The storm to the South West was rapidly gathering but there looked to be time to reset the power pull on the pole and then I could go home. The sky had gone all amber, the humidity was oppressive. The distant thunder sounded like the neighbor dragging his garbage can down the street. The approaching tempest looked like it could hatch a Tornado. I began to wonder if I should bother getting the power back up again.

"Well, maybe it will miss us", I mused as I worked.

A tree outfit had been working near the line when one of the workers dropped a branch right across two phases of a three phase line. From the ground I could see that only one of the line fuses popped before the branch blew clear, so when I got the call, and got down there, I quickly spiked up and ran up the pole with the new cartridge. It only took a second and I almost just reset it by hand; way against the rules, but every lineman had done it before. It only took a couple minutes to grab my hot stick and reach up to reset it. FLASH!

Later, I'd find out that I was one of the last lineman fatalities in North-eastern Ohio.

It had been six years since the death of my wife and three children in a wreck on the freeway. Before that, I was the happiest man on earth; madly in love with my family; absolutely devoted. A Semi had shed the rear dolly on the trailer, and it had come over the wall into our lane. The huge heavy assembly had struck the passenger side and then wiped out the rest of the van. I was left sitting up against the retaining wall, still strapped in with the rest of the van completely flattened and the four dead bodies of my wife, two girls and son. The airbags left me with black eyes and dazed. I did not know anything until the firemen were attempting to get the van far enough from the wall to open the still functional door.

There was the time on the Psych Ward at the hospital. I refused to take any drugs once I began to come round a little. They said they were very concerned about me, but could not hold me once I told them I was leaving. After that, at first I was a real mess; travelled a lot, spent a lot of time sitting in parks near churches. That great big one in Salt Lake really comforted me. Something about that huge beautiful building set against the Wasatch Mountains, just felt so right. Last year, I went back to work. It was great that the power company let me come right back. Before, I’d been really careful. Now I just got the work done and did not care if I bit the big one. I wasn’t even scared any more.

The advent of small scale fusion power plants, solar and wind power was making the behemoth electrical generating plants a thing of the past. The hydrogen fusion plants were deemed impossible for a long time, but in 2025 a little known Russian scientist did it. One of the surviving Wikis made sure that the critical parts of his work were known worldwide in hours. With worldwide licenses, manufacturers were turning out small, silent power plants like they were merely home appliances. As one might expect, the oil barons and the old guard were squealing like stuck pigs.

There was talk of blowing up some of the big dams, except for those necessary for flood control. Some even talked of restoring historical runs of fish. With limitless power, there was talk of huge desalinization plants to stop the depletion of the aquifer. Conventional Nuclear plants were being decommissioned as fast as possible. The really dangerous parts were being broken up and buried deeply, though there was talk of launching them into the sun.

Global warming issues had become extremely pressing, pretty much starved out those who had previously controlled governments, because now people knew they were going to die unless we did decisive things and very soon. The fourth World War, flooding, earthquakes and pestilence had reduced the world population to just less than 2 billion. Of course no one really knew for sure.

Of course, the increase in sea levels worldwide had made the reduction of the use of carbon fuels a top priority. Not only was the sea rising because the ice was melting, but the decreased pressure of the ice on the Greenland Continent, North America, other places that had carried a heavy ice load for thousands of years had spawned a huge increase in Earthquakes. I’d thought about what my ancient Dodge 4x4 pickup would be like with one of those power plants? Sheesh, what’s the fun of going out in the mud without the lusty roar of my 600 horse power diesel engine. Yep, there wasn’t much factory about the old girl, but she was sitting in the parking lot waiting for me. Pity, that I’d never see her again.

It is a vastly different world now. Islam had failed to take over so far, but they'd had a huge impact on fashion out of the simple need for self preservation. On the bright side, Christians were thoroughly discredited by people like Dime and Hagen. In fact, religion in general was in for a rough stretch. Both men and women now covered all the skin they could, due to the problems with the Ozone layer. The Westerners and the Arabs now had a monster wakening to the East that make their petty squabbles about Haram and Halal seem like nothing more than flea bites.

The next thing I know is that I'm waking up and everything seems out of kilter. It only took a minute to realize that I was in a cute adult sized crib. After laying there for a while, I struggled to my feet, hanging onto the side of the crib,

"What the hell's going on here?" I bellowed.

