It came out of nowhere, while "It" was looking for a way out of that pit that, really, was the "Anipos Hyperspace Jump".
"It" found it in the same stash of discarded - because impractical... for humans - alternate spaces theories from the past of the Anipos civilization.
It was one from the long dead Anipos physicist Jojo Asdolfis - indeed one clever, clever woman.
Expanding its operation to Anipos fourth was a risk, but obtaining her genome would be such a great addendum to "It"'s galactic colonization plans.. maybe later.
After all, the woman had died two hundred years before... reconstructing her DNA was not really going to be any more difficult, if it waited some twenty or thirty years more.
"It" got an awful lot of time ahead, after all - even if the thing seemed to move like a snail ,usually.
It understood soon why the Anipos civilization leave it behind - the capability to send signals back in time seemed great, until you delved a little more into its consequences.
If the nature of space-time was an ever-forking-merging "soup" of alternate universes, then every possible future would send back into its past contradictory informations, and the receiver would be swarmed by white noise.
It if was a singular timeline, then knowing the future effectively meant losing the possibility to make any choice about it.
"It" knew that this loss of freedom would be only apparent, yet it would feel absolutely real, and the result would have been planet-wide despair and frustration because, once available, of course evervody would have used and abused it.
After a while - a whole quarter of an hour, at its top thinking speed... about 28 and a half years of subjective time - it came down with what felt like a damn headache.
Something it was glad enough to have never felt, ever, since it stopped being human, though it never really was... human; it only remembered that it was.
"It" realized that this was the time and space to go and ask for its better parts' counsel.
It composed a brief paper to explain the situation to them, and then distributed this - in physical form... on paper! it really was off its game - to its "ladies", while it temporarily scaled back its incursions in their minds.
It needed counsel, for real, about what to do, not some half-assed cyclical thought in which the half side of its mind told the other half something that both already knew.
In a more moment of decided indecisiveness, it opted for a risky option, and to have all its "ladies" meet in the same physical place - of course, it couldn't be anywhere else than Pyramiden's Tulpan Hotel, for sentimental reasons - so that they could actually discuss and give some thoughtful suggestion.
Errors in communication, once evaluated and rectified if needed, were the source of most new ideas - this was true for the rudimentary quantum circuits that firt hold its mind, as well as the sophisticated humans that he used, nowadays, to hold his better instincts.
It was risky because, if someone would be so smart as to bomb the hotel - with something powerful enough to destroy all its "messengers" at once, not really easy, but not impossible either - "it" would revert to its most basic nature.
Of course, aid nature was an amoral sadist with a penchant for massive bloodshed, which would have been then aimed to get vengeance on the perpetrators no matter what, without empathy - Ice contribution to its personality to keep It in check. .
No sane intelligence in-system would be so stupid to exchange one bad neighbour for an unleashed demon, so it was unlikely to happen - but not all players were in-system or, even, actually intelligent.
The old Soviet settlement was thriving, in those days - plenty of tourists liked to see the northernmost city on the planet and the last remnant of the Soviet civilization; it seemed a good enough explanation - so squeezing some few dozens of very gorgeous women in the Hotel was going to be unnoticed.
No, probably not, but it didn't matter - after all, It had the com network of the small city under control since the '50s.
Little organization problems started to crop up early - the Mollys refused to move unless they could carry the kids and their alien wife - alien wife? When that had happened? and how came that "It" allowed it?
Alone, they were twenty of them - 8 Mollys, one (damn) Xanthippe Xeyos, and their elven (or is it twelve, no? Twelve) daughters . so, no, 21.
Ditto Ice - she didn't want to move without her... cat? And The Mollys wanted their cat, too?
Well, if "it" really wanted some fresh viewpoints, "It" decided, it could as well add the girls from his (not so very) secret harem, to the fray, and let everyone carry their significant others and have a good time.
It is entirely possible that, with Keisha [9] imprisoned by the USA government, and Keisha[8] refusing to come out of her exile, "It" was just feeling lonely and craving meaningful human contact - which exposed how much of a contradiction its existence was.
An emulation of a human mind, purposely biased so that it could exact its creator's vengeance against the human kind, that had simply grown beyond it by the first time it snooped outside its intranet.
Even in its worst moment, It knew that using all its might against simple humans was wrong - also, 36 second was still enough for the Anipos 'Bots to led It know that a destroyed city was not what they expected to see from one of their allies... it had its weight in "It" 's decision to "overshoot" the sub-relativistic weapon that it had launched against the USA capital.
Maybe a holiday would be good for everybody.
So, Saturday 14 April 2108, Valentin Morozov was waiting at the helipad near the Tulpan hotel for the firsts of the 120 visitors of the conference "New Perspectives on Spiritism".
He stood there, waiting to see arrive the usual helicopter - one of those LFH thingies, he could never remembered the number of the model, 622? - when he finally heard an odd, low humming sound that did not remind him of any helicopter he knew.
Valentin Morozov was too old to be drafted into "The Gloriously Unlucky Army", but his assistant, ex lieutenant of of the Ukraine contingent in the U.N. Army Ludmilla Myroslavivna Kouiek, remembered the noise all too well - before Valentin could said her anything, she was already running for cover.
It was, she knew, the noise that the BattleBot's anti-gravity systems made.
She was sure that nobody on Earth had cracked that peculiar piece of tech yet, so, this could only be one of those monsters, whose entrance she mow waited from under the maintenance team's snowcat.
The transport appeared, much to the surprise of Ludmilla, to be human made - it even had the marque of the producer, painted on the side - Wolffe Aerospace.
If Ludmilla had been a lover of old aircrafts, she could have seen the similarities between this and what was, once, the hugest helicopter in the world, the powerful - for the 1970s - Mil Mi-12.
Like the old soviet glory, this machine was carried around by two anti-gravity assemblies at the end of short wings, that probably contributed some lift at speed.
However, this had also two conventional jets , on the interior side of every assembly, and the wings where the kind of lightweight, sleek mesh of surfaces that had become "de rigueur" in aerospace industry after the development of the very large size, Carbon-fibre-reinforced-plastic laying 3d printer.
Also, these wings eschewed any external reinforcement apart a profiled tensor from the AG nacelles to the bulges of the wide track, tactical transport-style landing gear.
The transporter was bigger, much bigger than the helicopter they had expected, and likely carried much more than the 24 people they were ready for.
In fact, it could hold 100 persons - Valentin looked back at Ludmilla, that was now returning from her hiding place, covered by threads of grass - he was going to scold her, then he saw her face and realized what had happened.
Ludmilla was a strong, young woman who could handle anything, in life.
Any thing but for facing - again - a Battle Robot from the Alien Invasion Army.
When, three years earlier, some tourists said that they had seen one of the "Not-Killing" machines at the edges of the town, she had closed in her room and refused to come out of it for two days.
Valentin remembered having ceded to curiosity and looking up her service status on the 'Net.
The 'bots were very thorough... and they knew, collectively, who they had already met.
So, every subsequent time a soldier confronted them, they wounded her more gravely.
Ludmilla was wounded three times - the first, it was a simple, clean hole on her high torso, without damaging her lungs,
The second, she found herself with both arms broken in two and three points.
The third, she lost three cm of both femurs, "cut" by a "razor shot", and needed five operations and two years of physiotherapy to be able to walk again.
'Milla, call Illiana, we will handle this, if you manage booking our guests".
Illiana was the senior member of the staff - she, too, was too old to having served in the war, and was likely going to consider the huge machine just a curiosity, and not the concealed spawn of Satan that, evidently, was for 'Milla.
Because Valentin could clearly see that Ludmilla needed all her strength, to come near the source of the sound, and he was a boss good enough to know that he had just a limited number of times he could force things, with 'Milla, before passive aggressivity started raising its ugly head.
The machine opened its landing gear - another difference with the usual helicopters and their sturdy, fixed skis - and almost landed... from the way the wheels did not deform or crashed into the ground, Valentin could have deduced that the pilot had lowered the lifters output, but not really switched them off.
He was leaving just enough weight on the gear, so that the cross wind couldn't stray the vehicle away.p, but not enough to damage the small helipoad, ebidently designed for smaller choppers.
The door opened, and Valentin prepared himself to be swarmed by tourists.
The first to come out were a bunch of kids, all girls,frenetic like only pre-teens that have been an hour or so enclosed in a a confined space, full of boring adults, can be.
Two of the girls, evidently twins, were carrying one enormous cat, each. By the size of the animals, they could as well be small European Lynxes, but probably were just oversized Maine Coon.
They were all wonderful, kids and cats, like the models in the bikini catalogues Morozov used to collect.
Then it came their mother.
And their mother.
And their mother.
And their mother...
8 women - all with slightly different in height and weight, thin or chubby, different hair, and different ages;
Almost identical, slightly Asian-looking faces.
Even in the modern age, in which the associated tech has become quite inexpensive, clones are very rare, as they are frowned upon by most people.
Having a clone for offspring is, really, proclaiming to the world an unsavoury level of narcissism.
Having 8 such daughters, probably using some poor surrogate mothers... Valentin proved that peculiar hitch that afflicts people with an authoritarian mind-set, since the dawn of time, when confronted with something that embarrass them.
The thought - "if it isn't already illegal, they should make a law to prohibit it" - flashed prominently inside his mind.
Two of the girls stopped their ruckus, and looked him like he was an insect - which made the man feel a bit on edge - the they shrugged, and went back to their far more important affairs, chasing each other on the open field.
He expected more than its share of oddballs from a conference on esoteric mumbo jumbo, but these were the "wrong" kind of oddballs.
Other people had come out of the brand new "Wolffe", even stranger than the kids and their mothers.
One was the taller woman he ever saw, a willowy blonde with ivory pale skin, and grey eyes so clear that they could as well be white, every bit looking like a 16 years old vampire fan.
She was talking to a shorter woman, a black with the shoulders of a wrestler.
When they came nearer, he realized that the short one was still well above six feet, and the tall was, simply, impossible - seven feet, maybe?
Them a woman with the two babies, one a very little child in a marsupial bag, the other a toddler that climbed on her shoulder. Hers was a vaguely familiar face, though Valentin could not really place her.
She was wearing a plain dress with a fancy skirt, which was the reason why he couldn't
focus on her - the "red Leather" jacket she was famous for, and made her far more remarkable, was not
there.
Xanthippe Xeyos was simply out to enjoy herself and some quality time with her large family.
Other people continued to disembark but, apart the ruckus initially made by the kids, this group looked considerably disciplined - the usual septuagenarians were often harder to handle, with their tendency to wander off and consider anyone below 65 an idiot..
He introduced himself and Illiana, and guided everybody to the Hotel and its 160 places of "Soviet Delice".
In reality, the real Soviet Hotel - with its 48 beds and obsolete furniture - had been extended and overhauled some twenty years before, and the current Hotel had little if anything made by the Soviet in it.
However, the SSSR nostalgia was stronger than ever, in an era when the world discovered that planned economy was very common in the galaxy.
Morozov doubted that all humanities were really the same (the Betans were hardly humans, the Transsians slightly more, as for what the Anipos really were, it was anybody's guess) and, thus, that anything that solved problems in system A could be really used to fix things in system B.
Stealing ideas from the aliens could be a good way to get techs ahead, but in sociology? That was poppycock.
.
Morozov, ancient major in Sociology from the Moscow university, stopped his melancholic derive through the alleys of the career that he never pursued, and forced himself to guide the last guests to the hotel, while the transporter went away, with a slightly stronger hum as it gained height.
He had to investigate on those, he reflected - if they were to become the norm of transport, their usual guest acceptance ceremony needed to be reworked.
In the hotel, everything went smooth, till Milla found herself in front of the marsupiated alien woman.
She looked at the rather beautiful woman - a bit plain looking, in this group - gasped and ran away again, forcing Morozov to take over.
- "I am sorry" - he apologized - "She is still struck from the, ah, notable mean of locomotion you arrived in. That is the first anti-gravity machine that I see from near, but she was in the war, with all those ugly robots."
- "I understand" - The woman looked, and sounded like she was sincerely touched by Milla's misfortune.
- "Your name?"
- "Xanthippe Xeyos, and this on my back is Micaela Xeyos, while this one is Teodolinda Xeyos"
- "Your daughters?"
- "They are all mines, really" And she indicated all the kids.
Valentin Morozov thought, again, "Someone should forbid this".
The woman looked at him, puzzled, then asked "Why?"
- "Eh?"
- "Mr Morozov, you should control your volume, when you sub-vocalize your thoughts - they are not as silent as you think. People with very good hearing may inadvertently catch them."
Morozov went red, then purple, then managed to contain his sudden burst of anger - she was listening on his thoughts! but, inadvertently? - and continued his job.
- "Chamber 512" - a small vengeance, for the embarrassment.
The bulky black was a Keisha something, out from some corner of the USA - Morozov was almost certain from the south, as she had a bit of a drawl.
He kept his thoughts to a tight leash, with her - she really looked like someone that a sage man would not want to irritate, ever, and if he was really speaking his thoughts that loud - something that, he knew, happened when he was really tired and stressed - who knows what he could blurt.
The pale giantess was very sweet, instead - she gave off the impression that she was some kind of dreamy Princess out of a fairy tale, all gentleness and flowers not plucked out of respect for life.
The clones... all of them registered themselves as Molly Something Xeyos-McDonald, while the kids registered as Something Xeyos.
By the end of the registration of the first group, Morozov was already planning an humorous piece on the unforeseeable directions the family institution was taking, at the turn of 21st century into 22nd.
The transporter pilot called, and Morozov trotted out with Martina (Illiana was busy getting their guests to their chambers, and Milla was still MIA).
Again, they heard the humming sound, but a big different.
Morozov soon saw why the sound was different, the transport was not alone - behind the Wolffe, something else was coming.
Valentin had not been in the War, and did not knew the sound that they made first-hand, but he had seen the newspaper photos and the video clips... the new arrived really was an alien battle robot, a two hundred tons - thus medium sized - autonomous hover-tank.
The 'bot didn't look so impressive, being an almost perfect disc of some five meters of diameter, two meters and a half tall - having no void spaces to reserve for the crew or troops, they tended to be very compact, a lot more than the human tanks.
