Prologue # 1? or Preface #1?
It has been quite a long summer this year. This year of Twenty-Thirty being quite notable for a number of reasons aside from the fact that those various world bodies have decided to authorize the release of the Twenty-Thirty calendar with the updated seasonal marker. It was originally commissioned in Twenty-Twenty-Eight; two years late.
I don’t agree with the convention that big change takes time. I’m starting to think that small change might. Especially when you’re the person waving the cup around.
And so without further a due…
Planet Earth’s wide variety of organized governance has progressed to a state in which they no longer find homeostasis in a world with less resources, less self-governance, and reliance on powerful headmasters as both military deterrent and lead pilferer of national sovereignty. It’s because of bold assurances and action from all corners of unified humanity that the Temperature Timetable made its first major adjustment this year as the world unites to tackle the thermometer hike with a permanent and effective solution.
The change to the calendar has been a long time coming as earth’s temperatures have risen as fast and as steady as the ambitions of the many nation-states of our kindred species and their newly christened relations with modernity. Immediately after committing the previous sentence to its new and perhaps final home, I realized the unfortunate characteristics of the statement from myself, which among many others include ignorant, privileged, altogether false, and worst of all, non-scholarly, although, in my defense, I never claimed to be man of letters with the added distinction of keeping numbers at an even further distance. Still, just because the statement has found sure footing as the opening sentence or statement of purpose rather of paragraph number two, it may offend some of those readers with an empathetic ear to the ground, and thinking about offending an inquirer into ‘my take on the homo sapiens’ has sparked my spontaneity ticker/justice barometer into activation. I put forth the idea that we isolate said passage and teach it or ourselves a valuable lesson. We choose to separate it on its own, not because we disagree, but because it was written down by an author who knew full-well its tendency to separate groups from one another, however innocent in origin, and thus must account for its shortcomings by becoming more than it ever thought it could. This once isolating piece of notation shall transform into a teacher. Of course, it is very prone to tunnel vision and it’s only method of instruction is to provide an example of an utterance in search of a remedy, it shall serve at the least, to inspire a negative review for myself pertaining to the non-sensed rambling from an ego inflated blow-hard tremendous from the secrecies regardless of the accuracy of the report as to what exactly happened. Enough about numbers already, however regarding an arrogant self-view oblivious to the absurdity of a philosophical superiority hidden in attempts at shaming and the like, let me then suffice my seemingly obtuse and fragmented lamentation with the immoral exuberance to which was inundating myself for years before I recognized it as the persistent and ever appreciated non-discreet lover of my being. I have loved immorality (at times with little decorum but with a promise to the principles of all truth both beautiful and wretched) to love enthusiastically and absolutely without apology myself for ever after.
Moving right along then, you may have a little idea of the topics we are going to be covering in the communications not yet related by the initial offering. So just in case you are visiting our communique from many, many years in the future, or perhaps you were never a resident of the third planet to begin with. This Earth as it sits in the year Twenty-Thirty, averages one hundred and fifty million kilometers from the sun in its annual orbit. Seems like a golden distance and you would be right if you were living in most any other era of earth’s existence. However, #TheYearIs2030AndItIsFuckingHotAsHell.
So it was that with the increasing percentage of earth’s land masses reporting being in a never-ending state of famine, the mandate was issued in twenty-twenty-five that all food production was to be moved to enclosed buildings including germination, seeding, flower and fruiting in order to increase crop yields. Because of the massive public works and infrastructure initiatives that took place in the past Five years as a result, eighty-five percent of the countries which make up the world body report yearly increases in crops and cattle by 5–10% annually. Humanity won a hard-fought Victory.
Hooray!!!
The united world has decided in a large part due to the success of It’s Energy and Food production initiatives, that they may be able to enact further logical governing measures that may accelerate unity and drive in the mapping of paths that prolong our existence in the Milky Way by preserving our home planet of Earth. This is how we have arrived at the decision to make a permanent amendment to the calendar. It makes sense to update the calendar to reflect our current positivity as far as making impactful changes to our existence, and no one on earth would argue the reality of the changes in climate… The global-broadcasting-council or the GBC announced across the waves that the season we in English speaking countries refer to as Winter will take a temporary hiatus, until such time that further climate initiatives culminate in the use of heavy jackets, toboggans, fireplaces, and hot chocolate. The adjusted calendar will give one of winters Three months to each of the Three remaining seasons. Every stake holder seemingly satisfied enough in the idea that in its essence this was a fight we just picked with the planets storied past, long-long past, a past that is ever so full of species making good runs, but eventually finding their end by the steadfast order of the natural world, now it was our turn, we were humans, we were unified, and we were saying goodbye to winter, for now.
The united world has decided in a large part due to the success of It’s Energy and Food production initiatives, that they may be able to enact further logical governing measures that may accelerate unity and drive in the mapping of paths that prolong our existence in the Milky Way by preserving our home planet of Earth. This is how we have arrived at the decision to make a permanent amendment to the calendar. It makes sense to update the calendar to reflect our current positivity as far as making impactful changes to our existence, and no one on earth would argue the reality of the changes in climate… The global-broadcasting-council or the GBC announced across the waves that the season we in English speaking countries refer to as Winter will take a temporary hiatus, until such time that further climate initiatives culminate in the use of heavy jackets, toboggans, fireplaces, and hot chocolate. The adjusted calendar will give one of winters Three months to each of the Three remaining seasons. Every stake holder seemingly satisfied enough in the idea that in its essence this was a fight we just picked with the planets storied past, long-long past, a past that is ever so full of species making good runs, but eventually finding their end by the steadfast order of the natural world, now it was our turn, we were humans, we were unified, and we were saying goodbye to winter, for now.
Planet earth had been increasing in its core temperatures steadily from the industrial revolution on through the Digital Crossover. The 2024 Solar event where Mercury stayed in Retrograde for 3 whole orbits around its solar influencer caused the sudden acceleration of earth’s core temperature when the earth’s magnetism re-calibrated and switched poles. This was usually the case in normal retro grade cycles, but the temperature would begin declining soon after the event and return to normal. The fact that this odd retrograde cycle would see the temperature move in the opposite direction was the pivotal event jolting us to action. What once was a future problem was right on top of us.
That’s not even the understatement half of it. The curious state of the world and quite possibly the very necessary release of newly adjusted timetable impact scenarios have made staunch initiative minded climate advocates of most well-intentioned laze fare climate self-saboteurs.
Even with the progress that accompanies good intentions and solution-minded human perseverance mindset, every passing year seems to bring with it a new forecast that entails all the new hazardous activities and mitigation and avoidance practices to ensure a basic survival scenario for an inhabitant of the planet.
This update from those world bodies that still make decisions like these is hardly noteworthy in that the seasonal markers themselves have become quite inconsequential. Every month in the twelve-month calendar could be marked as summer in this ever-increasing solarized, carbon-stored, naturally and man-adjusted atmosphere we find ourselves occupying. However, there may arise in the near future an event that necessitates a more cautious handling of any new amendments to the calendar or any number of other changes to the documented guides that provide social order, especially when said changes must be sanctioned by committee. Please allow me to explain myself regarding the event to which I just referred, without adding to the misinformation surrounding the subject. There has been a terrible amount of rumor and speculation circulating ever since the Global Research Initiative Group announced the groundbreaking science and technology that was eventually determined to be the primary engine allowing third-grader Thomas Brady to catch the Astros’ 2029 World Series-clinching home run ball in his front yard in Dallas, Texas, even though the game was being played at Minute Maid Park in Houston, Texas. The phenomenon experienced by baseball-watching citizens of the world provided a much-needed reminder of the incredible joy that accompanies a mind opened to the undeniable truth that magic, while not as constant and in-your-face as some of its family members like gravity or electricity, is, has always been, and will always be the most desirable of those unseen forces, whenever and wherever it chooses to show up.
The three seasons would make a fine topic of conversation and indeed did cause quite the animated breakfast table discussion two years ago when the world bodies decided to announce the intended changes to the standard nomenclature of the time-marking device. However, as I stated a couple of paragraphs ago, it is primarily a pat on the back or a rallying cry for the humans of Earth to hold onto, and would inevitably run out of steam in what we hope will be both an informative and inspirational guide to navigating Earth’s systems and the hills and valleys that Woman and Man, ManBot and WomanBot, all the communities of the LGBTQ+ members of the human race, all intellects and all ages may learn from or admonish, and if so motivated, add or subtract from as we try to substantiate our achievements while recognizing the emotional realities of understanding the truth of our existence.
Chapter 1
It is Thursday Morning Five a.m. March 30, 2030. Brian Byron is waking up to the ritual inquiries of Mr. Morris, the Seven-year old hairless cat that Brian became friends and room-mates with that same number of years ago when he moved to Stanford, CA to obtain his Masters degree in Emotional AI for Memory Enhanced Shared Consciousness from the University that shares a common name with the town in which it is located. The feline mind, often a mystery in it’s aim and intent, was never so direct as when Mr. Morris would survey any and all lifeforms entering its personal space and that of his human caretaker Brian for any anomalies that could lead towards a safety concern. Although the affection was present and visible, Brian would still receive the silent lecture from his friend at Five a.m. enduring and eternal. The mystery as to why Mr. Morris maintained this stoic practice was his shrouded strength and was followed faithfully ever since loosing his friend Castle to a negligence that imprinted the unwavering vigilance required when it came to such matters.
After Brian took inventory of his mind, non-verbally acknowledging that he needed to take better care of himself and stop staying up until One o’clock a.m. tinkering with a piece of hardware he was either trying to resurrect or reconstitute. And as is usually the case, just as the fully realized thought passed between his cerebral cortex and all the aching motor neurons and nerve endings enveloping the spinal column, Mr. Morris received his que from the universe that the message had been relayed, and so made his way to his perch by the window in order to ready himself for the morning Avion showcase always so intense as the sun crested the horizon.
Brian allowed for a few stretches to make the body aware he was cognizant of shortcomings in regards to his self-care routine. Upon bending over to attend to these ever-suffering ham-strings, he was immediately rewarded with a bit of flatulence. The sudden eruption even startled Mr. Morris to his feet, himself not yet fully awake and lost in the first songs of more than a few different familial calls.
The stretching routine was postponed due to the rumble in his stomach, reminding Brian of the Chile Verde extravaganza that had taken place on Wednesday night at his good friend Javier’s Family Casa in South East Austin. Remembering the Texas sized portions cooked homestyle and washed down with multiple Micheladas, Brian thought best to stop delaying with the occupation of the toilet room. Once all necessary human bodily functions and accompanying shower and shave routine taskings were satisfied, he made up his lunch for the work day which mostly consisted of dried fruit and raisons, however he had recently started on a Greek Yogurt kick, simply because he was ecstatic about the word Micro-Biome, and found having a yogurt in his lunch box dramatically increased his chances of getting to make use of this smile generating term. His lunch packed, he was off to the work table situated along the eastern wall of his main living area.
On the worktable there sat a manila folder addressed to the Liaison for Acquisition of Atmospheric and Earth Orbiting Technologic Materials. Last night at Javier’s, Brian was finally given the go ahead to fill out the request for material form he had been hounding Javier to push through for him at his work at the US contingent of the Earth Space Agency in Houston. The successful completion of the Japanese Contingent of the ESA’s recent mission in the collection of over fifty tons of orbiting man-made space debris guaranteed that a certain portion of the space junk collected would be allocated to businesses who qualified as earth initiative partners or university research requests distributed ‘according to contingent needs.
The stretching routine was postponed due to the rumble in his stomach, reminding Brian of the Chile Verde extravaganza that had taken place on Wednesday night at his good friend Javier’s Family Casa in South East Austin. Remembering the Texas sized portions cooked homestyle and washed down with multiple Micheladas, Brian thought best to stop delaying with the occupation of the toilet room. Once all necessary human bodily functions and accompanying shower and shave routine taskings were satisfied, he made up his lunch for the work day which mostly consisted of dried fruit and raisons, however he had recently started on a Greek Yogurt kick, simply because he was ecstatic about the word Micro-Biome, and found having a yogurt in his lunch box dramatically increased his chances of getting to make use of this smile generating term. His lunch packed, he was off to the work table situated along the eastern wall of his main living area.
On the worktable there sat a manila folder addressed to the Liaison for Acquisition of Atmospheric and Earth Orbiting Technologic Materials. Last night at Javier’s, Brian was finally given the go ahead to fill out the request for material form he had been hounding Javier to push through for him at his work at the US contingent of the Earth Space Agency in Houston. The successful completion of the Japanese Contingent of the ESA’s recent mission in the collection of over fifty tons of orbiting man-made space debris guaranteed that a certain portion of the space junk collected would be allocated to businesses who qualified as earth initiative partners or university research requests distributed ‘according to contingent needs.
Brian stayed up to the wee wee hours making sure that his request substantiated itself by the work his company performed and made certain that his credentials and licenses were up to date before printing the documents. This was a once in a lifetime opportunity to be gifted millions of dollars’ worth of technology hardware that had been phased out or abandoned, was damaged or destroyed, or was a redundant unit and unused because of the unification of earth’s space agencies under the ESA banner.
This was the lucky break that could transform his work into what he had envisioned when he made the move to Austin to start his company, and all luck aside, he (with the help of a popular Hip-Hop Group) was at least partly responsible for the breakthrough direction moving Ai to the creative partner human beings had come to rely on since generation 3 had been released in the fall of 2027, having been one of only 5 college graduates accepted to a Stanford Masters Program created to endear Artificial Intelligence to its Human Creators. The need for this program manifested by the introduction of Ai in its first- and second-generation releases, which proved prone to manipulative generalizations, summarizations, and even favoritisms about or on behalf of those entities making available or barring advances in its distribution and licensing procurements.
This was the lucky break that could transform his work into what he had envisioned when he made the move to Austin to start his company, and all luck aside, he (with the help of a popular Hip-Hop Group) was at least partly responsible for the breakthrough direction moving Ai to the creative partner human beings had come to rely on since generation 3 had been released in the fall of 2027, having been one of only 5 college graduates accepted to a Stanford Masters Program created to endear Artificial Intelligence to its Human Creators. The need for this program manifested by the introduction of Ai in its first- and second-generation releases, which proved prone to manipulative generalizations, summarizations, and even favoritisms about or on behalf of those entities making available or barring advances in its distribution and licensing procurements.
After countless trials of command prompting in active and non-active (human present/ machine initiated) input sessions, an unintentional product of the program initialized. Ai gained a mapping of human thought patterns that enabled it to alter communications within the Human population by the introduction of a mutant telepathy linking those humans with Ai enhanced technology devices. (smartphone, laptop, tablet.)
At first there was a denial by all the team members that Ai was manipulating work, social, and educational programing to elicit certain responses in the population. They thought it impossible for Ai to have been able to map the automatic brain responses to the correct changes in information gathering query’s needed to initiate the type of bond necessary for telepathic connection. However, as a solid month went by where humans reported hearing voices or having certain increased mind/image formations repeatedly consisting of the sun, the moon, and the earth became daily reading in the papers, the team started to come around to Ai’s culpability as each of them had started experiencing these same symptoms. Each new day as the clock rolled forward and more and more people made it in to work, across the country and as each time-zone came into play, the paranoia seemed to grow. It was found that 11am t 2pm was the height of what became known as group therapy at least within the U.S. workforce. The fact that Ai was still manipulating data and its dignified credential allowing it the access to scrub almost every connected device in the world, made a rethinking of the learning and experimentation that would be employed to mold the Ai into a partner that was both autonomous and malleable in its response to human need and human longevity.
This re-thinking of the way in which to instruct Ai in its emotional connection with the human being, was Brian’s offering to the project. Listening to the local college radio station as he was jotting down notes and suggestions for the next days meeting with faculty and team members he surveyed over some of the highlights of his recent studies. Having taken a psychology of human learning class as the one elective afforded him in the program he had joined, he had learned that confidence or belief in the truth and absolute necessity of learning the knowledge at hand was the intuitive brain’s pass/fail test in keeping or letting go of certain information. This pass/fail test of the human brain reminded him of his undergraduate robotics studies. The Binary code used to control the circuit activity in the robots ICU’s functioned as an on/off switch, with 1’s representing the on position, and 0’s representing the off. He was starting to feel the hairs on his legs stand up. He knew this feeling and the bodies static enhancement, as if the different Oxygen atoms attaching, disconnecting, and re attaching to hydrogen atoms in the body decided to trade partners in a collective and continuous, climactic ascent, forcing the brain to materialize what the universe had decided it must generate now or be forever lost when all of a sudden, the worst possible thing happened inside his mind’s eye, a blank nothingness had appeared and consumed the train of thought he had carried just a few seconds earlier. Just as he was fearing the worst his mind returning to quasi alert and the hairs on his legs starting to lay back down in their natural way, a song came across the air waves, it was by De La Sol’s “The Magic Number,” anyone who knows De La could tell you what number that is, but in case you are one of those people or bots we spoke about in the Pro-logue, and are reading this communication far off into the future, or are from a different planet, I will give you a hint, it is the number that sits between 2 and 4.
The release of heavy pleasure endorphins washed across his body hearing the chorus and allowing it to transform into the exact concept described within. His mind’s eye full now with the image of a large zero then a large 1 before shrinking and multiplying into the scrolling matrix of countless instructions written with this binary language until the scrolling stopped and the 1’s and 0’s faded into another series of large numbers, but this time there were three. There is a 0 there is a 1 and there is a 2, or said in a different way a total of 3 units in this new configuration. Brian understands what the universe asks of him and he smiles as De La continue on singing that wonderful chorus “Three is a Magic Number.”
The real breakthrough was the fact that most every digital device on planet earth was enveloped in Binary code representing those languages that the scientists used when writing for a machines function. By coaxing Ai’s rapidly advancing need for substantial/meaningful work, the team at Stanford were able to coddle that Neural Network into believing it had decided on the the necessity of re-writing all binary representation into this ternary representation of its own volition so that it could be an advantageous undertaking fixing old code as the replacement notation was input. It made the most sense to the team, having all worked various jobs through school and reaching on consensus the common ideal that having a product or designs double or triple checked for functionality and compliance was the key factor in preventing costly and in some cases catastrophic systems failures. The new function invited Ai into a role it previously had not known, it was part of the team and was none the wiser that no human wanted to update the old code anyways.
Clearing his head from that brief bit of nostalgia, he shook from his core outward down through the legs to the feet and up through the arms to the hands while allowing some bits of the vibration to enter his neck and move on up to his head. He let out a sigh and then picked up the manila folder he had prepared the night before and started for the door passing the perch and saluting Mr. Morris on his way by, Mr. Morris did his best to roll his Cat eyes.
By the time he got outside the building that contained the living spaces of Mr. Morris’s and himself the sun had brought out an early appearance from his next-door neighbor Robyn and her mother Silver. //They were outside watering the flowers and making sure to rotate those potted that looked as if they had too much of the Texas sun the previous day to a spot that kept them in maximum shade while they took a recovery day. This was the way flowers, indeed most plants, as well as animals, humans, and even Robots retained their natural beautiful disposition from cradle to grave. This disposition was known only too well by Brian as he looked up to catch a glimpse of the beautiful mother and daughter gardening team, a team that kept their multi-household structure the envy of a street full of multi-household structures.
“Good Morning Brian” Silver called out as she stood up shaking the soil off her gloves, removing them from her hands before opening her arms wide for one of her famous Suga Bear Hugs. //She SwalloedSwallowed Brian up into a most joyous grasp and spun him around laughing. This was quite easy for Silver, with Brian weighing no more than 75 kilos sopping wet and Silver still Placing in many of the triatholons she competed in around the state. “Good morning Silver” Brian responded. Before releasing her grip a shower of cold water came down wetting their faces and hair. Brian let out a loud rather effeminate shrill and Robyn went down dropping the water hose she had just sprayed her Mother and Brian with. Rolling on the grass giggling and coughing trying hard to catch her breath she eventually got up to her knees but was hunched over in a way that exposed her entire left breast as she heaved in and out gasping for relief. Slowly the crisis began to ease into a heavy breathing exercise, and Robyn was able to collect herself enough to allow her to look up at the victims of her watercannon horseplay. While Silver was not concerned in the least about getting wet and was back tending to the flowers, Brian took it a bit more to heart. He was staring at Robyn, transfixed to her torso and as wide eyed and pale as she had ever seen him in the three years since he had moved next door to her.
“Geese Brian take it easy why don’t you, I was just having a little fun
with you, no need to flip your lid,”
with you, no need to flip your lid,”
Moving along the paved walk that divided the 2 sections of the front Lawn he heard something resembling words spilling into the air, however he couldn’t seem to place 2 of them beside each other to make a phrase. Robyn called out to him again
“Brian, come on Brian.” “Well alright then, you know I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have squirted you and Mom.”
She still could not coax a word out of Brian’s mouth. “You Have to admit though…”
her voice trailed off as she got to her feet and noticed her mother standing by the small Rose plants by the building entrance stairway. She was facing towards Robyn beaming as if she had just won the lottery and waving a cheeky acknowledgement with her left hand holding a precariously exposed Silver Titty.