Oops, that was no bellow, it was the sexiest little simper that I'd ever heard, and it was coming out of my little mouth. With that, I plunked my soft little butt back down and sat there completely nonplused. It was then that I noticed a mirror wall across from me, and looking in it was like a scene from the most frightening horror flick I’d like ever seen. It took a while to realise that the woman in the mirror was actually me, because she did everything that I did. She was like totally hot! It was all a bit much and I did cry some, but my emotions seemed somewhat damped. Obviously someone had tampered with me. Well, Duh!

Geez, I was just resetting the power … guess I didn't make it.

My head began to swim and I thought I was going to, you know … trip out … shut down … pop my cork, or pass out. I lay back on the soft bed and looked through the bars. Did I get that drunk and not remember it? I let time pass as I just drifted along for a while.

Later, I could hear someone in the next room, and then they came through the door. The first thing I saw was the fat, ugly perve's lips accompanied by the most insane leer on his face that I had ever seen on anyone in my life, and it was attached to a skinny, wild eyed, kinky haired yellow man who looked very, very demented! I knew that if something didn't happen right away, then the guy was going to boink me, or worse, until my eyes were crossed. Boink me! What happened? I knew that a few minutes ago I was setting a switch on a 60 Kv. line. Something must have gone wrong! God, what an understatement that was!

As soon as he walked up to my um Crib, I began to look for a way to escape. I was wearing one of the sexiest little baby doll mini dresses that I had ever seen, and Mr. Lewd was about to unwrap me.

"Get the fuck away from me jackass", I screamed and then went for the other side of the bed and over the side.

I landed on my feet and damned near broke my ankle because of the club height heels I was wearing. He was around the bed in a flash and quickly grabbed both my wrists; with one hand. I flailed as hard as I could but he treated me like a weak little bunny rabbit.

"It is no use, my dear. I saw you go up in smoke when the primitive power flashed over, so I just grabbed your remains and built you over to my own personal specifications. I left your brain intact because 'frankly Charlotte, I don't give a damn' if you object. Oh, I slipped in a little conditioning so you would know how to use the um modifications that I gave you. I wanted a helpless little spit fire, and guess what, you’re it!"

His laugh was so frightening, I was almost petrified and I might as well have been because he was so much stronger than me. Not that it was saying much.

He kept on with the most frightening laugh that I had ever heard, and it felt like my heart would burst with the fear.
He told me about how he'd made my ears tiny and cute, my hair way past my butt so he could tie me up with it. He said he made my mouth the perfect size to accommodate his um "thing".

"OH, you’re saying I won't need tweezers dickless?"

Some people get really aggressive when frightened and I was going to try to rip his throat out with my bare teeth! My words seemed to piss him off. Gosh, maybe I shouldn't have said that?

“I’m gonna fix you so you are never disrespectful to me, your Master!”

“Hyeah, Masterbator!” I hissed with all the venom I could muster.”

He told me he'd made me very short so I would fit in his carry on, and gave me a round little butt that would readily take his equipment in either hole. He'd deliberately made my feet so I would love my heels, and made me weak and tiny enough so that I'd never be able to attack him or hardly even be able to open the door by turning the knob because I'd be so weak; it would take both hands!

He also made my cunny so that even walking aroused me. He said that way, I would be easy to get hot, and it would make my escape impossible because by the time I had run a little way, I would be popping orgasms like a string of firecrackers.

"You bastard, how could you do such a thing!" I raged at him.

No matter how pissed I was, my voice still sounded like a sexy come on. What the hell, did he make me merely a lewd robot?

“Yes, I am a bastard and proud of it!” Again, with that really frightening laugh, sigh.

The more he talked, the less I liked him and the more I vowed to find a way to off him with all due, and extreme prejudice!

I quickly guessed that we were in some sort of a big vehicle but I had no idea what so ever that we were flying in space. There were no windows and I could not feel any movement. He'd dragged me into his bedroom by this time, pushed my dress up and ripped my panties off. I was pinned under him and he was about to impale me without even a warm up or anything. Then he pinched my butt! God, the ass!

"Hey you, that hurts like hell!"