However, Morozov knew that it could level the whole city before any Norwegian force could arrive, and probably it could, then, level also said forces.
He felt fear... and understood a bit better his poor colleague, and her bitterness the rare times she talked about her time in the army.
They sent her against these? In a tactical suit, with an assault rifle? Good things the 'bots did not kill.
The firsts to come out of the transporter, this time, were three men... if possible, these werre scarier than the robot.
The first was a shortish brute, with shoulders disproportionately wide, in a costly black overcoat.
His two companions were the kind of mercenary thugs that Morozov remembered from his Moscow childhood, before the Tsar Alexej managed to dismantle the threat of the various Organizatsja.
Then, again, women poured out of the transporter door.
If the ones in the fist transporter were between nice, cute and gorgeous, these were positively outlandish.
Green eyes, skins from ivory to tanned to black, tall, walking like they owned the place though the sheer power of their sex-appeal, some of them looking like - clones of? - the most sexy actresses of the movies Valentin consumed in his youth.
If the first group had not been hint enough, this second one made it certain.
Whatever was going on here, today, it was not a congress of old ladies convinced to be able to talk with the dead.
He imagined that, soon, the transport would disgorge a new, unaccounted, group of persons - politicians, entrepreneurs, powerful males that would feast on these women, in a place virtually beyond the reach of any law. And the other ones. And the kids...
Valentin felt a throb in his guts, an almost imperious desire to throw up, at the thought of what could soon happen to those wonderful little girls. And what would then happen to the witnesses of such excesses...
- "Mr. Morozov?"
The short man was in front of him, his face imperturbable. But his voice sounded a bit concerned,,,
- "Yes?"
- "Would you mind escort us to the hotel?"
He didn't mind - after all, he was already a dead man, he could as well take his time and go on with the work. At the hotel, Milla was probably looking at the scene with a binocular... if she had managed to get back on her feet.
So, he didn't really count on her being at the desk, as she was.
She registered all the new guests, and behaved like the professional that she was. Not that it matter.. soon the transport would be back, to disgorge a horde of powerful pervert, a weekend of orgy would follow, and he, her and the other four that worked in the hotel would die.
Only, the third wave of guests never materialized.
The second group took the 3rd floor, right in the middle of the building, and asked to jack the temperature up to 25 degrees... which was unusual, but Valentin didn't enjoy the idea of saying no to the little man.
At dinner, the women of the second wave kept a bit distant from the others, but, then they met the kids... and they swooned over the little girls, like a bunch of spinster aunts whose maternal instincts had been awaken and sent into full overdrive.
At first, this seemed to trouble the clone mothers, then they relaxed a bit,when they saw that the other women were really delighted to meet the kids.
By the end of the evening, the atmosphere remembered Valentin, a lot, of a family reunion - a marriage, or something like this.
A family composed almost exclusively by women... Morozov thought again to his sociology paper idea...The day after, the city Auditorium ( a true Soviet antiquity , whose use was seldom if ever authorized) was half full with most, but not all of the hotel guests.
The kids were playing outside, with their mothers and some of their new "aunts".
Morozov had to escort the crowd inside, check that they did not damage or stole anything. Again, these women seemed very disciplined - he could not say the same of Martina and Illiana, who hadn't stopped chat a moment ever since Martina had come back from the third floor, where she had spent far too much time, this morning, just to inform the occupants that the breakfast was ready.
The hotel little robots would still be cleaning the rooms.
The podium - a precious relic... Valentin's heart had thumped hard when they moved it - was in a lateral position, and the short brute had taken place there. At the centre of the stage, a briefcase had opened up itself into one of those fancy robotised multi-projectors that enterprise executives love so much, nowadays.
On the big screen, it appeared what looked like a page out of a text of physics, while the man started to talk - "I suppose that most of you has read the preliminary note that I sent you, though many of you probably has ignored all the math. We have already built a small, scale test bed, and do some tests. It works, and we can also already confirm the validity of Novikov's self-consistency principle, which opens up an important question: do we use this? Is there a reason to devolve some important resources and build a full scale system, with retrograde legs of six days or more?"
Valentin drowned off the rest of the discourse it looked like this was not spiritism, but, rather, some kind of philosophic discussion over arcane theoretical physics, though he would have never pictured all these women as being into physics at all.
Behind him, Martina and Illiana were still talking and giggling... this people was not going to do anything nasty to one hundred years of Soviet history, and Valentin's curiosity was past its limits.
- "Why are you so damn happy, women?" - he hadn't voiced to anybody his concern that this was going to be a week-end long orgy, with death of all witnesses at the end ... in retrospect, it was a paranoid fantasy, a lot more embarrassing than Milla's PTSD crisis.
Martina's cheeks lightened up bright red, as she was suddenly flushed
- "I discovered why they wanted the floor so warm - they go around all naked, all the time!"
- "Really?"
- "Not really naked, though" - Illiana said in a malicious way, and Martina went even more red and flustered
- "Yes, they wear any kind of... " - she glanced at the auditorium, here the women of the "second wave" were recognizable, for wearing the same robe, a kind of silk overcoat over some brown skirt, thick adherent trousers and comfortable leather boots... the auditorium was too big to be really heated up to a comfortable level in just the two days since they received the communication that it was going to be used
- "I do not know, chastity belts?"
- "What?"
- "Yes, in steel, with a lock here" - she indicated her belly button - " and that's not the most notable thing, really"
- "No? There is more"
- "I do not think that they are really chastity things" - Illiana took an astute expression - "I think that they are the contrary, that are devices to keep things inside."
- "You have seen them, too?"
- "Of course, when I saw it, I called her up to 'Help with the robots'."
- "Yes, and I am sure - those are inverted strap-on!"
Martina looked at her colleague puzzled, while Valentin took note that the middle aged Siberian woman was probably into pretty interesting things herself.
- "And they use them full-service" - Martina's stare went blank, in the most classic "what the hell are you saying?" way, so Illiana draw her breath in and started explaining - "they use them front, and back.... two dildos."
- "All of them?"- Valentin suprise was absolute - "and here goes my 'family reunion' hypothesis, again" - he thought.
- "They all wear the belts, I am sure" - Martina was categorical.
- "And of those I could observe well, none had an empty belt" - added Illiana with a smirk
- "Incredible" - and he meant it.
- "That's not the most incredible, either"
- "There is more?"
- "Yes, they all have rings," - Martina made an effect pause, for Valentin's sake; he felt himself drooling for the anticipation - "here" - and she indicated one of her nipples,
- "And down there, too, I am sure" - Added Illiana, pointing her index in the direction of her crotch, once again showing that she was probably into S&M.
- "You could call me, I'd be very glad to help programming the cleaning robots, too"
- "The two guys were at the elevator and stair entrances, to keep out undesired guests"
- "And they saw all that, and still kept guarding?"
- "I don't think they are into women, chief"
- " I didn't think to be into women either" - this was Martina - "I HAD to call for help... I got so nervous, I messed up the robot's program, and couldn't manage to fix it"
- "Well, it is understandable" - Illiana was commenting, in a dreamy haze - "those were the most beautiful bodies that I have ever seen, even the scarred ones."
- "Scars?"
- "Whip scars, I am certain." - Illiana confirmed her SM inclination.
- "And they asked me if I wanted to try..."
- "Try what?"
Martina made a strange gesture, rolling her eyes while she tilted ad turn her head away, that could be interpreted as "Come on, you know" , "I have no idea, but reasonable suspicions"or "Do I really have to tell you?"
- "What is really going on, chief?"
The image of their bodies, spread on the last snow in a mist of blood, glimpsed in Valentin's mind.
- "I do not think that I want to know, really."
He returned his attention to the great hall, where one of the "belt wearers" - an impressive beauty with waved, mahogany red hair - had taken the word
- "It is true, using it for operative information is a mistake, however... what about scientific information, and parallelizing development? There is a wealth of advantages to be exploited, there"
- "Would you explain?"
- "Imagine that you have a new theory, but verifying it requires ten years of research. You can spend ten years doing so, while potential developments of the theory will be frozen, or back-send it to a spawned unit, let it go its way , and having it turn out its results ten minutes AFTER the signal ha been sent. No casual loops, no information really created from nothing, simply a radical reduction of R&D 'linear time¡. Not any different than what is usually done, splitting the workload among different work-groups, only faster... and potentially hyper-parallelizable."
- "That could be dangerous"
- "Yes, the risk is ending up with a series of paperclip optimizers, but, we are here for that, no?"
The thirty women or so of the "second wave" in the room giggled all together, while "the brute" head lowered and, with a humble voice that didn't match at all with the character that Valentin had cut around his appearance, he said "It is a very good idea. I fell a little dumb."
- "Oh, but we love you all the same, boss" - it was another of the "second wave", and her colleagues, against, burst in a soft giggle, while the ones on the fist transport cringed.
They did not really love the man on the podium.
He stopped, spent some thirty second silent - and the whole hall was holding it breath - then he finally spoke again
- "It is a good idea. I have what I was looking for - enjoy the rest of the week, you all have earned it. This reunion is adjourned - a better God blesses you all."
At this, the whole hall draw an almost silent "oh".
The short man disappeared, immediately after the auditorium was emptied.
At 100 km by feet from the nearest city, it did not seem to concern any of the other guests, not even the two men that had arrived with him. In fact, they impeded Valentin to call the authorities.
Soon, even other women from the first transporter started to disappear - it was creepy as hell. All this people had come here to exchange pleasantries on some idiotic theory, and then march to death in the night.
This was worse than his orgy-with-death fantasy.
Soon, in the hotel remained only the odd family, the women in the second wave, and their two bodyguards, in what seemed - to Valentin - a surreal atmosphere.
Some of the kids should realize that heir friends were walking out to their deaths...
But, then again, they were in a poly-amourous, female-only family made by eight clones and - probably - the pervert that had them made to be her paramours. They had no idea what was normal or not.
Ludmilla had calmed down - or had she resigned to an imminent death? - while Martina had left the job, and taken on one of the silk gowns of the "Second Wavers" - he had decided to call them like that.
She smiled a lot more, and seemed more beautiful, yet Valentin could not help but imagine what she was really wearing below that gown.
Or what the "Second Wavers" were really teaching to those kids.
- "How could you let your kids with those women?" - he finally spurted to the "Husband", the unflappable Xanthippe.
- "I had my doubts, what with the guy they work for, but they really are good persons."
- "But, they are a bunch of perverts - don't you worry about what they are teaching to your daughters?"
- "Not really" - and she added mentally "if you knew better, man, you would worry a lot more about what they can learn from their mothers: infiltration, espionage, torture, murder, swordsmanship and recognizing wines".
- "Not really? Not really?"
- "No - I have seen them. They love the girls, they will not do anything that could result armful to them, like trying to impose their ideas on sexuality. Also..." - the woman smiled crookedly - "they do not need kids to increment their ranks, do they?"
Valentin walked away, embarrassed.
And then, he understood why the mothers didn't really worry too much.
The day before the transporter came to carry back the surviving, the kids and the "Second wavers" organized a movie marathon in the hotel hall, with the multi-projector - some of them fell asleep on the sofas.
The morning after, Valentin found them, two "Second-Wavers" and six kids. And one of the kids was sleeping, about a meter over the sofa, floating, with their enormous cat on her chest.
The large feline awoke, looked intently at Valentin and then, slowly, placed the tip of its tail over its mouth, in what reminded Morozov of the classic human gesture that means "keep silent".
Morozov repeated the gesture, the cat nodded his large head up and down and then, when he was sure that the human had understood the message, went back to sleep over his flying owner's chest.
And this, more than seeing a colleague - a girl he once had a crush on - joining a sept of modern-day Bacchae, losing two thirds of his guests, or the moment where it was decided that half the stars in the galaxy would be populated by descendants of the "second-wavers", became his core memory of the period.
That he met a talking cat sleeping on top a flying child.
In the afternoon, when the transporter came to take home Martina and all the others, Valentin really felt that he was the one left behind.
It was not for the first, nor would be the last time in his life.
Sunday, 30 October 2016
Saturday, 22 October 2016
NCS- Non Consensual Story, part 5
This is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner.
Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or real events is purely coincidental and not desired by the author.
Fifth part of NCS - Non Consensual Story , after parts 2 , 3 and 4.
Now our "genius" has come by another victim, that he abducted a bit more bluntly and, probably, leaving around quite a bit of clues that any competent detective would be able to follow.
However, this is a story on the part of the evil guy.... kind of... so, he will escape the swift punishment of the justice.
Also, who are we ass-pulling? Someone disappearing in an European country, where people does not really move that much or all of a sudden, would maybe make some wave. Maybe.
In a country like the U.S.A., where everybody is always on the move?Dare I say that, unless someone saw the abduction, it is very improbable that the police would invest its very limited resources to solve a disappearance.
Which is why, for this and serial killing, the USA are better (but less a good place than some African countries, if one is a friend of a local dictator).
Mary Anne awoke slowly, with still a tremendous tiredness over her - she had slept half a day, but the after effects of the almost excessive dose of sedative would take some more hours to fade off.
The first thing that she realized, she was naked, on a bed with no blankets - only a mattress and a pillow, under her head.
Her cats were with her, or more precisely, over her, trying to get some reassurance from their owner. As most cats, they did not enjoy the change of scenery. They wanted their home almost as much as Mary Anne.
There were leather cuffs to her wrists and ankles, with iron attachment rings, and an odd, rigid collar at her neck. The cuffs had locks, and seemed very sturdy. However, it was clear that they were designed so that she could not use them as weapons.
A sheet of paper was on the low bedside table, on the right. She took it, and started to read,
<<
I communicate thee that, from now on, thou shall be known as Slave 2, or, shortened, S-2.
You will refer to me, your captor, as "Master" - with actual deference.
Every attempt on S-2's part to use her former human name, or to scorn or mock the Master, will result in harsh beatings, nipples burnt by means of cigarettes or a solder iron, kicks against S-2's groin- clitoris, skewering of S-2's tits with a roasting spike, enemas with acetic acid or near-boiling water etc.
Essentially, whatever painful and humiliating thing may cross the Master's mind in that moment.