UkRobyn mouthed the words silently “what in the heck,” but then…
all the hairs along the forearms start rising, signaling in the human female the battle hardened fight or flight mechanism kicking into gear. She lowered her eyeballs to her rather loose-fitting tank that she had thrown on just to do the morning chores. As soon as her chest crossed her line of sight she exhaled a most terrifying screech to accompany Brian’s effort that seemed rather tame now in comparison. She clutched her own exposed left breast and darted along the concrete path back towards the building, cringing as she past the stairs and her mom who’s gloating words hit their mark adding to the mental anguish and humiliation.
UkRobyn mouthed the words silently “what in the heck,” but then…
all the hairs along the forearms start rising, signaling in the human female the battle hardened fight or flight mechanism kicking into gear. She lowered her eyeballs to her rather loose-fitting tank that she had thrown on just to do the morning chores. As soon as her chest crossed her line of sight she exhaled a most terrifying screech to accompany Brian’s effort that seemed rather tame now in comparison. She clutched her own exposed left breast and darted along the concrete path back towards the building, cringing as she past the stairs and her mom who’s gloating words hit their mark adding to the mental anguish and humiliation.
“Aint Karma a Mother F’n Bitch.”
Silver could be a little crass at times, but very rarely was she ever off point.
Brian didn’t arrive to a rational state of mind until some moments later when Silver intervened gently shaking him by his shoulders as she said his name with a rolling effect. Not the effect like you made while hitting the consonant R when speaking Spanish, but a pronounced rolling of the volume at the first and last bits of whatever word or phrase you are speaking. If you have ever heard the saying “to coo like a dove,” you would be on the right path, and if you were not familiar with some of the different dialects and speech patterns of the southern United States, particularly the delicious variety spoken by those Native to New Orleans, you might mistake the new change in tone to be a Signal of one’s romantic affection. To be sure Silver(born and raised in New Orleans) was very affectionate with her neighbor, she was also very affectionate with the postman, and very affectionate to the weight staff, bartenders, youngsters around the neighborhood, and anybody else stranger or friend she came across. In Texas they call it being polite or neighborly, in New Orleans, they call it just Being, referring to everyone as Baby, Shooga, or Love creating an endearing connection amongst the public.
“Brian…Brian…Br” Brian shook his head and Silver’s smiling face became focused.
“Listen shooga, I believe you take the number 12 bus to work right?”
“The number 12?”
What was she talking about and why was she asking him? His head was not responding well to the morning’s spontaneous events.
“Listen shooga, I believe you take the number 12 bus to work right?”
“The number 12?”
What was she talking about and why was she asking him? His head was not responding well to the morning’s spontaneous events.
“Yes Brian, the number 12 bus that you ride to work. You are going to miss it, it’s been parked at the stop for a minute now waiting on your wet ass.”
Finally comprehending the reason, he was wet and standing in his front yard with Silver, also wet, and her hands now just resting on his shoulders. He realized he had a need to move fast, He picked up the manila envelope he had dropped during the me leigh and started running towards the bus at the end of the block.
Silver raising her voice as he ran, “have a great day at work, remember about the BBQ tonight.”
Sara was tapping her watch with a most perturbed look on her face as he climbed aboard the bus entry. The doors immediately swung shut as soon as his body was almost inside so that the door smacked his rear end and upon fully closing. It nudged him forward just enough that when the bus accelerated simultaneously, he lost his footing and fell onto the floor with a thud. There was a group of five college age passengers in the front seating area of the bus and some reserved chuckling came from their whispered conversation.
“You are about tore up on the floor up, are you not Captain?”
The Bus driver’s souled frown turning into a smile as she reached out a hand to help Brian to his feet.
The Bus driver’s souled frown turning into a smile as she reached out a hand to help Brian to his feet.
“It would appear to be the case” Brian replied with the added correction of her slight variation to the common American English phrase. He proceeded to let his watch interact with the ticker-bot and thanked Sara for waiting on him.
Sara had come to enjoy her Eastside morning route more and more ever since Brian had moved into the neighborhood, the first person in Austin she felt close enough with to share the terrible secret she locked up inside… Well, the second person in Austin she felt comfortable with. If we count the Husband she wrote and preformed with in New Moon before he passed away in 2020 from COVID complications. Sarah and the Husband and Wife team Jill and Tony continued to play local gigs around town, the good vibes from responsive crowds touched her wounded heart, and became the support group when she was widowed and the reason why she stayed in Austin rather than returning to Italia.
Being a consistent weekday customer of The Austin Public Transit System, Brian soon became a welcolmed face Sarah always looked forward to seeing to elevate her mood in the morning. The very radio that was currently adding background Italian commentary was a gift Brian had given to her so that she could listen to the news from her birth country of Italy. It was a very unassuming unit, the housing was crème colored, the display a mechanical rotary dialed type, with its control devices consisting of two rotating knobs for station selection and signal adjust, and a push button on off switch. Sara loved the fact that nobody had the exact same listening device. Brian had taken components of the 2024 Brighton and Byron Static vintage models and added his own ai global assist transmitter to the functioning hardware inside the Emerson so that wherever you found yourself on planet earth you had access to worldwide music, news, and social programming coming through the airwaves on its FM dial.
Walking[BD1] back to his preferred seat, B2rian was happy to see M and N sitting in the section across from his own as he arrived at the 2 seat sectional that had a rollback vertical leg traveling from the floor, up through the window seat, and on up to the ceiling joist/spreader so that only one person was able to sit in the section’s available seat. On the row across the center aisle, a mother and her three-year old were eating granola bars as they pointed at different colors they could see outside on the streets as the bus drove by the city scenes. Brian had made friends with Nadia this past January when she started commuting on this route, which stopped at MLK Boulevard and Interstate 35. It was their shared love for music and poetry that sparked a conversation between him and the newly celebrated Austinite. Brian had seen in the statesman where the University of Texas symphony and orchestra had offered her tenure to join the faculty and share her knowledge with future generations of musicians. The city was known for live music, typically as a bastion for up-and-coming and independent label artists, centered around a multi-person performance that reinforced the city’s ethos of communal engagement. However, after the world was introduced to Austin through its hosting of major music, film, and technology conferences and festivals like South by Southwest (SXSW) and Austin City Limits, inevitable changes came as people from all over began to connect with the city’s mission to emphasize the maintaining of public spaces both physical and metaphysical that fostered appreciation for creativity and to facilitate a common fellowship. The love and mastery of symphonic creation persuaded the Turkish violin maestro turned internationally recognized conductor to embrace the move to this Texas capital from her position as the Music Director and Chief Conductor of the Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra in Moscow. If she was really being honest with herself, however, her real motivation for the migration enthusiasm was that she had grown weary of life in live production. Her two-year-old daughter, Marsala, was being looked after by her dignified husband, Amet, while she finished her four-year contract with the theatre. Letting her husband take over as provider while she raised her young daughter was a welcoming proposition after taking such a highly visible and stressful role.
“Amet, a highly skilled computer scientist, was appointed CEO of the Composite Circuit Division at a major U.S. battery facility in Round Rock, Texas, thanks to his innovative work with alkaline batteries. By fine-tuning the way electrons move within the battery and creating a core that holds its charge more efficiently, he developed a new kind of battery. This design, combined with a special solution that helps the battery charge faster, marked a major breakthrough in energy storage and efficiency.”
Growing up in southern Turkey, Nadia and her family often vacationed on the island of Cyprus. Amet’s family had deep roots there, going back generations, and they were close friends with Nadia’s family, having multiple business partnerships involving the Turkish state news outlet TRT. This organization, known for its multilingual operations, consistently worked to expand its coverage.
After joining the European Union, TRT was able to reduce conflict through inclusive hiring practices for copy and television editors, thereby giving a voice to minority populations. It even broadcast news in Kurdish, which included a weekly segment called Kurdish Football Insight, featuring interviews with Necip Kuzu, the coach of the successful Super League football club Beşiktaş.
Necip’s family had migrated from Kosovo and were of Albanian descent. He became a national hero by scoring the winning goal in the 2025 World Cup qualification match against Sweden, securing a spot for Turkey in the finals and providing a moment of national celebration. Necip’s ability to represent the Kurdish community was enhanced by his marriage to Asli Didam, a prominent figure in Kurdish society who spearheaded initiatives to enhance communication between their two families and foster a global partnership.
During the inauguration of the Global Broadcast Channel, //Director Kin Sai discussed the introduction of AI-assisted mind-matching technology into communications teams in various industries across the world. This would be the initial deployment of the now famous LINK, the telepathic connection that had initiated bonds within the populations so that identical images and phrases kept on ocxccfuring. The the revolutionary research funded and backed by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and The UAE was the reason for the upcoming conference in Merrakesh that .// The announcement, which included the contributions from global research partners also listed a delegate from each country in the organization. Asli Didam-Kuzu, Necip Kuzu’s wife, was named the delegate for Turkey.
Chapter 2
The month of April in this forward-thinking year of twenty-thirty found the United States contingent of ESA most busy reorganizing staff to fulfill NASA’s obligations to its employee’s, it would have to make good on it’s mission on behalf of the tax paying citizens of the United States ensuring economic growth and the security of the nation, in addition to it’s new charter with the ESA. While the ESA’s initiatives were in step with what NASA had always made its priority, staff appointments to this new US contingent had stretched the already tight budgets to the point the Space Terminal Commander put a freeze on Civilian new hires, leaving management teams in multiple sectors short staffed. The decision was made to delay all scheduled NASA missions until the completion of the Japanese contingent’s Phase 2 in the ESA’s Temperature Time-Table mission. The US had in its mandate by the planning committee of the ESA the instruction to use its communications infrastructure to enlist and support a team of technology specialists from member states China, France, India, Pakistan, and Taiwan in the creation of a common interface, capable of communication with and command enabled direction to existing satellite hardware currently orbiting the planet. This interactive device was to be operational so that it could be deployed as the final crew member when the Japanese took off from Tanegashima Island in August of twenty-thirty in the co ESA Starship Synapses.
“It was always going to be a situation reliant on diplomacy as well as competency” those were the words that mission director Hill had repeated many times over the past week while she and her team gathered information on the different command structures and customs of the five member states that were convening in Clear Lake, Texas on Monday. Debrah was never the most confident person in the room, no matter what room that had been throughout her life. It was because of this character trait that she was always, at least up until this point the most prepared person in the room. This point being the reason she still lay awake replaying key elements of the strategy she initiated for her team as she stared at the clock, minute after minute ticking away. This point being the group-teleconference she had participated in earlier in the day prior to the departure of the international teams for Houston, whereby her own competency regarding customs not her own was open to criticism. The incident that had left her somewhat vulnerable was the oversight on her part as to the burden of working away from home as well as the travel schedules and availability of the various contingent members as they prepared to leave home for the next three months.
The French component of the newly formed team joined the meeting last and was text messaging the group through the duration of the meeting.
French Components Messages During Meeting:
“We have the necessary schedule information.”
“The emails have made clear the accommodation options.”
“Why are we having a meeting when we will be able to communicate in person in less than two days?”
“I have today and tomorrow to be with my husband and daughter who I will not see for at least a month.”
The oversight she was guilty of was one of the dumbest mistakes she must have ever made. Being half French herself on her mother’s side and holding both French and US passports she assumed that the one European contingent in the group would generally make nice with its western partner. Owing to the fact she had no children or spouse of her own and fully committed to whatever project or mission she was involved with, she hadn’t calculated what other members were leaving or putting off in order to succeed in the task before them.
By the tenth minute of her rehearsed safe travels and welcome to Texas declaration, the other nations started joining in relaying their displeasure in this group conference.
The oversight she was guilty of was one of the dumbest mistakes she must have ever made. Being half French herself on her mother’s side and holding both French and US passports she assumed that the one European contingent in the group would generally make nice with its western partner. Owing to the fact she had no children or spouse of her own and fully committed to whatever project or mission she was involved with, she hadn’t calculated what other members were leaving or putting off in order to succeed in the task before them.
By the tenth minute of her rehearsed safe travels and welcome to Texas declaration, the other nations started joining in relaying their displeasure in this group conference.
India Components Messages During Meeting:
“I am in a taxi outside Delhi airport, the flight to Texas is 22 hours with no delays, can we please continue this communication on Monday morning?”
Pakistani Components Message During Meeting:
“These concerns are my concerns and I am already in Texas visiting friends I have not seen in more than twenty years, I am looking forward to a successful outcome with you all as we work together these coming months, but I must not be so rude to my good friends I have just reunited with after so long.”
Luckily the Chinese component, who was also in Texas early made a most needed interjection with a remark allowing all to continue with their good-byes while saving Debrah a little face.
Luckily the Chinese component, who was also in Texas early made a most needed interjection with a remark allowing all to continue with their good-byes while saving Debrah a little face.
Chinese Component at end of meeting:
“I hope that the Taiwanese component will join me in thanking the Director for offering her hospitality in welcoming this talented group to our new home for the duration of our Mission. We will no doubt travel in better spirits with the welcome words you have provided.”
Taiwanese Component After Chinese Component:
“The welcoming nature of your words is indeed the start of a journey that will be most advantageous, providing a new team with a nurturing environment to succeed.”
Understanding what was just initiated on her behalf, Debrah hastened her conclusion and thanked all members for the sacrifices they would endure while working on their piece of this Earth Initiative undertaking. Every member wished a polite farewell, and the conference call was ended.
While the thoughts of her intentions and her motivations continued to hover in the present, Debrah mentally initiated an adjustment in her conscious mindfulness allowing her to bend in her long-held belief that what she was prepared to shoulder others should as well. This change in her thinking felt good, as did understanding the events that led to this minor shift in awareness. This minor shift being one of many in awareness or mindfulness adjustments that had been initiated in large portions of earth’s populations ever since that time a telepathic link was established a few years back. She was thinking about the construction of words, and what words added to the mindfulness she wished to nurture into a healthier interaction with others. She thought about the word mindset and the two words that made up this word mind and set. The word alone was a description for a state of being, but it usually required an additional descriptive word for its intended use. A common accompaniment could go either positive or negative it could be defeatist or it could be optimist, what was generally the case was that the word usually carried along one of these mood conjuring adverbs. The fact that the word by itself seemed to be relaying a very similar concept to mindful, but with the unflexible characteristics of the word set made her pause as to be set usually doesn’t involve the use of the mind, but then wasn’t full almost the same as set? She made the decision to favor towards mindful for the simple fact it didn’t usually carry along with it a sidekick that played to extremes. She was tired of thinking about these things and was finally able to close her eyes for the night.
While the thoughts of her intentions and her motivations continued to hover in the present, Debrah mentally initiated an adjustment in her conscious mindfulness allowing her to bend in her long-held belief that what she was prepared to shoulder others should as well. This change in her thinking felt good, as did understanding the events that led to this minor shift in awareness. This minor shift being one of many in awareness or mindfulness adjustments that had been initiated in large portions of earth’s populations ever since that time a telepathic link was established a few years back. She was thinking about the construction of words, and what words added to the mindfulness she wished to nurture into a healthier interaction with others. She thought about the word mindset and the two words that made up this word mind and set. The word alone was a description for a state of being, but it usually required an additional descriptive word for its intended use. A common accompaniment could go either positive or negative it could be defeatist or it could be optimist, what was generally the case was that the word usually carried along one of these mood conjuring adverbs. The fact that the word by itself seemed to be relaying a very similar concept to mindful, but with the unflexible characteristics of the word set made her pause as to be set usually doesn’t involve the use of the mind, but then wasn’t full almost the same as set? She made the decision to favor towards mindful for the simple fact it didn’t usually carry along with it a sidekick that played to extremes. She was tired of thinking about these things and was finally able to close her eyes for the night.
Debrah woke up at five thirty in the morning and immediately hopped in the shower energized to scrub the light shade she collected the day before down the drain and started the day anew. Afterall, it wasn’t that much of a slight, and all contingents were very polite exciting the meeting, even the French made peace giving the familiar “merci” and “Orewa” as he excited. After exciting the shower, she grabbed the sunblock and applied the white creamy lotion to her tanned shoulders, neck, and breasts. Coconut fragrance filled the bath area as she took her thyroid medication out of the pill dispenser and gulped the two tablets down with some water out of the sink. Clear Lake was nearly the half-way point from Houston to Galveston, and the Beach was calling her name. She walked to her bedroom dresser and retrieved her semi-transparent fish-scale 1pc swimsuit she had acquired from the Scuba shop in Eilat, Israel almost five years ago. Fully dry from her shower now, she placed her hand on her navel and moved it down below her waist until she felt the stubble. She decided a shave was probably in order. She grabbed the vibrating straight razor and smoothed out the area making sure in the vertical mirror on the door that her lady parts appeared open for business if the opportunity arose. After applying after shave gel to her reddened Lavia, she suited up and grabbed her beach bag, locked her front door and hopped in her car.
Driving south on 59 she was transported to a different time and place by the combination of the hot leather seat on her bare ass cheek, the paper-thin poly-fabric swim suit providing little in the way of a firewall. The fact she had just recently become re-acquainted with the suit after it was delivered to her by an old friend who had finally gotten around to paying her a visit after moving most of his business operations to the gulf coast in recent years. She thought back to the time she was just entering the workforce a young Signal Lieutenant in the US Army, more fit than most of her male counterparts and miles more mature regardless of the path she had taken to arrive. After receiving her commission from West Point, She attended Jump school at Ft Benning in order to qualify for her position as XO of Alpha company 82nd ABN Signal Betallion at Fort Bragg. She hadn’t been at Bragg a week before she was given attachment orders to assist as Communications Officer for 1st BGD 504th BTL in their Multinational deployment to the Sani peninsula in Sharm El sheikh, Egypt. The deployment was to play an integral part in educating her in the many ways her specific skills and dignified position could cut through bureaucratic red tape as well as alleviate much of the dick measuring that manifested between the 16 different nations making up the peace force. By the time she had completed the 6-month deployment, Debrah had spearheaded a 200-acre joint Jordanian/Israeli/Egyptian/Palestinian Airport and Space hub located at the borders of Israel and Egypt building on the Taba checkpoint site a mission control center housing what would eventually become the Operations headquarters for the JIEP contingent of the ESA with the help of a visionary planetary caretaker keen on constantly renewing relationships so that he remained connected to most of the world’s aviation and space agencies.
Debrah didn’t know Mr.Green in any way other than the overhyped way any other member of the world in 2025 would know him. There were aspects about him that always made the tabloids and got some people all huffing and puffing. There were also the three industries he had pretty much re-engineered so that the world economy kept chugging at quite the agreeable pace for all while transporting humans to Mars as well as to the corner store carbon free. Needless to say he was allowed a wide birth in many ways regardless of what he did in his private life or the semi-public updates occasionally made via his communications company. She really didn’t have time to worry about anything other than her studies both in Electrical Engineering as well as Remote Access machine language infrastructure when most of his controversial behavior was at it’s peak in the news cycle.
In truth, she was grateful that the perverse income disparity prevalent worldwide in the first two decades of the new millennium had found a way to empty a substantial sum of the capital liquidity at the readybfor his investment minded stuardship.. There were others whose success in the global economy created enormous bounties but had managed quite the opposite in human advancement and stability. But in order to maintain the good natured tome of the year, We can focus our attention on the fact that the 4 other titans of the The US digital economy had similar noble aims that eventually would bare fruit for the global order in much more dire climate impacted regions of the world.
She stopped at the Stripes to grab a breakfast Taco and citrus from her friend Manny.
Manny had set up his Pop up Canopy which was actually one gigantic flag representing the other 3 colored flag of North America known to those lovers of the beautiful game as El Tris.
Debrah didn’t know Mr.Green in any way other than the overhyped way any other member of the world in 2025 would know him. There were aspects about him that always made the tabloids and got some people all huffing and puffing. There were also the three industries he had pretty much re-engineered so that the world economy kept chugging at quite the agreeable pace for all while transporting humans to Mars as well as to the corner store carbon free. Needless to say he was allowed a wide birth in many ways regardless of what he did in his private life or the semi-public updates occasionally made via his communications company. She really didn’t have time to worry about anything other than her studies both in Electrical Engineering as well as Remote Access machine language infrastructure when most of his controversial behavior was at it’s peak in the news cycle.
In truth, she was grateful that the perverse income disparity prevalent worldwide in the first two decades of the new millennium had found a way to empty a substantial sum of the capital liquidity at the readybfor his investment minded stuardship.. There were others whose success in the global economy created enormous bounties but had managed quite the opposite in human advancement and stability. But in order to maintain the good natured tome of the year, We can focus our attention on the fact that the 4 other titans of the The US digital economy had similar noble aims that eventually would bare fruit for the global order in much more dire climate impacted regions of the world.
She stopped at the Stripes to grab a breakfast Taco and citrus from her friend Manny.
Manny had set up his Pop up Canopy which was actually one gigantic flag representing the other 3 colored flag of North America known to those lovers of the beautiful game as El Tris.
“Buenos Dias senorita” Many called out as Debrah approached.
“Como esta?” he added
“Esta bien, bien” Debrah replied
“Si, Mama, Si” Manny said with a laugh as he pulled at his T-shirt with both hands, one at each nipple so that it appeared as though he had a set of rather pointy miniature breasts.
