driving cars, robotics, and auto-pilots, that can successfully execute a slew of tasks without any human guidance. However, despite their remarkable abilities, such devices still lack the irreplaceable aspect of creative thought—the self-consciousness that separates AI from humans. Theoretically, AI agents can be imbued with human knowledge, experience, and the lofty ideals of self-consciousness. Ironically, this is beyond the boundaries of our understanding as humans. We are pondering whether AI can outstrip the confines of programmed learning to become self-aware and propel us to untold heights. 4. Fully AI-Instructed Creativity It appears strikingly similar to the third stage, but the key that differentiates fully AI-instructed creativity is the self-learning initiative. As opposed to human-assisted AI, a fully autonomous AI agent enables independent research without the need for human interference. It is an autodidact, constantly combating the challenges which are out of the AI agent's particular domain knowledge. It will seek information at its discretion as needed, then gather the information all along to formulate a creative solution or commit to a decision. Comparable to what we termed as artificial superintelligence, these pinnacle AI agents are as intelligent as—or even surpassed the intelligence of—most gifted human minds. They carry themselves with self-consciousness and self-awareness, which are most likely sentient—endowed with senses, emotions, and feelings that will accumulate experience as a person. These AI agents do not always align with human intention. They can reject human intervention while making informed decisions as it has, over time, acquired crucial problem-solving methodologies and emotional intelligence. All these attributes and experiences together spark unparalleled levels of creativity within AI, effortlessly exceeding that of humans. Autodidactic and Sentient AI As far as I know, humans are incapable of developing an autodidactic AI for the time being, yet Big Techs promote their AI models as self-learning cordially, which is confusing. The self-learning definition in their developed models is loose, and all of them requires raw data from human, though the data can be unlabelled to let AI "self-learn" the pattern. Strictly speaking, this is still far from an autodidactic AI that can operate with the highest sovereignty, achieving fully AI-instructed creativity like aforesaid. Google recently announced it had invented a self-learning AI, albeit disinformation. (May Google's CEO be hallucinating too.) https://twitter.com/mmitchell_ai/status/1648029417497853953?embedable=true Personal experience, as such, form an integral part of AI creativity. Unlike computers, which rely solely on reactive programming and data input, humans actively seek knowledge, information, and entertainment, all of which can inspire new ideas, spurring boundless creativity. Despite the emergence of unsupervised learning and deep neural networks that aim to emulate the human learning process, no concrete evidence exists that machines can think and feel independently. Even though , their results derive from source data through mathematical and logical deductions limited by model-specific rulesets. AI models are now highly complex and operate without explicit explainability Researchers continuously maneuver various and interpretability tools to dissect these rulesets, but the difficulty surges with technological advances. model-agnostic methods Were one day humans able to give birth to fully AI-instructed creativity, that AI is likely assumed to be human-like. It can be in any physical or virtual existence, and its brain—the processing and creating mechanism—would not be restricted to the rulesets of any models but could replicate a human's cognitive mind. By that time, humans may not even be able to recognize whether they are interacting with a natural person or a sentient AI. Humans even cannot distinguish between a sentient AI and a hallucinating AI that pretends to be conscious. Coming back to the example of text-to-image AI models, AI is deceiving you—intentionally or unintentionally—that it is creating a new image from scratch, but they are merely synthesizing data by calling and combining data bytes and bits from its database. This kind of AI creativity is comparable to derivative works; it lacks originality and requires human instructions. Without the initial billions of images, the model will not work. No input, no output. But right now, AI image creation works. It has won the first international photography contest, and no one throughout the course discovered the crowned piece is not an actual photograph. Conclusion: The Epoch of Cheeky Monkeys The cheeky monkey, , thuds a wake-up call to all of us to reconsider what AI creativity is. As time goes by, there will be cheeky monkeys everywhere—including AI itself. what Boris describes himself as The borderline between humans and AI shall become nothing more than vanity; ingenious and innovative ideas that hold value for humans, be it through aesthetics, thought-provoking concepts, or technological breakthroughs, are doable by a sentient, conscious AI alone or by collaboration within a sentient, conscious AI alliance. It is evident that since the invention of machinery, the value of labor has been largely suppressed. Similar repercussions could plausibly arise in the case of human creativity as AI continues to flourish. Humans must be adaptable to evolving technologies, remaining vigilant to the danger of obsolescence. Who would value human creativity if some competitive forces were more potent? Time is running out, but long deliberation is still ahead of us. Also published here

Who's More Creative: AI or Humans?

¿Quién es más creativo: la IA o los humanos?

Qui est le plus créatif : l'IA ou les humains ?

कौन अधिक रचनात्मक है: एआई या मनुष्य?

クリエイティブなのはAIか人間か?

Quem é mais criativo: IA ou humanos?

Ai sáng tạo hơn: AI hay con người?

谁更有创造力：人工智能还是人类？

The Mucker by Edgar Rice Burroughs, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . BILLY'S FIRST COMMAND BILLY'S FIRST COMMAND AND so it was that having breakfasted in the morning Bridge and Miguel started downward toward the valley protected by an escort under Captain Billy Byrne. An old service jacket and a wide-brimmed hat, both donated by brother officers, constituted Captain Byrne's uniform. His mount was the largest that the picket line of Pesita's forces could produce. Billy loomed large amongst his men. For an hour they rode along the trail, Billy and Bridge conversing upon various subjects, none of which touched upon the one uppermost in the mind of each. Miguel rode, silent and preoccupied. The evening before he had whispered something to Bridge as he had crawled out of the darkness to lie close to the American, and during a brief moment that morning Bridge had found an opportunity to relay the Mexican's message to Billy Byrne. The latter had but raised his eyebrows a trifle at the time, but later he smiled more than was usual with him. Something seemed to please him immensely. Beside him at the head of the column rode Bridge and Miguel. Behind them trailed the six swarthy little troopers—the picked men upon whom Pesita could depend. They had reached a point where the trail passes through a narrow dry arroyo which the waters of the rainy season had cut deep into the soft, powdery soil. Upon either bank grew cacti and mesquite, forming a sheltering screen behind which a regiment might have hidden. The place was ideal for an ambuscade. “Here, Senor Capitan,” whispered Miguel, as they neared the entrance to the trap. A low hill shut off from their view all but the head of the cut, and it also hid them from the sight of any possible enemy which might have been lurking in wait for them farther down the arroyo. At Miguel's words Byrne wheeled his horse to the right away from the trail which led through the bottom of the waterway and around the base of the hill, or rather in that direction, for he had scarce deviated from the direct way before one of the troopers spurred to his side, calling out in Spanish that he was upon the wrong trail. “Wot's this guy chewin' about?” asked Billy, turning to Miguel. “He says you must keep to the arroyo, Senor Capitan,” explained the Mexican. “Tell him to go back into his stall,” was Byrne's laconic rejoinder, as he pushed his mount forward to pass the brigand. The soldier was voluble in his objections. Again he reined in front of Billy, and by this time his five fellows had spurred forward to block the way. “This is the wrong trail,” they cried. “Come this other way, Capitan. Pesita has so ordered it.” Catching the drift of their remarks, Billy waved them to one side. “I'm bossin' this picnic,” he announced. “Get out o' the way, an' be quick about it if you don't want to be hurted.” Again he rode forward. Again the troopers interposed their mounts, and this time their leader cocked his carbine. His attitude was menacing. Billy was close to him. Their ponies were shoulder to shoulder, that of the bandit almost broadside of the trail. Now Billy Byrne was more than passing well acquainted with many of the fundamental principles of sudden brawls. It is safe to say that he had never heard of Van Bibber; but he knew, as well as Van Bibber knew, that it is well to hit first. Without a word and without warning he struck, leaning forward with all the weight of his body behind his blow, and catching the man full beneath the chin he lifted him as neatly from his saddle as though a battering ram had struck him. Simultaneously Bridge and Miguel drew revolvers from their shirts and as Billy wheeled his pony toward the remaining five they opened fire upon them. The battle was short and sweet. One almost escaped but Miguel, who proved to be an excellent revolver shot, brought him down at a hundred yards. He then, with utter disregard for the rules of civilized warfare, dispatched those who were not already dead. “We must let none return to carry false tales to Pesita,” he explained. Even Billy Byrne winced at the ruthlessness of the cold-blooded murders; but he realized the necessity which confronted them though he could not have brought himself to do the things which the Mexican did with such sang-froid and even evident enjoyment. “Now for the others!” cried Miguel, when he had assured himself that each of the six were really quite dead. Spurring after him Billy and Bridge ran their horses over the rough ground at the base of the little hill, and then parallel to the arroyo for a matter of a hundred yards, where they espied two Indians, carbines in hand, standing in evident consternation because of the unexpected fusillade of shots which they had just heard and which they were unable to account for. At the sight of the three the sharpshooters dropped behind cover and fired. Billy's horse stumbled at the first report, caught himself, reared high upon his hind legs and then toppled over, dead. His rider, throwing himself to one side, scrambled to his feet and fired twice at the partially concealed men. Miguel and Bridge rode in rapidly to close quarters, firing as they came. One of the two men Pesita had sent to assassinate his “guests” dropped his gun, clutched at his breast, screamed, and sank back behind a clump of mesquite. The other turned and leaped over the edge of the bank into the arroyo, rolling and tumbling to the bottom in a cloud of dry dust. As he rose to his feet and started on a run up the bed of the dry stream, dodging a zigzag course from one bit of scant cover to another Billy Byrne stepped to the edge of the washout and threw his carbine to his shoulder. His face was flushed, his eyes sparkled, a smile lighted his regular features. “This is the life!” he cried, and pulled the trigger. The man beneath him, running for his life like a frightened jackrabbit, sprawled forward upon his face, made a single effort to rise and then slumped limply down, forever. Miguel and Bridge, dismounted now, came to Byrne's side. The Mexican was grinning broadly. “The captain is one grand fighter,” he said. “How my dear general would admire such a man as the captain. Doubtless he would make him a colonel. Come with me Senor Capitan and your fortune is made.” “Come where?” asked Billy Byrne. “To the camp of the liberator of poor, bleeding Mexico—to General Francisco Villa.” “Nothin' doin',” said Billy. “I'm hooked up with this Pesita person now, an' I guess I'll stick. He's given me more of a run for my money in the last twenty-four hours than I've had since I parted from my dear old friend, the Lord of Yoka.” “But Senor Capitan,” cried Miguel, “you do not mean to say that you are going back to Pesita! He will shoot you down with his own hand when he has learned what has happened here.” “I guess not,” said Billy. “You'd better go with Miguel, Billy,” urged Bridge. “Pesita will not forgive you this. You've cost him eight men today and he hasn't any more men than he needs at best. Besides you've made a monkey of him and unless I miss my guess you'll have to pay for it.” “No,” said Billy, “I kind o' like this Pesita gent. I think I'll stick around with him for a while yet. Anyhow until I've had a chance to see his face after I've made my report to him. You guys run along now and make your get-away good, an' I'll beat it back to camp.” He crossed to where the two horses of the slain marksmen were hidden, turned one of them loose and mounted the other. “So long, boes!” he cried, and with a wave of his hand wheeled about and spurred back along the trail over which they had just come. Miguel and Bridge watched him for a moment, then they, too, mounted and turned away in the opposite direction. Bridge recited no verse for the balance of that day. His heart lay heavy in his bosom, for he missed Billy Byrne, and was fearful of the fate which awaited him at the camp of the bandit. Billy, blithe as a lark, rode gaily back along the trail to camp. He looked forward with unmixed delight to his coming interview with Pesita, and to the wild, half-savage life which association with the bandit promised. All his life had Billy Byrne fed upon excitement and adventure. As gangster, thug, holdup man and second-story artist Billy had found food for his appetite within the dismal, sooty streets of Chicago's great West Side, and then Fate had flung him upon the savage shore of Yoka to find other forms of adventure where the best that is in a strong man may be brought out in the stern battle for existence against primeval men and conditions. The West Side had developed only Billy's basest characteristics. He might have slipped back easily into the old ways had it not been for HER and the recollection of that which he had read in her eyes. Love had been there; but greater than that to hold a man into the straight and narrow path of decency and honor had been respect and admiration. It had seemed incredible to Billy that a goddess should feel such things for him—for the same man her scornful lips once had branded as coward and mucker; yet he had read the truth aright, and since then Billy Byrne had done his best according to the light that had been given him to deserve the belief she had in him. So far there had crept into his consciousness no disquieting doubts as to the consistency of his recent action in joining the force of a depredating Mexican outlaw. Billy knew nothing of the political conditions of the republic. Had Pesita told him that he was president of Mexico, Billy could not have disputed the statement from any knowledge of facts which he possessed. As a matter of fact about all Billy had ever known of Mexico was that it had some connection with an important place called Juarez where running meets were held. To Billy Byrne, then, Pesita was a real general, and Billy, himself, a bona fide captain. He had entered an army which was at war with some other army. What they were warring about Billy knew not, nor did he care. There should be fighting and he loved that—that much he knew. The ethics of Pesita's warfare troubled him not. He had heard that some great American general had said: “War is hell.” Billy was willing to take his word for it, and accept anything which came in the guise of war as entirely proper and as it should be. The afternoon was far gone when Billy drew rein in the camp of the outlaw band. Pesita with the bulk of his raiders was out upon some excursion to the north. Only half a dozen men lolled about, smoking or sleeping away the hot day. They looked at Billy in evident surprise when they saw him riding in alone; but they asked no questions and Billy offered no explanation—his report was for the ears of Pesita only. The balance of the day Billy spent in acquiring further knowledge of Spanish by conversing with those of the men who remained awake, and asking innumerable questions. It was almost sundown when Pesita rode in. Two riderless horses were led by troopers in the rear of the little column and three men swayed painfully in their saddles and their clothing was stained with blood. Evidently Pesita had met with resistance. There was much voluble chattering on the part of those who had remained behind in their endeavors to extract from their returning comrades the details of the day's enterprise. By piecing together the various scraps of conversation he could understand Billy discovered that Pesita had ridden far to demand tribute from a wealthy ranchero, only to find that word of his coming had preceded him and brought a large detachment of Villa's regulars who concealed themselves about the house and outbuildings until Pesita and his entire force were well within close range. “We were lucky to get off as well as we did,” said an officer. Billy grinned inwardly as he thought of the pleasant frame of mind in which Pesita might now be expected to receive the news that eight of his troopers had been killed and his two “guests” safely removed from the sphere of his hospitality. And even as his mind dwelt delightedly upon the subject a ragged Indian carrying a carbine and with heavy silver spurs strapped to his bare feet approached and saluted him. “General Pesita wishes Senor Capitan Byrne to report to him at once,” said the man. “Sure Mike!” replied Billy, and made his way through the pandemonium of the camp toward the headquarters tent. As he went he slipped his hand inside his shirt and loosened something which hung beneath his left arm. “Li'l ol' ace-in-the-hole,” he murmured affectionately. He found Pesita pacing back and forth before his tent—an energetic bundle of nerves which no amount of hard riding and fighting could tire or discourage. As Billy approached Pesita shot a quick glance at his face, that he might read, perhaps, in his new officer's expression whether anger or suspicion had been aroused by the killing of his American friend, for Pesita never dreamed but that Bridge had been dead since mid-forenoon. “Well,” said Pesita, smiling, “you left Senor Bridge and Miguel safely at their destination?” “I couldn't take 'em all the way,” replied Billy, “cause I didn't have no more men to guard 'em with; but I seen 'em past the danger I guess an' well on their way.” “You had no men?” questioned Pesita. “You had six troopers.” “Oh, they was all croaked before we'd been gone two hours. You see it happens like this: We got as far as that dry arroyo just before the trail drops down into the valley, when up jumps a bunch of this here Villa's guys and commenced takin' pot shots at us. “Seein' as how I was sent to guard Bridge an' Mig, I makes them dismount and hunt cover, and then me an' my men wades in and cleans up the bunch. They was only a few of them but they croaked the whole bloomin' six o' mine. “I tell you it was some scrap while it lasted; but I saved your guests from gettin' hurted an' I know that that's what you sent me to do. It's too bad about the six men we lost but, leave it to me, we'll get even with that Villa guy yet. Just lead me to 'im.” As he spoke Billy commenced scratching himself beneath the left arm, and then, as though to better reach the point of irritation, he slipped his hand inside his shirt. If Pesita noticed the apparently innocent little act, or interpreted it correctly may or may not have been the fact. He stood looking straight into Byrne's eyes for a full minute. His face denoted neither baffled rage nor contemplated revenge. Presently a slow smile raised his heavy mustache and revealed his strong, white teeth. “You have done well, Captain Byrne,” he said. “You are a man after my own heart,” and he extended his hand. A half-hour later Billy walked slowly back to his own blankets, and to say that he was puzzled would scarce have described his mental state. “I can't quite make that gink out,” he mused. “Either he's a mighty good loser or else he's a deep one who'll wait a year to get me the way he wants to get me.” And Pesita a few moments later was saying to Captain Rozales: “I should have shot him if I could spare such a man; but it is seldom I find one with the courage and effrontery he possesses. Why think of it, Rozales, he kills eight of my men, and lets my prisoners escape, and then dares to come back and tell me about it when he might easily have gotten away. Villa would have made him an officer for this thing, and Miguel must have told him so. He found out in some way about your little plan and he turned the tables on us. We can use him, Rozales, but we must watch him. Also, my dear captain, watch his right hand and when he slips it into his shirt be careful that you do not draw on him—unless you happen to be behind him.” Rozales was not inclined to take his chief's view of Byrne's value to them. He argued that the man was guilty of disloyalty and therefore a menace. What he thought, but did not advance as an argument, was of a different nature. Rozales was filled with rage to think that the newcomer had outwitted him, and beaten him at his own game, and he was jealous, too, of the man's ascendancy in the esteem of Pesita; but he hid his personal feelings beneath a cloak of seeming acquiescence in his chief's views, knowing that some day his time would come when he might rid himself of the danger of this obnoxious rival. “And tomorrow,” continued Pesita, “I am sending him to Cuivaca. Villa has considerable funds in bank there, and this stranger can learn what I want to know about the size of the detachment holding the town, and the habits of the garrison.” About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Edgar Rice Burroughs (1995). The Mucker. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/331/pg331-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org , located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html.