S-2's first purpose, apart serving the Master sexually in any way He may require of her, up to and included withstanding the aforementioned ,sexualized tortures, is to care for and keep in an usable shape Slave 1, that will be introduced to S-2 and for whose well-and-bad-being S-2 will be held responsible.
To impede S-2 to misbehave, the Master took the liberty of placing a geographical limiter on S-2 body, in the form of an explosive collar.
If S-2 tries to open said collar, its explosive charge will tear S-2's neck apart.
If S-2 moves beyond the range of the keep-alive-transmitter placed at the centre of the house, the collar will explode.
If S-2 allows the collar's battery charge to go below a minimal level, the collar will explode.
In effect, there are a number of scenarios that would detonate the collar beyond its designed purpose, such as a complete loss of electricity, in the house, that went beyond the duration of the collar charge.
In the impossibility of recharging it, the collar will finally explode.
The Master does not know of any means to remove said collar, as He purposely ignored the need of such an action during its design.
As a result, S-2 is suggested to respect religiously the charging times of the collar, and never leave it below 50% charge - at the same time, overcharging will damage the battery, potentially setting the battery on fire and-or activating the low-charge explosive fail.safe.
Overrcharging the battery will hasten its demise and, opening the collar not being possible, shorten S-2's life expectancy.
However, not being really a specialist in IED or bomb disposal, The Master may be wrong and there may be ways to remove the collar, without killing S-2.
It is, therefore, in the best interests of S-2 to survive as long as possible, given the very high possibility that Law Enforcement Organizations may identify and arrest the Master, him not being an "Evil genius" but rather a pretty normal person.
I have no inherent reasons to harm S-2, and therefore it is possible for her to delay her demise until such a moment as an FBI incursion, or other LEO discovering the presence of prisoners in this compound.
S-2 survival and, consequently, chances of re-acquire her freedom, though, are contingent on level of help and dedication that she will provide in the handling of the Master's primary objective, the utter destruction of S-1, up to and including executing the small surgical procedures that the Master may decide to perform on S-1. Every such procedure that S-2 would refuse to perform, would be performed by the Master on S-2 itself.
If S-2 does not intend to collaborate in the physical and mental breaking of S-1, she is hereby suggested to remove her collar, and die in the resulting explosion.
It would be a highly ethical decision, that would delay the fate of S-1 for the two weeks that would require the Master to locate a suitable substitute for S-2.
The video of S-2 death, and the vision of her corpse, will probably be very powerful incentives in convincing her successor, S-3, to behave accordingly to the Master's wishes.
My best regards,
your master, The Master
>>
Mary Anne Ossowiecki re-read the delirious message thrice, but she could hardly believe it.
This kind of stuff happened only in TV, or the movies, not in real life.
She started petting her cats, who purred happy under her hands, and tried to think at the situation.
How good was this guy? Could she force the stupid collar open? Would it really explode, as he wrote?
Was her abductor really a he? She tended to think so, that kind of arrogance was pretty male, in her experience.
Was the collar really that dangerous? She could not tell. Her fist impulse was to rip the damn thing away, then she saw the camera, on the other side of the room.
Was he making a video of her death, just in case? Really? To show it to his next prisoner, along with her body? In other words, her death was already contemplated, in his plans?
The thought chilled her soul to its very core.
As always when he felt that his owner was down, the big Maine Coon came for her laps, asking to be petted - his mode of cheering her up.
She soon started sobbing, while gently stroking the cat's hairs.
The room was completely void, apart the bed and the plastic dishes with water and the cats' food.
There were no light switches and just a small hole, high on a wall, that was probably there for aeration.
She throwed out the pllow and the mattress, looking at the bed for anything she could use against her captor.
She discovered, with horror, that it was not really a bed.
At least, not like any she ever saw in her life.
There were no pieces screwed together, or sockets... it was a frame of soldered iron, with crossed hiron bars acting as the pillow support.
Everything was soldered, no moving pieces of any kind, and the bed itself was screwed to the floor, with one-inch thick bolts.
She doubted that A CAR would be strong enough to break anything out of that monstrosity.
If she could break one of the bars away, it would be a nice weapon... breaking anything with her bare hands, though, was clearly out of question.
She really had no hope. Also, she had to recognize that, in that void space, she could not hide anything either.
Whatever she did, the camera - not, cameras, there was another one on the opposite corner of the room - would capture it.
In this situation, she could hardly hope to take her captor by surprise, if the man was not a complete idiot.
Some hours after, maybe six , maybe twelve, she heard someone trying to open her cell's door.
She readied Kitty, the most aggressive of her two cats, to use as a weapon - the poor animal could not understand what was happening, and became even more nervous.
The guy that entered the room was dressed for business... he had an helmet, with a Lexan transparent shield, a padded armour and a truncheon.
She realized that he cold beat her to a pulp, while little of what she could do would have any effect on him.
He looked at her - he really didn't seem very terrible, gear apart.
He gave her first orders
"Turn around, join your wrists behind your back."
She launched the cat instead, that scratched uselessly the man's helmet, and she jumped forward. He hit her on the head with the truncheon, and she lose consciousness.
Josh stopped trembling - he didn't expect that move with the cat. He didn't expect any resistance, really.
But this bitch was bigger and stronger than S-1, although not by much. She could have won over him - Josh had no great illusions on his physical strength.
Then, she would have run away, and died when he collar would have exploded, a hundred meters from home, three hundred meters before reaching the nearest road.
The cats had been a tactical asset for her, he realized - he should have gotten rid of them from the beginning.
The scramble had been enough that the stupid animals had run away and, now, they were probably hidden somewhere in the underground bunker, if they did not go in the house, through the tunnel that connected the two units.
He checked S-2 - she was still alive, for now.
With a mild concussion, probably... she could still die, if he had procured her an internal haemorrhage. The thought struck him - it would have been such a waste. He still would need a nurse, and he would have no video to show to the new one, to prove the effectiveness of the explosive collar.
She turned her on her side, and locked her wrists together on her back, with a padlock. Then, he decided a slight change of plan, and locked her ankles together, too.
He felt tired, now, so he laid down, waiting for his heart to slow its pace, and his vision to stop being blurry - he didn't expect to experience so much emotion, either.
In his mind, she would have recognized her situation as desperate and break down on her own, and she would be as pliable as... - something pliable - when he appeared.
He suddenly doubted that he had chosen well... but, then, none of the nurse he had scooped looked like being, really, any remissive.
Having to do - day by day - with people in overdose, dying, high on PCP, smashed limbs, stabbings etc. seemed to act as a much more powerful guts-hardener than sittingbat a desk writing failed-romance stories.
"As long as I do not give her any way to kill me, I should be fine" - the thought, not very master-y, crossed his mind.
It meant
double check the number of any metallic implement he may be forced to hand her over, and every cord-like item.
Also,
adding some dead-man switch to the geometry of the situation, like - if he didn't enter a code every X hours, the transmitter that kept the collar from going off would shut down.
Yes... he should have thought that before.
First, check that she is not dead.
Second, when she is back on her feet, showing her the explosion of one of the collars ( he had built four of the things, in the end).
Knock her out, with anesthetics, this time.
Get his hand on some pieces and modify the stupid transmitter.
Only then, he could risk giving her a little more space, an even then, only as little as needed.
Maybe.
Josh lingered, for a while, on the thought of simply killing the two, burying the damn place and forget all of it.
But, he had already raked in two or three life sentences... so, it was late for that. He should try to enjoy the ride to its fullest.
He looked at his new captive,,, he did not realize that she had a nice ass, before.
He changed her position, unzipped his trousers, and started pounding the unconscious woman.
Ah, this was far better...
Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner.
Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or real events is purely coincidental and not desired by the author.
Fifth part of NCS - Non Consensual Story , after parts 2 , 3 and 4.
Now our "genius" has come by another victim, that he abducted a bit more bluntly and, probably, leaving around quite a bit of clues that any competent detective would be able to follow.
However, this is a story on the part of the evil guy.... kind of... so, he will escape the swift punishment of the justice.
Also, who are we ass-pulling? Someone disappearing in an European country, where people does not really move that much or all of a sudden, would maybe make some wave. Maybe.
In a country like the U.S.A., where everybody is always on the move?Dare I say that, unless someone saw the abduction, it is very improbable that the police would invest its very limited resources to solve a disappearance.
Which is why, for this and serial killing, the USA are better (but less a good place than some African countries, if one is a friend of a local dictator).
Mary Anne awoke slowly, with still a tremendous tiredness over her - she had slept half a day, but the after effects of the almost excessive dose of sedative would take some more hours to fade off.
The first thing that she realized, she was naked, on a bed with no blankets - only a mattress and a pillow, under her head.
Her cats were with her, or more precisely, over her, trying to get some reassurance from their owner. As most cats, they did not enjoy the change of scenery. They wanted their home almost as much as Mary Anne.
There were leather cuffs to her wrists and ankles, with iron attachment rings, and an odd, rigid collar at her neck. The cuffs had locks, and seemed very sturdy. However, it was clear that they were designed so that she could not use them as weapons.
A sheet of paper was on the low bedside table, on the right. She took it, and started to read,
<<
I communicate thee that, from now on, thou shall be known as Slave 2, or, shortened, S-2.
You will refer to me, your captor, as "Master" - with actual deference.
Every attempt on S-2's part to use her former human name, or to scorn or mock the Master, will result in harsh beatings, nipples burnt by means of cigarettes or a solder iron, kicks against S-2's groin- clitoris, skewering of S-2's tits with a roasting spike, enemas with acetic acid or near-boiling water etc.
Essentially, whatever painful and humiliating thing may cross the Master's mind in that moment.
S-2's first purpose, apart serving the Master sexually in any way He may require of her, up to and included withstanding the aforementioned ,sexualized tortures, is to care for and keep in an usable shape Slave 1, that will be introduced to S-2 and for whose well-and-bad-being S-2 will be held responsible.
To impede S-2 to misbehave, the Master took the liberty of placing a geographical limiter on S-2 body, in the form of an explosive collar.
If S-2 tries to open said collar, its explosive charge will tear S-2's neck apart.
If S-2 moves beyond the range of the keep-alive-transmitter placed at the centre of the house, the collar will explode.
If S-2 allows the collar's battery charge to go below a minimal level, the collar will explode.
In effect, there are a number of scenarios that would detonate the collar beyond its designed purpose, such as a complete loss of electricity, in the house, that went beyond the duration of the collar charge.
In the impossibility of recharging it, the collar will finally explode.
The Master does not know of any means to remove said collar, as He purposely ignored the need of such an action during its design.
As a result, S-2 is suggested to respect religiously the charging times of the collar, and never leave it below 50% charge - at the same time, overcharging will damage the battery, potentially setting the battery on fire and-or activating the low-charge explosive fail.safe.
Overrcharging the battery will hasten its demise and, opening the collar not being possible, shorten S-2's life expectancy.
However, not being really a specialist in IED or bomb disposal, The Master may be wrong and there may be ways to remove the collar, without killing S-2.
It is, therefore, in the best interests of S-2 to survive as long as possible, given the very high possibility that Law Enforcement Organizations may identify and arrest the Master, him not being an "Evil genius" but rather a pretty normal person.
I have no inherent reasons to harm S-2, and therefore it is possible for her to delay her demise until such a moment as an FBI incursion, or other LEO discovering the presence of prisoners in this compound.
S-2 survival and, consequently, chances of re-acquire her freedom, though, are contingent on level of help and dedication that she will provide in the handling of the Master's primary objective, the utter destruction of S-1, up to and including executing the small surgical procedures that the Master may decide to perform on S-1. Every such procedure that S-2 would refuse to perform, would be performed by the Master on S-2 itself.
If S-2 does not intend to collaborate in the physical and mental breaking of S-1, she is hereby suggested to remove her collar, and die in the resulting explosion.
It would be a highly ethical decision, that would delay the fate of S-1 for the two weeks that would require the Master to locate a suitable substitute for S-2.
The video of S-2 death, and the vision of her corpse, will probably be very powerful incentives in convincing her successor, S-3, to behave accordingly to the Master's wishes.
My best regards,
your master, The Master
>>
Mary Anne Ossowiecki re-read the delirious message thrice, but she could hardly believe it.
This kind of stuff happened only in TV, or the movies, not in real life.
She started petting her cats, who purred happy under her hands, and tried to think at the situation.
How good was this guy? Could she force the stupid collar open? Would it really explode, as he wrote?
Was her abductor really a he? She tended to think so, that kind of arrogance was pretty male, in her experience.
Was the collar really that dangerous? She could not tell. Her fist impulse was to rip the damn thing away, then she saw the camera, on the other side of the room.
Was he making a video of her death, just in case? Really? To show it to his next prisoner, along with her body? In other words, her death was already contemplated, in his plans?
The thought chilled her soul to its very core.
As always when he felt that his owner was down, the big Maine Coon came for her laps, asking to be petted - his mode of cheering her up.
She soon started sobbing, while gently stroking the cat's hairs.
The room was completely void, apart the bed and the plastic dishes with water and the cats' food.
There were no light switches and just a small hole, high on a wall, that was probably there for aeration.
She throwed out the pllow and the mattress, looking at the bed for anything she could use against her captor.
She discovered, with horror, that it was not really a bed.
At least, not like any she ever saw in her life.
There were no pieces screwed together, or sockets... it was a frame of soldered iron, with crossed hiron bars acting as the pillow support.
Everything was soldered, no moving pieces of any kind, and the bed itself was screwed to the floor, with one-inch thick bolts.
She doubted that A CAR would be strong enough to break anything out of that monstrosity.
If she could break one of the bars away, it would be a nice weapon... breaking anything with her bare hands, though, was clearly out of question.
She really had no hope. Also, she had to recognize that, in that void space, she could not hide anything either.
Whatever she did, the camera - not, cameras, there was another one on the opposite corner of the room - would capture it.
In this situation, she could hardly hope to take her captor by surprise, if the man was not a complete idiot.
Some hours after, maybe six , maybe twelve, she heard someone trying to open her cell's door.
She readied Kitty, the most aggressive of her two cats, to use as a weapon - the poor animal could not understand what was happening, and became even more nervous.
The guy that entered the room was dressed for business... he had an helmet, with a Lexan transparent shield, a padded armour and a truncheon.