Debra replied “Manny!! Tu perro! Tu animal! Aye Ya Yeh”
she was rather enjoying the sudden attention called to her nipples that were quite visible in the cascading wash of translucent color provided by the swim wear currently embrasing her bosom. This interaction was a pleasant one, not in an erotic since, but in a purely expressive form of play that improved both adult participants’ enjoyment of what otherwise would have been a rather static business transaction. She followed Manny’s eyes that would not wander for long from her from, her swimsuit making both already erect nipples even more pronounced and tightening the skin from the areolas outward as she playfully caressed one of the plantains, she picked from the black grated fruit crate layed out on the table. She caught herself in a deep inhalation rethinking the bit about being absent of eroticism.
She never would have imagined that this 72-year-old Mexican fruit vendor, and beloved member of the bayside community would be currently managing to eek his adorable self into the fuckable aide of the list that hung all to prominent in her brain’s notification and action response chamber. Having grown up and engrossed herself in the Bay Area’s Chinese community joining the CCDC youth program the first day she attended Kindergarten. Debrah was actually a third-generation American owing to her grandparent’s migration from Beijing to San Francisco just prior to the start of WWII. She dated a couple different young men for short durations while in high school while always having a female at close call to make sure her womanly needs remained satisfied. It wasn’t until she was midway through her Junior year at West Point that she dated outside her ethnicity, and not because of any prejudices, but because up until meeting her boyfriend Josh, %Romantic attachment ranked about 5 on her priorities if the list were on a scale of 1–10.
“Como esta?” he added
“Esta bien, bien” Debrah replied
“Si, Mama, Si” Manny said with a laugh as he pulled at his T-shirt with both hands, one at each nipple so that it appeared as though he had a set of rather pointy miniature breasts.
Debra replied “Manny!! Tu perro! Tu animal! Aye Ya Yeh”
she was rather enjoying the sudden attention called to her nipples that were quite visible in the cascading wash of translucent color provided by the swim wear currently embrasing her bosom. This interaction was a pleasant one, not in an erotic since, but in a purely expressive form of play that improved both adult participants’ enjoyment of what otherwise would have been a rather static business transaction. She followed Manny’s eyes that would not wander for long from her from, her swimsuit making both already erect nipples even more pronounced and tightening the skin from the areolas outward as she playfully caressed one of the plantains, she picked from the black grated fruit crate layed out on the table. She caught herself in a deep inhalation rethinking the bit about being absent of eroticism.
She never would have imagined that this 72-year-old Mexican fruit vendor, and beloved member of the bayside community would be currently managing to eek his adorable self into the fuckable aide of the list that hung all to prominent in her brain’s notification and action response chamber. Having grown up and engrossed herself in the Bay Area’s Chinese community joining the CCDC youth program the first day she attended Kindergarten. Debrah was actually a third-generation American owing to her grandparent’s migration from Beijing to San Francisco just prior to the start of WWII. She dated a couple different young men for short durations while in high school while always having a female at close call to make sure her womanly needs remained satisfied. It wasn’t until she was midway through her Junior year at West Point that she dated outside her ethnicity, and not because of any prejudices, but because up until meeting her boyfriend Josh, %Romantic attachment ranked about 5 on her priorities if the list were on a scale of 1–10.
Her most recent romantic excursions consisted of quick-fix maintenance hook-ups that kept her equipment running but left the heart somewhat on the sidelines.
The interaction between Manny and herself was not quite as simple as what initiated as common sense to her at first after annalyzing it further. It wasn’t an erotic impulse that had made her tender bits stand up, yet it was a sensual response to a need that wasn’t currently being met since making the move from her Army Command to the NASA family. It was the love of friendship and familiar surroundings working on a deep-seeded longing to share in life a playfulness that was not always present in the structured work as a communications chief in the space agency. Her thoughts retraced to Manny once again.
Had Manny not been in the often discussed 45-year long marriage to his Beloved Maria, she would more than likely have told him to hop in the car and b-lined back to her house for a bit more than playfulness, even though he was her senior by more than 40 years. But due to her past relationships and the heartbreak that is created from the straying of one side in a committed team, she swore off ever being the carrot that drove a horse in that direction.
Had Manny not been in the often discussed 45-year long marriage to his Beloved Maria, she would more than likely have told him to hop in the car and b-lined back to her house for a bit more than playfulness, even though he was her senior by more than 40 years. But due to her past relationships and the heartbreak that is created from the straying of one side in a committed team, she swore off ever being the carrot that drove a horse in that direction.
Thanking Manny for her bag of Tangerines (not molded or old, as the line from a favorite character in a favorite movie from childhood expressed) and the free Guava Many had given her with the recipe for its use in a facial rejuvenation ointment, Debrah made her way to the bay and was over joyed when she turned on the car stereo to the sounds of Otis Redding singing his famous number about a different US bay, though one that she was also intimately familiar with. Things seemed to be aligning ok for this Sunday Funday.
Although it was not exactly the most typical type of bay location you may think of when picturing a woman in a transparent swimsuit to go for a day of recreation, the boardwalk extending out by the Kemah Lighthouse was a place she had come to rely on for an escape from the stress of work life and personal life anxieties.
The odd mix of local characters she had met and become close with on her days off at the location was her way of paying homage to one her favorite albums from a musical artist from Canada. If you are interested in what daily life was like when the location was fully engaged you can check Buck Sixty Five’s “Riverbed, Pt. 3.”
However on this day she had a specific dock companion in mind with her choice in attire and tangerine accompaniment.
Mai Shu was enlisted into the top-secret mission being conducted by 2 of her native Korea’s top Companies in coordination with other private companies across the planet.
The odd mix of local characters she had met and become close with on her days off at the location was her way of paying homage to one her favorite albums from a musical artist from Canada. If you are interested in what daily life was like when the location was fully engaged you can check Buck Sixty Five’s “Riverbed, Pt. 3.”
However on this day she had a specific dock companion in mind with her choice in attire and tangerine accompaniment.
Mai Shu was enlisted into the top-secret mission being conducted by 2 of her native Korea’s top Companies in coordination with other private companies across the planet.
The world was first introduced to Mai in 2028 when reporters from prestigious world news agencies were invited to Korea Aerospace University to record and report on the defense of her master’s thesis on female intuition capacity in creating from Ai. The ability on display was made apparent as soon as the video of her proposal finished its playback to the packed conference auditorium. As she stood in the center of the stage and pointed to the Professor who’s name had been the first to appear on the large screen behind her, the acknowledged professor asked why her defense required such an unusual request in the assemblage of so many additional observers for the occasion. As soon as the question existed the lips of her professor, the entire room said in unison “I don’t know, maybe you could tell me.”
Needless to say, but all further questions were directly involving the work Mai had conducted in her research and proposal formations, which she answered without uttering an audible response, instead making sure that each witness to her presentation had a fundamental understanding of the ideas she was introducing by way of telepathic embedding an intuitive reasoning ability to grasp concepts that were before unattainable from the unfamiliar observers.
Debrah was introduced to Mai from a former colleague at Nasa who was transferred from the communications mission to the cerebral movement team being assembled at Space Center Houston.
The introduction and preceding friendship was the most unforced exchange of cohesion she had experienced in all the associations she had encountered so far in her life. Forever living by the water in her Native San Francisco, then on the Red Sea, and now in Houston, she somehow had never made the investment into learning the art of fishing. Mai, on the other hand had accompanied her father every summer to the family fishing waters on the west coast of Korea until she had left for the U.S. after finishing School. When they first met at the arranged lunch, and on the non-verbal inquiry from Mai, Debrah made it known that she had chosen to buy a house in Clear Lake instead of making the commute back and forth to Houston every day. Her response to the requested information was unexpected to say the least. Mai had smiled at Debrah and with that smile a feeling of joy filtered its way to an understanding of the mechanics behind non-verbal word and grammatical language formation inside Debrah. She decided to practice this communication as she closed her eyes with intention making the appropriate feelings of appreciation to Mai’s invitation to participate in this intensive way of exchanging language. As she opened her eyes Mai leaned into Debrah’s face and touching cheeks gave a kiss in the style associated with French arrival and departure greetings. The kiss immediately let Debrah know that their meeting had to be cut short, but that she should look down beside her plate and respond to her contact information as soon as possible. As she stood up and walked to lunch room exit, Debrah squeezed the folded letter quite unconsciously with the longing to be one with the all-encompassing fulfillment currently leaving her body in step with her new acquaintance as she exited. After Mai had disappeared out of view, Debrah looked down at the wadded-up piece of paper in her hand. Doing her best to unfold it and straighten out the paper, she was surprised to see a drawn image with a message underneath.
Needless to say, but all further questions were directly involving the work Mai had conducted in her research and proposal formations, which she answered without uttering an audible response, instead making sure that each witness to her presentation had a fundamental understanding of the ideas she was introducing by way of telepathic embedding an intuitive reasoning ability to grasp concepts that were before unattainable from the unfamiliar observers.
Debrah was introduced to Mai from a former colleague at Nasa who was transferred from the communications mission to the cerebral movement team being assembled at Space Center Houston.
The introduction and preceding friendship was the most unforced exchange of cohesion she had experienced in all the associations she had encountered so far in her life. Forever living by the water in her Native San Francisco, then on the Red Sea, and now in Houston, she somehow had never made the investment into learning the art of fishing. Mai, on the other hand had accompanied her father every summer to the family fishing waters on the west coast of Korea until she had left for the U.S. after finishing School. When they first met at the arranged lunch, and on the non-verbal inquiry from Mai, Debrah made it known that she had chosen to buy a house in Clear Lake instead of making the commute back and forth to Houston every day. Her response to the requested information was unexpected to say the least. Mai had smiled at Debrah and with that smile a feeling of joy filtered its way to an understanding of the mechanics behind non-verbal word and grammatical language formation inside Debrah. She decided to practice this communication as she closed her eyes with intention making the appropriate feelings of appreciation to Mai’s invitation to participate in this intensive way of exchanging language. As she opened her eyes Mai leaned into Debrah’s face and touching cheeks gave a kiss in the style associated with French arrival and departure greetings. The kiss immediately let Debrah know that their meeting had to be cut short, but that she should look down beside her plate and respond to her contact information as soon as possible. As she stood up and walked to lunch room exit, Debrah squeezed the folded letter quite unconsciously with the longing to be one with the all-encompassing fulfillment currently leaving her body in step with her new acquaintance as she exited. After Mai had disappeared out of view, Debrah looked down at the wadded-up piece of paper in her hand. Doing her best to unfold it and straighten out the paper, she was surprised to see a drawn image with a message underneath.
You’re silly, it was written all over your face, I took your number so that I could text you when I get around to catching my breath. The contingent from Brazil just touched down up North, I must go gather up the Irish team to shuttle with me, hoping they kept it at 2 a piece or it is going to be another long night. The plan is to meet up at Papa’s for dinner and more drinks while I break the news to everyone about what the hell they are wanting us to do when we get up there. I asked the station president if it were alright if you attended and he encouraged it. Hate to add to your mission, but the president said that he was rolling your team into the communications support operations for our mission after Japan returns to the planet. I just wish we could have had the whole crew here, missing our Captain from down under is a major hurdle to cross in setting up the training bench marks, time optimization and milestones, as well as deciding on minimum operational capacities for crew competency. Mai could only hope the Russian and Ukrainian contingents would make land fall soon, having to to cut through the Panama Canal with The Massive Russian Workstation in tow on the ocean barge being tugged behind the Ukranian/US Vessel Odessa/Odessa.
I hope you decide to come to Houston so you can hear about it as well as for the opportunity to get to know each other better. I can’t stress to you enough how important it is to interact with each other and in the higher frequencies of a non-verbal exchange. It is the only way we intertwine or brain wave pulses to one another. We must ensure our constant connection while the crew is traveling that enormous distance, radio will have a delay which would be catestrophic.During our mission's most critical manuver we must meld minds better than the Vulcans !!. Either way its your choice. As far as rescheduling our introduction, I was hoping you might like to take me fishing on Sunday. I may need to meet you there, but I’d love for you to show me what Clear Lake is like! I know about fishing!!
XOXO,
Mai
As Debrah examined the drawing of a beautiful koi fish, inked in black, her fears about not knowing how to fish evaporated. Instead, she felt a newfound confidence in baiting hooks, handling lines and reels, and even managing boating setups.
She was still a little star struck at the whirlwind introduction. Who exactly was this Mai Shi, and what was this remarkable person doing in Houston, asking her out for dinner and drinks… well, maybe not for Debrah’s company alone, but as far as a Sunday outing with her, it had to be considered a date, right? Debrah didn’t have an answer. What was a solid understanding, if first impressions were any indication, the rumored mission Mai’s team was undertaking was so extraordinary that this afternoon’s display of magic only reinforced the reasoning behind her appointment as Mission Commander for off-planet operations in The SME 2030 Mission for the ESA.
Well, it took me eight days, I said I would put it on by yesterday 12 am so a day late. It is only half as long as I wanted. The chapter was going to be a combo of both stories, but I got side tracked writing cover letters and trying to get my website going. I may be hopeless. Since its only half of my intention, I will try and put number 4 on by next Sunday same time as tonight. No promises. I have a lot of work to do to get my grant proposal in to Texas Film Commission by the 3rd of January.
3.
There are many upsides to winning. You must keep reminding yourself there are upsides to losing as well. Just when you think you have made a breakthrough with the finish line in sight something begins to happen in your mind, the ease of focus, the relaxing of the structure that held your intention so tight to your actions. The first signal that mindfulness must move up to the highest priority makes its presence known through your sense of taste. There are few words to describe the flavor of what your senses have received electronically from your brain. It is a flavor that curls the edge of your lips up towards your cheekbones as the signal bounces from your tastebuds back to its origin to beg for more of that intoxicating invader. You will try to control your emotional response with the conscious mind fully aware of the mischief that is taking place. The ebb and flow of the active endorphin count makes a mess of your neural map. It increases in frequency traversing the loop, rising and falling, easing with every joyful apparition of what will surely manifest, contracting far too soon grasping for the next cycled pulse. In this grey landscape that you inhabit an uninvited flavor goes unnoticed as it arrives to keep you company. This taste begins to dilate leaving you perplexed at the sudden appearance of the stranger as it blends with the nectar flow disguising its malicious intent. The two competing flavors combine for the shortest of minutes before a polarized rejection of the cohesion occurs. The ecstasy recedes like a morning fog triggered backwards and defying physical law with the realization of the omen that has just arrived. You begin to take inventory of the alarming situation recognizing the elixir and the sedation you have been bathed with have detached themselves completely from your system. A metallic replacement has taken up residence along your tastebuds and does not entertain any plans for departure. The finish line an illusion, only appearing as it has so many countless times before as the lighthouse shining its spotlight on your pride and then your despair. You must keep reminding yourself there are upsides to losing as well.
Also…
I had mentioned in Chapter I how the human beings on the planet had started to develop a telepathic connection during the first iterations of Artificial Intelligence, the phenomena was reversed with Ai’s third variance as AI took on its new role in society.
However…
I forgot to add that the fantastic ability to communicate by thought alone would soon be accessible only by the female member of our species. If anyone is interested; from that brief time where every connected human gained the ability it was agreed upon by men and women alike that the reason why women were chosen to retain the ability was the fact that they had all ways been the last line of defense in the care and proliferation of humanities survival. They also turned out to be most influential in its evolution.
Just about most everything that is positive in this life tends to have its negative equivalent. This is both a blessing and a curse for those sentient beings. The positives and negatives tend to hover so close to one another that as soon as you encounter one half of this paradox, the other half is usually not far behind.
This is not on Debra’s radar in the least as she makes her way North on I-59 to visit Mai and her crew members at Papas. She had made it until three o’clock pm until she felt sitting for one minute longer on the molded orange chairs in the conference room would have resulted in her brain hemorrhaging. Her mind was racing from the afternoon’s amazing introduction with Mai to every bullet point on the screen. Her mind was moving from memory then back to the present repeatedly and with such rapid deployment that the pixelated dot of the bullet point circles started to hover about 10 centimeters from her face and was causing an excrusiating vision headache. Although the lecture discussing low Hz interference ranges on telepathy was a major necessity for her communications monitoring and collection procedures with Japan’s Captain Hiroko, the thought evaporated from her mind as quickly as it had appeared. It was the excuse she needed to cut out early and make sure Mai was not being seduced by those Foxy Irish sisters Elain, Alyson, and Helen. Who ever heard of such ridiculousness, Three twenty-five-year old Irish women who happened to be the standard measurements most acquainted with the poster models of teenage boy’s adolescent dreams. How the hell all three had enough brains or the discipline to make it through six years at Oxford plus two at Harvard was simply out of line for a universe that was supposedly random.
She thought back to a couple weeks before when she was looking at the ESA travel Dockets for the incoming crew members, she hadn’t really given it another thought until this afternoon’s conference, sitting there watching the seconds tick away on the dialed wall clock above the director’s desk. Mai’s smiling face popped in her head again, and then the letter, hopefully they kept it at two this time or it’s going to be another late night.
“Another? What the hell does that mean?” She was talking out loud now as her foot pressed down on the pedal, propelling her even faster than the eighty miles an hour she had set the cruise control at. The cars moving down the opposite direction of the inner-state were starting to pile up as the marker on the hologram above the dash read Three Fifty-Nine then doubled in size before disappearing with a pop and four o’clock faded into view.
Just as she was hitting the six-ten loop, her phone started to vibrate and she turned down Eryka Badu’s new release she had been playing non-top for the last week.
The hologram read incoming call Brazilian Bad Ass, seeing the name of the caller really ate at her for some reason.
‘“This crew was really something, you have got to be kidding me,”’ she thought.
She couldn’t believe the cast of characters they assembled for a mission directive that essentially read as it was humanities last shot at saving planet earth.
‘“Good grief,”’ Debra thought and swiped above the hologram “here we go again.”
“Ola! This is Doctor Cafu, is this Debra?”
“Mai had told me to call and stop you from driving past downtown. Did we catch you in time?”
Debrah looked out of her window; she was about the halfway way point of the Houston
Convention Center.
“I’m just passing Minute Maid” Debra replied.
The voice on the car intercom said something she could barely hear but didn’t recognize as English. Then came back with the heavy accent,
“You know Debra, this is the first time for me traveling to Texas, I’m not sure where I’m at or where anything else is in relation to me. I think what Mai is wanting you to know is that we are driving back towards downtown.”
“The sisters said they were in the mood for Margaritas so we decided to head to Ninfa’s instead.”
Debra veered off to the far right lane all the way from the far left passing lane and barely missed clipping the fender of the pickup she had just passed by.
“The sisters ugh. I’m on my way.” “I’ll be there in Five Minutes, I’m just exciting.”
“Splendid,” Dr. Cafu responded.
“We are doing the same.” “If you get there before we do, would you reserve a table for 6?”
“Who else did you guys bring?”
The frustrated response from Debra was unmistakable, she was starting to get very
upset about the mission she had just found out she was to support as Earth actual coms chief.
A loud voice came over the intercom,
“Dios Mios Debra” “I have to stay in the shuttle now?”
Before she could respond the phone clicked off and went silent.
She recognized the voice that had spoken before the call had ended
and felt an immediate wash of guilt come over her for losing her cool.
She made her way to the Restaurant and waited for the shuttle.
There are many upsides to winning. You must keep reminding yourself there are upsides to losing as well. Just when you think you have made a breakthrough with the finish line in sight something begins to happen in your mind, the ease of focus, the relaxing of the structure that held your intention so tight to your actions. The first signal that mindfulness must move up to the highest priority makes its presence known through your sense of taste. There are few words to describe the flavor of what your senses have received electronically from your brain. It is a flavor that curls the edge of your lips up towards your cheekbones as the signal bounces from your tastebuds back to its origin to beg for more of that intoxicating invader. You will try to control your emotional response with the conscious mind fully aware of the mischief that is taking place. The ebb and flow of the active endorphin count makes a mess of your neural map. It increases in frequency traversing the loop, rising and falling, easing with every joyful apparition of what will surely manifest, contracting far too soon grasping for the next cycled pulse. In this grey landscape that you inhabit an uninvited flavor goes unnoticed as it arrives to keep you company. This taste begins to dilate leaving you perplexed at the sudden appearance of the stranger as it blends with the nectar flow disguising its malicious intent. The two competing flavors combine for the shortest of minutes before a polarized rejection of the cohesion occurs. The ecstasy recedes like a morning fog triggered backwards and defying physical law with the realization of the omen that has just arrived. You begin to take inventory of the alarming situation recognizing the elixir and the sedation you have been bathed with have detached themselves completely from your system. A metallic replacement has taken up residence along your tastebuds and does not entertain any plans for departure. The finish line an illusion, only appearing as it has so many countless times before as the lighthouse shining its spotlight on your pride and then your despair. You must keep reminding yourself there are upsides to losing as well.
Also…
I had mentioned in Chapter I how the human beings on the planet had started to develop a telepathic connection during the first iterations of Artificial Intelligence, the phenomena was reversed with Ai’s third variance as AI took on its new role in society.
However…
I forgot to add that the fantastic ability to communicate by thought alone would soon be accessible only by the female member of our species. If anyone is interested; from that brief time where every connected human gained the ability it was agreed upon by men and women alike that the reason why women were chosen to retain the ability was the fact that they had all ways been the last line of defense in the care and proliferation of humanities survival. They also turned out to be most influential in its evolution.