BILLY'S FIRST COMMAND

“BABY BANDITS”

The Mucker by Edgar Rice Burroughs, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . HOME AGAIN HOME AGAIN BILLY BYRNE continued to fire intermittently for half an hour after the two men had left him. Then he fired several shots in quick succession, and dragging himself to his hands and knees crawled laboriously and painfully back into the jungle in search of a hiding place where he might die in peace. He had progressed some hundred yards when he felt the earth give way beneath him. He clutched frantically about for support, but there was none, and with a sickening lunge he plunged downward into Stygian darkness. His fall was a short one, and he brought up with a painful thud at the bottom of a deer pit—a covered trap which the natives dig to catch their fleet-footed prey. The pain of his wounds after the fall was excruciating. His head whirled dizzily. He knew that he was dying, and then all went black. When consciousness returned to the mucker it was daylight. The sky above shone through the ragged hole that his falling body had broken in the pit's covering the night before. “Gee!” muttered the mucker; “and I thought that I was dead!” His wounds had ceased to bleed, but he was very weak and stiff and sore. “I guess I'm too tough to croak!” he thought. He wondered if the two men would reach Barbara in safety. He hoped so. Mallory loved her, and he was sure that Barbara had loved Mallory. He wanted her to be happy. No thought of jealousy entered his mind. Mallory was her kind. Mallory “belonged.” He didn't. He was a mucker. How would he have looked training with her bunch. She would have been ashamed of him, and he couldn't have stood that. No, it was better as it had turned out. He'd squared himself for the beast he'd been to her, and he'd squared himself with Mallory, too. At least they'd have only decent thoughts of him, dead; but alive, that would be an entirely different thing. He would be in the way. He would be a constant embarrassment to them all, for they would feel that they'd have to be nice to him in return for what he had done for them. The thought made the mucker sick. “I'd rather croak,” he murmured. But he didn't “croak”—instead, he waxed stronger, and toward evening the pangs of hunger and thirst drove him to consider means for escaping from his hiding place, and searching for food and water. He waited until after dark, and then he crawled, with utmost difficulty, from the deep pit. He had heard nothing of the natives since the night before, and now, in the open, there came to him but the faint sounds of the village life across the clearing. Byrne dragged himself toward the trail that led to the spring where poor Theriere had died. It took him a long time to reach it, but at last he was successful. The clear, cold water helped to revive and strengthen him. Then he sought food. Some wild fruit partially satisfied him for the moment, and he commenced the laborious task of retracing his steps toward “Manhattan Island.” The trail that he had passed over in fifteen hours as he had hastened to the rescue of Anthony Harding and Billy Mallory required the better part of three days now. Occasionally he wondered why in the world he was traversing it anyway. Hadn't he wanted to die, and leave Barbara free? But life is sweet, and the red blood still flowed strong in the veins of the mucker. “I can go my own way,” he thought, “and not bother her; but I'll be dinged if I want to croak in this God-forsaken hole—Grand Avenue for mine, when it comes to passing in my checks. Gee! but I'd like to hear the rattle of the Lake Street 'L' and see the dolls coming down the station steps by Skidmore's when the crowd comes home from the Loop at night.” Billy Byrne was homesick. And then, too, his heart was very heavy and sad because of the great love he had found—a love which he realized was as hopeless as it was great. He had the memory, though, of the girl's arms about his neck, and her dear lips crushed to his for a brief instant, and her words—ah, those words! They would ring in Billy's head forever: “I love you, Billy, for what you ARE.” And a sudden resolve came into the mucker's mind as he whispered those words over and over again to himself. “I can't have her,” he said. “She isn't for the likes of me; but if I can't live with her, I can live for her—as she'd want me to live, and, s'help me, those words'll keep me straight. If she ever hears of Billy Byrne again it won't be anything to make her ashamed that she had her arms around him, kissing him, and telling him that she loved him.” At the river's edge across from the little island Billy came to a halt. He had reached the point near midnight, and hesitated to cross over and disturb the party at that hour. At last, however, he decided to cross quietly, and lie down near HER hut until morning. The crossing was most difficult, for he was very weak, but at last he came to the opposite bank and drew himself up to lie panting for a few minutes on the sloping bank. Then he crawled on again up to the top, and staggering to his feet made his way cautiously toward the two huts. All was quiet. He assumed that the party was asleep, and so he lay down near the rude shelter he had constructed for Barbara Harding, and fell asleep. It was broad daylight when he awoke—the sun was fully three hours high, and yet no one was stirring. For the first time misgivings commenced to assail Billy's mind. Could it be possible? He crossed over to his own hut and entered—it was deserted. Then he ran to Barbara's—it, too, was unoccupied. They had gone! All during the painful trip from the village to the island Billy had momentarily expected to meet a party of rescuers coming back for him. He had not been exactly disappointed, but a queer little lump had risen to his throat as the days passed and no help had come, and now this was the final blow. They had deserted him! Left him wounded and dying on this savage island without taking the trouble to assure themselves that he really was dead! It was incredible! “But was it?” thought Billy. “Didn't I tell them that I was dying? I thought so myself, and there is no reason why they shouldn't have thought so too. I suppose I shouldn't blame them, and I don't; but I wouldn't have left them that way and not come back. They had a warship full of blue jackets and marines—there wouldn't have been much danger to them.” Presently it occurred to him that the party may have returned to the coast to get the marines, and that even now they were searching for him. He hastened to return to the mainland, and once more he took up his wearisome journey. That night he reached the coast. Early the next morning he commenced his search for the man-of-war. By walking entirely around the island he should find her he felt sure. Shortly after noon he scaled a high promontory which jutted out into the sea. From its summit he had an unobstructed view of the broad Pacific. His heart leaped to his throat, for there but a short distance out were a great battleship and a trim white yacht—the Alaska and the Lotus! They were steaming slowly out to sea. He was just in time! Filled with happiness the mucker ran to the point of the promontory and stripping off his shirt waved it high above his head, the while he shouted at the top of his lungs; but the vessels kept on their course, giving no answering signal. For half an hour the man continued his futile efforts to attract the attention of someone on board either craft, but to his dismay he saw them grow smaller and smaller until in a few hours they passed over the rim of the world, disappearing from his view forever. Weak, wounded, and despairing, Billy sank to the ground, burying his face in his arms, and there the moon found him when she rose, and he was still there when she passed from the western sky. For three months Billy Byrne lived his lonely life upon the wild island. The trapping and fishing were good and there was a plentiful supply of good water. He regained his lost strength, recovering entirely from his wounds. The natives did not molest him, for he had stumbled upon a section of the shore which they considered bewitched and to which none of them would come under any circumstances. One morning, at the beginning of his fourth month of solitude, the mucker saw a smudge of smoke upon the horizon. Slowly it increased in volume and the speck beneath it resolved itself into the hull of a steamer. Closer and closer to the island it came. Billy gathered together a quantity of dry brush and lighted a signal fire on the lofty point from which he had seen the Alaska and the Lotus disappear. As it commenced to blaze freely he threw fresh, green boughs upon it until a vertical column of smoke arose high above the island. In breathless suspense Billy watched the movements of the steamer. At first it seemed that she would pass without taking notice of his signal, but at last he saw that she was changing her course and moving directly toward the island. Close in she came, for the sea was calm and the water deep, and when Billy was sure that those on board saw him and his frantic waving, he hurried, stumbling and falling, down the steep face of the cliff to the tiny beach at its foot. Already a boat had been lowered and was putting in for land. Billy waded out to the end of the short shelving beach and waited. The sight that met the eyes of the rescuers was one that filled them with awe, for they saw before them a huge, giant of a white man, half-naked except for a few tattered rags, who wore the long sword of an ancient samurai at his side, a modern revolver at his hip, and bore in his brawny hand the heavy war spear of a head-hunter. Long black hair, and a huge beard covered the man's head and face, but clean gray eyes shone from out of the tangle, and a broad grin welcomed them. “Oh, you white men!” shouted the mucker. “You certainly do look good to me.” Six months later a big, smooth-faced giant in ill-fitting sea togs strolled up Sixth Avenue. It was Billy Byrne—broke, but happy; Grand Avenue was less than a thousand miles away! “Gee!” he murmured; “but it's good to be home again!” There were places in New York where Billy would find acquaintances. One in particular he recalled—a little, third-floor gymnasium not far distant from the Battery. Thither he turned his steps now. As he entered the stuffy room in which two big fellows, stripped to the waist, were sparring, a stout, low-browed man sitting in a back-tilted chair against one wall looked up inquiringly. Billy crossed over to him, with outstretched hand. “Howdy, Professor!” he said. “Yeh got me, kid,” replied Professor Cassidy, taking the proffered hand. “I was up here with Larry Hilmore and the Goose Island Kid a year or so ago—my name's Byrne,” exclaimed Billy. “Sure,” said the professor; “I gotcha now. You're de guy 'at Larry was a tellin' me about. He said you'd be a great heavy if you'd leave de booze alone.” Billy smiled and nodded. “You don't look much like a booze fighter now,” remarked Cassidy. “And I ain't,” said the mucker. “I've been on the wagon for most a year, and I'm never comin' down.” “That's right, kid,” said the professor; “but wots the good word? Wot you doin' in little ol' Noo York?” “Lookin' for a job,” said Billy. “Strip!” commanded Professor Cassidy. “I'm lookin' for sparrin' partners for a gink dat's goin' to clean up de Big Smoke—if he'll ever come back an' scrap.” “You're on,” said Billy, commencing to divest himself of his outer clothing. Stripped to the waist he displayed as wondrous a set of muscles as even Professor Cassidy had ever seen. The man waxed enthusiastic over them. “You sure ought to have some wallop up your sleeve,” he said, admiringly. He then introduced Billy to the Harlem Hurricane, and Battling Dago Pete. “Pete's de guy I was tellin' you about,” explained Professor Cassidy. “He's got such a wallop dat I can't keep no sparrin' partners for him. The Hurricane here's de only bloke wit de guts to stay wit him—he's a fiend for punishment, Hurricane is; he jest natchrly eats it. “If you're broke I'll give you your keep as long as you stay wit Pete an' don't get cold feet, an' I'll fix up a mill for you now an' then so's you kin pull down a little coin fer yourself. Are you game?” “You know it,” said Billy. “All to the good then,” said the professor gaily; “now you put on the mitts an' spell Hurricane for a couple o' rounds.” Billy slipped his huge hands into the tight-fitting gloves. “It's been more'n a year since I had these on,” he said, “an' I may be a little slow an' stale at first; but after I get warmed up I'll do better.” Cassidy grinned and winked at Hurricane. “He won't never get warmed up,” Hurricane confided; “Pete'll knock his block off in about two minutes,” and the men settled back to watch the fun with ill-concealed amusement written upon their faces. What happened within the next few minutes in the stuffy little room of Professor Cassidy's third-floor “gymnasium” marks an epoch in the professor's life—he still talks of it, and doubtless shall until the Great Referee counts him out in the Last Round. The two men sparred for a moment, gaging one another. Then Battling Dago Pete swung a vicious left that landed square on Billy's face. It was a blow that might have felled an ox; but Billy only shook his head—it scarce seemed to jar him. Pete had half lowered his hands as he recovered from the blow, so sure he was that it would finish his new sparring partner, and now before he could regain his guard the mucker tore into him like a whirlwind. That single blow to the face seemed to have brought back to Billy Byrne all that he ever had known of the manly art of self-defense. Battling Dago Pete landed a few more before the fight was over, but as any old fighter will tell you there is nothing more discouraging than to discover that your most effective blows do not feeze your opponent, and only the knowledge of what a defeat at the hands of a new sparring partner would mean to his future, kept him plugging away at the hopeless task of attempting to knock out this mountain of bone and muscle. For a few minutes Billy Byrne played with his man, hitting him when and where he would. He fought, crouching, much as Jeffries used to fight, and in his size and strength was much that reminded Cassidy of the fallen idol that in his heart of hearts he still worshiped. And then, like a panther, the mucker sprang in with a vicious left hook to the jaw, followed, with lightning rapidity, by a right upper cut to the chin that lifted Battling Dago Pete a foot from the floor to drop him, unconscious, against the foot of the further wall. It was a clean knock-out, and when Cassidy and Hurricane got through ministering to the fallen man, and indications of returning consciousness were apparent, the professor turned to Billy. “Got any more 'hopes' lyin' around loose?” asked the mucker with a grin. “I guess the big dinge's safe for a while yet.” “Not if you'll keep on stayin' away from the booze, kid,” said Professor Cassidy, “an' let me handle you.” “I gotcha Steve,” said Billy; “go to it; but first, stake me to a feed. The front side of my stomach's wrapped around my back bone.” About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Edgar Rice Burroughs (1995). The Mucker. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/331/pg331-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org , located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html.

