More alert readers may have already perused some recent Forbes content with all kinds of nice things to say about L’Harbour de Silicon.  While we are all used to The Holy City getting the props in glossy national rags, something stands out about this particular rhapsodic write-up.  Lurking behind the usual references to ‘charm’ and the opinions of Condé Nast Traveler’s readership is something new — a presence we have not felt before.  Like the Deep Old Ones pressing against the barrier between our reality and theirs, a new, possibly ancient,  power is in play.

Who or what are Lake Avenue Ventures and what is it that they want?

A nondescript West Ashley subdivision is a strange home for an outfit that claims close ties to The City of Mount Pleasant.  Why would they choose a pleasantly tree-lined suburban street as the emblem of their organization?  What evils might be lurking behind these suspiciously-out-of-place double garage doors?  Nothing says sinister like a poorly-executed wood addition to a brick ranch.  Could proximity to Charleston’s most prominent historical houses and gardens be a clue?  No surprise that old-world money might be part of this.

Even the figurehead of this network, Scott Alderson, makes no claim of participation.  That said, his online presence if rife with allusions to the Masonic, the cult-ish, and The University of Rochester.  His current primary interest, Paladyne Systems, sounds like what Cyberdyne reformed as after that little incident at the lab.

In this case, there is a clear pattern of insertion between risk-takers, be they hedge fund managers or startups, and ‘investors.’  Pit them against each other, but keep up appearances, fronting agencies in the non-profit space to keep would-be detractors from talking too much.  Perhaps get invited to the white house?

Among all the profiles on ClinkedIn, only Mindy Taylor’s dares to directly acknowledge involvement, and that is only in reference to her authorship of the document in question.  Can someone with known personal connections of this kind be trusted?  We ask you — how many have seen Mork lately?  He’s probably strapped to a slab in the old Church Creek Piggly Wiggly suffering extraction of his knowledge of advanced other-world technology that will soon form the basis of new ‘startups’ coming out of the LAV incubator.

And what of LAV’s many tentacles?  Qonceptual suffers from the same pattern of misspelling that adds resonant power to the Great Name of Cthulu.  It is hard to see how that could be an accident.  Qonthulu, anyone?  EZWaves is probably a front for scouring the sea to find myself and The Captain.  We don’t know what a GWIG is, but it sounds bad – maybe an insect inserted in the ear that wraps around your brain stem and makes you think you enjoy writing Objective C.  The Infiniters and Oneinamil are a barely-concealed recruitment program filling countless sub-volcanic and super-lunar lairs with henchmen.

Most alarming is the connection to the ominous  and seemingly omnipresent “Charleston Open Source“.  The choice of such an obvious misnomer is matched only in bravado by the deep mystery of it’s actual purpose.  What secret plans could this pastiche of triangles, square brackets, and tinted head-shots possibly conceal?  Recoil in horror at the dead, dead eyes of Ben Wong staring right out of your screen and deeply into your soul –  a  sould which he and the rest of this carousel of local tech zombie horrors intends to soon consume.

Silicon Harbour, prepare yourself for what is to come.  The man/octopus that is Lake Avenue Ventures has lurched it’s massive bulk up the Ashley and into our lives.  It’s photogenic, has access to funding, is keeping an alien captive in a suburban strip-mall, invests locally, controls your mind from within, brings outside perspective, and may be displacing enough water to lift the tide upon which our dainty vessels float.