Just about most everything that is positive in this life tends to have its negative equivalent. This is both a blessing and a curse for those sentient beings. The positives and negatives tend to hover so close to one another that as soon as you encounter one half of this paradox, the other half is usually not far behind.
This is not on Debra’s radar in the least as she makes her way North on I-59 to visit Mai and her crew members at Papas. She had made it until three o’clock pm until she felt sitting for one minute longer on the molded orange chairs in the conference room would have resulted in her brain hemorrhaging. Her mind was racing from the afternoon’s amazing introduction with Mai to every bullet point on the screen. Her mind was moving from memory then back to the present repeatedly and with such rapid deployment that the pixelated dot of the bullet point circles started to hover about 10 centimeters from her face and was causing an excrusiating vision headache. Although the lecture discussing low Hz interference ranges on telepathy was a major necessity for her communications monitoring and collection procedures with Japan’s Captain Hiroko, the thought evaporated from her mind as quickly as it had appeared. It was the excuse she needed to cut out early and make sure Mai was not being seduced by those Foxy Irish sisters Elain, Alyson, and Helen. Who ever heard of such ridiculousness, Three twenty-five-year old Irish women who happened to be the standard measurements most acquainted with the poster models of teenage boy’s adolescent dreams. How the hell all three had enough brains or the discipline to make it through six years at Oxford plus two at Harvard was simply out of line for a universe that was supposedly random.
She thought back to a couple weeks before when she was looking at the ESA travel Dockets for the incoming crew members, she hadn’t really given it another thought until this afternoon’s conference, sitting there watching the seconds tick away on the dialed wall clock above the director’s desk. Mai’s smiling face popped in her head again, and then the letter, hopefully they kept it at two this time or it’s going to be another late night.
“Another? What the hell does that mean?” She was talking out loud now as her foot pressed down on the pedal, propelling her even faster than the eighty miles an hour she had set the cruise control at. The cars moving down the opposite direction of the inner-state were starting to pile up as the marker on the hologram above the dash read Three Fifty-Nine then doubled in size before disappearing with a pop and four o’clock faded into view.
Just as she was hitting the six-ten loop, her phone started to vibrate and she turned down Eryka Badu’s new release she had been playing non-top for the last week.
The hologram read incoming call Brazilian Bad Ass, seeing the name of the caller really ate at her for some reason.
‘“This crew was really something, you have got to be kidding me,”’ she thought.
She couldn’t believe the cast of characters they assembled for a mission directive that essentially read as it was humanities last shot at saving planet earth.
‘“Good grief,”’ Debra thought and swiped above the hologram “here we go again.”
“Ola! This is Doctor Cafu, is this Debra?”
“Mai had told me to call and stop you from driving past downtown. Did we catch you in time?”
Debrah looked out of her window; she was about the halfway way point of the Houston
Convention Center.
“I’m just passing Minute Maid” Debra replied.
The voice on the car intercom said something she could barely hear but didn’t recognize as English. Then came back with the heavy accent,
“You know Debra, this is the first time for me traveling to Texas, I’m not sure where I’m at or where anything else is in relation to me. I think what Mai is wanting you to know is that we are driving back towards downtown.”
“The sisters said they were in the mood for Margaritas so we decided to head to Ninfa’s instead.”
Debra veered off to the far right lane all the way from the far left passing lane and barely missed clipping the fender of the pickup she had just passed by.
“The sisters ugh. I’m on my way.” “I’ll be there in Five Minutes, I’m just exciting.”
“Splendid,” Dr. Cafu responded.
“We are doing the same.” “If you get there before we do, would you reserve a table for 6?”
“Who else did you guys bring?”
The frustrated response from Debra was unmistakable, she was starting to get very
upset about the mission she had just found out she was to support as Earth actual coms chief.
A loud voice came over the intercom,
“Dios Mios Debra” “I have to stay in the shuttle now?”
Before she could respond the phone clicked off and went silent.
She recognized the voice that had spoken before the call had ended
and felt an immediate wash of guilt come over her for losing her cool.
She made her way to the Restaurant and waited for the shuttle.
The shuttle appeared not too long after the call had ended, it was heading from the opposite direction and pulled into the Ninfa’s parking lot, she saw Javiere’s arms raised up as he stared at her jokingly.
As they all introduced themselves to one another Debra pulled on Javiers shirt.
“I’m so sorry Javier, I forgot you were driver for tonight.”
“That’s ok Debra I was just giving you a hard time. There wasn’t any way you were going to keep me out of here anyways. I don’t care what the ESA’s policy is, I love Ninfa’s.”
“I would have disobeyed that directive if the ESA had insisted. Just because you’re not in off planet operations doesn’t mean you have to eat at the kiddy table; however I think you should lay off the drinks tonight, you are carrying quite a load of special cargo.”
Javier smiled and reminded her, “Debrah now you know I don’t drink!”
He kept smiling as he walked into the restaurant singing the song by Cypris Hill,
“Stoned is the way of the Walk.”
Debra shook her head “I didn’t hear that.”
Inside the five women and Javier were sat at the table closest to the bar. The atmos’s sphere was a perfect introduction for the newcomers to one of Houston’s famous Mexican Food Restaurants. The Mariachis de Ray’s Fantasticos were making their way across all the standards getting the whole Astro’s Baseball crowd fired up before the game with a rousing rendition of Son de la Negra and even played a Bossa Nova piece for
As they all introduced themselves to one another Debra pulled on Javiers shirt.
“I’m so sorry Javier, I forgot you were driver for tonight.”
“That’s ok Debra I was just giving you a hard time. There wasn’t any way you were going to keep me out of here anyways. I don’t care what the ESA’s policy is, I love Ninfa’s.”
“I would have disobeyed that directive if the ESA had insisted. Just because you’re not in off planet operations doesn’t mean you have to eat at the kiddy table; however I think you should lay off the drinks tonight, you are carrying quite a load of special cargo.”
Javier smiled and reminded her, “Debrah now you know I don’t drink!”
He kept smiling as he walked into the restaurant singing the song by Cypris Hill,
“Stoned is the way of the Walk.”
Debra shook her head “I didn’t hear that.”
Inside the five women and Javier were sat at the table closest to the bar. The atmos’s sphere was a perfect introduction for the newcomers to one of Houston’s famous Mexican Food Restaurants. The Mariachis de Ray’s Fantasticos were making their way across all the standards getting the whole Astro’s Baseball crowd fired up before the game with a rousing rendition of Son de la Negra and even played a Bossa Nova piece for
the Brazilian Badass herself, who turned out to be just as her name suggested, grabbing the first person she saw upon hearing the Mariachi’s instruments come to life for the evening.
“Tu baile la Rumba?” Dr. Cafu said with a curtsy towards Javier.
Javier being ever the accommodating gentleman commenced to swinging her around the bar area for the first three songs before heading back to the table for the food that had arrived while he and the doctor provided the wonderful visual accompaniment to the festive music filling up the restaurant. Mai was all smiles enjoying what she knew more than anyone seated at the table was a crucial bonding experience for the crew that would not have many more before the real work began in with the time schedule proposed by the NASA Base com as they focused on the new equipment that had just arrived the previous morning via the Japanese factories just across the border in Mexico.
Javier being ever the accommodating gentleman commenced to swinging her around the bar area for the first three songs before heading back to the table for the food that had arrived while he and the doctor provided the wonderful visual accompaniment to the festive music filling up the restaurant. Mai was all smiles enjoying what she knew more than anyone seated at the table was a crucial bonding experience for the crew that would not have many more before the real work began in with the time schedule proposed by the NASA Base com as they focused on the new equipment that had just arrived the previous morning via the Japanese factories just across the border in Mexico.
It just so happened that the three sisters were every bit the intellectuals their education’s suggested, not that you need an education for bilingual communication, as nearly half of the state of Texas would contend. Debra’s worries about the crew were pleasantly put aside for the evening when each Irish sister ordered their meal in near perfect Spanish with an amusing Irish enthusiasm that seemed to make quite the impression on the waitress taking the orders. The margaritas made the evening fly by and with most of the table involved in some very lethargic after dinner cross table chatter, Mai decided it was time to describe the mission objectives. She waited until the last of the baseball crowd had filtered out the door before squeezing on Debrah’s thy with a little love pinch if you will, Debra immediately came to, she had gotten a little tipsy and somehow drifted quite close beside Mai so that she definitely looked as if she were sharing a secret with her or something else of an intimate nature.
‘“How Embarrassing”’ she thought as she started to turn red suddenly becoming aware that all the eyes at the table were staring at her and Mai with the most inquisitive looks on their faces.
Debrah started scooting her chair back to her beginning position at the table but before she could get too far away Mai gave her one more love pinch on her thy and with the pinch, Debra was overcome with a sense of urgency that weighed on her physical being as though it would surely collapse her lungs with the invisible force that exhumed the total amount of carbon dioxide outward from her diaphragm in what seemed like an instantaneous and total plunge of her respiratory system. She struggled to suck in enough oxygen to elevate her chin from the resting position where it had landed on its position on the breastplate. Her eyes seemed to be dimming as she continued sucking at what seemed an atmosphere devoid of anything useful for the life she had all of a sudden realized she loved universally. With that fleeting thought her eyes went Black.
Elaine stood up running over to render aid in the alarming situation that happened so suddenly.
She called out “Debra! Debra!”
Debra’s eyes were closed and Elaine put her index fingers to Debra’s eyelids, lifting them up to reveal both eyes had rolled all the way into the top of the eye sockets.
Elaine yelled to her sisters “What do I do?”
Dr. Cafu made a gesture towards the phone on the table in front of Javier “911 Por favor”
Javier grabbed the phone as he stood up making his way towards the front entrance.
The Doctor then motioned to Helen and let her know to fetch a refill on the pitcher of water and to bring more clean towels.
Dr. Cafu by now beside the motionless Debra, picked up Debra’s limp left hand lifting it to her lap and feeling for a pulse as she stared at the seconds tick from her watch.
The pulse was just above resting, quite surprising the doctor. The Doc said something in Portuguese and pointed at Debra’s eyes.
Elaine put her fingers back to the communication chief’s eyelids and first checked the left eye with the same result.
Looking back at the table the Doctor realized Alyson was also now limp in her chair and her eyes were closed as well. She turned and looked at where Mai had moved to. She was now staring out the large window in the direction of Minute Maid ball Park.
When Elaine put her finger to Debrah’s other eyelid and pulled back the eyeball snapped back so that the pupil was in the front center position and dilated to it’s maximum diameter at the same time the other eye also opened in time and in pair.
“Holy Shit!!!!” Alyson shout out with an exhilarated exhalation.
She was wide awake now and standing up just beside the table. The sisters were not the most pigmented in the group, having the natural skin tone common to humans with ancestry from that area of the world. But now looking wide eyed and bewildered Alyson had somehow turned 10 times lighter after coming out of her temporary time away. Helen returning with the water pitcher and towels and immediately realized the condition of her sister and set the contents she was carrying on the table, put her arms on her sister gently easing her back to her seat and talked her down out of her state so that the blood returned to her face and body normal.
Perplexed by Allyson’s incident her face turned back to the patient she was currently attending, Debrah let out another gasp at a breath that had been so illusive for the previous attempts. This time the chest was able to fully inflate with color instantly returning to Debra’s face. The look on her face was something the doctor had never seen before in a career that had seen her travel and practice in parts of the world involved with some of the worst conflict still being enacted between adversarial factions. It wasn’t a horror reaction, but it left such an impression that the gravity of what was about to happen immediately sunk into the doctor’s psyche. As a tear rolled down Debrah’s cheek the doctor couldn’t help herself as she became overcome with emotion, she felt the wells of her own occipital tanks beginning to swell and stood up moving with quite a pace towards the restroom.
Elaine repeated “Debra”
“Can you hear me, Debra?”
Debra sat up straightening herself in the chair. Without scanning the room her head snapped in the direction of Mai. At this point Mai was turned back around and facing the interior of the restaurant. Her gaze was in line with Debra’s. The two held each other’s stare fore what seemed an eternity until Javier’s voice was heard talking to someone at an animated level instructing the new voice to the bar area.
After all vitals’ had been verified for the two affected in their party, the group thanked the paramedics for their work, as Debra covered the tab and thanked their hosts. She called a quick 5 minute meeting in the parking lot of the restaurant before heading for the door.
With the crew all filing quite naturally into a circular formation Mai standing beside Debra gently reached for her hand and held onto it as Debra opened up by addressing Allyson.
“Do you understand what we just witnessed?”
“I understand that I saw something incredible. I saw it as sure as I see you speaking here in front of us right now.”
Allyson looked around the circle at each person in their circle.
“It felt as though everyone here was present while we were involved in an off-planet operation.” “But I can’t be sure if this was because we were eating in a group at the restaurant just seconds before the change occurred. I was connected to everyone but physically inside some type of solo-pod orbiting around mercury of all places. My visuals from the incident are perfectly clear, I can’t image I am creating a false memory.”
Debra and Mai were still holding hands, Mai squeezed onto it with a sequence of three contractions. Debra grabbed the hand of the astronaut on the opposite side of the side Mai was standing. She initiated the same sequence that Mai had started with her. The gesture was repeated around the circle like dominoes one touching off the next until all Five women and Javier stood there with hands clasped. Upon the circle closing with Javier’s hand reaching out to Mai’s and grabbing hold a silence came over what seemed the entire city. The traffic sounds of the freeways close by had gone silent. The silence that replaced all things recordable hitting their eardrums could hardly be described with the characteristics of the silence that you and I understand. This silence was not empty in its void of auditory stimulus but full in that this silence held a larger mass of substance than what was just available in the seconds prior to everyone holding hands. It was as if someone had wrapped everything that had ever been associated with hearing and wrapped it in an incredibly malleable film and folding it in a way that sat quite orderly in the head space clearing the mind while allowing access to the new type of memory storage that had been introduced. A soft voice could barely be heard by all in the group. It sounded as though it was from a place far away, far away as in measured in light years. Mai’s projected impression alerted the group to the situation of the sun’s increasing temperatures that had required the immediate attention and collaboration of earth’s intelligent beings to save all those currently inhabiting and all those in the future that would inhabit the planet.
Mai squeezed Debras hand
Debra looked at Allyson and asked her “would you mind if we all share in what you saw so that we each have an understanding of the nature of our mission? I think you can grasp the seriousness of the training that is to take place as we ready the systems for delivery. It is important for each crew member to be fully engaged with each coming phase of the mission and the glimpse of what will come can be a great tool while studying and practicing for zero hour.”
Allyson nodded her approval.
From the depths Mai’s voice came into range again. “Allyson, please look me in the eyes, maintain your identity by repeating your name slowly over and over as you let me help you project your vision to the rest of the team. After a few seconds everybody’s hands tensed up. The group remained silent for some 1 to 2 minutes until Mai’s voice again signaled Allyson to ease back into the concentration of each of her hands holding the hands of her sisters. Within a few more seconds, eyes started to open and more than one in the group had tears streaking their face. Mai’s voice thanked everyone for fulfilling the appointments to the mission and for the evening. She replied that they were all welcome to go to the concert they had been talking about at Warehouse Live if there was a consensus of every group member to attend, but that Debra was going to take her to the hotel and that she would see them the next morning in Clearlake.
Debra spoke up one last time addressing the group before saying good bye for the evening
“I know I’m officially still on the Synapses Communications team, but I will be assisting with calibrating all the incoming equipment you will take up with your mission.” “Believe me when I tell you that the coming weeks are going to be draining on your bodies as well as your minds. Your Mission commander just approved your night off, I would seriously take some time this evening to get to know each other and see Houston, you probably won’t have another opportunity.”
“Good night and be safe out here, Javier will give everyone his number and look after you, you can trust him with your life. He has already had to save mine.”
XXXXXXXX
As Debrah walked along the wooden planks of the Kima boardwalk, a group of four teenage girls in Little two-piece swimsuits skated by her wearing the 4-wheel style roller skates popular at Roller Rinks around the United States from the late eighteen hundreds to the current date, climbing and dipping in popularity dependent on the fashion of the day. The girls were spread out about 10 meters apart so that the whole train was almost 30 meters long. The clicking noise the wheels made as they rolled over the individual dock boards at the joints.
It was either owing to the rhythm that the skaters imparted onto her and others walking out towards the bay that had everyone moving in a hurried pace to keep as close as they could to the bikini clad skaters. Or it might have been, and more than likely was due to the in fact the skaters where Bikini clad and were in fact hot as hell. Still, it was probably a combination of all the elements, each skate’s individual klick separated itself into a stuttered slightly off beat when first heard but after brain heard the cycle repeated a few times it made a pattern of the intricate beat. The rhythm progressed in a steady crescendo, creating an unassuming build up and assisting the ocean’s eternal lure of human beings, pushing the pedestrian traffic out towards the sea. In between clicks you heard a swooshing of the ball bearings inside the wheel hubs filling in as orchestral accompaniment giving it a makeshift string section, when the audio components the roller skates provided combined with the striking length of the train of these beautiful young sirens a surreal form of majesty was realized.
When they finally caught up to where the skaters had gathered, they had seated themselves in a circle enjoying the cool sea air while playfully sharing ice cream cones with each other. This gave the area around the Palm tree retreat an appearance more like an afternoon from a time not many on the boardwalk that day would recognize other than from television and films from when they were itsy bitsy. With the skaters taking their break and not providing the rhythmic pounding that had led the crowd to their current Sunday destination, a more natural and gentle auditory experience was being orchestrated by the rolling ocean’s movements as the sea gulls serenaded the relaxed atmosphere. In the area where the eastern walk turned to more amusement park attractions, you could just make out the words of the games of chance orators on their megaphones making their predictions, finding their marks and reminding everyone that at One o’clock the shrimp boil would begin and to stay after they had enjoyed the food for a special musical performance.
Debra was quite happy that Mai had suggested coming out this afternoon, she tried to remember the last time she had been out to the ocean with the sky behaving so kind. The way the clouds were developing, it made her feel like she was nestled in some imaginary fluff factory. With two prominent layers of clouds stacked on top of each other but moving opposite directions slow enough to fool the eyes into believing they might be viewing an animation in a planetarium instead of witnessing real life play out in such splendid fashion. She looked over her shoulder as a group of teenage boys in wake shorts and sunglasses who joined the oasis sending a group of middle age women that were feeding the Gulls packing. We were not so disappointed that upon exciting the makeshift gate, and nothing more than a swimsuit drawstring joining the two palms at the entrance.
Debrra saw Mai walking out of the exit of the large wooden rollercoaster at the gate’s turnstile. Everybody’s head turned and followed her movement as she lifted a nonchalant hand straight in the sky. There followed in those caught by the presence a dream-like movement in the direction of the path she had travelled. Debrah had thought for sure she would be the most engaging of the two this afternoon owing to the provocative design elements of her own swimsuit. She couldn’t really be upset by the fact she had to table the notion, who could be upset at the sight of Mai walking in white knee-high rubber galoshes with Black double thick rubber soles and black corded bungee clasps running up the centers of the boots providing the heavy contrast that broke apart the solid planes enough to not upset you for averting your eyes from her other features. From there her thy muscles took over…. she could have come from a renaissance pedestal the resemblance of enlightened beauty so precise, the bronzed and blushed Mai as blissful achievement realized. The swimsuit Mai had decided to unleash on this unsuspecting crowd might best be described as an additional layer of her golden epidermal humanitarian aid to the downtrodden of the world. The Blackened Vinyl material made such an indistinguishable partner with her skin by way of patterned diamond shape cavities spaced at a 3:1 ratio throughout the whole one-piece swimming delicacy. The effect of the design let the skin breathe where it made the most sense without taking away from the areas of the body that desired to be showcased. The areas of her body that would give birth and feed that blessing upon arrival, were given a tightened treatment by this transformative tapestry instructing the bits of skin visible in the cavities to swell so that a natural soft texture was created. Moving on from the mind melding fusion of individual choice and fashion mesh, a breast plate drew the horizontal constellational connector glorifying the shoulders rounded forms as though they were sun and moon visible in the same sky, infinitely dancing this solar eclipse event. Centering in the middle of this ballet and exercising travel implied but not viewable with the human eye, like it alone had discovered the key to moving at the speed of light, revealing the illuminated end point of the light’s warp blessed path a Marvel. Maybe even a living Marble capable of forcing Bernini into early retirement, Leonardo to burn his Mona Lisa, and Shakespear to create the antidote to his lover’s tragedy. If this truly celestial creation was not a gift lowered from the heavens, there could be no possible defense of such a deviation from the truth in any court within creation. Wrapping the ethereally spun cranial like a bow, the most prized treasure of the work protected and secured with a white silk scarf that coddled the precious cargo encased within.
For the first time since meeting Mai, Debra was not sure whether the thought had originated from her own desires or if Mai in her 2/3’s swimsuit had initiated a non-verbal summons when she waved, begging for a gentle hand to come forth and pet the prize on display. Debra moved on from the mind melding fusion scenario to acknowledge Mai’s greeting with a return wave, and in little more than an instant they were face to face exchanging hugs and French Kiss’s, not the tongue variety, but the greeting kind. There weren’t many on the boardwalk that day who would forget the site of these two women or the feeling of peace that had come over the whole scene just at the exact moment Mai and Debra embraced. After their interaction, the two walked hand in hand towards the snow cone stand just past the section of walk that opened up and jettied out into the bay.