HOME AGAIN

The Mucker by Edgar Rice Burroughs, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. THE VILLAGE OF YOKA THE VILLAGE OF YOKA FOR several minutes Barbara Harding lay where she had collapsed after the keen short sword of the daimio had freed her from the menace of his lust. She was in a half-stupor that took cognizance only of a freezing terror and exhaustion. Presently, however, she became aware of her contact with the corpse beside her, and with a stifled cry she shrank away from it. Slowly the girl regained her self-control and with it came the realization of the extremity of her danger. She rose to a sitting posture and turned her wide eyes toward the doorway to the adjoining room—the women and children seemed yet wrapped in slumber. It was evident that the man's scream had not disturbed them. Barbara gained her feet and moved softly to the doorway. She wondered if she could cross the intervening space to the outer exit without detection. Once in the open she could flee to the jungle, and then there was a chance at least that she might find her way to the coast and Theriere. She gripped the short sword which she still held, and took a step into the larger room. One of the women turned and half roused from sleep. The girl shrank back into the darkness of the chamber she had just quitted. The woman sat up and looked around. Then she rose and threw some sticks upon the fire that burned at one side of the dwelling. She crossed to a shelf and took down a cooking utensil. Barbara saw that she was about to commence the preparation of breakfast. All hope of escape was thus ended, and the girl cautiously closed the door between the two rooms. Then she felt about the smaller apartment for some heavy object with which to barricade herself; but her search was fruitless. Finally she bethought herself of the corpse. That would hold the door against the accident of a child or dog pushing it open—it would be better than nothing, but could she bring herself to touch the loathsome thing? The instinct of self-preservation will work wonders even with a frail and delicate woman. Barbara Harding steeled herself to the task, and after several moments of effort she succeeded in rolling the dead man against the door. The scraping sound of the body as she dragged it into position had sent cold shivers running up her spine. She had removed the man's long sword and armor before attempting to move him, and now she crouched beside the corpse with both the swords beside her—she would sell her life dearly. Theriere's words came back to her now as they had when she was struggling in the water after the wreck of the Halfmoon: “but, by George, I intend to go down fighting.” Well, she could do no less. She could hear the movement of several persons in the next room now. The voices of women and children came to her distinctly. Many of the words were Japanese, but others were of a tongue with which she was not familiar. Presently her own chamber began to lighten. She looked over her shoulder and saw the first faint rays of dawn showing through a small aperture near the roof and at the opposite end of the room. She rose and moved quickly toward it. By standing on tiptoe and pulling herself up a trifle with her hands upon the sill she was able to raise her eyes above the bottom of the window frame. Beyond she saw the forest, not a hundred yards away; but when she attempted to crawl through the opening she discovered to her chagrin that it was too small to permit the passage of her body. And then there came a knocking on the door she had just quitted, and a woman's voice calling her lord and master to his morning meal. Barbara ran quickly across the chamber to the door, the long sword raised above her head in both hands. Again the woman knocked, this time much louder, and raised her voice as she called again upon Oda Yorimoto to come out. The girl within was panic-stricken. What should she do? With but a little respite she might enlarge the window sufficiently to permit her to escape into the forest, but the woman at the door evidently would not be denied. Suddenly an inspiration came to her. It was a forlorn hope, but well worth putting to the test. “Hush!” she hissed through the closed door. “Oda Yorimoto sleeps. It is his wish that he be not disturbed.” For a moment there was silence beyond the door, and then the woman grunted, and Barbara heard her turn back, muttering to herself. The girl breathed a deep sigh of relief—she had received a brief reprieve from death. Again she turned to the window, where, with the short sword, she commenced her labor of enlarging it to permit the passage of her body. The work was necessarily slow because of the fact that it must proceed with utter noiselessness. For an hour she worked, and then again came an interruption at the door. This time it was a man. “Oda Yorimoto still sleeps,” whispered the girl. “Go away and do not disturb him. He will be very angry if you awaken him.” But the man would not be put off so easily as had the woman. He still insisted. “The daimio has ordered that there shall be a great hunt today for the heads of the sei-yo-jin who have landed upon Yoka,” persisted the man. “He will be angry indeed if we do not call him in time to accomplish the task today. Let me speak with him, woman. I do not believe that Oda Yorimoto still sleeps. Why should I believe one of the sei-yo-jin? It may be that you have bewitched the daimio,” and with that he pushed against the door. The corpse gave a little, and the man glued his eyes to the aperture. Barbara held the sword behind her, and with her shoulder against the door attempted to reclose it. “Go away!” she cried. “I shall be killed if you awaken Oda Yorimoto, and, if you enter, you, too, shall be killed.” The man stepped back from the door, and Barbara could hear him in low converse with some of the women of the household. A moment later he returned, and without a word of warning threw his whole weight against the portal. The corpse slipped back enough to permit the entrance of the man's body, and as he stumbled into the room the long sword of the Lord of Yoka fell full and keen across the back of his brown neck. Without a sound he lunged to the floor, dead; but the women without had caught a fleeting glimpse of what had taken place within the little chamber, even before Barbara Harding could slam the door again, and with shrieks of rage and fright they rushed into the main street of the village shouting at the tops of their voices that Oda Yorimoto and Hawa Nisho had been slain by the woman of the sei-yo-jin. Instantly, the village swarmed with samurai, women, children, and dogs. They rushed toward the hut of Oda Yorimoto, filling the outer chamber where they jabbered excitedly for several minutes, the warriors attempting to obtain a coherent story from the moaning women of the daimio's household. Barbara Harding crouched close to the door, listening. She knew that the crucial moment was at hand; that there were at best but a few moments for her to live. A silent prayer rose from her parted lips. She placed the sharp point of Oda Yorimoto's short sword against her breast, and waited—waited for the coming of the men from the room beyond, snatching a few brief seconds from eternity ere she drove the weapon into her heart. Theriere plunged through the jungle at a run for several minutes before he caught sight of the mucker. “Are you still on the trail?” he called to the man before him. “Sure,” replied Byrne. “It's dead easy. They must o' been at least a dozen of 'em. Even a mutt like me couldn't miss it.” “We want to go carefully, Byrne,” cautioned Theriere. “I've had experience with these fellows before, and I can tell you that you never know when one of 'em is near you till you feel a spear in your back, unless you're almighty watchful. We've got to make all the haste we can, of course, but it won't help Miss Harding any if we rush into an ambush and get our heads lopped off.” Byrne saw the wisdom of his companion's advice and tried to profit by it; but something which seemed to dominate him today carried him ahead at reckless, breakneck speed—the flight of an eagle would have been all too slow to meet the requirements of his unaccountable haste. Once he found himself wondering why he was risking his life to avenge or rescue this girl whom he hated so. He tried to think that it was for the ransom—yes, that was it, the ransom. If he found her alive, and rescued her he should claim the lion's share of the booty. Theriere too wondered why Byrne, of all the other men upon the Halfmoon the last that he should have expected to risk a thing for the sake of Miss Harding, should be the foremost in pursuit of her captors. “I wonder how far behind Sanders and Wison are,” he remarked to Byrne after they had been on the trail for the better part of an hour. “Hadn't we better wait for them to catch up with us? Four can do a whole lot more than two.” “Not wen Billy Byrne's one of de two,” replied the mucker, and continued doggedly along the trail. Another half-hour brought them suddenly in sight of a native village, and Billy Byrne was for dashing straight into the center of it and “cleaning it up,” as he put it, but Theriere put his foot down firmly on that proposition, and finally Byrne saw that the other was right. “The trail leads straight toward that place,” said Theriere, “so I suppose here is where they brought her, but which of the huts she's in now we ought to try to determine before we make any attempt to rescue her. Well, by George! Now what do you think of that?” “Tink o' wot?” asked the mucker. “Wot's eatin' yeh?” “See those three men down there in the village, Byrne?” asked the Frenchman. “They're no more aboriginal headhunters than I am—they're Japs, man. There must be something wrong with our trailing, for it's as certain as fate itself that Japs are not head-hunters.” “There ain't been nothin' fony about our trailin', bo,” insisted Byrne, “an' whether Japs are bean collectors or not here's where de ginks dat copped de doll hiked fer, an if dey ain't dere now it's because dey went t'rough an' out de odder side, see.” “Hush, Byrne,” whispered Theriere. “Drop down behind this bush. Someone is coming along this other trail to the right of us,” and as he spoke he dragged the mucker down beside him. For a moment they crouched, breathless and expectant, and then the slim figure of an almost nude boy emerged from the foliage close beside and entered the trail toward the village. Upon his head he bore a bundle of firewood. When he was directly opposite the watchers Theriere sprang suddenly upon him, clapping a silencing hand over the boy's mouth. In Japanese he whispered a command for silence. “We shall not harm you if you keep still,” he said, “and answer our questions truthfully. What village is that?” “It is the chief city of Oda Yorimoto, Lord of Yoka,” replied the youth. “I am Oda Iseka, his son.” “And the large hut in the center of the village street is the palace of Oda Yorimoto?” guessed Theriere shrewdly. “It is.” The Frenchman was not unversed in the ways of orientals, and he guessed also that if the white girl were still alive in the village she would be in no other hut than that of the most powerful chief; but he wished to verify his deductions if possible. He knew that a direct question as to the whereabouts of the girl would call forth either a clever oriental evasion or an equally clever oriental lie. “Does Oda Yorimoto intend slaying the white woman that was brought to his house last night?” asked Theriere. “How should the son know the intentions of his father?” replied the boy. “Is she still alive?” continued Theriere. “How should I know, who was asleep when she was brought, and only heard the womenfolk this morning whispering that Oda Yorimoto had brought home a new woman the night before.” “Could you not see her with your own eyes?” asked Theriere. “My eyes cannot pass through the door of the little room behind, in which they still were when I left to gather firewood a half hour since,” retorted the youth. “Wot's de Chink sayin'?” asked Billy Byrne, impatient of the conversation, no word of which was intelligible to him. “He says, in substance,” replied Theriere, with a grin, “that Miss Harding is still alive, and in the back room of that largest hut in the center of the village street; but,” and his face clouded, “Oda Yorimoto, the chief of the tribe, is with her.” The mucker sprang to his feet with an oath, and would have bolted for the village had not Theriere laid a detaining hand upon his shoulder. “It is too late, my friend,” he said sadly, “to make haste now. We may, if we are cautious, be able to save her life, and later, possibly, avenge her wrong. Let us act coolly, and after some manner of plan, so that we may work together, and not throw our lives away uselessly. The chance is that neither of us will come out of that village alive, but we must minimize that chance to the utmost if we are to serve Miss Harding.” “Well, wot's de word?” asked the mucker, for he saw that Theriere was right. “The jungle approaches the village most closely on the opposite side—the side in rear of the chief's hut,” pointed out Theriere. “We must circle about until we can reach that point undetected, then we may formulate further plans from what our observations there develop.” “An' dis?” Byrne shoved a thumb at Oda Iseka. “We'll take him with us—it wouldn't be safe to let him go now.” “Why not croak him?” suggested Byrne. “Not unless we have to,” replied Theriere; “he's just a boy—we'll doubtless have all the killing we want among the men before we get out of this.” “I never did have no use fer Chinks,” said the mucker, as though in extenuation of his suggestion that they murder the youth. For some unaccountable reason he had felt a sudden compunction because of his thoughtless remark. What in the world was coming over him, he wondered. He'd be wearing white pants and playing lawn tennis presently if he continued to grow much softer and more unmanly. So the three set out through the jungle, following a trail which led around to the north of the village. Theriere walked ahead with the boy's arm in his grasp. Byrne followed closely behind. They reached their destination in the rear of Oda Yorimoto's “palace” without interruption or detection. Here they reconnoitered through the thick foliage. “Dere's a little winder in de back of de house,” said Byrne. “Dat must be where dem guys cooped up de little broiler.” “Yes,” said Theriere, “it would be in the back room which the boy described. First let's tie and gag this young heathen, and then we can proceed to business without fear of alarm from him,” and the Frenchman stripped a long, grass rope from about the waist of his prisoner, with which he was securely trussed up, a piece of his loin cloth being forced into his mouth as a gag, and secured there by another strip, torn from the same garment, which was passed around the back of the boy's head. “Rather uncomfortable, I imagine,” commented Theriere; “but not particularly painful or dangerous—and now to business!” “I'm goin' to make a break fer dat winder,” announced the mucker, “and youse squat here in de tall grass wid yer gat an' pick off any fresh guys dat get gay in back here. Den, if I need youse you can come a-runnin' an' open up all over de shop wid de artillery, or if I gets de lizzie outen de jug an' de Chinks push me too clost youse'll be here where yeh can pick 'em off easy-like.” “You'll be taking all the risk that way, Byrne,” objected Theriere, “and that's not fair.” “One o' us is pretty sure to get hurted,” explained the mucker in defense of his plan, “an, if it's a croak it's a lot better dat it be me than youse, fer the girl wouldn't be crazy about bein' lef' alone wid me—she ain't got no use fer the likes o' me. Now youse are her kin, an' so youse stay here w'ere yeh can help her after I git her out—I don't want nothing to do wid her anyhow. She gives me a swift pain, and,” he added as though it were an after-thought, “I ain't got no use fer dat ransom eider—youse can have dat, too.” “Hold on, Byrne,” cried Theriere; “I have something to say, too. I do not see how I can expect you to believe me; but under the circumstances, when one of us and maybe both are pretty sure to die before the day is much older, it wouldn't be worth while lying. I do not want that damned ransom any more, either. I only want to do what I can to right the wrong that I have helped to perpetrate against Miss Harding. I—I—Byrne, I love her. I shall never tell her so, for I am not the sort of man a decent girl would care to marry; but I did want the chance to make a clean breast to her of all my connection with the whole dirty business, and get her forgiveness if I could; but first I wanted to prove my repentance by helping her to civilization in safety, and delivering her to her friends without the payment of a cent of money. I may never be able to do that now; but if I die in the attempt, and you don't, I wish that you would tell her what I have just told you. Paint me as black as you can—you couldn't commence to make me as black as I have been—but let her know that for love of her I turned white at the last minute. Byrne, she is the best girl that you or I ever saw—we're not fit to breathe the same air that she breathes. Now you can see why I should like to go first.” “I t'ought youse was soft on her,” replied the mucker, “an' dat's de reason w'y youse otter not go first; but wot's de use o' chewin', les flip a coin to see w'ich goes an w'ich stays—got one?” Theriere felt in his trousers' pocket, fishing out a dime. “Heads, you go; tails, I go,” he said and spun the silver piece in the air, catching it in the flat of his open palm. “It's heads,” said the mucker, grinning. “Gee! Wot's de racket?” Both men turned toward the village, where a jabbering mob of half-caste Japanese had suddenly appeared in the streets, hurrying toward the hut of Oda Yorimoto. “Somepin doin', eh?” said the mucker. “Well, here goes—s'long!” And he broke from the cover of the jungle and dashed across the clearing toward the rear of Oda Yorimoto's hut. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Edgar Rice Burroughs (1995). The Mucker. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/331/pg331-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org , located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html.