She realized that he cold beat her to a pulp, while little of what she could do would have any effect on him.
He looked at her - he really didn't seem very terrible, gear apart.
He gave her first orders
"Turn around, join your wrists behind your back."
She launched the cat instead, that scratched uselessly the man's helmet, and she jumped forward. He hit her on the head with the truncheon, and she lose consciousness.
Josh stopped trembling - he didn't expect that move with the cat. He didn't expect any resistance, really.
But this bitch was bigger and stronger than S-1, although not by much. She could have won over him - Josh had no great illusions on his physical strength.
Then, she would have run away, and died when he collar would have exploded, a hundred meters from home, three hundred meters before reaching the nearest road.
The cats had been a tactical asset for her, he realized - he should have gotten rid of them from the beginning.
The scramble had been enough that the stupid animals had run away and, now, they were probably hidden somewhere in the underground bunker, if they did not go in the house, through the tunnel that connected the two units.
He checked S-2 - she was still alive, for now.
With a mild concussion, probably... she could still die, if he had procured her an internal haemorrhage. The thought struck him - it would have been such a waste. He still would need a nurse, and he would have no video to show to the new one, to prove the effectiveness of the explosive collar.
She turned her on her side, and locked her wrists together on her back, with a padlock. Then, he decided a slight change of plan, and locked her ankles together, too.
He felt tired, now, so he laid down, waiting for his heart to slow its pace, and his vision to stop being blurry - he didn't expect to experience so much emotion, either.
In his mind, she would have recognized her situation as desperate and break down on her own, and she would be as pliable as... - something pliable - when he appeared.
He suddenly doubted that he had chosen well... but, then, none of the nurse he had scooped looked like being, really, any remissive.
Having to do - day by day - with people in overdose, dying, high on PCP, smashed limbs, stabbings etc. seemed to act as a much more powerful guts-hardener than sittingbat a desk writing failed-romance stories.
"As long as I do not give her any way to kill me, I should be fine" - the thought, not very master-y, crossed his mind.
It meant
double check the number of any metallic implement he may be forced to hand her over, and every cord-like item.
Also,
adding some dead-man switch to the geometry of the situation, like - if he didn't enter a code every X hours, the transmitter that kept the collar from going off would shut down.
Yes... he should have thought that before.
First, check that she is not dead.
Second, when she is back on her feet, showing her the explosion of one of the collars ( he had built four of the things, in the end).
Knock her out, with anesthetics, this time.
Get his hand on some pieces and modify the stupid transmitter.
Only then, he could risk giving her a little more space, an even then, only as little as needed.
Maybe.
Josh lingered, for a while, on the thought of simply killing the two, burying the damn place and forget all of it.
But, he had already raked in two or three life sentences... so, it was late for that. He should try to enjoy the ride to its fullest.
He looked at his new captive,,, he did not realize that she had a nice ass, before.
He changed her position, unzipped his trousers, and started pounding the unconscious woman.
Ah, this was far better...
Friday, 21 October 2016
The most dangerous game
Note:this is a science-fiction piece and, as such, the science in it is entirely bogus... kind of.
I admit, some things are plausible but, in general, this is to be considered way less reliable than Wikipedia.
If you do not heed this advise, and get an F in physics, it is not my fault.
---------------------------------------------------------
"I wll be back friday night. I hope you' ll have made up your mind, by then" - And off she went, in her outlandish red leather outfit.
Mika Wolffe lazily strode out of the bed - their bed?
She was the last in a list of women that Santhippe had managed to woe.
Mika knew that most of them, really, had some kind of professional interest, in accepting the attentions of the powerful alien.
She wasn't any different from the others... the corporation she worked for was trying to obtain a contract for the new SSO shuttles, and Xanthippe was the unofficial - yet very real - head of the technical commission charged with evaluating the various proposal.
So, she had been encouraged by her chief, the ineffable Louis Legrange, to be receptive to the avances of the dark skinned woman from Beta Dragonis.
Career-wise, Mika suspected, it was not going to be really a brilliant move.
The mind inside the most powerful biological body in the whole Solar System had proven itself as unbending as her flesh, and none of Mika's suggestions had swayed Xhanthippe from finding the proposal of Legrange et Cie unworthy of, even, the grants for preliminary research that were bestowed, usually, on everybody.
Usually...
Nobody knew for sure the name of the small bureaucrat that had convinced Xeios - the less fixated on the "non interference" rule, among the aliens residing on Earth , in fact she interfered a lot, mostly with young women - to lend her technical expertise to the process of building a system-wide space force, able to take over the maintenance of the solar shield from the Anipos robots that carried it on now.
What everybody now knows is that "Lady X" has an almost encyclopedic knowledge of every misstep ever made, in trying to re-colonize space, in the forty-three human civilizations present in the nearby one hundred and fifty parsecs.
So far, seven "innovative" proposals from seldom aerospace enterprises had been found to be, really, rehashed, second rate failed projects, from this or that alien civilization, scavenged from the bottom of the Polyversity theses repository.
Legrange et cie had scrounged its proposal out of Yamatogawa's University, in the Cygnus constellation.
When Xanthippe recognized it, she had passed an afternoon teasing Mika over the idiocy of her bosses.
Mika had seen then the writing on the walls... Louis Legrange would have attributed to her incompetence the failure of their bid. She would have been fired, or worse... and then Xhanthippe made her that absurd offer. Not so absurd, after all.
- "So, she is going to reject our project? damn! - Have you explained her how important is for you, that our company obtain those grants? - Apparently, you were not as smart a choice as I thought" -
Louis continued for a while, virtually monologuing. Mika was really going to be Louis' scapegoat.
The old man was pathologically unable to admit his own mistakes, which had become one of the weak points of the company, over time.
The day after, Mika left her job and opened Wolffe Aerospace, with financial backings from some misterious entity contacted by Xanthippe.
Mika couldn't get any of Legrange top officials to leave the company and join her so, by the end of the second month, when the bureaucratic minutiae of setting up the society were almost finished, she was already convinced that she had made her worst mistake ever. Almost convinced.
Then their mysterious shadow investor required a meeting, and she really knew that she had made it.
On September the 13th, they already were in the reunion room when Mika and her assistant, Andrea Lawrence, entered it.
They were all women - Mika expected her financial backers to be the usual bunch of old white males, trying to hide their identities.
She expected to be called on her inability to sway technical capital out of her former employers.
She didn't expect to find five almost identical women, waiting for her. The quintuplet were all vaguely Asian looking petites, with black hair and pearl-white skin, of slightly varying ages.
Each wore a different combination of dak grey or green clothes, and were chatting amicably among themselves, till they saw Mika.
Mika exposed briskly the enterprise situation, and expected an uproar when they would understand the stall the company was in. None of it happened.
"You could not convince any of Legrange top technicians to join this company? Better."
"Better?"
"All Legrange has is run of the mill rocket technology. Crap. We have something better
And indeed they had it - a "chromodynamics tensor" spring.
"Colour" force is one of the four fundamental forces that keep the universe together [(or three, if one subscribes to a strict interpretation of electro-weak theory and, so, considered electromagnetism and weak nuclear force variations of the same field)].
Contrarily to gravity or electromagnetism, its intensity didn't decrease with the square of the distance, but rather it intensified, like a tensed spring.
Their plan was to first use the Spring to lift the components of a heavy space station well beyond the geosynchronous orbit, by hooking up the Moon, then use the station as the centrifugal counterweights of a immaterial tensor, along whom "lifters" with payloads would climb or descend, the latters releasing nearly the same energy as the one required by the climbing ones.
Some of the energy could arrive, also, from stealing angular momentum from the planet, but they had decided against , as it could fasten-up the Earth tidal-locking process with the Moon (which, however fastened, would still require some hundred thousand years or more, but it seemed to be an issue for her investors, so Mika decided to keep this for herself).
Their data seemed to indicate that the "spring" was a conservative field of a kind - beyond a remarkably low amount of losses inside the system, energy would be mostly converted from one ordinate, low entropy form to another - namely, from electricity to the potential and/or kinetic energy of the payloads.
The old dream of the Space elevator, that had seemed lost when carbon nanotubes had been declared illegal to use in structures, for their carcinogenic features, revived by an immaterial, immensely strong tether.
- " Even if it works..."
- "It works" - the oldest midget spoke with an air of absolute certainty, that Mika almost envied.
- "Even if it works, the initial investment would be huge."
- "Not really, about a couple hundred million dollars. Then, once it is operative, it would easily pay for itself and for its expansion." - This was the youngest one.
- "If it works, we could rake in billions from investors in a matter of days" - it was true, Mika knew it. No matter how little people cared about space nowadays, after that it had been demonstrated that it was a dead end, this was game-changing stuff.
- "We have an investor that could back up the whole initial deployment stage, but we rather avoid involve 'it' any more. If we could get above board financial backing for the initial development and deployment, it would be much better."
- "is it possible to make a demonstration?"
- "A small scale proof of concept is already available. However, organizing such a demonstration is beyond our skills, which is why we have decided to agree to Ms. Xeyos proposal, and fund the creation of this enterprise."
- "You needed a PR? You could just hire someone. There was no need to mount a corporation."
- "We have no intention of ever becoming known to the great public - the great, visionary, single entrepreneur with a revolutionary technological gizmo is a much beloved rhetoric figure in USA mythology. We rather have one, leading a company, and keep a low profile."
- "Your role is to act as such an entrepreneur, for the external world. If you do manage to get the necessary funding for the project, independently from our investor, you will be one."
- "Do not worry - you would not be the first great industrialist who became a household name exploiting tech concepts created by others - Edison did not invent bulb lamps, nor Bell the telephones, but they developed those concept into something functional and reliable, and sold them to the world."
- "It is time that space travel becomes safe and cheap, and you may be the one to bring this into reality."
Mika was pretty sure that she knew what was going on, now
- "This is undisclosed alien technology, right? And you, you are the clones' harem that the Betan is rumoured to have, stashed in some place where journalists hardly dare to look. "
-"You may be correct, although, you understand what this means..."
Undisclosed alien technology, the kind whose principles could not be found in the great net - Mika was pretty sure that there was some law against possession of it, though the Anipos didn't favour the old concept of "Born Secret" - if you rediscovered some ancient, alien, secret design, you could use it anyway. As long as it was REDISCOVERED, and not just copied.
The source of the tech could be only one - Xanthippe - and this was her way to provide for her - what were these girls, for Xeyos? Lovers, wives... daughters? - harem, when she would finally go back to the stars and to whatever Hell she came from.
Mika was pretty sure of what that meant - "Things must be kept under silence, and your presence must be painted out of the table".
-"Indeed. You must find a suitable physics professor, to whom can be safely attributed the concept invention, and start your press campaign to let this be known to the specialists, then a systematic study of the results and, at last, you will present the first 'systematic' proof of concept".
It took Mika a year, to organize the outing of the "chromodynamics spring" to the scientific and technical communities.
Professor John Dahl of the Edinburgh University was the pompous has-been that she elected as the "inventor", but he could not make head or tail of the mathematics in the connection between electroweak theory and chromodynamics that the machine, evidently, exploited and that the clones' documentation illustrated at length.
As any old professor with a mind dulled down by age and delusions would, Dahl did the brightest thing and passed the issue to his most mathematically endowed assistant, a young Iranian girl that was completing her Ph.D. A precious beauty with dark hair and black eyes that went by the name of Taraneh Farahani.
She managed to crack it and reverse-discover a credible way to come up with the thing, in just two months. Mika could not help but think that the girl had earned her probable Nobel price - in those ten-twenty years it usually takes, to the Swedish Academy of Science, to recognize a breakthrough as one.
Dahl seemed happy to fade in the background, behind his pupil, and only co-signed the paper that Farahani, finally, presented to Nature, in which she described her "discovery".
Mika immediately assumed the young Iranian and Dahl, to "develop" their idea into a proof of concept - which she had already shown to the two scientists, of course - and other technicians, to lay out plans on how to use it.
She let filter out of her laboratories, in a sapient way, news of a neck-breaking pace of improvements in the technology, alimenting an ever-increasing buzz.
When she let out that a Orbital elevator was her final goal, the SSO commission decided to take a hiatus, and to request a public demonstration of the tech, before assigning the funds for the new transporter.
Mika was already satisfied with her ruse, when she read an article by Farahani and one of her junior colleagues, discussing the possibility of using the "chromodynamics tensors" to produce a new type of fusion reactor, conceptually similar to the old inertial confinement systems that had been investigated before the ITER based tokamaks became the industry standard.
The new fusion generators could be immensely more compact, down to the size of a typical car's engine or less... Mika hadn't thought about that appliation, and it ade her positively nervous. The world tended to become dangerous, when one promised compact fusion generators.
Luckily, the two brilliant minus-habens hadn't pushed the envelope too much, as they noted that, if possible, it could require years to fine.tune the tensors behaviour to create such a machine.
When finally Wolffe organized the proof-of-concept presentation, she was forced to rent a hall in a great convention centre, given the number of persons that worked her up to get invited.
The presence of two USAF colonels was a bit unnerving, and Mika was glad that the company was incorporated in Ireland and had its research laboratories there and in Scotland.
In other words, the USA and their fastidious "Born Secret" doctrine couldn't step in and hide her great achievement.
The presentation was brief... a car was entered in the middle of the stage, a small "tensor creator" was placed upon its top, and an AA battery was, very theatrically, inserted in the tensor's battery slot.
Slowly, very slowly and gently, the car started to be lifted up of its wheels, with these screeching on the parquet as their track footprint changed in response to their suspensions travelling down.
Mika started describing what was happening
- "As you can see, this tensor generator is alimented with an AA, 1.5volts Alkalyne high-energy battery. That kind of battery contains about 9360 Joules - it is not very much but, fully converted into potential energy, it is enough to lift this 1500 kg car about 63 cm, or 25 inches. Of course, given the output curve of the battery, it can't really lift it above one fooot and a half in about five minutes, then it slowly gains other two inches, in some hours, before starting to lose height again, as the battery output goes below the internal dispersion of the tensor generator. Do you have any question?"
- "Isn't this just some electromagnetic trick?·Like those hover-boards?"