There were two barges currently docking with stage amplification, musical instruments, as well as passengers that included some heavy hitters in the Hip-Hop world that made up the recent All 3 Coast project, The Two behemoth barges had on display the Sustainable Waves Label signifying their commitment to solar powered operations in live sound. The maritime vessels were linked together by an ingenious planking set of wood and iron mattes and linked to the end of that jettied dock by the same planking system. All around the boardwalk crews were setting up mike stands, amplifiers, guitar racks, and monitor wedges while connecting all amplification and projection devices to the input snake. In addition to ocean tidal power gen, the boardwalks engineering team introduced a gravity propulsion system utilizing solar cell fed hydraulics for engaging the turbine power source to earn its classification as earth initiative. It’s inventive and crowd-pleasing solution to maintain a steady cycle was by utilizing the large Merry go round on the southernmost edge of the boardwalk.
‘“How Embarrassing”’ she thought as she started to turn red suddenly becoming aware that all the eyes at the table were staring at her and Mai with the most inquisitive looks on their faces.
Debrah started scooting her chair back to her beginning position at the table but before she could get too far away Mai gave her one more love pinch on her thy and with the pinch, Debra was overcome with a sense of urgency that weighed on her physical being as though it would surely collapse her lungs with the invisible force that exhumed the total amount of carbon dioxide outward from her diaphragm in what seemed like an instantaneous and total plunge of her respiratory system. She struggled to suck in enough oxygen to elevate her chin from the resting position where it had landed on its position on the breastplate. Her eyes seemed to be dimming as she continued sucking at what seemed an atmosphere devoid of anything useful for the life she had all of a sudden realized she loved universally. With that fleeting thought her eyes went Black.
Elaine stood up running over to render aid in the alarming situation that happened so suddenly.
She called out “Debra! Debra!”
Debra’s eyes were closed and Elaine put her index fingers to Debra’s eyelids, lifting them up to reveal both eyes had rolled all the way into the top of the eye sockets.
Elaine yelled to her sisters “What do I do?”
Dr. Cafu made a gesture towards the phone on the table in front of Javier “911 Por favor”
Javier grabbed the phone as he stood up making his way towards the front entrance.
The Doctor then motioned to Helen and let her know to fetch a refill on the pitcher of water and to bring more clean towels.
Dr. Cafu by now beside the motionless Debra, picked up Debra’s limp left hand lifting it to her lap and feeling for a pulse as she stared at the seconds tick from her watch.
The pulse was just above resting, quite surprising the doctor. The Doc said something in Portuguese and pointed at Debra’s eyes.
Elaine put her fingers back to the communication chief’s eyelids and first checked the left eye with the same result.
Looking back at the table the Doctor realized Alyson was also now limp in her chair and her eyes were closed as well. She turned and looked at where Mai had moved to. She was now staring out the large window in the direction of Minute Maid ball Park.
When Elaine put her finger to Debrah’s other eyelid and pulled back the eyeball snapped back so that the pupil was in the front center position and dilated to it’s maximum diameter at the same time the other eye also opened in time and in pair.
“Holy Shit!!!!” Alyson shout out with an exhilarated exhalation.
She was wide awake now and standing up just beside the table. The sisters were not the most pigmented in the group, having the natural skin tone common to humans with ancestry from that area of the world. But now looking wide eyed and bewildered Alyson had somehow turned 10 times lighter after coming out of her temporary time away. Helen returning with the water pitcher and towels and immediately realized the condition of her sister and set the contents she was carrying on the table, put her arms on her sister gently easing her back to her seat and talked her down out of her state so that the blood returned to her face and body normal.
Perplexed by Allyson’s incident her face turned back to the patient she was currently attending, Debrah let out another gasp at a breath that had been so illusive for the previous attempts. This time the chest was able to fully inflate with color instantly returning to Debra’s face. The look on her face was something the doctor had never seen before in a career that had seen her travel and practice in parts of the world involved with some of the worst conflict still being enacted between adversarial factions. It wasn’t a horror reaction, but it left such an impression that the gravity of what was about to happen immediately sunk into the doctor’s psyche. As a tear rolled down Debrah’s cheek the doctor couldn’t help herself as she became overcome with emotion, she felt the wells of her own occipital tanks beginning to swell and stood up moving with quite a pace towards the restroom.
Elaine repeated “Debra”
“Can you hear me, Debra?”
Debra sat up straightening herself in the chair. Without scanning the room her head snapped in the direction of Mai. At this point Mai was turned back around and facing the interior of the restaurant. Her gaze was in line with Debra’s. The two held each other’s stare fore what seemed an eternity until Javier’s voice was heard talking to someone at an animated level instructing the new voice to the bar area.
After all vitals’ had been verified for the two affected in their party, the group thanked the paramedics for their work, as Debra covered the tab and thanked their hosts. She called a quick 5 minute meeting in the parking lot of the restaurant before heading for the door.
With the crew all filing quite naturally into a circular formation Mai standing beside Debra gently reached for her hand and held onto it as Debra opened up by addressing Allyson.
“Do you understand what we just witnessed?”
“I understand that I saw something incredible. I saw it as sure as I see you speaking here in front of us right now.”
Allyson looked around the circle at each person in their circle.
“It felt as though everyone here was present while we were involved in an off-planet operation.” “But I can’t be sure if this was because we were eating in a group at the restaurant just seconds before the change occurred. I was connected to everyone but physically inside some type of solo-pod orbiting around mercury of all places. My visuals from the incident are perfectly clear, I can’t image I am creating a false memory.”
Debra and Mai were still holding hands, Mai squeezed onto it with a sequence of three contractions. Debra grabbed the hand of the astronaut on the opposite side of the side Mai was standing. She initiated the same sequence that Mai had started with her. The gesture was repeated around the circle like dominoes one touching off the next until all Five women and Javier stood there with hands clasped. Upon the circle closing with Javier’s hand reaching out to Mai’s and grabbing hold a silence came over what seemed the entire city. The traffic sounds of the freeways close by had gone silent. The silence that replaced all things recordable hitting their eardrums could hardly be described with the characteristics of the silence that you and I understand. This silence was not empty in its void of auditory stimulus but full in that this silence held a larger mass of substance than what was just available in the seconds prior to everyone holding hands. It was as if someone had wrapped everything that had ever been associated with hearing and wrapped it in an incredibly malleable film and folding it in a way that sat quite orderly in the head space clearing the mind while allowing access to the new type of memory storage that had been introduced. A soft voice could barely be heard by all in the group. It sounded as though it was from a place far away, far away as in measured in light years. Mai’s projected impression alerted the group to the situation of the sun’s increasing temperatures that had required the immediate attention and collaboration of earth’s intelligent beings to save all those currently inhabiting and all those in the future that would inhabit the planet.
Mai squeezed Debras hand
Debra looked at Allyson and asked her “would you mind if we all share in what you saw so that we each have an understanding of the nature of our mission? I think you can grasp the seriousness of the training that is to take place as we ready the systems for delivery. It is important for each crew member to be fully engaged with each coming phase of the mission and the glimpse of what will come can be a great tool while studying and practicing for zero hour.”
Allyson nodded her approval.
From the depths Mai’s voice came into range again. “Allyson, please look me in the eyes, maintain your identity by repeating your name slowly over and over as you let me help you project your vision to the rest of the team. After a few seconds everybody’s hands tensed up. The group remained silent for some 1 to 2 minutes until Mai’s voice again signaled Allyson to ease back into the concentration of each of her hands holding the hands of her sisters. Within a few more seconds, eyes started to open and more than one in the group had tears streaking their face. Mai’s voice thanked everyone for fulfilling the appointments to the mission and for the evening. She replied that they were all welcome to go to the concert they had been talking about at Warehouse Live if there was a consensus of every group member to attend, but that Debra was going to take her to the hotel and that she would see them the next morning in Clearlake.
Debra spoke up one last time addressing the group before saying good bye for the evening
“I know I’m officially still on the Synapses Communications team, but I will be assisting with calibrating all the incoming equipment you will take up with your mission.” “Believe me when I tell you that the coming weeks are going to be draining on your bodies as well as your minds. Your Mission commander just approved your night off, I would seriously take some time this evening to get to know each other and see Houston, you probably won’t have another opportunity.”
“Good night and be safe out here, Javier will give everyone his number and look after you, you can trust him with your life. He has already had to save mine.”
XXXXXXXX
As Debrah walked along the wooden planks of the Kima boardwalk, a group of four teenage girls in Little two-piece swimsuits skated by her wearing the 4-wheel style roller skates popular at Roller Rinks around the United States from the late eighteen hundreds to the current date, climbing and dipping in popularity dependent on the fashion of the day. The girls were spread out about 10 meters apart so that the whole train was almost 30 meters long. The clicking noise the wheels made as they rolled over the individual dock boards at the joints.
It was either owing to the rhythm that the skaters imparted onto her and others walking out towards the bay that had everyone moving in a hurried pace to keep as close as they could to the bikini clad skaters. Or it might have been, and more than likely was due to the in fact the skaters where Bikini clad and were in fact hot as hell. Still, it was probably a combination of all the elements, each skate’s individual klick separated itself into a stuttered slightly off beat when first heard but after brain heard the cycle repeated a few times it made a pattern of the intricate beat. The rhythm progressed in a steady crescendo, creating an unassuming build up and assisting the ocean’s eternal lure of human beings, pushing the pedestrian traffic out towards the sea. In between clicks you heard a swooshing of the ball bearings inside the wheel hubs filling in as orchestral accompaniment giving it a makeshift string section, when the audio components the roller skates provided combined with the striking length of the train of these beautiful young sirens a surreal form of majesty was realized.
When they finally caught up to where the skaters had gathered, they had seated themselves in a circle enjoying the cool sea air while playfully sharing ice cream cones with each other. This gave the area around the Palm tree retreat an appearance more like an afternoon from a time not many on the boardwalk that day would recognize other than from television and films from when they were itsy bitsy. With the skaters taking their break and not providing the rhythmic pounding that had led the crowd to their current Sunday destination, a more natural and gentle auditory experience was being orchestrated by the rolling ocean’s movements as the sea gulls serenaded the relaxed atmosphere. In the area where the eastern walk turned to more amusement park attractions, you could just make out the words of the games of chance orators on their megaphones making their predictions, finding their marks and reminding everyone that at One o’clock the shrimp boil would begin and to stay after they had enjoyed the food for a special musical performance.
Debra was quite happy that Mai had suggested coming out this afternoon, she tried to remember the last time she had been out to the ocean with the sky behaving so kind. The way the clouds were developing, it made her feel like she was nestled in some imaginary fluff factory. With two prominent layers of clouds stacked on top of each other but moving opposite directions slow enough to fool the eyes into believing they might be viewing an animation in a planetarium instead of witnessing real life play out in such splendid fashion. She looked over her shoulder as a group of teenage boys in wake shorts and sunglasses who joined the oasis sending a group of middle age women that were feeding the Gulls packing. We were not so disappointed that upon exciting the makeshift gate, and nothing more than a swimsuit drawstring joining the two palms at the entrance.
Debrra saw Mai walking out of the exit of the large wooden rollercoaster at the gate’s turnstile. Everybody’s head turned and followed her movement as she lifted a nonchalant hand straight in the sky. There followed in those caught by the presence a dream-like movement in the direction of the path she had travelled. Debrah had thought for sure she would be the most engaging of the two this afternoon owing to the provocative design elements of her own swimsuit. She couldn’t really be upset by the fact she had to table the notion, who could be upset at the sight of Mai walking in white knee-high rubber galoshes with Black double thick rubber soles and black corded bungee clasps running up the centers of the boots providing the heavy contrast that broke apart the solid planes enough to not upset you for averting your eyes from her other features. From there her thy muscles took over…. she could have come from a renaissance pedestal the resemblance of enlightened beauty so precise, the bronzed and blushed Mai as blissful achievement realized. The swimsuit Mai had decided to unleash on this unsuspecting crowd might best be described as an additional layer of her golden epidermal humanitarian aid to the downtrodden of the world. The Blackened Vinyl material made such an indistinguishable partner with her skin by way of patterned diamond shape cavities spaced at a 3:1 ratio throughout the whole one-piece swimming delicacy. The effect of the design let the skin breathe where it made the most sense without taking away from the areas of the body that desired to be showcased. The areas of her body that would give birth and feed that blessing upon arrival, were given a tightened treatment by this transformative tapestry instructing the bits of skin visible in the cavities to swell so that a natural soft texture was created. Moving on from the mind melding fusion of individual choice and fashion mesh, a breast plate drew the horizontal constellational connector glorifying the shoulders rounded forms as though they were sun and moon visible in the same sky, infinitely dancing this solar eclipse event. Centering in the middle of this ballet and exercising travel implied but not viewable with the human eye, like it alone had discovered the key to moving at the speed of light, revealing the illuminated end point of the light’s warp blessed path a Marvel. Maybe even a living Marble capable of forcing Bernini into early retirement, Leonardo to burn his Mona Lisa, and Shakespear to create the antidote to his lover’s tragedy. If this truly celestial creation was not a gift lowered from the heavens, there could be no possible defense of such a deviation from the truth in any court within creation. Wrapping the ethereally spun cranial like a bow, the most prized treasure of the work protected and secured with a white silk scarf that coddled the precious cargo encased within.
For the first time since meeting Mai, Debra was not sure whether the thought had originated from her own desires or if Mai in her 2/3’s swimsuit had initiated a non-verbal summons when she waved, begging for a gentle hand to come forth and pet the prize on display. Debra moved on from the mind melding fusion scenario to acknowledge Mai’s greeting with a return wave, and in little more than an instant they were face to face exchanging hugs and French Kiss’s, not the tongue variety, but the greeting kind. There weren’t many on the boardwalk that day who would forget the site of these two women or the feeling of peace that had come over the whole scene just at the exact moment Mai and Debra embraced. After their interaction, the two walked hand in hand towards the snow cone stand just past the section of walk that opened up and jettied out into the bay.
There were two barges currently docking with stage amplification, musical instruments, as well as passengers that included some heavy hitters in the Hip-Hop world that made up the recent All 3 Coast project, The Two behemoth barges had on display the Sustainable Waves Label signifying their commitment to solar powered operations in live sound. The maritime vessels were linked together by an ingenious planking set of wood and iron mattes and linked to the end of that jettied dock by the same planking system. All around the boardwalk crews were setting up mike stands, amplifiers, guitar racks, and monitor wedges while connecting all amplification and projection devices to the input snake. In addition to ocean tidal power gen, the boardwalks engineering team introduced a gravity propulsion system utilizing solar cell fed hydraulics for engaging the turbine power source to earn its classification as earth initiative. It’s inventive and crowd-pleasing solution to maintain a steady cycle was by utilizing the large Merry go round on the southernmost edge of the boardwalk.
Quite a lovely day at the Kima Boardwalk
Also… I couldn’t help myself. Its Christmas afterall. Happy Holidays@!!! We can always write more. LOVE, lOVE, lOVE ove is all you need.
Excerpt From Chapter 5 THE NIGHT BEFORE LAUNCH
‘“How was your Meeting with the Captain?”’ Thought Mai
‘“I bet he was annoyingly friendly and overconfident?”’ She continued to think.
Debra smiled a light smile that was immediately belied by the longing sadness that soaked her eyes while she gazed at the beetle slowly inching its way from the air duct to the ceiling lamp in the center of the room. She turned to face Mai who was sitting a few feet from her in the adjacent recliner on the west wall. A fiery orange sun filled the large pane glass window behind Mai transforming a difficult conversation into a le memory as it dipped to its last visible position of the day.
“I don’t trust him.” Debra retort
‘“I bet he was annoyingly friendly and overconfident?”’ She continued to think.
Debra smiled a light smile that was immediately belied by the longing sadness that soaked her eyes while she gazed at the beetle slowly inching its way from the air duct to the ceiling lamp in the center of the room. She turned to face Mai who was sitting a few feet from her in the adjacent recliner on the west wall. A fiery orange sun filled the large pane glass window behind Mai transforming a difficult conversation into a le memory as it dipped to its last visible position of the day.
“I don’t trust him.” Debra retort
“I don’t understand how you can act so nonchalant about your captain showing up 3 days before Mission control counts down the launch sequence?”
The striking image of Mai almost haloed by the big ball of fire made her response all the more urgent. Urgent yet pointless. Mai stood slowly and moved onto the couch beside Debra softly grabbing both of her hands and bringing them up to her chest.
Mai had thought she had thought to herself without projecting.
The striking image of Mai almost haloed by the big ball of fire made her response all the more urgent. Urgent yet pointless. Mai stood slowly and moved onto the couch beside Debra softly grabbing both of her hands and bringing them up to her chest.
Mai had thought she had thought to herself without projecting.
‘“Truth”’
Before Mai could initiate another word Debra moved her hands from Mai’s heart up to her shoulders and stared her deeply in the eyes.
As tears started to slip from her own eyes, she whispered
“Love”
Before Mai could initiate another word Debra moved her hands from Mai’s heart up to her shoulders and stared her deeply in the eyes.
As tears started to slip from her own eyes, she whispered
“Love”
4
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4
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Construction Photograph Edited in Adobe Lightroom
With Javier landing his new job at the ESA in January his time spent in the company of others in our species had amounted to 26 minutes and thirty-three seconds, a consistent and projected reminder of one’s non-engagement, which along with the other stresses involving his work, was turning out to be the main factor creating a worrisome mental
affliction.
affliction.
The precision of the data and its digitally annotated and graphicly communicated features was listed as a positive attribute of the health and accountability function for the Universal ID Brian had acquired when running into the DMV to change over his State identification from California to Texas. Citizens who had already transitioned to its use
could now quickly confirm all the measurable instances whenever you were positioned within 2 feet of another ID holder. The official distance that would start your time being logged during what was assumed a social interaction was three feet. However, for those people that remained unmarried or at the time of issue without a nuclear family in place,
like Brian here, a decision was made to shorten the distance of the log start time by 1 foot. This policy was enacted to encourage greater social engagement with the intent of nudging single people to interact and hopefully find a suitable partner with whom they would create other humans with.
could now quickly confirm all the measurable instances whenever you were positioned within 2 feet of another ID holder. The official distance that would start your time being logged during what was assumed a social interaction was three feet. However, for those people that remained unmarried or at the time of issue without a nuclear family in place,
like Brian here, a decision was made to shorten the distance of the log start time by 1 foot. This policy was enacted to encourage greater social engagement with the intent of nudging single people to interact and hopefully find a suitable partner with whom they would create other humans with.
With the economic pains and the uncertain realities of changes in technological advancement, the population of earth had started a rapid
population decline from a perceived idea that humans were overpopulating the planet. The truth was humans were overpopulating the cities.
In theory it made great sense to gain statistical insight so that you could identify good and bad characteristics of your communications. Let’s say that you might want to learn from a certain range of calendar dates the instances where you had initiated conversation vs the times some other person had initiated it with you, and you would like to identify which interactions were more successful in promoting further interaction.
population decline from a perceived idea that humans were overpopulating the planet. The truth was humans were overpopulating the cities.
In theory it made great sense to gain statistical insight so that you could identify good and bad characteristics of your communications. Let’s say that you might want to learn from a certain range of calendar dates the instances where you had initiated conversation vs the times some other person had initiated it with you, and you would like to identify which interactions were more successful in promoting further interaction.
Without any action other than to carry your id in your wallet from day to day and turn on your TV, or smart console Hi-Fi when you returned home, instantaneously you would have a vast amount of all the successful or disastrous social interactions of your life, as well as who was the most at fault or the cause of its success for those interactions. All of this data would be neatly organized and displayed Five ways from Sunday so that the common snail slug could extract a comprehensive understanding of who the person was that had their name printed in the Black San Serif uniform type that ran across the top length of the Real Id. Of course, the Company Identifier and state seal were given a greater adornment including a color holographic blaze and an oversized first letter which in this instance would be pictured something like the image below.
The realities of the program were not the beneficial peace of mind the commercials portrayed the young professionals having realized when receiving the ID. Brian found that he now cursed the times he must log into any of his ID’s accounts when turning on his hardware devices, his displays were constantly bombarded with all of the reminders of the pathetic percentile range he fell under in relation to the other more adapt
community builders in society.
community builders in society.
26 minutes of social interaction is not a mark one would
expect to find for a period of 3 months of engagement, especially from someone who utilized public transit. Things got to the point that he stopped using his hardware devices as they were reactive to the Id and its relationships with the universal relay programing common to the hardware at his disposal stateside.When Javier learned he had been awarded the research position at ESA Houston, Brian lit up brighter than Javier himself. Celebrating the NSA’s first successful mission, Javier had factor for his request of the outdated orbiting material of Japan’s collection mission.
expect to find for a period of 3 months of engagement, especially from someone who utilized public transit. Things got to the point that he stopped using his hardware devices as they were reactive to the Id and its relationships with the universal relay programing common to the hardware at his disposal stateside.When Javier learned he had been awarded the research position at ESA Houston, Brian lit up brighter than Javier himself. Celebrating the NSA’s first successful mission, Javier had factor for his request of the outdated orbiting material of Japan’s collection mission.