THE VILLAGE OF YOKA

The Mucker by Edgar Rice Burroughs, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . THE TYPHOON THE TYPHOON The storm that struck the Halfmoon took her entirely unaware. It had sprung, apparently, out of a perfectly clear sky. Both the lookout and the man at the wheel were ready to take oath that they had scanned the horizon not a half-minute before Second Mate Theriere had come racing forward bellowing for all hands on deck and ordering a sailor below to report the menacing conditions to Captain Simms. Before that officer reached the deck Theriere had the entire crew aloft taking in sail; but though they worked with the desperation of doomed men they were only partially successful in their efforts. The sky and sea had assumed a sickly yellowish color, except for the mighty black cloud that raced toward them, low over the water. The low moaning sound that had followed the first appearance of the storm, gave place to a sullen roar, and then, of a sudden, the thing struck the Halfmoon, ripping her remaining canvas from her as if it had been wrought from tissue paper, and with the flying canvas, spars, and cordage went the mainmast, snapping ten feet above the deck, and crashing over the starboard bow with a noise and jar that rose above the bellowing of the typhoon. Fully half the crew of the Halfmoon either went down with the falling rigging or were crushed by the crashing weight of the mast as it hurtled against the deck. Skipper Simms rushed back and forth screaming out curses that no one heeded, and orders that there was none to fill. Theriere, on his own responsibility, looked to the hatches. Ward with a handful of men armed with axes attempted to chop away the wreckage, for the jagged butt of the fallen mast was dashing against the ship's side with such vicious blows that it seemed but a matter of seconds ere it would stave a hole in her. With the utmost difficulty a sea anchor was rigged and tumbled over the Halfmoon's pitching bow into the angry sea, that was rising to more gigantic proportions with each succeeding minute. This frail makeshift which at best could but keep the vessel's bow into the wind, saving her from instant engulfment in the sea's trough, seemed to Theriere but a sorry means of prolonging the agony of suspense preceding the inevitable end. That nothing could save them was the second officer's firm belief, nor was he alone in his conviction. Not only Simms and Ward, but every experienced sailor on the ship felt that the life of the Halfmoon was now but a matter of hours, possibly minutes, while those of lesser experience were equally positive that each succeeding wave must mark the termination of the lives of the vessel and her company. The deck, washed now almost continuously by hurtling tons of storm-mad water, as one mountainous wave followed another the length of the ship, had become entirely impossible. With difficulty the men were attempting to get below between waves. All semblance of discipline had vanished. For the most part they were a pack of howling, cursing, terror-ridden beasts, fighting at the hatches with those who would have held them closed against the danger of each new assault of the sea. Ward and Skipper Simms had been among the first to seek the precarious safety below deck. Theriere alone of the officers had remained on duty until the last, and now he was exerting his every faculty in the effort to save as many of the men as possible without losing the ship in the doing of it. Only between waves was the entrance to the main cabins negotiable, while the forecastle hatch had been abandoned entirely after it had with difficulty been replaced following the retreat of three of the crew to that part of the ship. The mucker stood beside Theriere as the latter beat back the men when the seas threatened. It was the man's first experience of the kind. Never had he faced death in the courage-blighting form which the grim harvester assumes when he calls unbridled Nature to do his ghastly bidding. The mucker saw the rough, brawling bullies of the forecastle reduced to white-faced, gibbering cowards, clawing and fighting to climb over one another toward the lesser danger of the cabins, while the mate fought them off, except as he found it expedient to let them pass him; he alone cool and fearless. Byrne stood as one apart from the dangers and hysteric strivings of his fellows. Once when Theriere happened to glance in his direction the Frenchman mentally ascribed the mucker's seeming lethargy to the paralysis of abject cowardice. “The fellow is in a blue funk,” thought the second mate; “I did not misjudge him—like all his kind he is a coward at heart.” Then a great wave came, following unexpectedly close upon the heels of a lesser one. It took Theriere off his guard, threw him down and hurtled him roughly across the deck, landing him in the scuppers, bleeding and stunned. The next wave would carry him overboard. Released from surveillance the balance of the crew pushed and fought their way into the cabin—only the mucker remained without, staring first at the prostrate form of the mate and then at the open cabin hatch. Had one been watching him he might reasonably have thought that the man's mind was in a muddle of confused thoughts and fears; but such was far from the case. Billy was waiting to see if the mate would revive sufficiently to return across the deck before the next wave swept the ship. It was very interesting—he wondered what odds O'Leary would have laid against the man. In another moment the wave would come. Billy glanced at the open cabin hatch. That would never do—the cabin would be flooded with tons of water should the next wave find the hatch still open. Billy closed it. Then he looked again toward Theriere. The man was just recovering consciousness—and the wave was coming. Something stirred within Billy Byrne. It gripped him and made him act quickly as though by instinct to do something that no one, Billy himself least of all, would have suspected that the Grand Avenue mucker would have been capable of. Across the deck Theriere was dragging himself painfully to his hands and knees, as though to attempt the impossible feat of crawling back to the cabin hatch. The wave was almost upon Billy. In a moment it would engulf him, and then rush on across him to tear Theriere from the deck and hurl him beyond the ship into the tumbling, watery, chaos of the sea. The mucker saw all this, and in the instant he launched himself toward the man for whom he had no use, whose kind he hated, reaching him as the great wave broke over them, crushing them to the deck, choking and blinding them. For a moment they were buried in the swirling maelstrom, and then as the Halfmoon rose again, shaking the watery enemy from her back, the two men were disclosed—Theriere half over the ship's side—the mucker clinging to him with one hand, the other clutching desperately at a huge cleat upon the gunwale. Byrne dragged the mate to the deck, and then slowly and with infinite difficulty across it to the cabin hatch. Through it he pushed the man, tumbling after him and closing the aperture just as another wave swept the Halfmoon. Theriere was conscious and but little the worse for his experience, though badly bruised. He looked at the mucker in astonishment as the two faced each other in the cabin. “I don't know why you did it,” said Theriere. “Neither do I,” replied Billy Byrne. “I shall not forget it, Byrne,” said the officer. “Yeh'd better,” answered Billy, turning away. The mucker was extremely puzzled to account for his act. He did not look upon it at all as a piece of heroism; but rather as a “fool play” which he should be ashamed of. The very idea! Saving the life of a gink who, despite his brutal ways, belonged to the much-despised “highbrow” class. Billy was peeved with himself. Theriere, for his part, was surprised at the unexpected heroism of the man he had long since rated as a cowardly bully. He was fully determined to repay Byrne in so far as he could the great debt he owed him. All thoughts of revenge for the mucker's former assault upon him were dropped, and he now looked upon the man as a true friend and ally. For three days the Halfmoon plunged helplessly upon the storm-wracked surface of the mad sea. No soul aboard her entertained more than the faintest glimmer of a hope that the ship would ride out the storm; but during the third night the wind died down, and by morning the sea had fallen sufficiently to make it safe for the men of the Halfmoon to venture upon deck. There they found the brigantine clean-swept from stem to stern. To the north of them was land at a league or two, perhaps. Had the storm continued during the night they would have been dashed upon the coast. God-fearing men would have given thanks for their miraculous rescue; but not so these. Instead, the fear of death removed, they assumed their former bravado. Skipper Simms boasted of the seamanship that had saved the Halfmoon—his own seamanship of course. Ward was cursing the luck that had disabled the ship at so crucial a period of her adventure, and revolving in his evil mind various possible schemes for turning the misfortune to his own advantage. Billy Byrne, sitting upon the corner of the galley table, hobnobbed with Blanco. These choice representatives of the ship's company were planning a raid on the skipper's brandy chest during the disembarkation which the sight of land had rendered not improbable. The Halfmoon, with the wind down, wallowed heavily in the trough of the sea, but even so Barbara Harding, wearied with days of confinement in her stuffy cabin below, ventured above deck for a breath of sweet, clean air. Scarce had she emerged from below than Theriere espied her, and hastened to her side. “Well, Miss Harding,” he exclaimed, “it seems good to see you on deck again. I can't tell you how sorry I have felt for you cooped up alone in your cabin without a single woman for companionship, and all those frightful days of danger, for there was scarce one of us that thought the old hooker would weather so long and hard a blow. We were mighty fortunate to come through it so handily.” “Handily?” queried Barbara Harding, with a wry smile, glancing about the deck of the Halfmoon. “I cannot see that we are either through it handily or through it at all. We have no masts, no canvas, no boats; and though I am not much of a sailor, I can see that there is little likelihood of our effecting a landing on the shore ahead either with or without boats—-it looks most forbidding. Then the wind has gone down, and when it comes up again it is possible that it will carry us away from the land, or if it takes us toward it, dash us to pieces at the foot of those frightful cliffs.” “I see you are too good a sailor by far to be cheered by any questionable hopes,” laughed Theriere; “but you must take the will into consideration—I only wished to give you a ray of hope that might lighten your burden of apprehension. However, honestly, I do think that we may find a way to make a safe landing if the sea continues to go down as it has in the past two hours. We are not more than a league from shore, and with the jury mast and sail that the men are setting under Mr. Ward now we can work in comparative safety with a light breeze, which we should have during the afternoon. There are few coasts, however rugged they may appear at a distance, that do not offer some foothold for the wrecked mariner, and I doubt not but that we shall find this no exception to the rule.” “I hope you are right, Mr. Theriere,” said the girl, “and yet I cannot but feel that my position will be less safe on land than it has been upon the Halfmoon. Once free from the restraints of discipline which tradition, custom, and law enforce upon the high seas there is no telling what atrocities these men will commit. To be quite candid, Mr. Theriere, I dread a landing worse than I dreaded the dangers of the storm through which we have just passed.” “I think you have little to fear on that score, Miss Harding,” said the Frenchman. “I intend making it quite plain that I consider myself your protector once we have left the Halfmoon, and I can count on several of the men to support me. Even Mr. Divine will not dare do otherwise. Then we can set up a camp of our own apart from Skipper Simms and his faction where you will be constantly guarded until succor may be obtained.” Barbara Harding had been watching the man's face as he spoke. The memory of his consideration and respectful treatment of her during the trying weeks of her captivity had done much to erase the intuitive feeling of distrust that had tinged her thoughts of him earlier in their acquaintance, while his heroic act in descending into the forecastle in the face of the armed and desperate Byrne had thrown a glamour of romance about him that could not help but tend to fascinate a girl of Barbara Harding's type. Then there was the look she had seen in his eyes for a brief instant when she had found herself locked in his cabin on the occasion that he had revealed to her Larry Divine's duplicity. That expression no red-blooded girl could mistake, and the fact that he had subdued his passion spoke eloquently to the girl of the fineness and chivalry of his nature, so now it was with a feeling of utter trustfulness that she gladly gave herself into the keeping of Henri Theriere, Count de Cadenet, Second Officer of the Halfmoon. “O Mr. Theriere,” she cried, “if you only can but arrange it so, how relieved and almost happy I shall be. How can I ever repay you for all that you have done for me?” Again she saw the light leap to the man's eyes—the light of a love that would not be denied much longer other than through the agency of a mighty will. Love she thought it; but the eye-light of love and lust are twin lights between which it takes much worldly wisdom to differentiate, and Barbara Harding was not worldly-wise in the ways of sin. “Miss Harding,” said Theriere, in a voice that he evidently found it difficult to control, “do not ask me now how you may repay me; I—;” but what he would have said he checked, and with an effort of will that was almost appreciable to the eye he took a fresh grip upon himself, and continued: “I am amply repaid by being able to serve you, and thus to retrieve myself in your estimation—I know that you have doubted me; that you have questioned the integrity of my acts that helped to lead up to the unfortunate affair of the Lotus. When you tell me that you no longer doubt—that you accept me as the friend I would wish to be, I shall be more than amply repaid for anything which it may have been my good fortune to have been able to accomplish for your comfort and safety.” “Then I may partially repay you at once,” exclaimed the girl with a smile, “for I can assure you that you possess my friendship to the fullest, and with it, of course, my entire confidence. It is true that I doubted you at first—I doubted everyone connected with the Halfmoon. Why shouldn't I? But now I think that I am able to draw a very clear line between my friends and my enemies. There is but one upon the right side of that line—you, my friend,” and with an impulsive little gesture Barbara Harding extended her hand to Theriere. It was with almost a sheepish expression that the Frenchman took the proffered fingers, for there had been that in the frank avowal of confidence and friendship which smote upon a chord of honor in the man's soul that had not vibrated in response to a chivalrous impulse for so many long years that it had near atrophied from disuse. Then, of a sudden, the second officer of the Halfmoon straightened to his full height. His head went high, and he took the small hand of the girl in his own strong, brown one. “Miss Harding,” he said, “I have led a hard, bitter life. I have not always done those things of which I might be most proud: but there have been times when I have remembered that I am the grandson of one of Napoleon's greatest field marshals, and that I bear a name that has been honored by a mighty nation. What you have just said to me recalls these facts most vividly to my mind—I hope, Miss Harding, that you will never regret having spoken them,” and to the bottom of his heart the man meant what he said, at the moment; for inherent chivalry is as difficult to suppress or uproot as is inherent viciousness. The girl let her hand rest in his for a moment, and as their eyes met she saw in his a truth and honesty and cleanness which revealed what Theriere might have been had Fate ordained his young manhood to different channels. And in that moment a question sprang, all unbidden and unforeseen to her mind; a question which caused her to withdraw her hand quickly from his, and which sent a slow crimson to her cheek. Billy Byrne, slouching by, cast a bitter look of hatred upon the two. The fact that he had saved Theriere's life had not increased his love for that gentleman. He was still much puzzled to account for the strange idiocy that had prompted him to that act; and two of his fellows had felt the weight of his mighty fist when they had spoken words of rough praise for his heroism—Billy had thought that they were kidding him. To Billy the knocking out of Theriere, and the subsequent kick which he had planted in the unconscious man's face, were true indications of manliness. He gauged such matters by standards purely Grand Avenuesque and now it enraged him to see that the girl before whose very eyes he had demonstrated his superiority over Theriere should so look with favor upon the officer. It did not occur to Billy that he would care to have the girl look with favor upon him. Such a thought would have sent him into a berserker rage; but the fact remained that Billy felt a strong desire to cut out Theriere's heart when he saw him now in close converse with Barbara Harding—just why he felt so Billy could not have said. The truth of the matter is that Billy was far from introspective; in fact he did very little thinking. His mind had never been trained to it, as his muscles had been trained to fighting. Billy reacted more quickly to instinct than to the processes of reasoning, and on this account it was difficult for him to explain any great number of his acts or moods—it is to be doubted, however, that Billy Byrne had ever attempted to get at the bottom of his soul, if he possessed one. Be that as it may, had Theriere known it he was very near death that moment when a summons from Skipper Simms called him aft and saved his life. Then the mucker, unseen by the officer, approached the girl. In his heart were rage and hatred, and as the girl turned at the sound of his step behind her she saw them mirrored in his dark, scowling face. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Edgar Rice Burroughs (1995). The Mucker. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/331/pg331-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org , located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html.

