I recently finished the first draft of another manuscript (whoop whoop!), which means it's time to share my Google searches* for this book...
- How hackers work
- Quantum computers
- Anonymous (after researching this and the above topics, watching multiple documentaries, and taking a class in programming, I was completely paranoid for about a month...actually, when I start thinking about it again, the paranoia returns...)
- How to write binary (Yup, those 0s and 1s make complete sense to me now as does my father-in-law's shirt which reads, "There are 10 kinds of people in the world. Those who understand binary and those who don't.")
- How to crack a safe (Totally depends on the safe and the equipment available, which is probably obvious, but it was fascinating to learn about. FYI, if you buy a safe that has a reset button on the inside of the door, you are asking for trouble)
- Fastest way to knock someone out (I've come to learn there's fast and then there's "safe" [side note: there really is no "safe"] and the two are definitely not the same thing)
- How to disarm a bomb (Another side note: why in the world would the bad guys put a handy-dandy timer on their super-killer bomb? You realize they can set them to explode without that, right? Think about it...)
- Can you break a finger with MMA gloves on (the answer is yes)
- How to break someone's finger with MMA gloves on (...but I needed to make sure you could do it INTENTIONALLY)
- Treating a broken finger (I found this horrible, horrible YouTube video that I literally couldn't watch all the way through of a doctor resetting a finger that looked like a traffic collision. I was not meant for a career in the medical field.)
- MMA submissions (I watched a lot of MMA fights. One of those things where my husband walks past and is like, "What are you doing?" and I'm like, "...um...writing...")
- Experiences that bond people (A strange search that turned out to be not that helpful)
- Terrifying team building experiences (Hilarious results. But again, not helpful.)
- What does PTSD feel like
- Fighting knives
- What information do you need to hack a car (This was an amazing thing to research. SO MANY POSSIBILITIES! I might need to write a short story around this idea. Also, I'm pretty sure I could build what I'd need to do this myself for about thirty bucks. Tempting...)
- How long can a person live without food (a good long while) or water (not nearly as long)
- How to sleep on concrete (with your eyes closed! ba-dum-ch!)
- Needle under fingernail (I once accidentally stabbed a fork underneath my fingernail...I had personal experience to draw from while working on this particular topic)
- How long will you pass out from pain (If the past few searches weren't clear enough...things did not go well for my main character during this adventure)
- What happens if you cut a cat's tail off (I know that probably seems completely unrelated, but there was a cat and it had a tail and I needed to know...)
- What happens if you give insulin to someone who doesn't need it
- Effects of sleep deprivation
- Medical reasons you must be handcuffed in front
- How to avoid detection when running in a forest (because, hey, you never know what Google holds! I ended up getting far less specific to find what I was actually looking for.)
- How to throw off scent dogs / hounds (FYI -- walking through a river isn't going to cut it)
- How to open hood of car from outside
- How to render someone unable to speak
- Injuries from breaking glass / window with elbow
- Arteries and veins in the arm (Can I just say, the day after researching these, I went to a danger show at RenFest where a guy put a cucumber along the underside of his arm and another guy threw knives at it to slice it in half. All my research made the event that much more terrifying. The whole time I was thinking, "Do they even know how close to dying they are right now?")
- How to escape a rooftop (Somehow during this search I ended up watching this video of a guy fleeing across rooftops in this sort of ramshackle village and getting rid of his pursuers one by one while an angry crowd [a la Aladdin] watched)
- How to fall safely from heights (honestly, the best way to summarize this is, "fall drunk"...that said, in general, I don't recommend mixing large quantities of alcohol and dangerous drops)
*This is not an exhaustive list. Everything searched did not necessarily play a vital role in the outcome of events.