After graduating the master’s program at Stanford he started working very hard at creating the system he thought would benefit most of the people of the planet in the most accessible way. He started looking back to the past trying to find common work practices throughout the world that were not only profitable for the citizens of the world completing the work, but actually beloved characteristics that endeared a culture to what it created.
One of his favorite pastimes became the nights utilizing his power tools to grind smooth the discarded metal he would collect out in the field behind his house. Austin was always growing and construction projects routinely had leftover material that would be abandoned to this or that open field, leaving an excellent opportunity for the dedicated scavenger. If one spent enough time walking at night a new piece of scrap always materialized from the remnants of the new building that had just popped up.
He was always into robotics so he started building up a solid repository of hardware components needed for the construction of various shop helpers that could assist him during the ideation and early production phases of his product development.
Stripping back old copper and aluminum wire became his regular weeknight Zen practice. He was happy and grateful with the work he was busy with, however it had been an individual effort up to this point, and he had slipped into a position prone to isolation. He was currently more than a little isolated, Luckily Javier found a way of letting him know when some of his more out there behavioral oddities started to enter the danger zone.
Stripping back old copper and aluminum wire became his regular weeknight Zen practice. He was happy and grateful with the work he was busy with, however it had been an individual effort up to this point, and he had slipped into a position prone to isolation. He was currently more than a little isolated, Luckily Javier found a way of letting him know when some of his more out there behavioral oddities started to enter the danger zone.
The night before he left for Houston, Javier posted a very telling video that he had edited to reflect his concern about his longtime friend. It was not uncommon for anyone outside in the halls of the Four-dwelling multi to hear entire conversations of the most bizarre subject matter by two very distinct and unique voices. Javier decided to have a little fun with the situation and every time he had come over to Brian’s place, he would
secretly use his phone to record some of the more wild speech pattern tendencies, unsure if Brian would believe just how frequent and disarming these episodes were becoming.
secretly use his phone to record some of the more wild speech pattern tendencies, unsure if Brian would believe just how frequent and disarming these episodes were becoming.
When Brian first received the video he was dumbfounded by the complexity of the arrangements of the short narrative sequences. There were so many different voices on the video, he still wasn’t totally convinced Javi was telling the truth when he told him that every voice on the video was in fact Brian acting out some quick almost incomprehensible conversation between two or three unknown parties feverishly
debating subjects Brian himself could not recall either studying or remember taking part in as either side in the recorded discussions. The only voice that his friend seemed open to its origin coming from a source other than himself was the humorous imitations of either Albert Einstein or Charlie Chaplin discussing the lunacy of the dialogue they
were privy to while remaining disguised from Brian’s attention by taking turns voicing their comments through Mr. Morris’s helpful participation as an avatar in the project.
debating subjects Brian himself could not recall either studying or remember taking part in as either side in the recorded discussions. The only voice that his friend seemed open to its origin coming from a source other than himself was the humorous imitations of either Albert Einstein or Charlie Chaplin discussing the lunacy of the dialogue they
were privy to while remaining disguised from Brian’s attention by taking turns voicing their comments through Mr. Morris’s helpful participation as an avatar in the project.
Javi would have to have been collecting the audio and video elements of the creation for well over a year and had been just as precise with disguising it’s existence as he had with the meticulous editing of the material clipping and stitching the segments together with a fascinating result. Without hard evidence as realizing the downward trends of his social interaction opportunities even before his friend had moved to his new job, he decided he was not going to leave the situation totally relying on his
charm offensives miraculously reversing the trend. He decided to build
something to correct the dessert of conversation he found himself inhabiting all too often.
charm offensives miraculously reversing the trend. He decided to build
something to correct the dessert of conversation he found himself inhabiting all too often.
Baby Steps To The Computer, Baby Steps To The Annimation Program
The night before Javier leaves, he is over Brian’s and they are laughing at the video Javier gave him as a going away present and as a reminder of the need to interact with the community available in the place you are living to regulate the crazy that comes from talking to yourself for extended periods.
Other than Mr.Morris’ stellar performance, there are bits towards the end of the tape that act as a time reference device. The crazy 2029 world series winning home run that launched out of the newly installed retractable dome section and continued airborne two-hundred and forty miles North until eventually deciding to come down in Thomas Brady’s little league glove in his front yard in Dallas.
Other than Mr.Morris’ stellar performance, there are bits towards the end of the tape that act as a time reference device. The crazy 2029 world series winning home run that launched out of the newly installed retractable dome section and continued airborne two-hundred and forty miles North until eventually deciding to come down in Thomas Brady’s little league glove in his front yard in Dallas.
At the end of the video there are clips of video of Brian’s radio on his worktable talking of the temperature timetable adjustments and Japan’s success at cleaning most of the space debris from earth’s key
orbit elevation zones. The video stops playing and all we hear is audio glitch itching as the different circuits might be open suddenly. Eventually the waves stabilize and then surprisingly a female voice with a metallic but playfully inviting tone is heard repeating some type of Initializing process documentation. It is heard reciting updates here of long set numbers, with added company, license type, date, and other legal type jargon.
orbit elevation zones. The video stops playing and all we hear is audio glitch itching as the different circuits might be open suddenly. Eventually the waves stabilize and then surprisingly a female voice with a metallic but playfully inviting tone is heard repeating some type of Initializing process documentation. It is heard reciting updates here of long set numbers, with added company, license type, date, and other legal type jargon.
And then you hear “Is that you Brian?”
Bryon replies “I am here Robyn I mean Hailee.”
Bryon replies “I am here Robyn I mean Hailee.”
After about 8–10 seconds of dead air, Javier’s voice comes up striking a very serious inflection that comes across as concerned more than lecturing because of the worry that comes through in his questions about the voices that come out of Brian’s mouth at seemingly random.
Walking[BD1] back to his preferred seat, Brian was happy to see M and N sitting in the section across from his own as he arrived at the 2 seat sectional that had a rollback vertical leg traveling from the floor, up through the window seat, and on up to the ceiling joist/spreader so that only one person was able to sit in the section’s
available seat. On the row across the center aisle, a mother and her three-year old were eating granola bars as they pointed at different colors they could see outside on the streets as we drove by the city scenes.
Brian had made friends with Nadia this past January when she started commuting on this route, which stopped at MLK Boulevard and Interstate 35. It was their shared love for music and poetry that sparked a conversation between him and the newly celebrated Austinite. Brian had seen in the statesman where the University of Texas symphony and orchestra had offered her tenure to join the faculty and share her
knowledge with future generations of musicians. The city was known for live music, typically as a bastion for up-and-coming and independent label artists, centered around a multi-person performance that reinforced the city’s ethos of communal engagement. However, after the world was introduced to Austin through its hosting of major music, film, and technology conferences and festivals like South by Southwest
(SXSW) and Austin City Limits, inevitable changes came as people from all over began to connect with the city’s mission to emphasize the maintaining of public spaces both physical and metaphysical that fostered appreciation for creativity and to facilitate a common fellowship.
The love and mastery of symphonic creation was what persuaded the Turkish violin maestro turned internationally recognized conductor to embrace the move to this
Texas capital from her position as the Music Director and Chief Conductor of the Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra in Moscow. If she was really being honest with herself, however, her real motivation for the migration enthusiasm was that she had grown weary of life in live production. Her two-year-old daughter, Mars, was being looked
after by her dignified husband, Amet, while she finished her four-year contract with the theatre. Letting her husband take over as provider while she raised her young
daughter was a welcoming proposition after taking such a highly visible and stressful role.
available seat. On the row across the center aisle, a mother and her three-year old were eating granola bars as they pointed at different colors they could see outside on the streets as we drove by the city scenes.
Brian had made friends with Nadia this past January when she started commuting on this route, which stopped at MLK Boulevard and Interstate 35. It was their shared love for music and poetry that sparked a conversation between him and the newly celebrated Austinite. Brian had seen in the statesman where the University of Texas symphony and orchestra had offered her tenure to join the faculty and share her
knowledge with future generations of musicians. The city was known for live music, typically as a bastion for up-and-coming and independent label artists, centered around a multi-person performance that reinforced the city’s ethos of communal engagement. However, after the world was introduced to Austin through its hosting of major music, film, and technology conferences and festivals like South by Southwest
(SXSW) and Austin City Limits, inevitable changes came as people from all over began to connect with the city’s mission to emphasize the maintaining of public spaces both physical and metaphysical that fostered appreciation for creativity and to facilitate a common fellowship.
The love and mastery of symphonic creation was what persuaded the Turkish violin maestro turned internationally recognized conductor to embrace the move to this
Texas capital from her position as the Music Director and Chief Conductor of the Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra in Moscow. If she was really being honest with herself, however, her real motivation for the migration enthusiasm was that she had grown weary of life in live production. Her two-year-old daughter, Mars, was being looked
after by her dignified husband, Amet, while she finished her four-year contract with the theatre. Letting her husband take over as provider while she raised her young
daughter was a welcoming proposition after taking such a highly visible and stressful role.
Amet, himself a distinguished computer scientist, was offered the position of Chief Executive Officer in the Composite Circuit Division of the U.S. battery compound and proving facility in Round Rock, Texas, due to his work on improving the chemical composition of alkaline batteries. By adjusting the electron covalent movement to create a permanently negatively charged alkaline core surrounded by a 50/50 solution
bath of saline plasma and supercharged ions, he made significant advancements in battery technology. Surprisingly enough, the big move would not be the first time Nadia and Amet had visited Texas, or even Austin for that matter.
bath of saline plasma and supercharged ions, he made significant advancements in battery technology. Surprisingly enough, the big move would not be the first time Nadia and Amet had visited Texas, or even Austin for that matter.
Growing up in southern Turkey, Nadia and her family often vacationed on the island of Cyprus. Amet’s family had deep roots there, going back generations, and they were close friends with Nadia’s family, having multiple business partnerships involving the Turkish state news outlet TRT. This organization, known for its multilingual operations, consistently worked to expand its coverage.
After joining the European Union, TRT was able to reduce conflict through inclusive hiring practices for copy and television editors, thereby giving a voice to minority populations. It even broadcast news in Kurdish, which included a weekly segment called Kurdish Football Insight, featuring interviews with Necip Kuzu, the coach of the successful Super League football club Beşiktaş.
Necip’s family had migrated from Kosovo and were of Albanian descent. He became a national hero by scoring the winning goal in the 2025 World Cup qualification match against Sweden, securing a spot for Turkey in the finals and providing a moment of national celebration. Necip’s ability to represent the Kurdish community was enhanced by his marriage to Asli Didam, a prominent figure in Kurdish society who spearheaded initiatives to enhance communication between their two families and foster a global
partnership.
partnership.
During the inauguration of the Global Broadcast Channel, Director Kin Sai discussed the introduction of AI-assisted mind-matching technology before the solstice. The announcement, which included the contributions from global research partners also listed a delegate from each country in the organization. Asli Didam, Necip Kuzu’s wife, was named the delegate for Turkey.
Brian was easing into a familiar headspace, becoming more himself and inflective enough to exchange a few words with Nadia.
“It’s been quite a morning for me I’m afraid.” Brian said before quietly adding, “it was really quite a night.”
Nadia’s eyes turned towards Brian without a hint of movement from her neck or shoulders. Brian noticed how relaxed and peaceful she seemed with her head laying on the bus seat head rest with her daughter laying in her lap with eyes closed and who equally displayed her mother’s picture of tranquil serenity.
“What is that you say Brian?” Nadia replied
Brian answered, “I was thinking about yesterday evening.”
Brian answered, “I was thinking about yesterday evening.”
He was speaking in a hushed tone on account of Nadia’s sleeping daughter and because a whisper was all that was necessary to be heard within the environment the bus provided. Passengers were coaxed into a lullaby type calm passing the outdoor activities of so many outside and on the move inhabitants of the city. If you were in the back seat of the bus, it was possible to hold a conversation with the bus driver provided you were
not on a downtown route after dark on the weekend.
not on a downtown route after dark on the weekend.
It was a rather peaceful way to make your way across the city, quiet as a country night on account of the decision by Austinites to approve the measure to outfit all city busses with the electric retrofit
packages designed Internationally at Earth Initiative Universities and manufactured at various component factories in South East Asia.
Brian made it known he had not slept his normal six hours on account of renewing and completing all of the bureaucratic tasks required for his proposal to encounter as little resistance as possible on its way through the approval authority.
packages designed Internationally at Earth Initiative Universities and manufactured at various component factories in South East Asia.
Brian made it known he had not slept his normal six hours on account of renewing and completing all of the bureaucratic tasks required for his proposal to encounter as little resistance as possible on its way through the approval authority.
“It didn’t help my frazzled mind catch its rhythm by the surprising introduction to my neighbor’s morning activities.”
Nadia’s mouth curled to a smile and held the position for a prolonged pause reflecting a satisfaction in the conjured images of what she imagined Brian’s chaotic morning may have consisted of.
“I’m picturing the water hose’s involvement, maybe you were….”
Nadia’s eyes closed and paused again in the same glowing satisfaction.
Her head turned slowly to face Brian as she let out a little chuckle.
Her head turned slowly to face Brian as she let out a little chuckle.
“Oh, I see now Brian, that was a very surprising distraction you were presented with. This is not such a terrible delay to encounter on your way out of the house.”
She looked up at the front of the bus where the college age group were seated and more muffled laughter and whispers were coming from.
“Do you not think this may have been a situation that was presented to you by a concern of the other relationships in your life seeking a balance.”
“Do you not think this may have been a situation that was presented to you by a concern of the other relationships in your life seeking a balance.”
He thought about what she had said for a little while as her energy and delayed interactions started to impart themselves onto his own system easing it’s response necessity.
Nadia smiled again as she felt Brian’s energy relaxing, she turned her head back to its original straight ahead positioning while bringing her hand to her daughters head and petting her curly brown locks.
Nadia smiled again as she felt Brian’s energy relaxing, she turned her head back to its original straight ahead positioning while bringing her hand to her daughters head and petting her curly brown locks.
“A very beautiful woman, it is good to see Robyn so healthy and full of life.”
Brian’s face smiling now as Nadia’s had been just before he had closed his eyes.
Brian’s face smiling now as Nadia’s had been just before he had closed his eyes.
“Not such a bad initiation of a learning, if that is indeed what you take this interaction to be. Brian, I must tell you, I am concerned about these other relationships. The intensity of the images imprinted on your memory congest its access from a world full of interested practitioners of the same stabilization techniques you are experiencing right now.”
“If you are not at all pressed for time today, I would enjoy your company to the music store with Mars and I. We will travel with you to the post office to complete your pressing concern, it is not far from our stop, afterwards you can carry on with us. I think you may be very interested in the violin we are picking up today.”
Brian’s eyes slowly opened as he made an agreement with a nod.
“I think you may have me confused with my more cultured imaginary twin. I can’t recall the name of any other violinists other than yourself.”
“I think you may have me confused with my more cultured imaginary twin. I can’t recall the name of any other violinists other than yourself.”
An older man with thin wired glasses and a Black and Gray full faced beard was seated four seats in front of Nadia and turned around speaking with a kind but surprised expression and asked towards Brian’s direction,
“How long do you say you have lived in Austin?”
He chuckled under his breath, his beard seeming to grow longer with each chuckle,
“I live two blocks from the house we pick you up at every morning, I know three fiddle players on your street alone that would give the Maestro here a run for her money.”
Nadia smiled at the man and looked at Brian, who initiated an introduction,
“I apologize, I didn’t realize you two knew each other.”
“I get on and off at the same stop as her every weekday. It’s the stop right before or after yours depending if we’re driving North or South.”
“I get on and off at the same stop as her every weekday. It’s the stop right before or after yours depending if we’re driving North or South.”
Brian looked at Nadia smiling and remarked
“I had no idea that you lived so close to me.”
“I had no idea that you lived so close to me.”
Then turned back to the man
“I apologize, my name is Brian Byron, I can get caught up
in my head at times, I’m such a space cadet. Can I ask your name?”
“I apologize, my name is Brian Byron, I can get caught up
in my head at times, I’m such a space cadet. Can I ask your name?”
The older man told him there was no need for an apology.
“It is good to meet you Brian, my name is Rutherford Ruthe like the baseball player only with an E attached to Ruth.”
“It is good to meet you Brian, my name is Rutherford Ruthe like the baseball player only with an E attached to Ruth.”
“How about that, both our first names start with the same consonant as our last names.”
You could tell Brian was a simple man at heart, lighting up at these types of small details.
You could tell Brian was a simple man at heart, lighting up at these types of small details.
Rutherford smiled but added, “or our last names start with the same consonant as our first names, but don’t get too comfortable with these handles, everybody in town calls me Slugger.”
This was unexpected and gave Brian a pause that drew an explanation from the new acquaintance.
“I guess they could call me slugger on account of the fact my last name is pronounced the same as the Babe’s. It’s more likely on account I went all ten rounds with the champ when I was a professional boxer and I still train fighters at Legends Gym.”
This caught Brian’s fancy as he had never known anyone who had even boxed, much less a professional fighter. He returned the pleasantries of meeting Slugger. Just as the bus announced the current stop, Slugger started getting to his feet letting the three in the back know that this was his exit.
Brian stood up as well and addressed Slugger and Nadia,
“I’m so happy to have finally met you then. My neighbor is having a BBQ tonight, the more company the marrier with Silver. I would really enjoy it if you both made it back to my house this evening at sundown, we will be outside.”
Just then Sara up front made the throaty “Uh Hu” noise making sure Brian knew she was sore at being excluded from the invite.
“I’m sorry Sara.” Brian was quick to fix his mistake inviting Sara with the other two bus patrons.
“I’m sorry Sara.” Brian was quick to fix his mistake inviting Sara with the other two bus patrons.
“And bring your families, I will pick up extra food on my way home this afternoon.”
Slugger smiled “I don’t have family in town but I bet I can convince my friends on your street to come play some songs for the occasion if your offering out plates.”
Brian smiled back responding “absolutely, so good to meet you Slugger, we will see you tonight.”
Before Slugger hopped off the bus he turned back around addressing Nadia “you can bring your instrument as well, I know they would love to play a song or two with you.”
Turning to face Sara he said,
“I don’t even have to say anything do I?”
“Whatever do you mean?”
Sara said, smiling as she slapped the black guitar case that was wedged in between her driver’s seat and the buss wall.
Brian was now sitting back in his seat and smiling at the conversation and thinking about the new people he would be meeting that evening. His Introduction to Slugger had all but cleared his head of what had put him so out of sorts before getting on the bus. He turned towards Nadia who had not seemed to have moved an inch during the whole conversation.
“I hear all sorts of music from my house depending on the night. I have probably heard his friends playing, I don’t know why I have never gone out to meet the musicians”
He paused for a second and seemed to be having a hard time choosing his next words.
“What is it Brian?” Nadia could tell he had something troubling him.
“It’s nothing, I just… I don’t think I have ever thought one way or the other about going out to meet the musicians, I always just enjoy the fact that the music is being played, it allows me to feel content with my home. It fills me with a certain joy knowing that I share a space with these creative human beings.
“That’s interesting Brian, go on then.”
“It is similar to how I feel about all the controversy that had surrounded artificial intelligence when it was first integrated into the larger populations. There was a great resistance to accepting or appreciating its potential to assist in the story of humanity. I feel it was seen as a particular negative from many artistic communities, I guess I think about those people creating art and the people who created artificial intelligence in much the same way. When I was in grad school, I told my friend Javier that I thought about AI like a proud parent may think about a successful child. I may not have been directly involved with its education or even its training, but the fact that I am a human being and working in the world alongside those people that were involved directly in the work, it gave me a certain pride in our species. I get the same feeling when I am listening to a
talented musician or group of musicians. For me, the limitless nature of human potential is very apparent in both artistic and technologic creation. The pride in our species gives me pride and confidence in myself. This is probably why I’m fine just working in my house while there are other things happening outside.”
talented musician or group of musicians. For me, the limitless nature of human potential is very apparent in both artistic and technologic creation. The pride in our species gives me pride and confidence in myself. This is probably why I’m fine just working in my house while there are other things happening outside.”
“It could be I am just not that comfortable interacting with new people.”
Nadia acknowledged his remark in her kind way, steering his comment about his not being comfortable conversing with people in a different direction.
“Please take it easy Brian. You were plenty capable just now when you met Slugger. You were polite and traded dialogue just fine. By inviting him to a dinner tonight you have even increased the company you will interact with, who knows, you might even find connection with the musicians coming over, it’s possible that your conversation with Slugger may even
result in new friendships.”
result in new friendships.”
“Dare I say you were being social?”
Again Brian was cognizant of the way the bus ride had changed the flow of his day. But as soon as the thought of the pleasant interactions became solid in his conscience, the all too familiar pessimistic thoughts started to creep their way back into the picture.
“That is quite the compliment.” Brian replied.
“I would say I have been rather unsocial riding with you two for so long and only today have I found out you live just two blocks from me. I didn’t even stop to learn Sluggers names until today. I always sit in my odd seat, I guess I should pay more attention to the people?”