"It does?” he did not sound sorry at all. “ Well get over it sweetie!"

He was just getting ready and I was starting to warm up; feeling things I didn't want; shit I hated this, when suddenly there was a really solid and jarring thump that nearly knocked us both off the bed. He looked really pissed for a second and then got up and ran for a locker in the wall. He pulled out a rod looking thing and ran out of the room.

I laid there dazed for a moment, trying to get my mind back on more mundane things, but when I heard a loud and icky sounding zap, I dove for cover. I was hiding under the bed when two enormous police looking people walked into the room. The end of one of their rod thingies was smoking a little. The odor of burnt flesh was starting to waft into the bedroom. I say people, because they were bipeds, and looked pretty exotic, not insanely ugly like Mr. Pervert.

"Well, Ham, I wish you wouldn't have killed him. It would have been fun to watch him work out his days on a factory ship."

"I hated him so much Japheth that it just got the best of me, especially since I saw what he did to the girls in the school out on Rokold number twelve."

One of the plod bent over and looked right into my eyes where I was hiding under the bed. "OK, darlin, come on out of there. He chuckled like my dearly departed grandfather from Montana. He reached out his huge hand and I grasped it with both of mine. He had to use his other hand to grasp mine because I was not strong enough to hold on.

Still very frightened, I lashed out. "How did you know I was under there? Are you gonna abuse me too?"

"Geeze look at this Ham, the bastard made himself a little toy and she won't be able to live as an adult on her own world. Shit lets reanimate him and kill him a few more times!"

“The bastard wut dun this to ya is worm fodder now." Ham Said to me.

"I'd love to Jepeth, but we got that escaped burglar over on the Nicene arm, and besides we been out a long time and I'm gettin horny for my Jezebel."

I was still fuming and wanted to make sure the bastard that did this to me was completely dead. "Are you sure he's dead? Give me that thing, I want to make sure."

He let me have his rod, and I minced into the other room. When I got there, Mr. Pervert laid there on his back and had a neat hole in his chest and it was still smoking. Just to make sure, I pointed the rod thing at him and pushed the little button but nothing happened! Dammit, now I was really pissed. I walked up to him and started beating him over the head with the rod. Man that was so satisfying!

When one of the boys took the rod back from me, I was sitting on the floor, completely exhausted and weeping my heart out!

"Hey girl, I already told you that we done killed him good."

"I know, but I wanted to make sure. Do you see what he did to me?"

He helped me to my feet, and took me in his arms. Of course he had to kneel to match up with me, but it felt comforting to have his arms around me.

"I wish I could find one like her. Every time you come back to work, you wear that worn out smile of contentment. I can't wait til my divorce is final."

They both turned and looked me up and down like farmers at an auction. "OK, missy, where did he get you from?"

"Have you heard of Earth?” I asked. Geez, I'd only been conscious for about 20 minutes and I was still feeling like I just came out of the spin cycle.

"Well, with sentient civilizations, we try to use the local name in all our locator data, let's see what we can find?"

I sat there on the bed while one of the cops pecked away on a little clip board looking thing.

"Nope, that isn't any good. Hey Jepeth, look at the ships logs to see if you can find anything?"

"Well, while Jepeth is tracking where you came from, let me do some assessment and see what he did to you."

"I can tell you exactly what he did to me"

"You mean you can remember your past life?"

"You bet your ass I can. That guy was a creep and a pervert too."

We talked for a while about my past; what I used to do; and any Astronomical things I could remember I told him that I used to weigh about 250 lbs and now I'd guess about 90 lbs, if that. The creep said that my old body was badly damaged and he used my remains to build me. The creep had left my memories intact, because they didn't matter to him, but he told me that he'd slipped some conditioning in to make me a better toy.

"Well, dear, I can tell you that the very fact that we are talking means he slipped a language package into your brain, and the way that the criminal element does things, it is likely that you understand languages that are not legal for you to understand. He probably converted some of your intellect to language, and you probably do not have a strong will now."

"Oh yes I do, but he was so strong that he could force me!"

"Time for you to lie down and take a nap!” he said forcefully.

Much to my surprise, I moved to the head of the bed, crawled under the covers, and laid down in spite of the fact that I previously did not want to do it.