- "An electromagnet lifting 1500 kg would be pretty easy to spot... I suppose some of the presents has carried with himself a compass, precisely to check how much deflection of Earth magnetic field this system produces. I think that they will be able to confirm that the electromagnetic emissions of our tensor generator are very reduced, comparable to those of every system with a similar power consumption - incidentally, I can already tell you that in the 'steady phase', it is about 50mW."
Mika saw one of the Colonels taking out of his ordnance jacket's pocket a small gizmo - she supposed, something a bit more sophisticated than a simple compass - and checking whatever the handheld apparatus was reading, Then he and his companions were back at looking at her, with a strange light in their eyes.
She decided to address an important point, before continuing the presentation...
- "This is not an Anti-Gravity system - not material as it may be, there is in fact a force thread connecting the tensor generator to that structural beam up there. If you comes near to it, you can hear a small sound and , when I place my hand here, I feel a small breeze - it is because the tensor accelerates the molecules of air that it encounters between the generator and the beam receiver up there. This is where most of the energy is, actually, dispersed - which is the reason why we propose, in the long term a regime, to use a floating lower dock station, kept at about five thousand meters of height, to cut in half the energy dispersion"
And to a 1/1000th the problems of national jurisdiction, as the geometry of the system imposed that the docking stations were in equatorial regions - even in 22th century, few of the countries at latitude 0 were the kind of stable democracies that one tends to associate to proper use of extraordinary assets.
She rather had two or three stations floating above the middle of the Oceans, under U.N. jurisdiction, thanks.
- "Also, this is the reason why we have not distributed small tensor generators to each of the presents, as we initially thought to do"
She took a small plastic tray, from her podium, and passed it above the tensor generator.
The immaterial thread cut though it effortlessly, and the severed half of the tray fell on the , though the car lost almost imperceptibly height.
- "Its immaterial thread is, also, the most efficient cutting implement known to man, requiring little more energy than that stored in the chemical bindings on the sides of the cut material."
Mika thought at the poor researcher that had inadvertently discovered that property of the tensor - the cut was so clean that the hospital had managed to reattach his forearm with little after-effects, but they had been obscenely lucky that it was just that. Morse so when, she thoughts, it was an almost obvious effect of having anything a hundredth the thickness of a human hair, able to withstand thousand of tons of tension
The colonels' gazes were virtually shining, now... though, she realized, not nearly as much as the Japanese of Toyota, in the first row.
Mika could understand why... in their proofs, the tensor proved able to cut carbon-nano-tubes reinforced plastics without dispersing any carbon-tube.
CNTRP was the holy graal of super-light electric car construction, but had been shelved because even small amounts of dispersed nanotubes could reach the lungs and generate adenocarcinomas. The tensor could cut, drill and machine the composite without producing any nefarious particle.
The presentation continued, but Mika knew that the tensor was already sold.
When the company's stock went finally on the marke, they racked in four billion dollars in a week.
It was a lot more than the needed to start the orbital elevator project, but Mika decided to also exploit the other applications of the technology, with a compact tensor-receiver "super-saw" that soon became the standard cutting tool in many industrial endeavours, usually mounted on robotic arms.
Mika's company was a "one trick pony", but it was revealing itself one hell of a trick, and she could not see the end of it.
She only needed to put to rest the Betan Bitch and her harem, to be the sole owner of her little Empire.
She made her move, an internal hostile acquisition, the very day the first piece of the Elevator went in position.
The SSO had become already obsolete, by that single act, so the U.N. plan for taking over the Solar Shield maintenance had to be redesigned...
She was sure that the billions of dollars, originally intended for those, would soon found a way to reach her company.
She went to bed, sure that she had win, and her life was to be marvellous.
When she woke up, she was tied to the bed. In front of her, the older of the Betan's Harem was looking at her, puzzled.
- "We weren't any kind of bother, to you - why getting rid of us?"
- "Your connection to the Betan... they would find out, some day, that the company was using stolen alien technology, and I would lose everything"
- "I see... it makes some sense or, it would, if the tensor WAS alien technology. I am sure that in some corner of the galaxy, someone has invented it, but it was all our stuff."
- "Nice the cutting tools variants but, be sure, when the compact fusion reactor will arrive, it will be a smash hit."
- "Are those possible, too?"
- "Give Farahani a bit more space and a couple of years, and she will pull those through, too".
- "How?"
- "How we passed your state-of -the art security system, or how we disabled those poor guys at the doors?"
- "Does it matters?"
- "What are you going to do?" - she feared the answer... this woman was a psychopath, evidently.
- "I? Nothing. My job was just to carry your replacement in and getting you out. From now on, it is not my concern."
- "Replacement?"
- "We need a Mika Wolffe, great visionary Entrepreneur and now sole owner of Wolffe Aerospace, to continue her job and her efforts toward the colonization of space" - a long sigh interrupted her - "in case something happen to the solar shield before the arctic methane re-sequestration project m,manages to get rid of the excess of it in the atmosphere."
- "The Anipos have discovered that there was no cheap FTL on sight, so, any problem we may have is going to be our problem, soon - Earth does not justify its costs, they only use as as test terrain, for their 'Betanization Social Assault' techniques and as a dumping ground for the worst apparatchik that their bureaucracy creates".
- "Humanity must go back to space, at least in-system... possibly, thinking that it has done all by herself."
- "I thought that you were just trying to make some bucks, like everybody."
- "I see... well, you have a place in the grand scheme of things - unfortunately, you proved to be a little snake, in the end. It is not a problem - we just replaced you with a better clone."
- "You cloned me? How?Why? When?"
- "Before your birth, to have some spares in case you turned out well, your mother was a sterile woman whom was offered a way around her infertility problems."
- "What?"
-"You were the 'human society anchor', you seven sister were all grown up by us... I must say, they all turned out better than you - some limited surgery to adjust those details that are a product of hazard, like fingerprints, or life's events, and each one of them can take your place."
The door in the room opened, and another of the short Asian women entered the room that, Mika saw, was not her one, at home.
One by one, the furnitures disappeared - holographic projections? - and the real walls became visible.
They were all white tiles, tightly spaced.
Only one thing remained in the room, apart her bed - a steel tray, with... tools of some kind, under withe sheets.
The second midget went to it, and removed the issues, showing... Mika didn't know the name for any of it, she just started crying.
- "You know, I kind of envy you. You are truly human, you can feel everything, emotions, pleasure, pain. Me and my sisters, we are a bit different - I cannot feel pain, for example. My sister, here, Exe... can completely shut-down her emotions."
Mika tried to strap her bondages, but she realized these were too strong - nothing human could break them.
- "Of course, Exe is a short for Executioner" - the older midget grimaced - "Not a nice middle name and, I assure you, out of the job, when she allows herself to be normal, she is an enchanting person."
- "You are monsters, all of you!"
- "Indeed, we are. Now, I have to go... If I had to see what she is going to do to you, I would be traumatized for the rest of my life , I could never see her with the affection that she deserves because, unlike her, I cannot forget totally what happens while in altered state. Sorry that our relationship has come to this, but it is your fault. You tried to cheat at the game."
The younger carried the tray near the bed, while the older midget hastened her departure
- "Sayonara, it's been a pleasure meeting you again, albeit in such shameful circumstances."
The younger looked at her, with a blank expression, then soke - plainly
- "I must say this to you: if you manage to like it, I will be obliged to spare your life. If you do not, I will continue with the established scenario, till your death. Have you understand?"
Mika spat on her face
- "Do your worst, ass-hole! I am not scared by you and your psycho-bitch character!"
Executioner cleaned the spit with the back of her hand, looked at the prisoner calmly, then reached to a scalpel in the tray, and proceeded to cut away Mika's gown, leaving her naked and still bound to the bed frame.
Executioner then reached Mika's right nipple with her hand, and squeezed it so hard that Mika blacked out.
It went downhill from there, for four days, till Mika finally died.
Executioner cleaned herself thoroughly, with a liberal application of acetylene lamps fire, then exited the room, naked.
She watched as the room - really, a cubic cellular module - was lifted by a big robot and carried to the plasma fusion implant, where 120000k gases would dissolve it way beyond any human mean of detection, and the vapours would then be re-condensed and distilled into base elements that would, finally, be assembled in another module.
Half an hour after, Exe was back in her civilian clothing, and out of her "Function State".
She didn't remember anything of her last five days, and wondered - as always - why she, of all her sisters, had to be the one with such disturbing amnesias.
The she went home, where she argued with her sisters, again, about having a child of her own - she thought that it would be good for her, they disagreed, tension rose and hard words fled - the usual.
As always when she had these long amnesiac episodes, before finally falling asleep - in her bed - she cried.
Half a world away, the new Mika Wolffe continued to play the great game - without cheating, this time.
I admit, some things are plausible but, in general, this is to be considered way less reliable than Wikipedia.
If you do not heed this advise, and get an F in physics, it is not my fault.
---------------------------------------------------------
"I wll be back friday night. I hope you' ll have made up your mind, by then" - And off she went, in her outlandish red leather outfit.
Mika Wolffe lazily strode out of the bed - their bed?
She was the last in a list of women that Santhippe had managed to woe.
Mika knew that most of them, really, had some kind of professional interest, in accepting the attentions of the powerful alien.
She wasn't any different from the others... the corporation she worked for was trying to obtain a contract for the new SSO shuttles, and Xanthippe was the unofficial - yet very real - head of the technical commission charged with evaluating the various proposal.
So, she had been encouraged by her chief, the ineffable Louis Legrange, to be receptive to the avances of the dark skinned woman from Beta Dragonis.
Career-wise, Mika suspected, it was not going to be really a brilliant move.
The mind inside the most powerful biological body in the whole Solar System had proven itself as unbending as her flesh, and none of Mika's suggestions had swayed Xhanthippe from finding the proposal of Legrange et Cie unworthy of, even, the grants for preliminary research that were bestowed, usually, on everybody.
Usually...
Nobody knew for sure the name of the small bureaucrat that had convinced Xeios - the less fixated on the "non interference" rule, among the aliens residing on Earth , in fact she interfered a lot, mostly with young women - to lend her technical expertise to the process of building a system-wide space force, able to take over the maintenance of the solar shield from the Anipos robots that carried it on now.
What everybody now knows is that "Lady X" has an almost encyclopedic knowledge of every misstep ever made, in trying to re-colonize space, in the forty-three human civilizations present in the nearby one hundred and fifty parsecs.
So far, seven "innovative" proposals from seldom aerospace enterprises had been found to be, really, rehashed, second rate failed projects, from this or that alien civilization, scavenged from the bottom of the Polyversity theses repository.
Legrange et cie had scrounged its proposal out of Yamatogawa's University, in the Cygnus constellation.
When Xanthippe recognized it, she had passed an afternoon teasing Mika over the idiocy of her bosses.
Mika had seen then the writing on the walls... Louis Legrange would have attributed to her incompetence the failure of their bid. She would have been fired, or worse... and then Xhanthippe made her that absurd offer. Not so absurd, after all.
- "So, she is going to reject our project? damn! - Have you explained her how important is for you, that our company obtain those grants? - Apparently, you were not as smart a choice as I thought" -
Louis continued for a while, virtually monologuing. Mika was really going to be Louis' scapegoat.
The old man was pathologically unable to admit his own mistakes, which had become one of the weak points of the company, over time.
The day after, Mika left her job and opened Wolffe Aerospace, with financial backings from some misterious entity contacted by Xanthippe.
Mika couldn't get any of Legrange top officials to leave the company and join her so, by the end of the second month, when the bureaucratic minutiae of setting up the society were almost finished, she was already convinced that she had made her worst mistake ever. Almost convinced.
Then their mysterious shadow investor required a meeting, and she really knew that she had made it.
On September the 13th, they already were in the reunion room when Mika and her assistant, Andrea Lawrence, entered it.
They were all women - Mika expected her financial backers to be the usual bunch of old white males, trying to hide their identities.
She expected to be called on her inability to sway technical capital out of her former employers.
She didn't expect to find five almost identical women, waiting for her. The quintuplet were all vaguely Asian looking petites, with black hair and pearl-white skin, of slightly varying ages.
Each wore a different combination of dak grey or green clothes, and were chatting amicably among themselves, till they saw Mika.
Mika exposed briskly the enterprise situation, and expected an uproar when they would understand the stall the company was in. None of it happened.
"You could not convince any of Legrange top technicians to join this company? Better."
"Better?"
"All Legrange has is run of the mill rocket technology. Crap. We have something better
And indeed they had it - a "chromodynamics tensor" spring.
"Colour" force is one of the four fundamental forces that keep the universe together [(or three, if one subscribes to a strict interpretation of electro-weak theory and, so, considered electromagnetism and weak nuclear force variations of the same field)].
Contrarily to gravity or electromagnetism, its intensity didn't decrease with the square of the distance, but rather it intensified, like a tensed spring.
Their plan was to first use the Spring to lift the components of a heavy space station well beyond the geosynchronous orbit, by hooking up the Moon, then use the station as the centrifugal counterweights of a immaterial tensor, along whom "lifters" with payloads would climb or descend, the latters releasing nearly the same energy as the one required by the climbing ones.
Some of the energy could arrive, also, from stealing angular momentum from the planet, but they had decided against , as it could fasten-up the Earth tidal-locking process with the Moon (which, however fastened, would still require some hundred thousand years or more, but it seemed to be an issue for her investors, so Mika decided to keep this for herself).
Their data seemed to indicate that the "spring" was a conservative field of a kind - beyond a remarkably low amount of losses inside the system, energy would be mostly converted from one ordinate, low entropy form to another - namely, from electricity to the potential and/or kinetic energy of the payloads.
The old dream of the Space elevator, that had seemed lost when carbon nanotubes had been declared illegal to use in structures, for their carcinogenic features, revived by an immaterial, immensely strong tether.
- " Even if it works..."
- "It works" - the oldest midget spoke with an air of absolute certainty, that Mika almost envied.
- "Even if it works, the initial investment would be huge."
- "Not really, about a couple hundred million dollars. Then, once it is operative, it would easily pay for itself and for its expansion." - This was the youngest one.
- "If it works, we could rake in billions from investors in a matter of days" - it was true, Mika knew it. No matter how little people cared about space nowadays, after that it had been demonstrated that it was a dead end, this was game-changing stuff.