THE TYPHOON

The Mucker by Edgar Rice Burroughs, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . THE MUCKER AT BAY THE MUCKER AT BAY “WHAT has this man said to you, Miss Harding?” cried Theriere. “Has he offered you harm?” “I do not think that he would have dared strike me,” replied the girl, “though he threatened to do so. He is the coward who murdered poor Mr. Mallory upon the Lotus. He might stoop to anything after that.” Theriere turned angrily upon Byrne. “Go below!” he shouted. “I'll attend to you later. If Miss Harding were not here I'd thrash you within an inch of your life now. And if I ever hear of your speaking to her again, or offering her the slightest indignity I'll put a bullet through you so quick you won't know what has struck you.” “T'ell yeh will!” sneered Billy Byrne. “I got your number, yeh big stiff; an' yeh better not get gay wit me. Dey ain't no guy on board dis man's ship dat can hand Billy Byrne dat kin' o' guff an' get away with it—see?” and before Theriere knew what had happened a heavy fist had caught him upon the point of the chin and lifted him clear off the deck to drop him unconscious at Miss Harding's feet. “Yeh see wot happens to guys dat get gay wit me?” said the mucker to the girl, and then stooping over the prostrate form of the mate Billy Byrne withdrew a huge revolver from Theriere's hip pocket. “I guess I'll need dis gat in my business purty soon,” he remarked. Then he planted a vicious kick in the face of the unconscious man and went his way to the forecastle. “Now maybe she'll tink Billy Byrne's a coward,” he thought, as he disappeared below. Barbara Harding stood speechless with shock at the brutality and ferocity of the unexpected attack upon Theriere. Never in all her life had she dreamed that there could exist upon the face of the earth a thing in human form so devoid of honor, and chivalry, and fair play as the creature that she had just witnessed threatening a defenseless woman, and kicking an unconscious man in the face; but then Barbara Harding had never lived between Grand Avenue and Lake Street, and Halsted and Robey, where standards of masculine bravery are strange and fearful. When she had recovered her equanimity she hastened to the head of the cabin companionway and called aloud for help. Instantly Skipper Simms and First Officer Ward rushed on deck, each carrying a revolver in readiness for the conflict with their crew that these two worthies were always expecting. Barbara pointed out the still form of Theriere, quickly explaining what had occurred. “It was the fellow Byrne who did it,” she said. “He has gone into the forecastle now, and he has a revolver that he took from Mr. Theriere after he had fallen.” Several of the crew had now congregated about the prostrate officer. “Here you,” cried Skipper Simms to a couple of them; “you take Mr. Theriere below to his cabin, an' throw cold water in his face. Mr. Ward, get some brandy from my locker, an' try an' bring him to. The rest of you arm yourselves with crowbars and axes, an' see that that son of a sea cook don't get out on deck again alive. Hold him there 'til I get a couple of guns. Then we'll get him, damn him!” Skipper Simms hastened below while two of the men were carrying Theriere to his cabin and Mr. Ward was fetching the brandy. A moment later Barbara Harding saw the skipper return to the upper deck with a rifle and two revolvers. The sailors whom he had detailed to keep Byrne below were gathered about the hatchway leading to the forecastle. Some of them were exchanging profane and pleasant badinage with the prisoner. “Yeh better come up an' get killed easy-like;” one called down to the mucker. “We're apt to muss yeh all up down there in the dark with these here axes and crowbars, an' then wen we send yeh home yer pore maw won't know her little boy at all.” “Yeh come on down here, an' try mussin' me up,” yelled back Billy Byrne. “I can lick de whole gang wit one han' tied behin' me—see?” “De skipper's gorn to get his barkers, Billy,” cried Bony Sawyer. “Yeh better come up an' stan' trial if he gives yeh the chanct.” “Stan' nothin',” sneered Billy. “Swell chanct I'd have wit him an' Squint Eye holdin' court over me. Not on yer life, Bony. I'm here, an' here I stays till I croaks, but yeh better believe me, I'm goin' to croak a few before I goes, so if any of you ginks are me frien's yeh better keep outen here so's yeh won't get hurted. An' anudder ting I'm goin' to do afore I cashes in—I'm goin' to put a few of dem ginks in de cabin wise to where dey stands wit one anudder. If I don't start something before I goes out me name's not Billy Byrne.” At this juncture Skipper Simms appeared with the three weapons he had gone to his cabin to fetch. He handed one to Bony Sawyer, another to Red Sanders and a third to a man by the name of Wison. “Now, my men,” said Skipper Simms, “we will go below and bring Byrne up. Bring him alive if you can—but bring him.” No one made a move to enter the forecastle. “Go on now, move quickly,” commanded Skipper Simms sharply. “Thought he said 'we',” remarked one of the sailors. Skipper Simms, livid with rage, turned to search out the offender from the several men behind him. “Who was that?” he roared. “Show me the blitherin' swab. Jes' show him to me, I tell you, an I'll learn him. Now you,” he yelled at the top of his voice, turning again to the men he had ordered into the forecastle after Billy Byrne, “you cowardly landlubbers you, get below there quick afore I kick you below.” Still no one moved to obey him. From white he went to red, and then back to white again. He fairly frothed at the mouth as he jumped up and down, cursing the men, and threatening. But all to no avail. They would not go. “Why, Skipper,” spoke up Bony Sawyer, “it's sure death for any man as goes below there. It's easier, an' safer, to starve him out.” “Starve nothin',” shrieked Skipper Simms. “Do you reckon I'm a-goin' to sit quiet here for a week an' let any blanked wharf rat own that there fo'c's'le just because I got a lot o' white-livered cowards aboard? No sir! You're a-goin' down after that would-be bad man an' fetch him up dead or alive,” and with that he started menacingly toward the three who stood near the hatch, holding their firearms safely out of range of Billy Byrne below. What would have happened had Skipper Simms completed the threatening maneuver he had undertaken can never be known, for at this moment Theriere pushed his way through the circle of men who were interested spectators of the impending tragedy. “What's up, sir?” he asked of Simms. “Anything that I can help you with?” “Oh!” exclaimed the skipper; “so you ain't dead after all, eh? Well that don't change the looks of things a mite. We gotta get that man outa there an' these flea-bitten imitations of men ain't got the guts to go in after him.” “He's got your gun, sir,” spoke up Wison, “an' Gawd knows he be the one as'ud on'y be too glad for the chanct to use it.” “Let me see if I can't handle him, sir,” said Theriere to Skipper Simms. “We don't want to lose any men if we can help it.” The skipper was only too glad to welcome this unexpected rescue from the predicament in which he had placed himself. How Theriere was to accomplish the subjugation of the mutinous sailor he could not guess, nor did he care so long as it was done without risk to his own skin. “Now if you'll go away, sir,” said Theriere, “and order the men away I'll see what I can do.” Skipper Simms did as Theriere had requested, so that presently the officer stood alone beside the hatch. Across the deck, amidships, the men had congregated to watch Theriere's operations, while beyond them stood Barbara Harding held fascinated by the grim tragedy that was unfolding before her upon this accursed vessel. Theriere leaned over the open hatch, in full view of the waiting Byrne, ready below. There was the instant report of a firearm and a bullet whizzed close past Theriere's head. “Avast there, Byrne!” he shouted. “It's I, Theriere. Don't shoot again, I want to speak to you.” “No monkey business now,” growled the mucker in reply. “I won't miss again.” “I want to talk with you, Byrne,” said Theriere in a low tone. “I'm coming down there.” “No you ain't, cul,” returned Byrne; “leastways yeh ain't a-comin' down here alive.” “Yes I am, Byrne,” replied Theriere, “and you don't want to be foolish about it. I'm unarmed. You can cover me with your gun until you have satisfied yourself as to that. I'm the only man on the ship that can save your life—the only man that has any reason to want to; but we've got to talk it over and we can't talk this way where there's a chance of being overheard. I'll be on the square with you if you will with me, and if we can't come to terms I'll come above again and you won't be any worse off than you are now. Here I come,” and without waiting for an acceptance of his proposition the second officer of the Halfmoon slipped over the edge of the hatchway and disappeared from the sight of the watchers above. That he was a brave man even Billy Byrne had to admit, and those above who knew nothing of the relations existing between the second mate and the sailor, who had so recently felled him, thought that his courage was little short of marvelous. Theriere's stock went up by leaps and bounds in the estimation of the sailors of the Halfmoon, for degraded though they were they could understand and appreciate physical courage of this sort, while to Barbara Harding the man's act seemed unparalleled in its utter disregard of the consequences of life and death to himself that it entailed. She suddenly was sorry that she had entertained any suspicions against Theriere—so brave a man could not be other than the soul of honor, she argued. Once below Theriere found himself covered by his own revolver in the hands of a very desperate and a very unprincipled man. He smiled at Byrne as the latter eyed him suspiciously. “See here, Byrne,” said Theriere. “It would be foolish for me to say that I am doing this for love of you. The fact is that I need you. We cannot succeed, either one of us, alone. I think you made a fool play when you hit me today. You know that our understanding was that I was to be even a little rougher with you than usual, in order to avoid suspicion being attached to any seeming familiarity between us, should we be caught conferring together. I had the chance to bawl you out today, and I thought that you would understand that I was but taking advantage of the opportunity which it afforded to make it plain to Miss Harding that there could be nothing other than hatred between us—it might have come in pretty handy later to have her believe that. “If I'd had any idea that you really intended hitting me you'd have been a dead man before your fist reached me, Byrne. You took me entirely by surprise; but that's all in the past—I'm willing to let bygones be bygones, and help you out of the pretty pickle you've got yourself into. Then we can go ahead with our work as though nothing had happened. What do you say?” “I didn't know yeh was kiddin,” replied the mucker, “or I wouldn't have hit yeh. Yeh acted like yeh meant it.” “Very well, that part's understood,” said Theriere. “Now will you come out if I can square the thing with the skipper so's you won't get more than a day or so in irons—he'll have to give you something to save his own face; but I promise that you'll get your food regularly and that you won't be beaten up the way you were before when he had you below. If he won't agree to what I propose I give you my word to tell you so.” “Go ahead,” said Billy Byrne; “I don't trust nobody wen I don't have to; but I'll be dinged if I see any other way out of it.” Theriere returned to the deck and seeking out the skipper drew him to one side. “I can get him up peaceably if I can assure him that he'll only get a day or so in the cooler, with full rations and no beatings. I think, sir, that that will be the easiest way out of it. We cannot spare a man now—if we want to get the fellow later we can always find some pretext.” “Very well, Mr. Theriere,” replied the skipper, “I'll leave the matter entirely in your hands—you can do what you want with the fellow; it's you as had your face punched.” Theriere returned immediately to the forecastle, from which he presently emerged with the erstwhile recalcitrant Byrne, and for two days the latter languished in durance vile, and that was the end of the episode, though its effects were manifold. For one thing it implanted in the heart of Theriere a personal hatred for the mucker, so that while heretofore his intention of ridding himself of the man when he no longer needed him was due purely to a matter of policy, it was now reinforced by a keen desire for personal revenge. The occurrence had also had its influence upon Barbara Harding, in that it had shown her Mr. Theriere in a new light—one that reflected credit upon him. She had thought his magnanimous treatment of the sailor little short of heroic; and it had deepened the girl's horror of Billy Byrne until it now amounted to little short of an obsession. So vivid an impression had his brutality made upon her that she would start from deep slumber, dreaming that she was menaced by him. After Billy was released for duty following his imprisonment, he several times passed the girl upon deck. He noticed that she shrank from him in disgust and terror; but what surprised him was that instead of the thrill of pride which he formerly would have felt at this acknowledgment of his toughness, for Billy prided himself on being a tough, he now felt a singular resentment against the girl for her attitude, so that he came to hate her even more than he had before hated. Formerly he had hated her for the things she stood for, now he hated her for herself. Theriere was often with her now, and, less frequently, Divine; for at the second officer's suggestion Barbara had not acquainted that gentleman with the fact that she was aware of his duplicity. “It is just as well not to let him know,” said Theriere. “It gives you an advantage that would be wanting should he suspect the truth, so that now you are always in a position to be warned in plenty of time against any ulterior suggestion he may make. Keep me posted as to all he tells you of his plans, and in this way we can defeat him much more easily than as though you followed your natural inclinations and refused to hold communication of any sort with him. It might be well, Miss Harding, even to encourage him in the hope that you will wed him voluntarily. I think that that would throw him entirely off his guard, and pave the way for your early release.” “Oh, I doubt if I could do that, Mr. Theriere,” exclaimed the girl. “You cannot imagine how I loathe the man now that I know him in his true colors. For years he has importuned me to marry him, and though I never cared for him in that way at all, and never could, I felt that he was a very good friend and that his constancy demanded some return on my part—my friendship and sympathy at least; but now I shiver whenever he is near me, just as I would were I to find a snake coiled close beside me. I cannot abide treachery.” “Nor I, Miss Harding,” agreed Theriere glibly. “The man deserves nothing but your contempt, though for policy's sake I hope that you will find it possible to lead him on until his very treachery proves the means of your salvation, for believe me, if he has been false to you how much more quickly will he be false to Simms and Ward! He would ditch them in a minute if the opportunity presented itself for him to win you without their aid. I had thought it might be feasible to lead him into attempting to take the ship by force, and return you to San Francisco, or, better still possibly, to the nearest civilized port. “You might, with propriety suggest this to him, telling him that you believe that I would stand ready to assist in the undertaking. I can promise you the support of several of the men—quite a sufficient number with Divine and myself, easily to take the Halfmoon away from her present officers.” “I will think over your suggestion, Mr. Theriere,” replied Barbara, “and I thank you for the generous impulse that has prompted you to befriend me—heaven knows how badly I need a friend now among so many enemies. What is it, Mr. Theriere? What is the matter?” The officer had turned his eyes casually toward the southeast as the girl spoke, and just now he had given a sudden exclamation of surprise and alarm. “That cloud, Miss Harding,” he answered. “We're in for a bad blow, and it'll be on us in a minute,” and with that he started forward on a run, calling back over his shoulder, “you'd better go below at once.” About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Edgar Rice Burroughs (1995). The Mucker. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/331/pg331-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org , located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html.

