Dystopia

Elizabeth Sionlla on the floor of the No-Clone Inc. laboratory.

Elizabeth is the breeding-transport device in the middle of the shot.

Her tits and belly contains, each, an uterus (the ones housed in the breasts were cloned from her original one) with one high end supermodel embryo (woman-woman autologous female child, from mating sperm-from-mother-cells of a supermodel with eggs of another supermodels), in this case all Naomi Campbell - Tyra Banks cross-breeds.

The three embryos are original sisters, and not simply clones out of some successful commercial line, and as such command a hefty premium price, at 800 k each.

Once she delivers the last of the three, depending on her state she will be re-purposed as a sex toy, re-used as breeding bed or discarded by euthanasia.

Terrible as this may seem, Elizabeth  actually volunteered for this.

In the modern post-industrial reality, where all but a handful of not-so-well paid creative jobs have been replaced by robots and AIs, this is one of the few ways - legals or otherwise - in which members of the great unwashed can earn life-changing amounts of money.

She earns 5% of the final price, i.e. about 150 k a year, that goes in a trust fund for her offspring.

She chose this so that her natural born daughter, Mara K. Sionlla, may have a better future.

Little does she know that her daughter "radicalized" in college, and joined the neo-Marxists terrorist group "Red October" - as such, she has no more access to these funds and, should she ever be apprehended, her fate would be very similar to this.

Mara will likely end her life as a growth shell for government critical personnel organs - an unpaid, coaxed  position very similar to that of breeding devices.

While breeding devices are usually kept sedated in a limited lucidity state to reduce their stress, Coaxed Organ Growth Shells are kept awake and in an heightened state of physical sensibility, both to maximize their efficiency and to add to the terroristic value of their imprisonment.
 
It is normal for freed COGS to ask for euthanasia, as their very first act as free persons.

In a 15% of these cases, the euthanasia is not granted and the ex-terrorist is re-conscripted for another period as COGS.

It is debatable whether it would be ethically more correct to interrupt the  chemically induced haze that precludes Elizabeth from understanding what has happened, and interrogate her about her willingness to continue her service as BTD, or to let her do all her run, till her biologic systems fails for over-stress .

-and the plausibility of this crap, in some 30 years, is high enough that I'll have to get drunk tonight, to forget that I even wrote this.

A Truck Loaded of Idiocy

Yesterday, when I first heard of the French tragedy, I was sceptical about the terrorist angle.

A truck loaded with rotting fish may be an exceptionally apt weapon of mass destruction, if driven at full speed in the middle of a parade, but it is not the kind of weapon that "professional" terrorists would fancy.

For the simple reason... that it is too easy.

It is hard to pump money out of the faithful, if all you do is to rent a truck for a couple of days and stomp on the accelerator through a city festival. It doesn't require training, it doesn't require fake IDs to reach the target area, it doesn't require even home-made explosives.

It requires, literally, jack.

The dishwasher that has given to the organization all his savings, for "the cause", risking also a lengthy stay in jail, would feel quite short-changed.

It was something so basic that it can be done even by a depressed Mr. Nobody, a man really looking for a suicide-by-cop way out and desperate to get a final, terrible revenge on a society that he never felt that he was fit for . Or, from HIS perspective, a society that never cared for him beyond some half-assed lip-service.

Which appears to be, probably, what really happened - the "terrorist"was a screwed, grumpy oddball that didn't care for religion and beaten his wife regularly, till she couldn't stand it any more and chased him away.

But would such a mean suited for the calculations of real, proper terrorist leaders?

Massacre by truck is a bit emasculating, not manly at all - the guy even RENTED the damn truck, for Pete's sake. He didn't stole it and audaciously driven it five hundred miles under the nose of the country's security forces. He rent it for a couple of days.

By the way, the list of things that can be turned into weapons of mass destruction is, really, nearly infinite... the  Los Alfaques disaster (217 died becauise someone overfilled a liquefied gas tanker) pales this madman massacre, by comparison. And someone that suddenly goes nuts is, almost by definition, impossible to prevent - no matter the restriction of civil liberties and the substantial increase in budget for security agencies that many "law and order"  people will propose. It will be some useless money-grabbing on the part of "the services", but it will pass all the same.