"Yep, he tampered with your brain alright"

"OK, you can get up, I was just testing."

With that, he took me down to the creep's scientific suite, and had me get in the diagnostic evaluator. It took about 20 minutes.

"Ok, missy, I can see what he did, but we can only fix some of it. You're not legal to travel to the other civilizations. You'd hear too much and it would cause trouble if you told anyone. So, I can place you in a nice little place on my home planet, and you can spend your life as a pet, or I can take you back to your home, and let you feed us information." He said.

Continuing, he elaborated, "We can set you up in a comfortable situation, and you can monitor things; be our informant. We can fix parts of your brain; your will power can be increased. But, some things will have to stay the way they are."

Just about that time, Japheth walked in. "From what she's saying, I am guessing that he was over in the Browel cluster, or at least passed through there. There are quite a few low development potential areas there. Maybe one or more of them actually have some intelligent life."

They worked for a while and then we spent what seemed to be a couple days driving over there. It was amazing. There didn't seem to be any huge gathering of force to drive us. When we began to move, Ham was good enough to let me watch. I thought it was a window, but he told me that what I saw was just a very good graphical representation. He said that I could come back and look anytime I wished, and none of the controls were keyed to me so I couldn't hurt anything.

We did find that I could run the food processors, and that I knew how to make some pretty nice food, and serve it. Along the way, we came up with a name for me.

"I think we'll designate you Maptu".

"Hey, that really sucks for a name, I don't like it".

"Ok, my sassy little miss, think of your own or I am going to fix it in your little head and you'll be stuck with it".

He sounded grumpy and I didn't like it.

I sat there for a minute or two and one name came surfacing but I did not know if I liked it. "How about Anna?"

“Nope, you need 5 characters.”

"OK, then Hanna".

"Fine by me, but you'll be stuck with it, and not the lovely Maptu."

"You gotta be kidding buddy that is the most repugnant name I ever heard!"

"Hey, it was my Mom's name, so shut up or I am gonna beat your ass!"

I opened my mouth to retort, but suddenly I couldn't say a word.I stood there with my tiny fists clenched and looking menacingly at him.

"Go lay down, your pissing me off!" Now, he'd sent me to bed to boot!

A while later he came in to wake me up. "Do you think you can behave now?"

I sat up in bed and nodded. "OK, you can get up and talk now".

I was still very pissed, but I knew who the boss was.

"I'm sorry about your Mom's name; I didn't mean to offend you!"

"Ah, it's OK."

I could see that the look on his face belied his words. It was pretty easy to see that I had hurt is feelings. Was this huge ape falling for me? I had to think about that for a bit and then it occurred to me that maybe I was falling for him?"

"How about naming me Hanna Maptu?” I asked.

"It's OK, you have your own desires, and I should not interfere."

"Hey, I need at least two names, and most people on earth have three. In fact some of the Arab people have a good half dozen of them." I didn't know that, but I wanted to make him feel good.

He turned around to look at me good and hard for a minute. "OK, you asked for it. You are Hanna Maptu."

I felt this little shiver run down my spine and suddenly, I knew for sure that my name was Hanna Maptu.

"Um, did you just do something to me?"

"Yes, I did. All creatures my race associates with have this tiny segment of their brain where identity is kept. We do not consider beings without this part to be sentient. It is encrypted and the only one who can change it is a guy like me. I have the keys to that place in the brain, and I just inserted your ID in there."

"Thank you", I said. I also felt an attraction to him. "Did you make me attracted to you?"

"No, you were already that way, I just did reduce it somewhat. I didn't know it was there but could have seen it if I looked. I was not expecting it. Do you object?"

"No" but can we fix it so that you can't shut me up and put me to bed? I am not a child you know."

"What makes you think that?" He swung around and looked at me with a predatory smile.

"I am NOT!"

I said as petulantly as I could. The next thing I know is that I am laying across his legs and he is spanking me softly as I wiggle and squeal, at first in fright, and then with glee!"

"Will you behave now?" He said to me.

We both knew it was a game as I giggled hysterically.

He stood me on my feet and for a moment our gazes locked.

"GAH! It would be so easy to violate my vows with you!" He said, sounding half angry. "Come with me, we need to make you less of a problem to me and more safe for yourself."