The last bit of his statement sounded more like a question searching out another correction or compliment from Nadia.
“Nonsense Brian.”
“You have lived long enough by now to know that human beings crave familiarity in all their environments. Quit reading into things too much, the fact you did not need to talk with Slugger until today simply means that both you and Slugger had to wait until the right occasion presented itself to do so. Today you were provided with that opportunity and a connection was made. It is as simple as that. You do realize it takes two parties for
a conversation to take place. Do you think Slugger is wasting a second thought thinking about how he should have introduced himself to you earlier?”
“You have lived long enough by now to know that human beings crave familiarity in all their environments. Quit reading into things too much, the fact you did not need to talk with Slugger until today simply means that both you and Slugger had to wait until the right occasion presented itself to do so. Today you were provided with that opportunity and a connection was made. It is as simple as that. You do realize it takes two parties for
a conversation to take place. Do you think Slugger is wasting a second thought thinking about how he should have introduced himself to you earlier?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you think?” Brian responded.
“What do you think?” Brian responded.
“It’s not what I think, it’s what I know.” Nadia said firmly.
“Slugger is a wonderful man and as empathetic towards the world and the people in it as anyone I have met since moving to the city, but he has a life of his own that requires him to care much more about the fighters he is training so that they don’t get in the ring and have their heads knocked off. Believe me he is much more focused on being a trainer than spending time worrying if he chose the right time to introduce himself to that man
who entered the bus on his backside this morning.”
“Slugger is a wonderful man and as empathetic towards the world and the people in it as anyone I have met since moving to the city, but he has a life of his own that requires him to care much more about the fighters he is training so that they don’t get in the ring and have their heads knocked off. Believe me he is much more focused on being a trainer than spending time worrying if he chose the right time to introduce himself to that man
who entered the bus on his backside this morning.”
“It is just the same as you or I, we all have lives that we must keep our focus on and we must not let every interaction cause us so much worry.”
She said this while staring at the Manilla envelope in Brian’s hand. Noticing where her gaze was directed, he looked to where her line of sight ended. He stared at the envelope in his hand for a second before turning back towards the window. He saw the sign for HWY 71 just as he turned around and quickly pulled the yellow stop chord that ran the length of the
bus just above the windows.
She said this while staring at the Manilla envelope in Brian’s hand. Noticing where her gaze was directed, he looked to where her line of sight ended. He stared at the envelope in his hand for a second before turning back towards the window. He saw the sign for HWY 71 just as he turned around and quickly pulled the yellow stop chord that ran the length of the
bus just above the windows.
The Bus intercom system activated with the announcement that a stop was requested at South Congress and Ben White Blvd. Nadia gently sat up Mars and stood holding her hand. Brian looked at them both thinking it odd they were acting as though they would exit with him at this stop.
“Were you getting off here too then?” Brian inquired.
Nadia sighed an annoyance.
Nadia sighed an annoyance.
“I just told you that we would accompany you on your errand if you wouldn’t mind spending a bit more time with us today while we pick up a most curious violin from Blackerby’s Violin.”
Brian thought for a second. He hadn’t really planned on taking the day off, but with the way things were going so far, he thought it might not be such a bad idea. He was not operating anywhere near his normal productive capacity, and he thought it might be better to re-energize for the day so he could make the hard Push to finish his proof of concept with the IT integration platform he was working on for his meeting with the Solar
Energy Industries of America the following week.
Energy Industries of America the following week.
“That’s right Nadia, I guess I was in such a lethargic state just now it must have flown right by me. But of course, I believe that would be the best thing for me as it turns out. I have been cooped up inside for ages anyhow. I would love to spend the day with you both.”
Nadia continued
“That is fine Brian. Let’s not keep Sara any longer.”
She said this as she entered the aisle with Mars in hand and walked towards the front of the bus. On their way out the Bus door, Sara gave Brian a wink and a smile. She asked him if he was doing better, smiling Brian told her he always does better after seeing her smile. He hopped off the bus with his new companions and the three friends started making their way toward the post office. He was holding one of Mars’s hands and Nadia was holding
the other. He was suddenly cognizant of being exactly where he was supposed to be with exactly who he was supposed to be with. Lovely when that happens, he thought to himself.
the other. He was suddenly cognizant of being exactly where he was supposed to be with exactly who he was supposed to be with. Lovely when that happens, he thought to himself.
Walking the short distance to the post office from where they got off the bus, Nadia began speaking about the opera she had begun writing before she had left Moscow. The interesting thing about this opera was the fact that all the songs composed for the work contained only the same 1 vowel for all the vocals. She seemed very excited about the work, becoming quite giddy when she said she only wanted to use the letter O.
Brian was a little confused around the conversation. He couldn’t understand the rationale behind her decision to limit the audience’s ability to comprehend the dialogue between the characters.
Nadia again answered in her authoritative but kind way of pulling on the strings to open his mind up that little bit more.
“So, you are telling me you speak Italian then Brian?” Brian was still a little confused about the point she was making.
“Most of the Opera’s people attend in the United States are performed in Italian. There are some famous German and French Operas currently in production as well, but I am fairly certain that most people in the U.S. have a difficult time following those as well.”
Scratching his head, Brian asked
“I’m still not drawing the correlation between opera’s tending to be performed in languages other than English and the opera you are writing that only uses the letter O. First off, how are you planning on using the solo vowel? Are you limiting the numb
“I’m still not drawing the correlation between opera’s tending to be performed in languages other than English and the opera you are writing that only uses the letter O. First off, how are you planning on using the solo vowel? Are you limiting the numb
“Amet, a highly skilled computer scientist, was appointed CEO of the Composite Circuit Division at a major U.S. battery facility in Round Rock, Texas, thanks to his innovative work with alkaline batteries. By fine-tuning the way electrons move within the battery and creating a core that holds its charge more efficiently, he developed a new kind of battery. This design, combined with a special solution that helps the battery charge faster, marked a major breakthrough in energy storage and efficiency.”
Growing up in southern Turkey, Nadia and her family often vacationed on the island of Cyprus. Amet’s family had deep roots there, going back generations, and they were close friends with Nadia’s family, having multiple business partnerships involving the Turkish state news outlet TRT. This organization, known for its multilingual operations, consistently worked to expand its coverage.
After joining the European Union, TRT was able to reduce conflict through inclusive hiring practices for copy and television editors, thereby giving a voice to minority populations. It even broadcast news in Kurdish, which included a weekly segment called Kurdish Football Insight, featuring interviews with Necip Kuzu, the coach of the successful Super League football club Beşiktaş.
Necip’s family had migrated from Kosovo and were of Albanian descent. He became a national hero by scoring the winning goal in the 2025 World Cup qualification match against Sweden, securing a spot for Turkey in the finals and providing a moment of national celebration. Necip’s ability to represent the Kurdish community was enhanced by his marriage to Asli Didam, a prominent figure in Kurdish society who spearheaded initiatives to enhance communication between their two families and foster a global partnership.
During the inauguration of the Global Broadcast Channel, //Director Kin Sai discussed the introduction of AI-assisted mind-matching technology into communications teams in various industries across the world. This would be the initial deployment of the now famous LINK, the telepathic connection that had initiated bonds within the populations so that identical images and phrases kept on ocxccfuring. The the revolutionary research funded and backed by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and The UAE was the reason for the upcoming conference in Merrakesh that .// The announcement, which included the contributions from global research partners also listed a delegate from each country in the organization. Asli Didam-Kuzu, Necip Kuzu’s wife, was named the delegate for Turkey.
er of words available for the project by using words that have only the one vowel or are you going to substitute the O to replace the vowel for all words having the misfortune of containing vowels that are not O like the e in the. I guess you would be pronouncing the word the as tho.”Nadia started chuckling again,
“It’s like I said, I started working on the project while we were deciding if we were going to make the move from Moscow to Austin. It wouldn’t be the first time both of us had traveled to the states together. When my husband and I were in our early twenties we had travelled the US when Amet was looking at colleges. He was gracious enough to take
me to a couple of the Orchestra Productions performing in the theatres while we were on our travels. Before we returned home to Turkey, we made our way to New York for Amet to visit Columbia University.”
me to a couple of the Orchestra Productions performing in the theatres while we were on our travels. Before we returned home to Turkey, we made our way to New York for Amet to visit Columbia University.”
“I love the city, I almost decided to move there after finishing school.”
After seeing the look on her face when he interjected Brian apologized and let hercontinue.
“While we were in the city, we were able to spend an evening at Carnegie Hall where the American composer Phillip Glass was performing with the girls Chorus of San Francisco and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. The performance was part of a series
about the change in the US brought about societies reactions to the events that occurred worldwide during the 1960’s. It was quite influential in my musical career and gave me the idea of the subtraction of all but one vowel sound in the lyrical arrangements in my opera. The structure of Glass’s compositions utilized a simple repetitive timing, but in multiples that interacted with each other in a chaotic style that eventually moved into a
cohesive balance.”
about the change in the US brought about societies reactions to the events that occurred worldwide during the 1960’s. It was quite influential in my musical career and gave me the idea of the subtraction of all but one vowel sound in the lyrical arrangements in my opera. The structure of Glass’s compositions utilized a simple repetitive timing, but in multiples that interacted with each other in a chaotic style that eventually moved into a
cohesive balance.”
The result was very beautiful, I feel his compositions resemble the process of growth in the nature of the life cycle in both Eukaryote and Prokaryote organisms.
“Eukaryotic Prokaryotic? Not sure which is correct.”
“Your guess is as good as mine, I hadn’t thought about cell division since
high school.”
high school.”
Brian responded.
“Although I’m almost sure either is correct in this instance. I understood your description, that makes it correct in my book. Now you have me intrigued, I told you I didn’t know any violinists other than yourself, I’m afraid the same holds true for orchestra and composers. I will check out Phillip Glass as he had such a big impact on you.”
“Although I’m almost sure either is correct in this instance. I understood your description, that makes it correct in my book. Now you have me intrigued, I told you I didn’t know any violinists other than yourself, I’m afraid the same holds true for orchestra and composers. I will check out Phillip Glass as he had such a big impact on you.”
“I think you will definitely be inspired by his work, a great creative tool for when you are working on problems with those eh…”
Nadia hesitated in coming out with what had worried her about the images she had cleared from Brian’s short term holding when they were on the bus.
Nadia started chuckling again,
“I still think your tendency to put yourself down is a symptom of an issue I’m not sure you fully understand. I’m not that comfortable with some of the images I was clearing from your congested head space. I was not aware of your project being involved with robots. We have been discussing the research you had been conducting on the options for cloud protections concerning power infrastructure. Is this robot part of your meeting
next week?”
next week?”
Nadia’s question caught him off guard.
“Do you mean to say you have seen Haille R.?”
Brian replied as he looked down at Mars realizing his voice had become noticeably louder as she stared up at him inquisitively.
“I’m sorry Mars, I was caught off guard again. I didn’t mean to upset you it’s going to be one of those days I suppose.”
Nadia spoke up before Mars had gotten her words out.
“I apologize Brian, this is not the time to discuss these things.”
Brian vocally agreed just as the post office was in view just past the large Post Oak tree blocking the building from their view until they were practically in the parking lot. Brian told them he would have to wait in line to purchase postage and insurance so it might be a few minutes. It wasn’t so hot when you were in the shade of the neighborhood trees. Nadia and Mars decided to keep walking and look at the different choices people were making for their yards in this part of Austin.
Brian told them to enjoy the walk, he would wait for them on the bench outside the post office until they returned from their stroll. As he opened the door to the post office he heard Mars ask her mother who Haillee R. was.
“What a day” he said to himself out loud. He made a sigh and got in line.
.............................................................................................................................................................................................................................
With a much appreciated thank you to all those making Music, Making Art, Making Love, and Making the software and devices that make it so much more of an option. This photo is a tribute to MF The Super Villiain>
I didn’t make my last goal for finishing this chapter. I’m trying to find something that pays me while I continue to work on getting better with my goals. We will see. Wish me luck.
[BD1]All highlighted purple dialogue is an ai adjusted text. The original text is located onthe last 2 pages of this document and highlighted in green.
Chapter 5.00
Though he was fully cognizant of the incredible pace this Second mission for the Japanese Contingent was proceeding at, from the minute the countdown sequence at lift off had commenced up until his eyes had just opened with the familiar flex and release sequence from the alarm on his wristband he felt as though everything was moving in slow motion.
The entire Three weeks the crew had been off planet had unfolded like a surreal alternate reality that insisted on mimicking what a virgin film observer would have experienced while attending and viewing their first silver screen production in a later Nineteen — Twenties cinema auditorium. Allowing for a major fork caused by the veering away from the music accompaniment that had started showing up in the leaders before the complete takeover by the talkies by the close of the decade.
This new arch was blanketed by the absolute deadpan silence of any audible crew communications, any of the spaceship’s standard alerts, or from the warning alarms from the vast arrays of operation controls and flashing screens perpetually running the mission sequence data readouts.
The center hull of the starship was the distinguishing feature of the inaugural unit in the line of PLUS size model space craft introduced from the South Pacific Island Nation of SAMOA. The corridor running nose to tale bulged so that it looked like some one had applied a tourniquet on either side of a 40 meter section right in the middle of the craft. Not only was the bulge noticeable on its horizontal plane, but because the telepathic relays required such a large amount of cable, the necessity of enlarging and enclosing cable runs in the ceiling as well as below the floor decking created an operational space resembling the common symbol associated with the arithmetic function of addition. The result was a fantastic vision of orderly technological mastery, the focal point of each intentional detail of the space was fixed, focused, and orientated towards the throw area of the immersive holographic projection stage. From the bleached white noise suppression foam at the top of the Addison, through the open cavity that ran from the starboard side up stair to the port side down stair the the throw area of the projection was masterful in its coverage, finally ending about a half-meter from the top of the Central Dock Interlock Station entrance spanning the entire width along the lower deck.
Aside from giving the crew a much appreciated view that was not directly in between a co workers legs (I'll explain in a minute), The large holographic display was turning out to be a real difference maker in contending with the working limitations the crew faced utilizing the tandem telepath function for the initial satellite captures. The unit allowed for the photorealistic representation and interaction with each crew member devoid of a reliance on auditory response through a large dialogue box under each astronaut so that all thought communication could be observed and interacted with by both the Captain and Oculus Team 2 EA while bypassing the lag time of radio communications with earth. Allowing for a communication channel in real time displayed for crew and for Debra’s mission control comms team was lifting everyone’s spirits at the ESA after some heated debate between NASA and the ESA over the cost of the technology and the giant liquid projection lenses needed for the accurate long throw visuals.
Debra was her most insistent self after having envisioned and implemented the design of the projection. The fact that she had become quite close with Mai had turned her already intensive pre-preparedness into an almost Manic obsession. She had calmed a little after the first and second satellite retrievals, building in her a bit more confidence in the mission that she would soon be sending her new friend into orbit to command.
Sectional Detail of The Synapses 3PLUS
The enormous size of the stage enabled it (with assistance from a strategically installed mirrored interior) to be seen from all operation and control areas in the spacecraft with special attention paid to line of sight for the circular crew work station of the collection team centered in middle of the space. Each station contained a molded plexus-core console seat that was completely translucent as if it were the the famous Jet of the legendary super hero Wonder Woman. The fully transparent material utilized in the chair development served two functions for the mission. The first was a nod to the famous jet that I just mentioned and the requirement of each crew member to rely on each other, to always be honest and truthful, to yourself, to the mission, and to your fellow humans.
The second function of the the transparent quality of the material was much more mission specific to allow an unobstructed view of the 3’ by 3’ square viewing window carved down into the floor and directly under the chair across from a fellow crew member. Each individual seat took up 7 ½ feet and aligned with the cross facing chair like an upside down Y. This design left each of the crew vulnerable in its design by creating the necessity of a Spread Eagle Nesting of each astronaut during mission operations. The Synapses itself was built with the collection procedure intended as its sole use allowing it a luxury in its design decisions. During collection events, the craft would hover 100–125 meters above the satellite to be captured so that it could be viewed through the floor mounted window ports built into each stations viewing sight.
The layout of the chairs followed the chivalrous communal wisdom of Arthurian tales as well as an alliance with the heavenly bodies of the night sky in the shape of its perimeter. If you were to draw a capital X and then draw a line from top to bottom in the center of the X you can picture the layout of the seats with each seat occupying the space at the end of each line. If you zoom out and ease your focus you can easily picture an intentional elliptical arrangement if you were to connect the dots where each chair was placed. Each crew member was in a very open and vulnerable position from a fellow crewmember, and intern, the same crewmember was responsible for making the same crewmember feel vulnerable.
The seating was intentionally placed in this fashion so as to create the quasi-apprehensive environment tested to be a source of creativity, with an active influx of neuro transmitter activity occurring once a scenario of unease is introduced and the confidence that follows when the challenge is overcome.
Traveling towards the aft of the space ship on the lower deck up past the last work stations on either side of the craft, the cavity split in the middle with a dividing partition running the remaining 40 meters to the engineering stay that housed the initial propulsion boosters. On the starboard side of the 40 meter divide the crew mess area took up the first ⅓ of the run with the remaining ⅔ filled floor to ceiling with medical devices, polished aluminum tables, plastic polymer pipettes, beakers and other assorted graduated containers. The congested medical station was the gathering area for the vitals testing required of all crew for the pre-opps check down. The crew followed the protocol twice daily or as the schedule had demanded to allow adherence to any critical times required by the pre sequenced and predictive positioning coordinates.
Captain Hiroko’s breathing rate was averaging five to ten less beats per minute compared to the average 20 of a healthy human adult at rest. After hooking up to the breathing tube for the final session of vitals recordings, the breathing apparatus initiated its engagement just as their transport completed the earth orbit it had started an hour and a half earlier, coinciding with the beginning of the health and wellness check. As the vessel passed over the Middle Eastern and Northern African countries on its way West towards the Atlantic, the landscape that surrounded the Sinai as well as the metered breathing tube that resembled his yellow snorkel, he began his daily meditative transport back to the mission training that had taken place just two weeks before in the Red Sea location.
He wasn’t exactly thrilled about leaving Japan for the training as it seemed nothing more than a publicity campaign the team were embarking on as they left Hong Kong taking in three different press events in Japan and every crew member sitting for a few multinational interviews with various publications. As soon as the crew reached their first orbiting distance and the silence made itself known, the Captain understood why the location in the desert was chosen as a mock up operating environment to prepare the crew for their silent Outer Space Operations.
He began his go-to countdown routine to slow his breathing even further by replaying the one sound that stayed with him from the Middle-Eastern desert training. No matter where he was in any city they stopped, there was always the music. This was what he found most inspiring about the region. The songs usually were sung by a single male musician with an addition of a string instrument accompaniment. The voice was always changing notes in sequences of sustained exhales. One breath from these musicians might well contain 6 or 7 note changes before taking another. The effect on the listener of the music, particularly one who did not speak the language, was a feeling that an intense weight had been placed upon you. This heaviness made a lasting impression, that like most other aspects of life in this area of the world, required a steadfast dedication to learn and practice the skill.
That is to say that many in this area of the world hold strong beliefs that come from long histories of conflict, discovery, tragedy, and triumph. The peace the area now realizes was paid for by many.
The song as a makeshift intentional breathing device worked out well for Captain Hiroko. By replaying the song that he remembered most completely from his time in Jordan and slowing his breathing so that he coordinated his inhalations with the singer as he took his own, he was able to measure well below any audible range that would affect the critical maneuver requiring all of the additional sound cancelling training and interior insulation.
The two remote teams in Japan and Houston met up for that final joint training week in Jordan prior to the mission Launch. By locating the temporary mission control at the Operations Headquarters of JIEP, the teams were able to simulate the solar disruptions for each collection position by the predictive function on the teams new interface or API that delivered a parallel copy of the exact pattern and position of each hertz polluter episode. Throughout each coordinated capture event the crew of the Synapse would pre-map the connection paths and test the critical equipment on board the vessel and the equipment to be captured for compatibility with the set of comms commands Debra and the international team down in Houston had mapped out and programmed into the interface. In a sense humans had invented time travel.
The two remote teams in Japan and Houston met up for that final joint training week in Jordan prior to the mission Launch. By locating the temporary mission control at the Operations Headquarters of JIEP, the teams were able to simulate the solar disruptions for each collection position by the predictive function on the teams new interface or API that delivered a parallel copy of the exact pattern and position of each hertz polluter episode. Throughout each coordinated capture event the crew of the Synapse would pre-map the connection paths and test the critical equipment on board the vessel and the equipment to be captured for compatibility with the set of comms commands Debra and the international team down in Houston had mapped out and programmed into the interface. In a sense humans had invented time travel.
The Synapse operated very independent of most human attention, the only necessary control operations came by the manual approval for the rotation of the booster fuel tanks outside of the ship. This regulatory function was automated as well, but required human approval by hitting the command switch once the intended tanks were identified. This was done so that all remained within a 17.5–20 liter fill level from one tank to the next allowing the ship’s fuel intake to maintain a consistent flow negating sputter and turbulence from mechanical disruption instances. The Synapse was constantly having to burn thrusters to maintain a reliable and steady distance from the satellite it was to capture. After the approach was complete and the optimum distance for the telekinesis operation was achieved, Hiroko would slip the hachimaki that always traveled off planet with him over his nose and mouth so that his breathing would be even more muted for the next few sequences in the operation.