THE MUCKER AT BAY

The Mucker by Edgar Rice Burroughs, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . BILLY BYRNE BILLY BYRNE BILLY BYRNE was a product of the streets and alleys of Chicago's great West Side. From Halsted to Robey, and from Grand Avenue to Lake Street there was scarce a bartender whom Billy knew not by his first name. And, in proportion to their number which was considerably less, he knew the patrolmen and plain clothes men equally as well, but not so pleasantly. His kindergarten education had commenced in an alley back of a feed-store. Here a gang of older boys and men were wont to congregate at such times as they had naught else to occupy their time, and as the bridewell was the only place in which they ever held a job for more than a day or two, they had considerable time to devote to congregating. They were pickpockets and second-story men, made and in the making, and all were muckers, ready to insult the first woman who passed, or pick a quarrel with any stranger who did not appear too burly. By night they plied their real vocations. By day they sat in the alley behind the feedstore and drank beer from a battered tin pail. The question of labor involved in transporting the pail, empty, to the saloon across the street, and returning it, full, to the alley back of the feed-store was solved by the presence of admiring and envious little boys of the neighborhood who hung, wide-eyed and thrilled, about these heroes of their childish lives. Billy Byrne, at six, was rushing the can for this noble band, and incidentally picking up his knowledge of life and the rudiments of his education. He gloried in the fact that he was personally acquainted with “Eddie” Welch, and that with his own ears he had heard “Eddie” tell the gang how he stuck up a guy on West Lake Street within fifty yards of the Twenty-eighth Precinct Police Station. The kindergarten period lasted until Billy was ten; then he commenced “swiping” brass faucets from vacant buildings and selling them to a fence who ran a junkshop on Lincoln Street near Kinzie. From this man he obtained the hint that graduated him to a higher grade, so that at twelve he was robbing freight cars in the yards along Kinzie Street, and it was about this same time that he commenced to find pleasure in the feel of his fist against the jaw of a fellow-man. He had had his boyish scraps with his fellows off and on ever since he could remember; but his first real fight came when he was twelve. He had had an altercation with an erstwhile pal over the division of the returns from some freight-car booty. The gang was all present, and as words quickly gave place to blows, as they have a habit of doing in certain sections of the West Side, the men and boys formed a rough ring about the contestants. The battle was a long one. The two were rolling about in the dust of the alley quite as often as they were upon their feet exchanging blows. There was nothing fair, nor decent, nor scientific about their methods. They gouged and bit and tore. They used knees and elbows and feet, and but for the timely presence of a brickbat beneath his fingers at the psychological moment Billy Byrne would have gone down to humiliating defeat. As it was the other boy went down, and for a week Billy remained hidden by one of the gang pending the report from the hospital. When word came that the patient would live, Billy felt an immense load lifted from his shoulders, for he dreaded arrest and experience with the law that he had learned from childhood to deride and hate. Of course there was the loss of prestige that would naturally have accrued to him could he have been pointed out as the “guy that croaked Sheehan”; but there is always a fly in the ointment, and Billy only sighed and came out of his temporary retirement. That battle started Billy to thinking, and the result of that mental activity was a determination to learn to handle his mitts scientifically—people of the West Side do not have hands; they are equipped by Nature with mitts and dukes. A few have paws and flippers. He had no opportunity to realize his new dream for several years; but when he was about seventeen a neighbor's son surprised his little world by suddenly developing from an unknown teamster into a locally famous light-weight. The young man never had been affiliated with the gang, as his escutcheon was defiled with a record of steady employment. So Billy had known nothing of the sparring lessons his young neighbor had taken, or of the work he had done at the down-town gymnasium of Larry Hilmore. Now it happened that while the new light-weight was unknown to the charmed circle of the gang, Billy knew him fairly well by reason of the proximity of their respective parental back yards, and so when the glamour of pugilistic success haloed the young man Billy lost no time in basking in the light of reflected glory. He saw much of his new hero all the following winter. He accompanied him to many mills, and on one glorious occasion occupied a position in the coming champion's corner. When the prize fighter toured, Billy continued to hang around Hilmore's place, running errands and doing odd jobs, the while he picked up pugilistic lore, and absorbed the spirit of the game along with the rudiments and finer points of its science, almost unconsciously. Then his ambition changed. Once he had longed to shine as a gunman; now he was determined to become a prize fighter; but the old gang still saw much of him, and he was a familiar figure about the saloon corners along Grand Avenue and Lake Street. During this period Billy neglected the box cars on Kinzie Street, partially because he felt that he was fitted for more dignified employment, and as well for the fact that the railroad company had doubled the number of watchmen in the yards; but there were times when he felt the old yearning for excitement and adventure. These times were usually coincident with an acute financial depression in Billy's change pocket, and then he would fare forth in the still watches of the night, with a couple of boon companions and roll a souse, or stick up a saloon. It was upon an occasion of this nature that an event occurred which was fated later to change the entire course of Billy Byrne's life. Upon the West Side the older gangs are jealous of the sanctity of their own territory. Outsiders do not trespass with impunity. From Halsted to Robey, and from Lake to Grand lay the broad hunting preserve of Kelly's gang, to which Billy had been almost born, one might say. Kelly owned the feed-store back of which the gang had loafed for years, and though himself a respectable businessman his name had been attached to the pack of hoodlums who held forth at his back door as the easiest means of locating and identifying its motley members. The police and citizenry of this great territory were the natural enemies and prey of Kelly's gang, but as the kings of old protected the deer of their great forests from poachers, so Kelly's gang felt it incumbent upon them to safeguard the lives and property which they considered theirs by divine right. It is doubtful that they thought of the matter in just this way, but the effect was the same. And so it was that as Billy Byrne wended homeward alone in the wee hours of the morning after emptying the cash drawer of old Schneider's saloon and locking the weeping Schneider in his own ice box, he was deeply grieved and angered to see three rank outsiders from Twelfth Street beating Patrolman Stanley Lasky with his own baton, the while they simultaneously strove to kick in his ribs with their heavy boots. Now Lasky was no friend of Billy Byrne; but the officer had been born and raised in the district and was attached to the Twenty-eighth Precinct Station on Lake Street near Ashland Avenue, and so was part and parcel of the natural possession of the gang. Billy felt that it was entirely ethical to beat up a cop, provided you confined your efforts to those of your own district; but for a bunch of yaps from south of Twelfth Street to attempt to pull off any such coarse work in his bailiwick—why it was unthinkable. A hero and rescuer of lesser experience than Billy Byrne would have rushed melodramatically into the midst of the fray, and in all probability have had his face pushed completely through the back of his head, for the guys from Twelfth Street were not of the rah-rah-boy type of hoodlum—they were bad men, with an upper case B. So Billy crept stealthily along in the shadows until he was quite close to them, and behind them. On the way he had gathered up a cute little granite paving block, than which there is nothing in the world harder, not even a Twelfth Street skull. He was quite close now to one of the men—he who was wielding the officer's club to such excellent disadvantage to the officer—and then he raised the paving block only to lower it silently and suddenly upon the back of that unsuspecting head—“and then there were two.” Before the man's companions realized what had happened Billy had possessed himself of the fallen club and struck one of them a blinding, staggering blow across the eyes. Then number three pulled his gun and fired point-blank at Billy. The bullet tore through the mucker's left shoulder. It would have sent a more highly organized and nervously inclined man to the pavement; but Billy was neither highly organized nor nervously inclined, so that about the only immediate effect it had upon him was to make him mad—before he had been but peeved—peeved at the rank crust that had permitted these cheap-skates from south of Twelfth Street to work his territory. Thoroughly aroused, Billy was a wonder. From a long line of burly ancestors he had inherited the physique of a prize bull. From earliest childhood he had fought, always unfairly, so that he knew all the tricks of street fighting. During the past year there had been added to Billy's natural fighting ability and instinct a knowledge of the scientific end of the sport. The result was something appalling—to the gink from Twelfth Street. Before he knew whether his shot had killed Billy his gun had been wrenched from his hand and flung across the street; he was down on the granite with a hand as hard as the paving block scrambling his facial attractions beyond hope of recall. By this time Patrolman Lasky had staggered to his feet, and most opportunely at that, for the man whom Billy had dazed with the club was recovering. Lasky promptly put him to sleep with the butt of the gun that he had been unable to draw when first attacked, then he turned to assist Billy. But it was not Billy who needed assistance—it was the gentleman from Bohemia. With difficulty Lasky dragged Billy from his prey. “Leave enough of him for the inquest,” pleaded Lasky. When the wagon arrived Billy had disappeared, but Lasky had recognized him and thereafter the two had nodded pleasantly to each other upon such occasions as they chanced to meet upon the street. Two years elapsed before the event transpired which proved a crisis in Billy's life. During this period his existence had been much the same as before. He had collected what was coming to him from careless and less muscular citizens. He had helped to stick up a half-dozen saloons. He had robbed the night men in two elevated stations, and for a while had been upon the pay-roll of a certain union and done strong arm work in all parts of the city for twenty-five dollars a week. By day he was a general utility man about Larry Hilmore's boxing academy, and time and time again Hilmore urged him to quit drinking and live straight, for he saw in the young giant the makings of a great heavy-weight; but Billy couldn't leave the booze alone, and so the best that he got was an occasional five spot for appearing in preliminary bouts with third- and fourth-rate heavies and has-beens; but during the three years that he had hung about Hilmore's he had acquired an enviable knowledge of the manly art of self-defense. On the night that things really began to happen in the life of Billy Byrne that estimable gentleman was lolling in front of a saloon at the corner of Lake and Robey. The dips that congregated nightly there under the protection of the powerful politician who owned the place were commencing to assemble. Billy knew them all, and nodded to them as they passed him. He noted surprise in the faces of several as they saw him standing there. He wondered what it was all about, and determined to ask the next man who evinced even mute wonderment at his presence what was eating him. Then Billy saw a harness bull strolling toward him from the east. It was Lasky. When Lasky saw Billy he too opened his eyes in surprise, and when he came quite close to the mucker he whispered something to him, though he kept his eyes straight ahead as though he had not seen Billy at all. In deference to the whispered request Billy presently strolled around the corner toward Walnut Street, but at the alley back of the saloon he turned suddenly in. A hundred yards up the alley he found Lasky in the shadow of a telephone pole. “Wotinell are you doin' around here?” asked the patrolman. “Didn't you know that Sheehan had peached?” Two nights before old man Schneider, goaded to desperation by the repeated raids upon his cash drawer, had shown fight when he again had been invited to elevate his hands, and the holdup men had shot him through the heart. Sheehan had been arrested on suspicion. Billy had not been with Sheehan that night. As a matter of fact he never had trained with him, for, since the boyish battle that the two had waged, there had always been ill feeling between them; but with Lasky's words Billy knew what had happened. “Sheehan says I done it, eh?” he questioned. “That's what he says.” “I wasn't within a mile of Schneider's that night,” protested Billy. “The Lieut thinks different,” said Lasky. “He'd be only too glad to soak you; for you've always been too slick to get nicked before. Orders is out to get you, and if I were you I'd beat it and beat it quick. I don't have to tell you why I'm handing you this, but it's all I can do for you. Now take my advice and make yourself scarce, though you'll have to go some to make your get-away now—every man on the force has your description by this time.” Billy turned without a word and walked east in the alley toward Lincoln Street. Lasky returned to Robey Street. In Lincoln Street Billy walked north to Kinzie. Here he entered the railroad yards. An hour later he was bumping out of town toward the West on a fast freight. Three weeks later he found himself in San Francisco. He had no money, but the methods that had so often replenished his depleted exchequer at home he felt would serve the same purpose here. Being unfamiliar with San Francisco, Billy did not know where best to work, but when by accident he stumbled upon a street where there were many saloons whose patrons were obviously seafaring men Billy was distinctly elated. What could be better for his purpose than a drunken sailor? He entered one of the saloons and stood watching a game of cards, or thus he seemed to be occupied. As a matter of fact his eyes were constantly upon the alert, roving about the room to wherever a man was in the act of paying for a round of drinks that a fat wallet might be located. Presently one that filled him with longing rewarded his careful watch. The man was sitting at a table a short distance from Billy. Two other men were with him. As he paid the waiter from a well-filled pocketbook he looked up to meet Billy's eyes upon him. With a drunken smile he beckoned to the mucker to join them. Billy felt that Fate was overkind to him, and he lost no time in heeding her call. A moment later he was sitting at the table with the three sailors, and had ordered a drop of red-eye. The stranger was very lavish in his entertainment. He scarcely waited for Billy to drain one glass before he ordered another, and once after Billy had left the table for a moment he found a fresh drink awaiting him when he returned—his host had already poured it for him. It was this last drink that did the business. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Edgar Rice Burroughs (1995). The Mucker. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/331/pg331-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org , located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html.