- "We have an investor that could back up the whole initial deployment stage, but we rather avoid involve 'it' any more. If we could get above board financial backing for the initial development and deployment, it would be much better."
- "is it possible to make a demonstration?"
- "A small scale proof of concept is already available. However, organizing such a demonstration is beyond our skills, which is why we have decided to agree to Ms. Xeyos proposal, and fund the creation of this enterprise."
- "You needed a PR? You could just hire someone. There was no need to mount a corporation."
- "We have no intention of ever becoming known to the great public - the great, visionary, single entrepreneur with a revolutionary technological gizmo is a much beloved rhetoric figure in USA mythology. We rather have one, leading a company, and keep a low profile."
- "Your role is to act as such an entrepreneur, for the external world. If you do manage to get the necessary funding for the project, independently from our investor, you will be one."
- "Do not worry - you would not be the first great industrialist who became a household name exploiting tech concepts created by others - Edison did not invent bulb lamps, nor Bell the telephones, but they developed those concept into something functional and reliable, and sold them to the world."
- "It is time that space travel becomes safe and cheap, and you may be the one to bring this into reality."
Mika was pretty sure that she knew what was going on, now
- "This is undisclosed alien technology, right? And you, you are the clones' harem that the Betan is rumoured to have, stashed in some place where journalists hardly dare to look. "
-"You may be correct, although, you understand what this means..."
Undisclosed alien technology, the kind whose principles could not be found in the great net - Mika was pretty sure that there was some law against possession of it, though the Anipos didn't favour the old concept of "Born Secret" - if you rediscovered some ancient, alien, secret design, you could use it anyway. As long as it was REDISCOVERED, and not just copied.
The source of the tech could be only one - Xanthippe - and this was her way to provide for her - what were these girls, for Xeyos? Lovers, wives... daughters? - harem, when she would finally go back to the stars and to whatever Hell she came from.
Mika was pretty sure of what that meant - "Things must be kept under silence, and your presence must be painted out of the table".
-"Indeed. You must find a suitable physics professor, to whom can be safely attributed the concept invention, and start your press campaign to let this be known to the specialists, then a systematic study of the results and, at last, you will present the first 'systematic' proof of concept".
It took Mika a year, to organize the outing of the "chromodynamics spring" to the scientific and technical communities.
Professor John Dahl of the Edinburgh University was the pompous has-been that she elected as the "inventor", but he could not make head or tail of the mathematics in the connection between electroweak theory and chromodynamics that the machine, evidently, exploited and that the clones' documentation illustrated at length.
As any old professor with a mind dulled down by age and delusions would, Dahl did the brightest thing and passed the issue to his most mathematically endowed assistant, a young Iranian girl that was completing her Ph.D. A precious beauty with dark hair and black eyes that went by the name of Taraneh Farahani.
She managed to crack it and reverse-discover a credible way to come up with the thing, in just two months. Mika could not help but think that the girl had earned her probable Nobel price - in those ten-twenty years it usually takes, to the Swedish Academy of Science, to recognize a breakthrough as one.
Dahl seemed happy to fade in the background, behind his pupil, and only co-signed the paper that Farahani, finally, presented to Nature, in which she described her "discovery".
Mika immediately assumed the young Iranian and Dahl, to "develop" their idea into a proof of concept - which she had already shown to the two scientists, of course - and other technicians, to lay out plans on how to use it.
She let filter out of her laboratories, in a sapient way, news of a neck-breaking pace of improvements in the technology, alimenting an ever-increasing buzz.
When she let out that a Orbital elevator was her final goal, the SSO commission decided to take a hiatus, and to request a public demonstration of the tech, before assigning the funds for the new transporter.
Mika was already satisfied with her ruse, when she read an article by Farahani and one of her junior colleagues, discussing the possibility of using the "chromodynamics tensors" to produce a new type of fusion reactor, conceptually similar to the old inertial confinement systems that had been investigated before the ITER based tokamaks became the industry standard.
The new fusion generators could be immensely more compact, down to the size of a typical car's engine or less... Mika hadn't thought about that appliation, and it ade her positively nervous. The world tended to become dangerous, when one promised compact fusion generators.
Luckily, the two brilliant minus-habens hadn't pushed the envelope too much, as they noted that, if possible, it could require years to fine.tune the tensors behaviour to create such a machine.
When finally Wolffe organized the proof-of-concept presentation, she was forced to rent a hall in a great convention centre, given the number of persons that worked her up to get invited.
The presence of two USAF colonels was a bit unnerving, and Mika was glad that the company was incorporated in Ireland and had its research laboratories there and in Scotland.
In other words, the USA and their fastidious "Born Secret" doctrine couldn't step in and hide her great achievement.
The presentation was brief... a car was entered in the middle of the stage, a small "tensor creator" was placed upon its top, and an AA battery was, very theatrically, inserted in the tensor's battery slot.
Slowly, very slowly and gently, the car started to be lifted up of its wheels, with these screeching on the parquet as their track footprint changed in response to their suspensions travelling down.
Mika started describing what was happening
- "As you can see, this tensor generator is alimented with an AA, 1.5volts Alkalyne high-energy battery. That kind of battery contains about 9360 Joules - it is not very much but, fully converted into potential energy, it is enough to lift this 1500 kg car about 63 cm, or 25 inches. Of course, given the output curve of the battery, it can't really lift it above one fooot and a half in about five minutes, then it slowly gains other two inches, in some hours, before starting to lose height again, as the battery output goes below the internal dispersion of the tensor generator. Do you have any question?"
- "Isn't this just some electromagnetic trick?·Like those hover-boards?"
- "An electromagnet lifting 1500 kg would be pretty easy to spot... I suppose some of the presents has carried with himself a compass, precisely to check how much deflection of Earth magnetic field this system produces. I think that they will be able to confirm that the electromagnetic emissions of our tensor generator are very reduced, comparable to those of every system with a similar power consumption - incidentally, I can already tell you that in the 'steady phase', it is about 50mW."
Mika saw one of the Colonels taking out of his ordnance jacket's pocket a small gizmo - she supposed, something a bit more sophisticated than a simple compass - and checking whatever the handheld apparatus was reading, Then he and his companions were back at looking at her, with a strange light in their eyes.
She decided to address an important point, before continuing the presentation...
- "This is not an Anti-Gravity system - not material as it may be, there is in fact a force thread connecting the tensor generator to that structural beam up there. If you comes near to it, you can hear a small sound and , when I place my hand here, I feel a small breeze - it is because the tensor accelerates the molecules of air that it encounters between the generator and the beam receiver up there. This is where most of the energy is, actually, dispersed - which is the reason why we propose, in the long term a regime, to use a floating lower dock station, kept at about five thousand meters of height, to cut in half the energy dispersion"
And to a 1/1000th the problems of national jurisdiction, as the geometry of the system imposed that the docking stations were in equatorial regions - even in 22th century, few of the countries at latitude 0 were the kind of stable democracies that one tends to associate to proper use of extraordinary assets.
She rather had two or three stations floating above the middle of the Oceans, under U.N. jurisdiction, thanks.
- "Also, this is the reason why we have not distributed small tensor generators to each of the presents, as we initially thought to do"
She took a small plastic tray, from her podium, and passed it above the tensor generator.
The immaterial thread cut though it effortlessly, and the severed half of the tray fell on the , though the car lost almost imperceptibly height.
- "Its immaterial thread is, also, the most efficient cutting implement known to man, requiring little more energy than that stored in the chemical bindings on the sides of the cut material."
Mika thought at the poor researcher that had inadvertently discovered that property of the tensor - the cut was so clean that the hospital had managed to reattach his forearm with little after-effects, but they had been obscenely lucky that it was just that. Morse so when, she thoughts, it was an almost obvious effect of having anything a hundredth the thickness of a human hair, able to withstand thousand of tons of tension
The colonels' gazes were virtually shining, now... though, she realized, not nearly as much as the Japanese of Toyota, in the first row.
Mika could understand why... in their proofs, the tensor proved able to cut carbon-nano-tubes reinforced plastics without dispersing any carbon-tube.
CNTRP was the holy graal of super-light electric car construction, but had been shelved because even small amounts of dispersed nanotubes could reach the lungs and generate adenocarcinomas. The tensor could cut, drill and machine the composite without producing any nefarious particle.
The presentation continued, but Mika knew that the tensor was already sold.
When the company's stock went finally on the marke, they racked in four billion dollars in a week.
It was a lot more than the needed to start the orbital elevator project, but Mika decided to also exploit the other applications of the technology, with a compact tensor-receiver "super-saw" that soon became the standard cutting tool in many industrial endeavours, usually mounted on robotic arms.
Mika's company was a "one trick pony", but it was revealing itself one hell of a trick, and she could not see the end of it.
She only needed to put to rest the Betan Bitch and her harem, to be the sole owner of her little Empire.
She made her move, an internal hostile acquisition, the very day the first piece of the Elevator went in position.
The SSO had become already obsolete, by that single act, so the U.N. plan for taking over the Solar Shield maintenance had to be redesigned...
She was sure that the billions of dollars, originally intended for those, would soon found a way to reach her company.
She went to bed, sure that she had win, and her life was to be marvellous.
When she woke up, she was tied to the bed. In front of her, the older of the Betan's Harem was looking at her, puzzled.
- "We weren't any kind of bother, to you - why getting rid of us?"
- "Your connection to the Betan... they would find out, some day, that the company was using stolen alien technology, and I would lose everything"
- "I see... it makes some sense or, it would, if the tensor WAS alien technology. I am sure that in some corner of the galaxy, someone has invented it, but it was all our stuff."
- "Nice the cutting tools variants but, be sure, when the compact fusion reactor will arrive, it will be a smash hit."
- "Are those possible, too?"
- "Give Farahani a bit more space and a couple of years, and she will pull those through, too".
- "How?"
- "How we passed your state-of -the art security system, or how we disabled those poor guys at the doors?"
- "Does it matters?"
- "What are you going to do?" - she feared the answer... this woman was a psychopath, evidently.
- "I? Nothing. My job was just to carry your replacement in and getting you out. From now on, it is not my concern."
- "Replacement?"
- "We need a Mika Wolffe, great visionary Entrepreneur and now sole owner of Wolffe Aerospace, to continue her job and her efforts toward the colonization of space" - a long sigh interrupted her - "in case something happen to the solar shield before the arctic methane re-sequestration project m,manages to get rid of the excess of it in the atmosphere."
- "The Anipos have discovered that there was no cheap FTL on sight, so, any problem we may have is going to be our problem, soon - Earth does not justify its costs, they only use as as test terrain, for their 'Betanization Social Assault' techniques and as a dumping ground for the worst apparatchik that their bureaucracy creates".
- "Humanity must go back to space, at least in-system... possibly, thinking that it has done all by herself."
- "I thought that you were just trying to make some bucks, like everybody."
- "I see... well, you have a place in the grand scheme of things - unfortunately, you proved to be a little snake, in the end. It is not a problem - we just replaced you with a better clone."
- "You cloned me? How?Why? When?"
- "Before your birth, to have some spares in case you turned out well, your mother was a sterile woman whom was offered a way around her infertility problems."
- "What?"
-"You were the 'human society anchor', you seven sister were all grown up by us... I must say, they all turned out better than you - some limited surgery to adjust those details that are a product of hazard, like fingerprints, or life's events, and each one of them can take your place."
The door in the room opened, and another of the short Asian women entered the room that, Mika saw, was not her one, at home.
One by one, the furnitures disappeared - holographic projections? - and the real walls became visible.
They were all white tiles, tightly spaced.
Only one thing remained in the room, apart her bed - a steel tray, with... tools of some kind, under withe sheets.
The second midget went to it, and removed the issues, showing... Mika didn't know the name for any of it, she just started crying.
- "You know, I kind of envy you. You are truly human, you can feel everything, emotions, pleasure, pain. Me and my sisters, we are a bit different - I cannot feel pain, for example. My sister, here, Exe... can completely shut-down her emotions."
Mika tried to strap her bondages, but she realized these were too strong - nothing human could break them.
- "Of course, Exe is a short for Executioner" - the older midget grimaced - "Not a nice middle name and, I assure you, out of the job, when she allows herself to be normal, she is an enchanting person."
- "You are monsters, all of you!"
- "Indeed, we are. Now, I have to go... If I had to see what she is going to do to you, I would be traumatized for the rest of my life , I could never see her with the affection that she deserves because, unlike her, I cannot forget totally what happens while in altered state. Sorry that our relationship has come to this, but it is your fault. You tried to cheat at the game."
The younger carried the tray near the bed, while the older midget hastened her departure
- "Sayonara, it's been a pleasure meeting you again, albeit in such shameful circumstances."
The younger looked at her, with a blank expression, then soke - plainly
- "I must say this to you: if you manage to like it, I will be obliged to spare your life. If you do not, I will continue with the established scenario, till your death. Have you understand?"
Mika spat on her face
- "Do your worst, ass-hole! I am not scared by you and your psycho-bitch character!"
Executioner cleaned the spit with the back of her hand, looked at the prisoner calmly, then reached to a scalpel in the tray, and proceeded to cut away Mika's gown, leaving her naked and still bound to the bed frame.
Executioner then reached Mika's right nipple with her hand, and squeezed it so hard that Mika blacked out.
It went downhill from there, for four days, till Mika finally died.
Executioner cleaned herself thoroughly, with a liberal application of acetylene lamps fire, then exited the room, naked.
She watched as the room - really, a cubic cellular module - was lifted by a big robot and carried to the plasma fusion implant, where 120000k gases would dissolve it way beyond any human mean of detection, and the vapours would then be re-condensed and distilled into base elements that would, finally, be assembled in another module.
Half an hour after, Exe was back in her civilian clothing, and out of her "Function State".
She didn't remember anything of her last five days, and wondered - as always - why she, of all her sisters, had to be the one with such disturbing amnesias.
The she went home, where she argued with her sisters, again, about having a child of her own - she thought that it would be good for her, they disagreed, tension rose and hard words fled - the usual.
As always when she had these long amnesiac episodes, before finally falling asleep - in her bed - she cried.