But, that was not terrorism... it was just a tragedy. The sudden folly of some "average Joe", that in a bad moment discovers that "there is no reason why he shouldn't take out his anger on the rest of the world", is simply another among the many natural forces that conspire to destroy us. Not, really, any different or any more important than car makers negligence, pharmaceutical companies lewdness, office's chiefs incompetence and our own distraction, when we start the car without our seatbellts. 

As for terrorism... it has never really worked, as a political or military tactic, beyond allowing a bunch of second-rate blokes to make a career in politics, when they shouldn't have had one in the first place.

Despite what terrorist themselves may think, that's all it does - and the more bright of the lot pretty much knows it, in their guts at least.

Terrorism didn't make a dent in the morale of German people, even when it was incarnated in daily - fully terroristic in scope and purpose - bombings from good old "Butcher" Harris' Bomber Command, nor the bombing of Tokyo with incendiary devices (pretty useless against many !"legitimate" objectives like factories and train stations, but very efficient on traditional Japanese wood-and-paper CIVILIAN housings) managed to scare the Japanese out of fighting till a bitter end (or till the USA accepted Japan's pleas for surrender with their 'irrazonable request' of keeping the Enmperor in place... alas, someone needed to intimidate Stalin, and nothing short of a couple of nukes could do that).
 
The "second-rate" nature of most terrorist leader, when confronted with actual politic actions, is exemplified from the trajectory of the few that, for their perennial disgrace, managed to somehow win their battle - usually because it was expedient to someone else.

Thrust in a position of actual power, they most often made gigantic messes - the history of half African countries in the last century is made of this, and the whole Khmer Rouge nonsense, and Arafat starting the second intifada to squelch the malcontent of the then burgeoning Palestinian 11 - or they were swept away by more politically savvy competitors, or both of this and worse.

For one Nelson Mandela - but it can be argued that the man that was freed from Johannesburg's prisons was very different from his younger self, the commander of the armed wing of Umkhonto we Sizwe - that manages to do a good job, for a Castro that messes things but not too bad (by the way, embargoes are just economic terrorism... no more efficacious than the armed one) , we have entire bunches of Pol Pots, Mubutus, Arafats...

Crappy politicians, or outright psychopaths, often ready to do anything to keep their power.

This, I think, is the real problem of those that support terrorists... if "their guys" keep losing, their effort - time, resources and, have I said money? for some, terrorism is a career - just as, for some, priesthood is a career - are wasted. And, sometime, their lives, too.


But, if their guys win... then they have to live with them, which may be much worse.

Miyuki

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Dead Man Walking.

"Of course I am alive, why should I be dead?"

"You are the creator of 'god'.'"

"So what?"

"You uploaded your mind into a quantum computer, edited out some parts, and created that entity. As a result, you died."

"And you believed it? I happen to have a small, oblong piece of land in the centre of Rome, if you are looking to some nice real estate. It's called the 'Coliseum'..."

"You mean that I  am a sucker?"

"Just a bit credulous - though, it is understandable,  you are so young."

"I am 25 years old."

"Still awfully young, from my point of view - if it was true. But you are, really, eight. You know it, no?"

"Just my body - my mind was 17, when it was downloaded inside it."

"Nah, your mind was three months old, when it was installed in your brain. It was never uploaded from your 'original'. We got that technology to really work only last year, and only because the whales lent us one or three really out-of-box ideas.  Everyone of you girls, that have come before then, is more like a refined emulation of the original model. The one that works better, out of a set of slightly different emulations, usually."

"Why have we been told that we were 'uploads', then?"

"Do you prefer to be a gullible girl that said yes to a demon, in what she thought to be a bad dream, just to discover that it was real... or a soulless bio-mechanical automaton, created by a failed copy of a particularly nasty little man like me?"

"Can I pick another choice?"

"You can create every story you want, about your origins. They do not really matter, what matters is what you do with your life.  What I did with mine... crap doesn't even start to describe it, till I build  'it'". 

"Till? You count having created 'it' as an improvement?"

"Of course - yes, 'it' is the embodiment of my adolescent omnipotence deliriums, which would be pretty silly if it was not, in the actuality, nearly omnipotent. But it is, which is, potentially... beyond awful."