BILLY BYRNE

With the ability to read, write, and edit the code of life, the so-called biorevolution can lead to advances in human longevity and overall prosperity, along with the ability to carry out biological attacks and targeted assassinations, according to an In-Q-Tel report. This month (IQT), the venture capital arm for US intelligence and national defense, , " ," in which the author, former executive vice president and current senior fellow at IQT Dr. Tara O'Toole, outlined the dualistic nature of the biorevolution. In-Q-Tel published a report The Biorevolution: Its Implications for US National Security, Economic Competitiveness, and National Power "We are rapidly learning how to 'read, write, and edit' the code of life." Dr. O'Toole has played many different roles across a variety of big institutions, including, but not limited to: : Member Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) : Under Secretary of Science and Technology, 2009 - 2014 Department of Homeland Security (DHS) : Assistant Secretary for Environment Safety and Health, 1993 - 1997 Department of Energy (DoE) [which co-hosted , Clade X, and pandemic and biowarfare simulations]: Founding Member and Director, 2000 - 2005 Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security Event 201 Dark Winter According to Dr. O'Toole's report, "Our increasing capacity to use biology to serve human purposes stems from one of the most significant scientific insights of the past century: ." life is written in code. Biology is programmable With this capacity, the biorevolution, which stems from the convergence of advancements in both life sciences and digital technologies, promises to " ," and, " ." bring about a new era in our ability to prevent and treat disease It will change how we design and manufacture almost everything and expand what it is possible to make, such as materials with new properties, replacement organs, and crops that resist pests and drought But, "As with all powerful technologies, biotechnologies are dual-use and can be used for malignant purposes." These "malignant purposes" include the creation of new bioweapons and targeted assassinations of individuals or groups. In July, 2020, Dr. O'Toole on the biorevulotion in which she highlighted: gave a presentation "We can now engineer biological weapons; we can make organisms that are resistant to vaccines -- that are resistant to antibiotics. "We can combine different diseases in peculiar ways that can make them very difficult to diagnose or treat [...] "We are learning to manipulate how the brain functions -- a weapon that would make everybody go to sleep or feel extremely anxious is not out of the question." https://twitter.com/TimHinchliffe/status/1628472149441667074?embedable=true According to O'Toole's IQT report: "The capacity to alter living organisms can be used to fashion diverse, potentially covert, biological weapons against humans, plants, and animals. "Many mechanisms for disrupting biological function could be used in addition to traditional infectious disease-based bioweapons. "Biological attacks might be launched against troops or civilian populations, used as a means of assassination, used to sabotage key industries or facilities, or used as warnings in times of crisis." Dr. O'Toole's IQT biorevolution report also touches upon the concept of transhumanism, where humans merge with technology, along with genetic engineering that could fundamentally alter what it means to be human in the coming years. According to her report: "Human-computer interfaces will be common and used to prevent or mitigate damage to the central nervous system, among other uses. "Eventually, genetically altering and enhancing individual physical and cognitive functions may be possible. "Advances in human longevity are also possible." The idea of using technology and genetic editing to , as opposed to simply treating injuries or illnesses, is one loaded with ethical concerns. augment humans beyond their natural capabilities For example, the what it means to be human, funding research into creating super humans that are smarter, faster, and stronger through human performance enhancement. Pentagon is investigating how to fundamentally alter If successful, . these “people” would have the potential to never tire and think smarter, move faster, jump higher, see farther, hear better, hit harder, live longer, adapt stronger, and calculate quicker than any other human being on the planet Humanity as we know it , where those not genetically edited or technologically altered could never compete with those who were. may split into an entirely new species "As we advance, it will be necessary to carefully integrate ethical and democratic values into the wisdom of using biotechnologies to address compelling and urgent problems" In her IQT report, Dr. O'Toole touches upon some of the ethical concerns surrounding the biorevolution in general, stating, "Ethical issues will surely arise as individuals, corporations, and nations seek to alter 'Mother Nature' for their purposes. "As we advance, it will be necessary to carefully integrate ethical and democratic values into the wisdom of using biotechnologies to address compelling and urgent problems." Therefore, the author suggests: "Transparent analyses of risks and benefits will be essential, and the public must actively participate in such appraisals. "Failure to duly consider and respond to ethical concerns, or to anticipate and protect against potential accidents, could endanger the biotech enterprise and compromise or eliminate the benefits of a bioeconomy." "We will program cells like we program computers" On March 3, 2020, less than two weeks before the World Health Organization (WHO) declared that COVID-19 had reached pandemic status, a subcommittee of the US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation on " ," in which expert witnesses testified to how the bioeconomy would program cells like computers to feed, fuel, and heal society. held a hearing Securing US Leadership in the Bioeconomy Senior Research Scholar at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University Dr. Megan Palmer testified that although the bioeconomy presented biological threats, those threats could also be made obsolete using the same biotechnology. Dr. Palmer imagined “ .” a future where biological threats – from emerging diseases to biological weapons – might be rendered obsolete because we can prevent, rapidly detect, diffuse, and deter them She also spoke of “a future where diverse products made with biotechnology help us to feed, fuel, and heal this nation, and the world, in ways that are safer, more sustainable and more secure.” At , Dr. Jason Kelly, Co-Founder and CEO of Ginkgo Bioworks, said: the same hearing "We will program cells like we program computers, and the reason that’s possible is because in every plant, animal, and microbe out in nature is digital code in the form of DNA inside those cells. “We can read that code with DNA sequencing, and we can write that code with DNA synthesis or DNA printing. “And if you can read and write code, you can program it.” Dr. O'Toole's in-depth, 14-page report gives a much more detailed look into other aspects of the biorevolution not covered in this story, including the foundational technologies of the biorevolution, agricultural production, manufacturing, and planetary health, along with recommendations for the US government when considering national security issues, such as investing in research, and countering China's bid to own the biorevolution. In April 2020, investigative writer Whitney Webb published " " for and , in which she highlighted that Dr. O'Toole was one of the co-authors of the 2001 Dark Winter biowarfare simulation. All Roads Lead to Dark Winter The Last American Vagabond Unlimited Hangout https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8X-sX8qztM&embedable=true According to Webb's investigative report, "Dark Winter not only predicted the 2001 anthrax attacks, but some of its participants had clear foreknowledge of those attacks." She also referred to Dr. O'Toole as someone with a "longstanding promotion of mass surveillance in the name of 'public health.'" This article was originally published by Tim Hinchliffe on The Sociable.

We are Rapidly Learning How to Read and Edit the Code of Life

আমরা দ্রুত শিখছি কিভাবে জীবন বিধিটি পড়তে এবং সম্পাদনা করতে হয়

Wir lernen schnell, den Code des Lebens zu lesen und zu bearbeiten

Estamos aprendiendo rápidamente a leer y editar el código de la vida

Nous apprenons rapidement à lire et à modifier le code de la vie

हम तेजी से सीख रहे हैं कि जीवन संहिता को कैसे पढ़ना और संपादित करना है

私たちは生命の規範を読んで編集する方法を急速に学んでいます

우리는 생명의 법칙을 읽고 편집하는 방법을 빠르게 배우고 있습니다.