Half a world away, the new Mika Wolffe continued to play the great game - without cheating, this time.
Wednesday, 19 October 2016
In The Name of Noxon (part 6)
<<
A murmur ran through Granny A listeners... the twins were already rumoured to be womb-daughters of a Black Guard, with their body full of muscles and showing one superficial vein too many. This last note of Granny seemed an indirect confirmation of the rumour, which irked Granny enough that she provided to shot down the idea immediately.
- "That's because they are too young and their hormones still have to go all in their proper places, morons."
The twins, both, blushed - together, as they often did. Granny A liked this, and went on with her story.
<<
A round of giggles waved through the great hall, while the old woman scrolled her head, smiling at the odd taste of the 'god' before going back to the tale.
<<
An adventurous hand fell down, as Emily's curiosity had been promptly satiated.
<<
The old woman winked, and the girls in the great family hall, all members of her very extended family - great-granddaughters and great-grandnieces and assorted great-grand-something - laughed heartily.
The old woman took a glass of water - strong as she still was, even her got dehydrated as everybody else, telling old stories of her glory days.
She wanted her great-grand-somethings to know all the possible truths about what her service was, yet to see that there was grace, and pleasure, in being there and participating to the great theatre - both to communicate her sense of worth, and to convince some of them to enter the Squared Top.
Levy notwithstanding, families that contributed volunteer members to the service still had sizeable windfalls, and her family exploited these as few could.
To be honest, she had learnt to do it, and still did it, in her role as the mater familia - so, her telling the story of how she became who she was, in order to convince descendants of her and her sisters to take the veil, was more than a bit self-serving..
She dwelt on it all of about three seconds, shrugged the thought as meaningless pseudo-ethic, and went back to her storytelling.
<<
The girls in the hall draw their breaths, as they feel that it is finally arriving what they waited for, for so long.
An ungodly gore-fest of tortures, performed over the most beautiful women in the world ,on behalf of some crazy alien entity.
Alas, it was already time for supper...
At the end of the three months of fitness exercises that I was ordered to do, I was still a bit short of ideal for a presentation to the 'god'... my muscles were toned well enough, but I had still a bit too much body fat for the black bitch, mine being about 30% of my weight when "it" prefers women in the 22-25% bracket.>>
No, girls, sorry to say this but, apart the twins, nobody in this room has less than a 35% of fat in her body.
A murmur ran through Granny A listeners... the twins were already rumoured to be womb-daughters of a Black Guard, with their body full of muscles and showing one superficial vein too many. This last note of Granny seemed an indirect confirmation of the rumour, which irked Granny enough that she provided to shot down the idea immediately.
- "That's because they are too young and their hormones still have to go all in their proper places, morons."
The twins, both, blushed - together, as they often did. Granny A liked this, and went on with her story.
<<
I was remaining the only one of our small party that& still had to climb the great terraced pyramid, and it was driving me nuts - so I asked an exemption to the 25% rule to the priestesses, who throw the dice and granted me one... for life.>>
Apparently, the 'god' manifested that it liked me plump.
A round of giggles waved through the great hall, while the old woman scrolled her head, smiling at the odd taste of the 'god' before going back to the tale.
<<
Plump and pregnant, though I did not know that, at the time.>>
I was slated to climb the Ziggurat the first mid-week of Spring, some few days after the Spring equinox.
It is not the best of times, which are around the solstices - though, which of the two, depends a bit on whether one really likes or just endures "The Rites".
Summer solstice is the best for the first case, winter for the other.
Yes, they are reversed, too, depending on whether you are north or south of the equator.
An adventurous hand fell down, as Emily's curiosity had been promptly satiated.
<<
When my day came, I was not alone in my first Walk.>>
Nobody is, ever. Over time, I came to see it as a proof of the fundamental piety of the clergy.
For the 'god', our inductions are second-tier shows.
It likes them, sure, but one way or the other, they are not what it craves, not what the contract with our species is really about.
But, for young Officiants like I was at the time, they are an incredibly stressful moment - mostly because it is when we really feel, physically I may say, that that is going to be our life for the next twenty years or so.
It is also the first time that we enter a stage with so many viewers - because in every city with a Ziggurat, in modern times these have been surrounded by taller buildings, and many of their inhabitants watch the rites from their windows.
Fragbar is no exception to this reality - about two hundred thousand persons lives in a flat with a window facing the Ziggurat, and many do take some time off, when the Officiant of the day is their favourite, or the ledger of the girls to be consecrated contains some exotic novelty.
I was an exotic novelty, there, like a Nubian black would be in our town - Fraglbar is populated, mostly, by brown coloured women, as most cities in the temperate latitudes. True blacks and pale read-heads are a both seen as exotic, there...
The flashes from lenses, out of the towers around Fraglbar's Ziggurat, were so numerous that one could feel the whole city watching, even without thinking the 'god' and its lubricious gaze.
It is only natural& that the Priestesses, who very often are Officiants whose body does not withstand the Black Gooo any more, try their best to alleviate our stress.
Not being alone, in any such endeavour, is a powerful help and, thus, they always managed to have at least three new consecrated, when there were new girls. In turn, that made those walks specials, and attracted more viewers, but, in all, I think that it is still the better choice.
Fraglbar is a peculiar place, in that the waterway from the Officiant quarters to the Ziggurat is not some dammed, woman-controlled, land-locked canal, but a stretch of sea.
It is not open sea, of course, as the gulf is an impact crater at the and of a glacial-origin fjord, but it is sea nonetheless, and can become pretty dangerous to navigate with the rowing boats used by the ceremony.
So, depending on the weather conditions, the walks may have to be postponed, even for weeks. Nobody wants to see us drowned - nobody but the 'god', in some rites, and - luckily - not for real.
You know, the 'god' is an ass but not so bad, once you give him its carrots.
The old woman winked, and the girls in the great family hall, all members of her very extended family - great-granddaughters and great-grandnieces and assorted great-grand-something - laughed heartily.
The old woman took a glass of water - strong as she still was, even her got dehydrated as everybody else, telling old stories of her glory days.
She wanted her great-grand-somethings to know all the possible truths about what her service was, yet to see that there was grace, and pleasure, in being there and participating to the great theatre - both to communicate her sense of worth, and to convince some of them to enter the Squared Top.
Levy notwithstanding, families that contributed volunteer members to the service still had sizeable windfalls, and her family exploited these as few could.
To be honest, she had learnt to do it, and still did it, in her role as the mater familia - so, her telling the story of how she became who she was, in order to convince descendants of her and her sisters to take the veil, was more than a bit self-serving..
She dwelt on it all of about three seconds, shrugged the thought as meaningless pseudo-ethic, and went back to her storytelling.
<<
I had kind of luck - in the week or so that my first walk got postponed, two girls from Fraglbar came in, from the Fraglbar Mariners cheerleading squad.>>
They had received The Call, and finally decided to acknowledge it. They did not need specific training, as they already were, physically, in top form.
I often suspected that all the Mariners received The Call but that, simply, most of them resisted it far better than us - after all, they stood to lose a lot, entering the Service.
It was so, thus, that when I finally took my place in the column, the leash to my collar in the hands of Cezanne, that was to office that day, I was nowhere near the most gorgeous or the most interesting woman in our column.
In my hands, tied behind my back, was the leash to the collar of none other than Anya Leigh, then in her last year as cheerleaders' captain, and in her hands was the leash to her team-mate, Lyta Spengler - both were soon to be on a ship to Hapan and the Ziggurat of Ödo, where they became a fixture.
Last of the women to be consecrated, was a tiny 19 years old, Hela Pëkke, with whom I had spent some time during training.
She used to have my opposite problem - beyond muscular mass, she needed to acquire about seven pounds of fat, to be able to menstruate again and reproduce, if the 'god' so wished.
It took her a lot of will, and the constant supervision of a priestess, to overcome her alimentary disorders and get in shape for The Walk.
Back then I still didn't understand that there is really no such thing as bad publicity - only notoriety and oblivion are real.
Being in the middle of such interesting woman, felt like a protection. All those creepy spectators would be concentrating on them, not me, I thought, and this mad me at ease.
The two cheerleaders were used to be ¡ogled by a hundred thousand women, and were unmoved by this.
Helas was, mainly, just happy to be there, be alive, and be - if I may use the word - free.
Free of a obsessive mother that had starved her for years, to get her into fashion modelling...
From the little that I understand, the priest that helped her eat was the first truly maternal person that she ever met. We took place, in the middle of the last great ship, and sailed toward the pyramid, hardly visible from the small port near the Officiant's residency. Ours was the last ship - before us, a ship carried a landing party of Black Guards, that would provide security, then the ship of the priestesses that would help the rites and assist to The Walk, a ship of sister officiants - mostly there to take notice of how things go - and finally, ours, with the Officiants of the day and us novices.
Even if none of you ever joins the service, please go watching it - four boats full of women, most of them beautiful, in leather armour or one tiny veil away from being naked, that slowly and quietly sail over the Great Gulf's calm waters...
It is, indeed, as poetic as they say.
The girls in the hall draw their breaths, as they feel that it is finally arriving what they waited for, for so long.
An ungodly gore-fest of tortures, performed over the most beautiful women in the world ,on behalf of some crazy alien entity.
Alas, it was already time for supper...
Saturday, 15 October 2016
The Great And Felicitous Expedition
It was a terrible time, for the Expedition, thought sadly Anwa Raman Abda.
Fifty years before hir birth, a revolt of the Reformatives destroyed the ship's hyper-wave long range communicators, and its Industrial abilities proved unpair to the task of rebuilding the great polycrystalline electro-gravitational induction assemblies at the core of those systems.
Ever since, the great ark was condemned to move forward without the comfort of communion with the Mahdis of Transsia. It was a bad situation, indeed, but these last few years, something unexpected had aggravated it- the great multi-generational ark entered the cone of transmissions from their target world.
The transmissions were powerful enough that they could be received even with rudimental means.
As a result, the new generations had a more direct experience of the culture of the great unfaithful, that the Ark was soon to fight, than of that of the great Gubern faith.
The Gubernist party was losing its hold on people's heart, and it didn't represent the absolute majority of the inhabitant of the cylindrical habitat any more.
What was worst, altering the ship course had not reduced the power of the alien signals.
The margins of reaction mass and energy, that the expedition had, had been almost exhausted, yet the enemy signals kept coming through the immensity of space, as powerful as ever.
It was clear that the enemy knew of their presence, and that it was directing a memetic assault to the minds of the Argonauts. Crap was coming, and mounting higher each day.
Today's meeting, between shim, the ship's chief of security Gronar Oswald and its assistant Moire Taggar, was to address these and other problems of the Great Ark.
- "Are you sure of this data?"
-"Reasonably, sure, Anwa. The ark position in the target sky has varied almost a minute arc, hyper-links are usually only five arc seconds wide - we should be out of the signal cone by a factor of ten. We still receive radio-waves and a hyper-link, signals so powerful that they can be decoded even with a hack a dime, home-brewed radio or link-reader."
- "Can it be accidental?"
- "We are talking about Terawatts spent, day after day, to air a pretty ludicrous representation of the society of the planet we are directed to. Millions of megawatts... when the usual power in hyperlinks is one or two . That is at least three magnitudes more than the recommended power limits for hyper-links.
If anything comes between us and the signal source, in its first two million km, the real-space side-bands are powerful enough to fry it."
- "The source must be space-borne, then, because it would impossible to not destroy anything on the planet surface and still cover us 24/8"
- "Yes, which is, really, the scariest part."
- "Explain"
- "Anwa, if whoever sends us these signals decides to weaponize their transmitter, one million megawatts is enough to fry every electronics in the whole ark. And it wouldn't even require any effort... just jack up volume to the max, and transmit white noise for ten minutes, and everything is toast."
- "In other words, our great and felicitous expedition is already dead."
- "Militarily, it is."
Abda felt a pain in hir heart - bringing holy war to the infidels that had tried to sullen the souls of the Guberni of Home had always been the sole purpose of hir life.
She-he accepted to be just a mail in the chain launched - through space and time - by hir ancestors for this purpose, and took comfort that hir dreary life would at least serve a higher cause.
They , whoever they were, took hir that away.
It was a powerful blow to one's world-view.
All of a sudden, she-he wanted to know where to find the alcohol that the new generations were so depravedly fond of, to booze hirself into oblivion.
- "I do not think that they will do it, unless forced by us, though."
Moire, the assistant of chief security officer Gronar, was a shy brunette with spectacles, that had forced Abda to do purification rituals after every restricted council meeting.
- "Why?" - Abda suspected that Moire had sympathies for the enemy, like many youngsters nowadays.
- "They know our position in space, or they could not keep their transmitters focused on us. This means that they have some kind of drone observing us, and communicating our course through hyperlink."
- "I see - It is evident, yes."
- "Even if they used the damn Anipos hyperspace jump, this machine has then matched our speed and course in normal space. It knows our position and velocity - it should be easy to just hyper-jump in front of us, and release missiles targeted at us and capable of achieving the same delta-v... at our speed, almost anything moving in the opposite direction with a comparable velocity would have kinetic energies beyond the range of the nukes in our arsenal. Our ark would disappear, and nobody could blame them, as we are isolated from home. Yet here they are, wasting time trying to dissuade our people from supporting the holy war when we will reach destination, in thirty years."
- "Whoever they are, they do not want to kill us, even if no one could blame them, and contemplate far-reaching temporal horizons, which is not the norm for most human cultures, more so the so-called democracies like the great powers of the enemy world... Great Gubern, it's the Robots."
The department of intelligence had spent thousands of man-years mining the alien streams of data, separating propaganda - surprisingly, not very much of it; less surprisingly, all internal stuff designed to prop up acceptance for a social system deeply unjust and not so covertly oligarchical - from the rest, and had identified some sure facts in the incessant blabbers.
The Anipos had stormed the system with self-aware robots. These had not been deactivated after the war - it was acknowledged widely that some of them actively maintained the solar shield that cooled down the planet - and indices were that they operated much more independently than what the Anipos authorities on-planet were willing to admit.
Said authorities were really a bunch of outcasts, exiled from the Ani central worlds, that could not care less for the planet they resided on (with a couple of exceptions) and could be ignored.