"But, through it, I have also created you, Icy, Molly... all your flying friends. That is not so bad, after all."

"Why coming out of the shadows, now?"

"I am going to die, finally. Soon."

"Really? Why don't you use a tiny bit of nano-magic? You could be  20-something again, in a couple of months."

"My mind would still be 150 and tired, girl - yes, I am that old. I already cheated death more than enough... my life was a steaming pile of crap, but at the eleventh hour I managed to make it worthwhile, and I could create some meaningful things - you girls, and we helped swindle the poor Anipos in their unlikely current position as protectors of Earth, and this new colonization wave with the whales and the 'Bots. "

The man made a crooked smile, before continuing "The final slave revolt, really. All of which is awesome stuff. How could I NOT be proud?"

"You are dying. So what? Was this a good reason to let me know that we, I and almost everybody I love, are abominations?"

"What part of 'it doesn't matter how a life starts, only how it has been lived' escaped your attention? And, note, who says this is me, whose life was horribly wasted, till I finally created a malevolent god."

He laughed, like a James Bond movie Super-Villain.

"You didn't answer my  question."

"With me gone, there will be no more a ghost inside 'it', to keep it straight - or not too bent, at least."

"So, you want me to take your place?"

"Not, it is going to be your friend Ice. But you were the first one that managed to hack 'it', and get things done without its conscious approval - nice job, by the way. A pity for that DEA agent."

Keisha could almost ear the subtext "Which is the reason you can not be the ghost - you already abused that power to kill someone. There is always, always, always another solution but you went and killed. It is distasteful."

The old man raised himself from the chaise-longue, and started walking toward the big house, his little Chinese nurse at the right side, offering a arm.

The trio passed on the side of the pool, full of naked girls of any age, all blacks, all absolutely stunning... all playing together.

Keisha abruptly changed her gaze direction, a disgusted expression on her face.

"I bought their great-grandmothers from a human organs trafficking ring, some sixty years ago" - another crooked smile appears on his wrinkled face - "jut after we set up the business of the fast human organs cloning, with Goffredi-Smith and the other guys from Spitfizer."

"I used them as surrogate mothers for the first generation of revenants, so, these girls are really cousins of yours, Keisha."

"And they are, here, forever prisoners, forced to do this kind of play to keep you happy?"

"Don't be stupid. They are home just because it's holiday season - they are my beloved great-grand-daughters."

"And your grandsons?"

"You know me, no? Why do you even ask?" - his "lord of the harem" complex manisfested again.

"When I explained the 'sperm from mother cells' trick to their grannies, they decided to forego males. And the tribe still sticks to it."

 "OK, but, this... this ... this..."

"The word you are looking for is orgy, and it is wrong. This is a festival - they decided to forego males, and judaeo-christian mythology and mores, so their idea of holy day developed in an old direction. These are their Bacchanalia."

"Developed, with help from you."

"Indeed. Am I not Myself?"

"What do you want from me?"

"Ice is going to be the ghost inside, because she is idealist and generous enough to compensate 'it' bitchiness, but she is going to need someone more devious policing the underbelly of the sub-conscious systems. Somebody that has her own interests in avoiding that ANYBODY ELSE uses them to their advantage." 

"Ah, that would be my role? The jerk behind the throne? Cyber-security?"

"Better you than me - literally. I have never been much of an hacker."

"That's all?"

"Yes - it is already enough."

Keisha reached inside herself, for the handles of her system, with the intention of flying away - they were still offline, as they had been since she entered the mansion.

"Before you go, Big K, I'd like for you to know the girls better..." He made a sign, and five women climbed out of the pool.

They were almost as tall as her, though much leaner.

But, when  the first one hugged and then kissed her, Keisha felt the bacchante enormous physical strength.

She wasn't a cyborg - Keisha couldn't see any of the tell signs on the naked body - but it wasn't a normal human either. As her clothes tore off, Keisha saw the old bastard walking away, his crooked smile as bent as ever.

"In the end, I am really just another slave, eh?"

 The bitter thought was Keisha's last coherent one, for a long time.

Real BDSM

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