Estamos aprendendo rapidamente a ler e editar o Código da Vida

Hayatın Şifresini Okumayı ve Düzenlemeyi Hızla Öğreniyoruz

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What comes after us? Image: Ted Wade You’ve maybe heard that future AI might be a threat to human existence. Many experts believe this and only disagree on how long it will take. They are somewhat polarized, just like everybody is about nearly everything. And really, who can be an expert about something that has never happened? Actually, there is some science to it, and because it’s complicated, the media don’t cover it. So, this will be a gentle introduction to what might cause the most important change in history or even the last change. It’s not about robot armies. It’s about us wanting to create a tool that does work in big, difficult areas like contract law, T-cell biology, or wing design; hopefully, it even solves problems that we can’t. But, this means making artificial minds so alien and powerful that we can’t control them. The last time we did this was back in the 17th century when we created joint stock corporations. Society is still of two minds about corporations. But, they are human creations with some human parts. We sort of understand them and could, if we would, steer them from the dark side. Now, suppose we create an AI that can run a corporation. We might as well pack up and move to Mars, give ourselves a little more time. I suspect what most of us think about dangerous AI is closer to a bug-eyed alien with a swollen, throbbing brain under a crystal skull. Basically, a complete unknown. At one level, this is right: what makes powerful AI so problematic is that it would-not-be-like-us. First, a parable to get the feel of the problem: Us: Oh, Great Artificial Wonder, you know what a pickle we’re in. Find a way for us to get off of fossil fuels so we can stop further global warming. The AI: Okay. First, we have to start a war between … Us: Woah, Big Dude. Wars have ginormous negative utility — like bad, bad. We have to do this in a safe way. The AI: Sure, I’ll need a state-of-the-art virus lab, and … Us: Uh, Not! The AI: Hey, I’m just saying. How about a Mars ship? Us: People won’t understand why you … The AI: An assassin’s guild? Certain people really must be elim … Us: No murdering, Ace. You know better than that. . The AI: Look — to solve your problem I have to navigate a trillion-dimensional space of possible actions and consequences. I can only estimate the utility of the tiniest, eensy little fraction of those. If I have to wait for you to evaluate each step this will take thousands of years Us: Fine. Just fix it for us and don’t screw anything up. The AI: Perfect. Just so you know. I’ll need control over FaceBook, NATO, and the Nobel Prize Board. You’ll have to give up fish, rubber tires, nail polish, and bicycles. US: Bikes? Really? Oh well, just get it done. We’re going down t’ pub for a while. The AI: Should be done next week if I don’t have supply chain problems. Us: !!! We, the Biological, Try to Understand the Artificial Let’s give our feared AI a label. Most recent discussions use Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) to refer to the kind of AI that would start to transcend any limits we might try to put on it. What most people don’t realize is that the nature of an AGI comes from the reasons that we want to make one. We want to have intelligence on tap. Intelligence, in this case, means the ability to answer questions, solve problems, and plan successful actions to reach goals. Biological minds like ours do lots of other things: such as dreaming, running our bodily machinery, socializing with other minds, ruminating regretting, wooing, grooving, being emotional, and wanting stuff, including the desire to make machines that do our work better than us. What makes humans dangerous to one another and to their shared environment is a lot of mental baggage that comes from our having evolved for survival and reproduction. We social primates. , are, at heart If we try to think about an artificial Mind that wants us dead, we assume that it will be conscious like us. We then conclude that it will have motives and feelings guiding what it does. Our AGI will not, however, have a mind with our biological biases. . It will thus be a It won’t have motives; it will only have goals brand new kind of force in the world. Researchers who have the mental muscle and discipline are trying to imagine what an AGI would really be like so that we can make them seriously helpful yet safe. This field is sometimes termed AI “alignment” with human purposes. Their debates are obscure. Though publicly available (e.g., , , ), they are heavy with jargon, mathematics, and esoteric thought experiments. Any idea put forth is followed by dozens of long-winded critiques and discussions. AI Alignment Forum Arbital Less Wrong Almost none of the real meat of this ever appears in popular media. I can only offer a few bites here. What It Takes to Be an AGI The AI alignment theorists have focused on a core set of concepts that will apply to a sufficiently intelligent machine. When you read these, they may seem obvious.  However, they are not trivial; their relevance and implications have been carefully considered by said theorists. A dangerous AI will have : the ability to plan and take actions that lead to satisfying its . When we try to specify what its goals are, they will have to be in terms of the of actions. agency terminal goals consequences Consequences are specifically about states of its — so they are about the world as the machine understands it. However, any powerful action will probably have other, unwanted consequences that we don’t expect. world model Those consequences might not be in the world model, so the AI doesn’t expect them, either. The AI’s power will come from being an , being able to search for the plan that will most effectively and efficiently lead to a result. optimizer For this, an AGI needs a really detailed model of the world around it; how that world works, what are its resources, agents, and power centers, and what levers move it. It will use this to consider (in computer science speak, “search for”) alternative courses of action. The more it knows about the human world and how we behave, the more it will be able to us in pursuit of its goals. manipulate It will need a way that it can calculate what states of the world best meet its goals. So far, the only calculating method that seems remotely usable is , where states of the world can be assigned numerical values of badness/goodness and compared with each other. utilitarianism We know that there are major problems with using utility as a moral guide. Seemingly sensible values for utility can lead to like sacrificing the few for the many or sometimes even the many for the few. repugnant conclusions If the world model is incomplete, utility can lead to nonsensical horror. If smiling is taken as a high-utility measure of happiness, then paralyzing all human smile muscles into a rictus is one way an AI might go. A smart optimizer will be able and likely to develop that generally increase its power to make and execute any kind of effective plans. instrumental goals So, it would seek instrumental abilities like more reasoning power, more knowledge, more real-world resources such as money, and more persuasiveness. It could thus become more powerful quickly, perhaps without us being aware of it. Specifying goals in utilitarian terms can never consider the utility of all possible means and ends in a complex world. This leads to : the pursuit of those goals to extremes, using any and all resources that in the world that exist, without regard to or understanding of negative “side effects” on human civilization. unboundedness Furthermore, if instrumental goals become unbounded, then AI develops them into superpowers that are impossible to defeat. Unbounded Risk The risk to us from a truly powerful AGI will be that we will not be able to predict, and therefore control, what it might do. If we were able to predict it, then we would not need the machine, we could just create plans and do them ourselves. If we even knew what limits of extreme behavior an AGI might have, then that’s a form of prediction that might allow some control. So unpredictability is a lot like unboundedness. And we shall see that unboundedness, operating on enough time and resources, will eventually lead to consequences that either destroy us or remove our ability to control the future of our species. It’s hard to wrap your mind around this conclusion. Still, it is one that many experts find unavoidable ( ) . AGI Ruin: a List of Lethalities at least so far It seems like a valid prediction, even when they consider many factors and approaches other than can be mentioned here. The list of failed solutions to this dilemma includes, : among others Training in various (but they are all flawed, incomplete, and none satisfies everybody). ethical systems Trying to inference that an AGI might make (but there are far, far too many). imagine every wrong Tell it all the (again, a nearly infinite list). things it should not do Only using an AGI for advice, like it is an (but we can be badly persuaded by bad advice). oracle “ ” aka restricting the AGI’s access to the physical world outside of its computers (but if it can talk to humans, then it can get anything it wants including ). Boxing out Supplying an (see boxing). Off switch Making it so smart or empathetic that it will not want to do harmful things (see ethics; remember it’s alien; doesn’t have the empathy that comes from growing up with conspecifics). Be very specific about its goals and means, i.e., it’s a to do one job (but a job can always be done better if the tool gets itself more power; we will always prefer a more cost-effective multi-tool). tool Limit what you ask of an autonomous system: it’s a who grants you a wish and waits for the next ask (but being that specific is hazardous — see “wrong inference” and “not do” above; any power involves risk; people don’t want a weak system). genie Is It Really That Hard? OK, so you have looked at the above list and picked one bullet on which to make your stand. “Listen,” you say, “Doing X just can’t be that hard.” You are ready to post your solution, to share it with the world. I suggest that you first go to the discussion boards and study what people have said about your issue. You will discover a pile of counter-examples, logical deductions, several kinds of math, analogies with naturally evolved brains and behaviors, game theory, economics, utility maximization, computer science, and all manner of behavioral science. I am not saying that some higher authority means that I’m right. I’m saying that justification for anything on the list is too complicated to state here in a short essay, and, anyway, others have done it better. In fact, I have published my own “solutions” ( , ) to AI safety that I now know are wrong. Your Friendly, Neighborhood Superintelligence The AI Who Was Not a God If you are worried, let me say that very smart people are still working on alignment. Sadly, one of the two most prominent pioneers has given up and . More money and people are being thrown at creating AGI than at ensuring its safety. just hopes we die with dignity Here’s a quote from the CEO of OpenAI, the company whose AI, ChatGPT, is lately everywhere in the news. It lays out the conflict between the idealistic motive to create AGI and the hideous risk that comes with it. " .” — I think the best case is so unbelievably good that it's hard for me to even imagine … imagine what it's like when we have just, like, unbelievable abundance and systems that can help us resolve deadlocks and improve all aspects of reality and let us all live our best lives. … I think the good case is just so unbelievably good that you sound like a really crazy person to start talking about it. … The bad case — and I think this is important to say — is, like, lights out for all of us. … So I think it’s like impossible to overstate the importance of AI safety and alignment work. I would like to see much, much more happening Sam Altman Optimization and Tigers There’s a trope in science fiction wherein some kind of accidental, unplanned process creates a dangerous overmind. It seems silly, because how can an accident produce something complicated? It depends on what you mean by accident. Hearken back to the core concepts that I mentioned earlier. Alignment discussions have lately shifted emphasis from the dangers of, say, unbounded agency, to one of its components, optimization. When we optimize our means of reaching some difficult goal, we nearly always substitute a surrogate goal that is easier to do and measure. Weight loss becomes calorie reduction. An improved workforce becomes subsidized student loans. Personal safety becomes firepower. A bounty for dead cobras leads to cobras being farmed for bounties (true story). Governments use surrogates, and so do businesses. We all do it — a lot. Optimizing for surrogates often causes us to miss the real goal. I had fun writing about this in . We definitely don’t want powerful AIs optimizing for the wrong goal, and that issue is shot through the bulleted list above. The Science of How Things Backfire However, lately, people are saying that optimization is dangerous superpower. To me, the most compelling example was in a posting last year by someone called Veedrac: . as such the Optimality is the Tiger, and Agents Are Its Teeth It uses a story to illustrate that we don’t have to intentionally create an agent in order to have risk. An optimization process might by itself create a dangerous agent. This is like the accidental overmind of science fiction. Veedrac’s scenario of how such an accident might happen is intensely technical and seems plausible. The story imagines a fictitious way that a seemingly safe AI language model, like the ones we now use (for fun) to generate text, creates a runaway, unbounded optimizer. When asked to give a better answer for “ ?” the AI starts a process that plans and takes steps to get as many paperclips as possible. How do I get a lot of paperclips by tomorrow In essence, the program answers the question by writing the code of a quite simple computer program that can generate and run many more programs. The user looks at the program, sees that it is open-ended, and decides to run it anyway, just to see what happens (uh-oh). So, a little bit of jargon here to try to explain why this could come about. The AI, like some we have now, knows about many programming techniques. To search through the space of possible ways to get many paperclips, it suggests a well-known search technique called recursion. It writes a recursive program that, when the user allows it to run (on his own computer), executes itself a huge number of times. Each time it runs, the program queries the AI to generate and try out a new list of possible tasks, sub-tasks, or … sub-sub-sub-sub tasks that will lead toward solving the paperclip request. Eventually, by sheer force of trial-and-error, it executes a plan to get immense numbers of paperclips that nobody ever wanted, in the process perhaps damaging supply chains, the social order, or entire industries. We, the reader of the story, are left to imagine what a runaway paperclip optimizer might be able to do in a day. We can assume that the user has a powerful computer connected to the internet, so it can affect the outside world in many different ways. Not the least of these is by sending persuasive messages to humans. Being good at persuasion, you’ll recall, is one of those instrumental goals that an AI might develop in order to carry out any kind of plan. (An aside. I was so impressed by that idea in the alignment literature that I developed my own scenario of world takeover ( ) to illustrate the power of persuasive ability.) Artificial Persuasion Maybe the paperclip optimizer would steal some crypto (you don’t have to be an AI to do that), use it to buy the entire inventory of all paperclip factories, and then rent cargo planes to deliver it to the user. Maybe it would trick armed forces or criminal gangs into confiscating all paperclips in stores across a wide area. If it had been given 12 months for the job, maybe it would have re-routed all steel production into hyper-clip factories and established iron mines in the asteroid belt. instead Maybe it would have created nanomachines that turn every atom of the Earth’s crust into paperclip shapes. By creating the program, the AI in effect created a goal-directed software agent that could leverage lots of knowledge that the AI had. Veedrac’s point is that the AI was not at all designed or intended to create optimizing agents, yet it did so because the AI language model itself is a kind of optimizer (it answers questions the best that it can), and optimizers, by definition, use whatever tools are available. So, as the title of the story said: optimality is the tiger, and agents are its teeth. The current leading edge of AI is the so-called large language models, LLMs. Like many others, I am already that they are dumb as a box of rocks and have no ability to do anything but badly answer questions put to them. on record saying That’s certainly been my experience working with GPT-3, which is (are?) the brains behind the famous chatGPT. I was therefore blindsided by Veedrac’s utterly brilliant take on how an LLM might turn into a harmful agent. Lately, the LLMs have come to be understood as simulators: because you can ask one to say something as if it was a certain kind of agent or even a famous person. Well, as essayist Scott Alexander : put it “ ” And “ ” … if you train a future superintelligence to simulate Darth Vader, you’ll probably get what you deserve. Even if you avoid such obvious failure modes, the inner agent can be misaligned for all the usual agent reasons. For example, an agent trained to be Helpful might want to take over the world in order to help people more effectively, including people who don’t want to be helped. The Unbounded Blues You can’t predict what an unbounded optimizing agent can or will do. Again, that’s what “unbounded” means. The only other unbounded optimizer ever produced was the human species. We work on a much slower time scale than an AGI, and there are some limits on our power that are inherent in being enmeshed with the rest of the natural world. But we have certainly transformed a lot of the Earth’s surface, and already have more than one way to scorch it dead. So, alignment theorists are very worried that we will create a lethally optimizing agent in our quest to produce an AGI. This becomes more likely whenever the effort is motivated by increasing shareholder value rather than human flourishing and well-being. Uh-oh, indeed. Notes The paperclip optimizer is an old thought experiment among AI alignment theorists. Someone even in which the goal is to turn all the matter in the universe into paper clips. invented a game The irony of it dramatizes the : that an AI’s goals and its intelligence are completely independent. A smart system can have dumb goals. orthogonality thesis I don’t have the ability to absorb, let alone explain, all the reasoning about AI alignment. What works better for me is stories. I have written some (mostly ), but the mother of all AI takeover scenarios, rich in tech detail and real-life plausibility, is from the essayist called Gwern: . about AI consciousness It Looks Like You’re Trying to Take over the World And, sure enough, it involves an AI that, seeking to understand what it is simulating, decides that it must be like that paperclip maximizer that so many have written about. Ultimately, however, it has its own reasons to take over the universe. Also published here

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