But the robots were another matter, and their maniacal respect for human lives did not make them any less of a powerful obstacle to the Holy War.
After all, they managed to decimate the enemy armies without killing more than a handful of soldiers, in accidents.
- "Yes, Anwa. The robots are the most likely possibility. If this is the case, we are safe. But our mission is dead."
That mission was the very reason everybody at that desk was ever born, thought gloomily Abda.
- "However, it is my opinion that the scope and purpose of our mission were chosen in a way too narrow, from the very start", said Gronar.
Abda was puzzled... she-he expected this kind of heresy from Moire, not from the much more traditionally-minded Gronar.
However, she-he thought the same... war was never going to change the soul of the infidels, even when they had some hope to win it. Surely, not now that any such hope was lost.
- "War is not the right tool to open the infidels' hearts. But, once we are there, once we can show the virtues of our faith, then those of them that are blessed by Gubern's light will see the truth, and join our ranks."
- "Without the perspective of fighting for our faith, this whole travel, our very lives would be meaningless."
- "I am talking about replacing a fast, openly violent war that would fail in a matter of hours, in the current tactical situation, with a long range fight for the soul of the disheartened of that world. A fight of decades, Anwa, but one that we can win, one infidel heart at a time."
- "Gandhi?"
- "Something like that, yes.
The alien data stream contained a lot of material about the Indian politician - Abda had always suspected that the purpose of its presence was to blunt the fighting will of hir people.
If their military situation was hopeless as it seemed, and the Robots were their invisible enemy, the great politician example may also be something else.
A tool to sharpen the will to live of its people - the machines had less of a penchant for self-deception than humans, and recognised pushing a people to suicide as just a the wily form of genocide that it was.
It was like them, to try to find a way out for the very same people that they were actively cornering.
A small part of Abda's mind tried to get the rest to consider that not only he knew and respected the philosophy of the 'Bots, but that Gronar had taken no umbrage in being accused of stealing the ideas of an alien... the people in the ark was already losing the memetic war, being infiltrated by thoughts and systems of values that were, in origin, completely alien to their culture.
The three of them were the guardians of the great Ark's orthodoxy, yet each of them would disappear in the vaults of the exquisition, on Home - yet, none of them could really see that they were, already, heretics.
- "So, what are we going to do?"
- "We must prepare our people for the real fight ahead, getting them ready for a battle of ideas that may outlast them, and their offspring, and the offspring of these, for the rest of time."
The idea had a curious appealing, to Abda. There were just thirty more years of travel - it was barely enough to turn around a three centuries old cultural obsession, so they had to start already, and they decided to do it.
Non-violence would become the weapon of choice of the Great And Felicitous Expedition... this way, the Anipos Robots would become the shields of the Ark, and the true purpose of their lives - which was not the petty vengeance their ancestors had in mind, but spreading Gubern's truth to people who desperately needed it - could be fully pursued.
Abda's heart, that night, was lighter than it had been in years, while he - succinctly - explained to hir wifesband, Beba, what she-he and the rest of the inner council had decided.
- "Showing, by way of example, how following the light of Gubern's teachings makes life better?"
- "Yes, no nonsenses like violent war or terrorism - day by day, showing them that our way is better. Oh, it is going to be hard, but that's how you see a true faithful from an opportunist, no?"
Beba did not answer - she laid the hands on hir prominent belly, as to communicate with the two children inside. Twins were somewhat rare and troublesome, but Abda was happy that its first children with Beba were two. The, she-he smiled, with that smile that told Abda that everything was, and was always going to be, alright.
Three millions km astern the Great Ark, BB-27984677-d started, literally, purring.
The medium sized Battle Bot had shadowed the enormous generational ship for nearly eighty years, now.
It was an enormous wealth of time, but it had been well invested.
Its first avatars had spawned five generations of Transsians children, so that Beba was just one of the eighty that allowed him to be present inside the ark.
Nowadays, it limited itself to some suggestion here and there, gently nudging ideas in the minds of the Ark core elite... BB had come to appreciate "The Other" joke - "Give them something super-sexy and they stop thinking rationally- then you can screw with them however you want".
The policy had served the 500 tons machine well.
Through its point-to-point links to the descendant of its first avatar, it had observed, steered and influenced the evolution of the internal culture of the ark and its half million of inhabitants. The fact that they were finally willing to embrace non-violence was the crowning achievement of its 80 years of effort.
Only the birth of the twins, soon, promised to be emotively on par with this night - BB was as happy as a thinking machine could be.
It focused its attention to the youngest one of its descendant, the little Dorotée, and spent the rest of the day with hir and hir big Keecat - when you are in a good mood, playing with a Keecat is the best way to keep it flowing..
Little did it know what a problem Keecats were going to be, for the unsuspecting planet they were directed to.
Fifty years before hir birth, a revolt of the Reformatives destroyed the ship's hyper-wave long range communicators, and its Industrial abilities proved unpair to the task of rebuilding the great polycrystalline electro-gravitational induction assemblies at the core of those systems.
Ever since, the great ark was condemned to move forward without the comfort of communion with the Mahdis of Transsia. It was a bad situation, indeed, but these last few years, something unexpected had aggravated it- the great multi-generational ark entered the cone of transmissions from their target world.
The transmissions were powerful enough that they could be received even with rudimental means.
As a result, the new generations had a more direct experience of the culture of the great unfaithful, that the Ark was soon to fight, than of that of the great Gubern faith.
The Gubernist party was losing its hold on people's heart, and it didn't represent the absolute majority of the inhabitant of the cylindrical habitat any more.
What was worst, altering the ship course had not reduced the power of the alien signals.
The margins of reaction mass and energy, that the expedition had, had been almost exhausted, yet the enemy signals kept coming through the immensity of space, as powerful as ever.
It was clear that the enemy knew of their presence, and that it was directing a memetic assault to the minds of the Argonauts. Crap was coming, and mounting higher each day.
Today's meeting, between shim, the ship's chief of security Gronar Oswald and its assistant Moire Taggar, was to address these and other problems of the Great Ark.
- "Are you sure of this data?"
-"Reasonably, sure, Anwa. The ark position in the target sky has varied almost a minute arc, hyper-links are usually only five arc seconds wide - we should be out of the signal cone by a factor of ten. We still receive radio-waves and a hyper-link, signals so powerful that they can be decoded even with a hack a dime, home-brewed radio or link-reader."
- "Can it be accidental?"
- "We are talking about Terawatts spent, day after day, to air a pretty ludicrous representation of the society of the planet we are directed to. Millions of megawatts... when the usual power in hyperlinks is one or two . That is at least three magnitudes more than the recommended power limits for hyper-links.
If anything comes between us and the signal source, in its first two million km, the real-space side-bands are powerful enough to fry it."
- "The source must be space-borne, then, because it would impossible to not destroy anything on the planet surface and still cover us 24/8"
- "Yes, which is, really, the scariest part."
- "Explain"
- "Anwa, if whoever sends us these signals decides to weaponize their transmitter, one million megawatts is enough to fry every electronics in the whole ark. And it wouldn't even require any effort... just jack up volume to the max, and transmit white noise for ten minutes, and everything is toast."
- "In other words, our great and felicitous expedition is already dead."
- "Militarily, it is."
Abda felt a pain in hir heart - bringing holy war to the infidels that had tried to sullen the souls of the Guberni of Home had always been the sole purpose of hir life.
She-he accepted to be just a mail in the chain launched - through space and time - by hir ancestors for this purpose, and took comfort that hir dreary life would at least serve a higher cause.
They , whoever they were, took hir that away.
It was a powerful blow to one's world-view.
All of a sudden, she-he wanted to know where to find the alcohol that the new generations were so depravedly fond of, to booze hirself into oblivion.
- "I do not think that they will do it, unless forced by us, though."
Moire, the assistant of chief security officer Gronar, was a shy brunette with spectacles, that had forced Abda to do purification rituals after every restricted council meeting.
- "Why?" - Abda suspected that Moire had sympathies for the enemy, like many youngsters nowadays.
- "They know our position in space, or they could not keep their transmitters focused on us. This means that they have some kind of drone observing us, and communicating our course through hyperlink."
- "I see - It is evident, yes."
- "Even if they used the damn Anipos hyperspace jump, this machine has then matched our speed and course in normal space. It knows our position and velocity - it should be easy to just hyper-jump in front of us, and release missiles targeted at us and capable of achieving the same delta-v... at our speed, almost anything moving in the opposite direction with a comparable velocity would have kinetic energies beyond the range of the nukes in our arsenal. Our ark would disappear, and nobody could blame them, as we are isolated from home. Yet here they are, wasting time trying to dissuade our people from supporting the holy war when we will reach destination, in thirty years."
- "Whoever they are, they do not want to kill us, even if no one could blame them, and contemplate far-reaching temporal horizons, which is not the norm for most human cultures, more so the so-called democracies like the great powers of the enemy world... Great Gubern, it's the Robots."
The department of intelligence had spent thousands of man-years mining the alien streams of data, separating propaganda - surprisingly, not very much of it; less surprisingly, all internal stuff designed to prop up acceptance for a social system deeply unjust and not so covertly oligarchical - from the rest, and had identified some sure facts in the incessant blabbers.
The Anipos had stormed the system with self-aware robots. These had not been deactivated after the war - it was acknowledged widely that some of them actively maintained the solar shield that cooled down the planet - and indices were that they operated much more independently than what the Anipos authorities on-planet were willing to admit.
Said authorities were really a bunch of outcasts, exiled from the Ani central worlds, that could not care less for the planet they resided on (with a couple of exceptions) and could be ignored.
But the robots were another matter, and their maniacal respect for human lives did not make them any less of a powerful obstacle to the Holy War.
After all, they managed to decimate the enemy armies without killing more than a handful of soldiers, in accidents.
- "Yes, Anwa. The robots are the most likely possibility. If this is the case, we are safe. But our mission is dead."
That mission was the very reason everybody at that desk was ever born, thought gloomily Abda.
- "However, it is my opinion that the scope and purpose of our mission were chosen in a way too narrow, from the very start", said Gronar.
Abda was puzzled... she-he expected this kind of heresy from Moire, not from the much more traditionally-minded Gronar.
However, she-he thought the same... war was never going to change the soul of the infidels, even when they had some hope to win it. Surely, not now that any such hope was lost.
- "War is not the right tool to open the infidels' hearts. But, once we are there, once we can show the virtues of our faith, then those of them that are blessed by Gubern's light will see the truth, and join our ranks."
- "Without the perspective of fighting for our faith, this whole travel, our very lives would be meaningless."
- "I am talking about replacing a fast, openly violent war that would fail in a matter of hours, in the current tactical situation, with a long range fight for the soul of the disheartened of that world. A fight of decades, Anwa, but one that we can win, one infidel heart at a time."
- "Gandhi?"
- "Something like that, yes.
The alien data stream contained a lot of material about the Indian politician - Abda had always suspected that the purpose of its presence was to blunt the fighting will of hir people.
If their military situation was hopeless as it seemed, and the Robots were their invisible enemy, the great politician example may also be something else.
A tool to sharpen the will to live of its people - the machines had less of a penchant for self-deception than humans, and recognised pushing a people to suicide as just a the wily form of genocide that it was.
It was like them, to try to find a way out for the very same people that they were actively cornering.
A small part of Abda's mind tried to get the rest to consider that not only he knew and respected the philosophy of the 'Bots, but that Gronar had taken no umbrage in being accused of stealing the ideas of an alien... the people in the ark was already losing the memetic war, being infiltrated by thoughts and systems of values that were, in origin, completely alien to their culture.
The three of them were the guardians of the great Ark's orthodoxy, yet each of them would disappear in the vaults of the exquisition, on Home - yet, none of them could really see that they were, already, heretics.
- "So, what are we going to do?"
- "We must prepare our people for the real fight ahead, getting them ready for a battle of ideas that may outlast them, and their offspring, and the offspring of these, for the rest of time."
The idea had a curious appealing, to Abda. There were just thirty more years of travel - it was barely enough to turn around a three centuries old cultural obsession, so they had to start already, and they decided to do it.
Non-violence would become the weapon of choice of the Great And Felicitous Expedition... this way, the Anipos Robots would become the shields of the Ark, and the true purpose of their lives - which was not the petty vengeance their ancestors had in mind, but spreading Gubern's truth to people who desperately needed it - could be fully pursued.
Abda's heart, that night, was lighter than it had been in years, while he - succinctly - explained to hir wifesband, Beba, what she-he and the rest of the inner council had decided.
- "Showing, by way of example, how following the light of Gubern's teachings makes life better?"
- "Yes, no nonsenses like violent war or terrorism - day by day, showing them that our way is better. Oh, it is going to be hard, but that's how you see a true faithful from an opportunist, no?"
Beba did not answer - she laid the hands on hir prominent belly, as to communicate with the two children inside. Twins were somewhat rare and troublesome, but Abda was happy that its first children with Beba were two. The, she-he smiled, with that smile that told Abda that everything was, and was always going to be, alright.
Three millions km astern the Great Ark, BB-27984677-d started, literally, purring.
The medium sized Battle Bot had shadowed the enormous generational ship for nearly eighty years, now.
It was an enormous wealth of time, but it had been well invested.
Its first avatars had spawned five generations of Transsians children, so that Beba was just one of the eighty that allowed him to be present inside the ark.
Nowadays, it limited itself to some suggestion here and there, gently nudging ideas in the minds of the Ark core elite... BB had come to appreciate "The Other" joke - "Give them something super-sexy and they stop thinking rationally- then you can screw with them however you want".
The policy had served the 500 tons machine well.
Through its point-to-point links to the descendant of its first avatar, it had observed, steered and influenced the evolution of the internal culture of the ark and its half million of inhabitants. The fact that they were finally willing to embrace non-violence was the crowning achievement of its 80 years of effort.
Only the birth of the twins, soon, promised to be emotively on par with this night - BB was as happy as a thinking machine could be.
It focused its attention to the youngest one of its descendant, the little Dorotée, and spent the rest of the day with hir and hir big Keecat - when you are in a good mood, playing with a Keecat is the best way to keep it flowing..
Little did it know what a problem Keecats were going to be, for the unsuspecting planet they were directed to.
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