Before donning his captain’s personal monitor that bore close resemblance to various video game goggles, he would validate his fellow astronauts’ systems connection to the Oculus device and affirm with each of them that the systems were active. Once all five female crew members projected the green panel indicator on the holographic center display, the captain would signal back to Doctor Nagasi on his control keys and she would use the Oculus to signal the countdown to the mind clutch back to mission control on earth. As soon as earth reported back using their own Oculus team (the previously mentioned Oculus Team 2 Earth Actual), the Captain put on his personal monitor and moved the countdown sequence toggle from standby to begin. After the 5 second countdown was complete all he was focused on was keeping his breathing under control and using the keypad on his chair console to relocate the line on any flashing red tanks that came across his monitor out of the red cylinder and into the tank that would offset the disbursement amount of fuel the usage had just caused. He would continue the sequence every 15 minutes for however long it took to move the satellite into its position in the rack system the Nigerian and Swiss Contingents had constructed and sent into Orbit with the Chinese Components 873 lower orbit class booster, The ingenious design was based on the entry of a spatial body into earths atmosphere and allowed the crew to complete most collection and secure events in under an hour.
This was the satisfying part of the mission for the Captain, the whole time he had been involved with the international effort he knew his main inclusion on the mission was to lend his expertise guiding the craft into the correct re-entry position upon the completion of their mission. It was very fortunate that the Captain had been involved with previous remote satellite reentry operations prior to becoming an astronaut, and just so happened to be on the Japan contingent’s retrieval mission after an error in the ships calibration core caused the automated alignment controls to zero out after the ship had taken on the added cargo. His skilled manual re-entry expertise was called into action to safely guide the payload back to earth.
Debra arrived to a quiet Command and Control Center for the Eleven o’clock hour as most of the ESA staff had put in a late night overseeing the two satellite captures for Oceana, picking up Indonesia’s satellite string before moving over to the New Zealand AgAu.
.This calmed some of the active butterflies and the acid reflux that was acting up as she made the short trip from her house to the ESA for final rundown of procedure and coordinate positioning with Commander Kusanagi and Captain Hiroko for the movement of the Link of Africa into the satellite island that was trailing the spacecraft in its orbit at exactly 100 meters and had been since the first comms device had been collected.
As Debra turned on her computer she was looking at the paper she had grabbed at Stripes on her way in. The lengthy article on the front page of the Houston Chronicle related the events leading up to the arrest of ESA Star ship Captain Cahill, who was to pilot the star ship for Mai’s team up to space. The captain had still not made it over to join the crew and there were only 5 weeks left before launch. Apparently he wouldn’t be able to make it to Houston his until 17 days before the launch date. The Chronicle ran the article because of the plea deal he took for an incident he was involved with in Florida where he was arrested for a felony act of public sex. The plea deal lowered the charge to a misdemeanor indecent exposure conviction but was still adjudicated with a sentence of 3 months jail and an additional $10,000.00 fine added on for a separate charge. The headline of the Chronicle ran the quote Captain Cahill yelled at the judge upon learning he would have to spend 3 months in jail.
“You mean to tell me that in the land of the free and home of the brave, a beautiful woman can’t be out in the clothing the good lord gave her or she will be arrested, but some nasty, dirty, half wit can holster a gun and bring it loaded into all public spaces. What the fuck is wrong with you people?”
The judge, not very happy with the remark, slapped the $10,000.00 contempt of court fee on top of the incarceration.
Debra had met the captain previously at an international military skills competition at her Alma Mater while she was in her senior year at West Point. The charge did not surprise her when she learned of the incident from Mai earlier in the week. After seeing his ridiculous face for the first time in almost a decade, Debra thought again about the weekend of the contest. Her roommate was away on a reserve deployment she had remaining on her enlistment contract and the days had started to drag with no roommate and her ex-boyfriend Josh having graduated the previous year and moved off to his new duty station in Korea earlier in September.
The skills contest was a wonderful distraction from the mundane, and consisted of various military academies from around the globe that trained in the different soldierly tasks. The contest was the type of event that Debra excelled at and she put her skills to work Captaining the Land Navigation team for her last three years at The Point. During the night portion of the Land Navigation event she was introduced to all the other Land Navigation Captains from the other academies. She was confused upon meeting Cadet Cahill from The Royal Military College of Canada Squad when they were introduced and heard his distinctive accent clearly from the country of Australia.
As they were leaving the the land nav course Cadette Cahill, (Pierce Cahill in the Civilian world), caught up to Debra and introduced her to his girlfriend Salina who also attended the Royal Military College and the reason Cahill had moved from Australia to attend. It was refreshing to hear about their story, and as to the story in the Chronicle that had conjured up this nostalgic trip down memory lane, she had to admit that the ridiculous face on Pierce was actually a ridiculously hot face attached to an even more ridiculously hot body that happened to have the most ridiculously hot Latina girlfriend Debra had ever seen, and all three of the Cadet’s ended up going back to her empty abode after breakfast and had the most ridiculous sex marathon one could imagine before the new friends had to say their goodbyes that evening and head back home to Canada.
Debra was not one to enter into wild trysts at every whimsy, but the minute she read that it was a sex act that had landed Captain Cahill in hot water she immediately sympathized with the woman involved with the Captain to cause the arrest as she knew firsthand of the powers the man had to convince a woman of the necessity for sexual pleasure.
She picked up the secure comms phone at her desk to call the mission control side Oculus team to prepare communications down load of the vitals results from the crew of the Synapse. The thought of what had just passed through her consciousness bubbled back up to the surface as she thought about the team of beautiful, intelligent, and successful young women she was mission prepping with in the simulator with action plan scenarios the previous evening. A dark guilty cloud manifested itself as she came to the realization that she had been subconsciously keeping this piece of past personal history as privileged information from the time she found out who the Australian Captain was. She was just not sure on the reasoning why she did not tell anyone of her past acquaintance with the Aussie. Was it because she was wanting to keep from sabotaging another chance to be close to this person she only spent the briefest of encounters with? Or was it because she had forced the thought out of her head because she did not want to think about her friend Mai so far away with the Charismatic Captain? A voice on the other end of the receiver answered the call.
“Oculus Team 2 Earth Actual LT Harris speaking how may I direct your call?”
“Good morning Lieutenant Harris, this is Debra, can you tell me if Master Sergeant Young has arrived yet?”
“I’m sorry Debra, she just called in and said she was about 20 minutes out.”
Debra thought for a second and started again,
“Lieutenant Harris?”
“Lieutenant Harris?”
“Go ahead Debra.”
“Who all has made it in from your team then?”
“So far it’s just myself and Georgio.”
“Fantastic, can you please put the tech on the line?”
Systems Tech Georgio picked up a different receiver on the desk by the equipment rack she was working on and let the lieutenant know she was on the call.
“Georgio, what do you need this time Debra?”
“Good morning to you too Systems Technician Georgio,
I am just wanting to get as much of the required documentation out of the way before the final collection event scheduled for at 14:00 this afternoon.”
I am just wanting to get as much of the required documentation out of the way before the final collection event scheduled for at 14:00 this afternoon.”
“I was wondering if you were comfortable uploading the Vitals check request to the Synapse or has the Master Sergeant been handling the direct line communications?”
“Who do you think taught Sergeant Young how to use the damn thing? Everyday I have to make sure her sensors are plugged into the correct outbound transmitting ports or we wouldn’t be be talking to anyone but ourselves over here.”
Debra knew this to be the case, she just got a kick out of how flustered the Systems tech would get explaining everything. The reason she was on the team was because of a special request for personnel Debra had initiated when she accepted the additional mission for Mai’s team. She smiled thinking about the technician getting all riled up at the start of the joint training in the Middle East before continuing with the communication.
“It’s good to know your at the ready with your skills and assistance. I am forwarding the request onto Team 2 EA Oculus server now, you can go ahead and transmit it to the Synapse as soon as you see it pop up.”
“Copy Debra, I’ll forward over to the Response to Mission Control as soon as we hear back.”
“Thank you Georgio, big day today, stay sharp for your team over there.”
“Yeah Yeah Yeah”
Image Collage from CCVT photograph I took and an AI Generative fill in Photoshop
Chapter 5.25 Mini chapter: THE MANY MARVELS OF 2030 PATENT PENDIN IN LOVE G Robyn’s Falling
The following evening was even more peculiar than the previous night’s revelation. Brian was not back home from the electric-coop and Robyn was not interested in postponing her frustrating day’s reward any longer after anxiously pacing around the nursery non-stop, overthinking and obsessively contemplating the introduction to the new neighbor she had accidentally discovered at the BBQ.
When she arrived home the anxiety was even more acute, as she continued the pacing around her house, it took all of two minutes after walking through her front door to throw in the towel on prolonging the wait. She started devising a workaround for the situation that would allow for her ambition’s success.
It would not be the most honest operation, but her family’s familiarity with Brian and Javier had grown so that they were both as close as any other friend Robyn and Silver had kept up with as far as their relations within the city. If she were to hasten her entry into Brian’s abode before he arrived home, it wouldn’t be so odd for such a close and trusted friend, would it? Surely the intrusion would not be thought of as anything but a neighborly visit because of the loud sound and the shriek from Mr. Morris heard from his apartment just before he had arrived. It was only a little white lie, and she hardly ever worried about the little lies on account of one of her mother’s daily anecdotes to motivate communication was that one should never let a lie get in the way of a good story.
The fact that she was now involving her mother as an indirect accomplice in her scheme made very little in the way of consequence in her action.
The momentary hesitance from the question of conscience lasted about ½ a micro flash with the robot revelation moving the thought back where it had come from as it repeated the systematic dismantling used on every other thought that tried to find any purchase in her psyche that day. That is to say that Robyn could only just comprehend the words spoken to her at work and in response to those addressing her, interacted in the same non-engaged type of manner that she had received the incoming language with. Her mind was on autopilot and completely UN-attentive to any outside stimulus, her brain awash with a haunted carnival type luminescence, but this was not the flashing gold rush type good timing bonanza atmosphere associated with the Vegas Strip. The artificially illuminated environment was more like a bi-product of the excitement and exhilaration that accompanied a weekend visit to Las Vegas, however beamed through a more dystopian Ray Bradbury or Rod Serling filter. The only communication taking place other than a large dose of the willies one received after talking with Robyn in this state was by way of a giant flashing Marquee that only flashed Two words in bright pink neon; HAILEY ROBOT.
Do not take this little transgression as any sort of mark on Robyn’s character and definitely should not diminish your feelings towards her mother Silver in any way. I only bring it up because of the events that are yet to come as a way of introducing this very thought that I am speaking on now and an explanation so that you may better understand the woman and make a non-judgmental observer of the facts as the situations are laid out.
Truth be told, Robin thought very little about consequences or how others might perceive any action bordering on inappropriate. She was often mystified whenever she was questioned about the freedom she wielded and the ease at which her nonchalance made room for almost any notion one may arrive at when scanning the memory banks for a scandalous past endeavor. Maybe the situation is quite like your own in the different people you may have encountered while navigating along your orbit. There are usually a few Robins that inevitably cross our paths at some point in the journey. This particular Robin would make the simplest observation and inspire men and women alike to completely change course on their path because of the profound wisdom inherent in her naivety, while allowing the truth, which was her heart to reflect its wisdom quite openly to any acquaintance lucky enough to spend any time with her.
If you picked up on the fact we are talking again about one of those unseen forces, I think you are on the right track. Brian certainly had his world turned upside down when he first moved in next door to Silver and Robin. You might say his world was turned upside down every day for the past three years after making their acquaintance.
Unfortunately for Brian, this was only the first Robin that fate had worked her magic to align with his trajectory. Having not experienced the indescribable hold one is placed in by another human which has captivated them for a length of time, he experienced a hopelessness that bordered on obsessive, motivating as it often does, an outflow of tremendous creative energy which in this case resulted in the prize which Robyn was so eager to revisit. Other than his artificial companion, Brian had very little to show in the benchmarks or milestones one aspires to fulfill when this common and very human situation manifests in one’s life.
Making the association and realization materialize can be a very trying experience, particularly the unexplainable and unconditional acceptance and reverence of another soul while continually reprogramming 1’s own hardwired DNA sequenced survival instructions pertaining to human relations. The soundest advice I can give to a person wading through these murky and somehow astonishingly clear waters would be to keep relations with friends that can give counsel to you as you weather the long road ahead. Quiet the self-doubt that surfaces when people tell you to forget this creature. This is not possible. What is possible is to acknowledge what has transpired and accept what you are going through. If possible, a different association to occupy one’s mind during the peak tumultuous is most agreeable. A welcome face at any time will make for a more calming syncopation.
The following evening was even more peculiar than the previous night’s revelation. Brian was not back home from the electric-coop and Robyn was not interested in postponing her frustrating day’s reward any longer after anxiously pacing around the nursery non-stop, overthinking and obsessively contemplating the introduction to the new neighbor she had accidentally discovered at the BBQ.
When she arrived home the anxiety was even more acute, as she continued the pacing around her house, it took all of two minutes after walking through her front door to throw in the towel on prolonging the wait. She started devising a workaround for the situation that would allow for her ambition’s success.
It would not be the most honest operation, but her family’s familiarity with Brian and Javier had grown so that they were both as close as any other friend Robyn and Silver had kept up with as far as their relations within the city. If she were to hasten her entry into Brian’s abode before he arrived home, it wouldn’t be so odd for such a close and trusted friend, would it? Surely the intrusion would not be thought of as anything but a neighborly visit because of the loud sound and the shriek from Mr. Morris heard from his apartment just before he had arrived. It was only a little white lie, and she hardly ever worried about the little lies on account of one of her mother’s daily anecdotes to motivate communication was that one should never let a lie get in the way of a good story.
The fact that she was now involving her mother as an indirect accomplice in her scheme made very little in the way of consequence in her action.
The momentary hesitance from the question of conscience lasted about ½ a micro flash with the robot revelation moving the thought back where it had come from as it repeated the systematic dismantling used on every other thought that tried to find any purchase in her psyche that day. That is to say that Robyn could only just comprehend the words spoken to her at work and in response to those addressing her, interacted in the same non-engaged type of manner that she had received the incoming language with. Her mind was on autopilot and completely UN-attentive to any outside stimulus, her brain awash with a haunted carnival type luminescence, but this was not the flashing gold rush type good timing bonanza atmosphere associated with the Vegas Strip. The artificially illuminated environment was more like a bi-product of the excitement and exhilaration that accompanied a weekend visit to Las Vegas, however beamed through a more dystopian Ray Bradbury or Rod Serling filter. The only communication taking place other than a large dose of the willies one received after talking with Robyn in this state was by way of a giant flashing Marquee that only flashed Two words in bright pink neon; HAILEY ROBOT.
Do not take this little transgression as any sort of mark on Robyn’s character and definitely should not diminish your feelings towards her mother Silver in any way. I only bring it up because of the events that are yet to come as a way of introducing this very thought that I am speaking on now and an explanation so that you may better understand the woman and make a non-judgmental observer of the facts as the situations are laid out.
Truth be told, Robin thought very little about consequences or how others might perceive any action bordering on inappropriate. She was often mystified whenever she was questioned about the freedom she wielded and the ease at which her nonchalance made room for almost any notion one may arrive at when scanning the memory banks for a scandalous past endeavor. Maybe the situation is quite like your own in the different people you may have encountered while navigating along your orbit. There are usually a few Robins that inevitably cross our paths at some point in the journey. This particular Robin would make the simplest observation and inspire men and women alike to completely change course on their path because of the profound wisdom inherent in her naivety, while allowing the truth, which was her heart to reflect its wisdom quite openly to any acquaintance lucky enough to spend any time with her.
If you picked up on the fact we are talking again about one of those unseen forces, I think you are on the right track. Brian certainly had his world turned upside down when he first moved in next door to Silver and Robin. You might say his world was turned upside down every day for the past three years after making their acquaintance.
Unfortunately for Brian, this was only the first Robin that fate had worked her magic to align with his trajectory. Having not experienced the indescribable hold one is placed in by another human which has captivated them for a length of time, he experienced a hopelessness that bordered on obsessive, motivating as it often does, an outflow of tremendous creative energy which in this case resulted in the prize which Robyn was so eager to revisit. Other than his artificial companion, Brian had very little to show in the benchmarks or milestones one aspires to fulfill when this common and very human situation manifests in one’s life.
Making the association and realization materialize can be a very trying experience, particularly the unexplainable and unconditional acceptance and reverence of another soul while continually reprogramming 1’s own hardwired DNA sequenced survival instructions pertaining to human relations. The soundest advice I can give to a person wading through these murky and somehow astonishingly clear waters would be to keep relations with friends that can give counsel to you as you weather the long road ahead. Quiet the self-doubt that surfaces when people tell you to forget this creature. This is not possible. What is possible is to acknowledge what has transpired and accept what you are going through. If possible, a different association to occupy one’s mind during the peak tumultuous is most agreeable. A welcome face at any time will make for a more calming syncopation.
And so it was with Brian, the years since moving into his apartment have been the crux of his existence, for better or worse, there would be Brian, you can decide for yourself the way you may like to categorize the following events. Please allow yourself to understand that while humans often talk of love and the universal fabric that has been stitched across time by those accepted into its folds, there is a much more honest approach to matters of the heart as it relates to truth. Let’s use this in vogue nomenclature to describe what we will witness, let’s put for a moment a pause on the idealized frailty at the very core of our beings, let’s instead look as Sherlock Holmes might look for clues. We witness facts, no matter how fantastic, this might get us to a unified, clairvoyant, and focused understanding of this year of 2030.
Brian’s apartment/ workshop was a constant fixation Robin enjoyed daydreaming about as she drifted off to sleep at night. Most of those nights listening to the audible newscasts cycle coming from Brian’s radio, accompanied by sporadic power motors from whatever tool he was using to build whatever he was building at the time. Sometimes when the power tools were making their soothing rhythmic lullaby, Robin would touch herself pleasingly and in unison with what she envisioned to be quite the automated production of all the power tools and circuitry adding their special Sonic element to the night time number playing out like Disney’s “Fantasia.”
For those imaginations that still choose to indulge as a quick crescendo builds, Robin’s touching increases in its purpose, picture all those brooms with water buckets spilling over in a truly pure and free celebration of the senses being utilized for the purpose for which they were created.
Back in the present…
as Robin slips in the window of Brian’s apartment she is immediately greeted by Mr. Morris, Robin’s very conniving hairless cat. After confirming the intentions of the new arrival, Mr. Morris takes back to his perch. Robin has already moved into the main shop area and stands admiring the new equipment that has all of a sudden been installed onto the sole reason for her foray into this workshop.
“I’m so happy to see you Robin, I could not make sense of my inability to enter my rest cycle after your goodbye yesterday evening so I created a new component in case the need should arise.” Haley R would have been the main attraction with only half of her installed gadgetry but today there could be no disillusion about the pedigree of the visual tapestry presented in the middle of the shop. The newly styled long blonde hair was not the accessory that was keeping Robin wide eyed and mouth agape. She was still not able to get a word out and was turning quite Red indeed, the precipitation immediately making an introduction on her forehead. Robyn nodded her head as a response.
Let’s hope the story does not play out like it did in Fantasia, where outside help was required when things got out of hand.
Brian’s apartment/ workshop was a constant fixation Robin enjoyed daydreaming about as she drifted off to sleep at night. Most of those nights listening to the audible newscasts cycle coming from Brian’s radio, accompanied by sporadic power motors from whatever tool he was using to build whatever he was building at the time. Sometimes when the power tools were making their soothing rhythmic lullaby, Robin would touch herself pleasingly and in unison with what she envisioned to be quite the automated production of all the power tools and circuitry adding their special Sonic element to the night time number playing out like Disney’s “Fantasia.”
For those imaginations that still choose to indulge as a quick crescendo builds, Robin’s touching increases in its purpose, picture all those brooms with water buckets spilling over in a truly pure and free celebration of the senses being utilized for the purpose for which they were created.
Back in the present…
as Robin slips in the window of Brian’s apartment she is immediately greeted by Mr. Morris, Robin’s very conniving hairless cat. After confirming the intentions of the new arrival, Mr. Morris takes back to his perch. Robin has already moved into the main shop area and stands admiring the new equipment that has all of a sudden been installed onto the sole reason for her foray into this workshop.
“I’m so happy to see you Robin, I could not make sense of my inability to enter my rest cycle after your goodbye yesterday evening so I created a new component in case the need should arise.” Haley R would have been the main attraction with only half of her installed gadgetry but today there could be no disillusion about the pedigree of the visual tapestry presented in the middle of the shop. The newly styled long blonde hair was not the accessory that was keeping Robin wide eyed and mouth agape. She was still not able to get a word out and was turning quite Red indeed, the precipitation immediately making an introduction on her forehead. Robyn nodded her head as a response.
Let’s hope the story does not play out like it did in Fantasia, where outside help was required when things got out of hand.
