Actually, I'm kidding. That would be a lousy meme.

A few emails came in recently. First, Nick Vargish said he had submitted a link to Slashdot which included a reference to MoS. Although the link wasn't accepted, and we didn't get the Death Flood of traffic which such a link creates, we'd like to thank Nick for his attempt!

Second, correspondent Benjamin Kaplin sent in a long discourse on the Venusian Mafia's messaging system. One of his most interesting theses was: "All this leads to the conclusion that the police would find it difficult to get into the network. Basically, the network is for the higher echelon of criminals, so it's easier to get in the higher rank you are, and much more difficult at lower trust settings."

Last but not least, Peter Williams asked where Benjamin got those flowers he's carrying. I figured today's update would answer his question...

I wanted to talk about how I mentally based the Alnaschar oceanfront area where this scene takes place on Chicago's Belmont Harbor, but I couldn't find any good photos of it on the Web and so I decided not to mention it today. Er, oops. Well, we'll see if I get a chance to head down there with my digital camera before this scene ends. Or if we ever get a decent look at the surrounding environment in the comic, for that matter; I'm not exactly the king of the well-placed wide shot to establish the setting.