We quickly walked down to a room with a bed that was covered with an enclosure.

Sliding back a door, he said, "Get in there and lay down."

The bed was very soft and I literally sank into it. In the warmth and soft light I quickly drifted into deep slumber. Later, I don't know how long, I wakened slowly, feeling so refreshed.

He opened the door and began to talk to me as he helped me out of the enclosure.

"OK, you will no longer be under control to anyone less than a level 11 and only the most trusted are that level. For some reason, your captor increased your intellect, and gave you a great deal of knowledge, so much so that you are technically illegal. That and your language capability make you very dangerous. Japheth has isolated the area where he thinks you were taken from. He has been listening to your primitive signals and would like you to come into the monitoring room and see if he is correct?"

It took us the better part of the afternoon, but out of six solar systems emitting radio signals, we finally found good old Earth. I was sobered to know that our neighborhood was well populated with sentient beings with the closest being about 12 light years from us.

"Well, on Earth, we don't have really viable space travel, and unless something unexpected happens, we won't for the foreseeable future." I said. Come on let me get you some dinner.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Yes", Japheth said, "Your race ain't ready to get out of the stroller yet.

When you start watching the planet, you will be the law there. Anything you see let me and Ham know and we'll come straighten it out, if you can't handle it."

Several days later, we'd been floating in the vicinity of the Earth for a while, just listening and watching.
Ham, Japheth and I were having a conversation.

Ham said to me, "Hanna, we are going to leave you this little ship, and some really advanced monitoring equipment. With what we are seeing now, it should be no problem to get you a nice little place in the country with a big barn to park the ship in for a while. We are going to teach you how to get the funds you need from the criminals and then you are going to begin turning your world around. As is the case with most worlds at your stage of advancement, dishonesty, greed and other malice need to be dealt with."

Japheth said, "Most of the economics, science and strategies you already know. Mr. Pervert, as you call him went to a great deal of trouble making you really smart. Maybe he just wanted a very good personal assistant. He also made you undeniably attractive; men will be like putty in your hands, but the down side is that you will be pretty vulnerable to them. We fixed as much of that as we can. After we eat, I am going to make you a little taller and stronger, so you can live as an adult in your society."

I said, "I don't know how to handle it all. Maybe you should get someone else to do this for you."

Japheth said to me, "Darlin' Yawl jes gonna have ta pull up yer boots and tighten yer britches, an I knows ye all kin do it." He had this goofy grin on his face and I was giggling so hard that I was afraid I'd wet myself.

"How do you expect me to learn anything if you do that to me, mister?" At that point I just wanted to get in bed with him, but he would not allow it. He'd told me that his divorce was not final for another 2 years and until the vow issues were resolved, he could not take another lover.

I'd shown them the house I used to live in, I owned it, but since I was officially dead, it was sitting vacant. By now, we'd figured out that I had been gone a little over 11 months. Ham and Japheth had picked me up about 6 weeks ago, in the next galaxy, Andromeda.

During the time since, I'd learned as much as I could about finance, business, politics and astrophysics, plantetology and um good cooking. A lot of it was simply put into my head with their machine. Much of that was owing to the programing methods of Mr. Pervert. I was still trying to wrap my mind around the idea that our own galaxy was 100,000 light years across, and these guys were telling me that they made contact with us in what humans call the Andromeda Galaxy. They told me how far it was but I just couldn't comprehend it. Finally they resorted to just saying things were so many days or weeks away.

Ham was in his cowboy mode again.

"Lookit here Dahlin', this speed o light thing you are so taken with, don't mean nuthin ta us." The way we travel, don't use no energy 'tall".

"Whatever, but if you let my Dinner get cold because you are talking, I am not going to like it at all buster!"

Ham just gave me his idiot grin and dug in. For the life of me, I could not understand how two beings who were so advanced could act like 19th Century Cowboys! Well, actually they were acting like 20th century Hollywood cowboys.

Even their civilization still did not know how big the Universe was, but they did figure that it was many times bigger than what we humans thought. That was a huge problem, so finally the most advanced civilizations just started sending guys like Ham and Japheth out to keep order. Ham hadn't been home in 30 years and Japheth hadn't been there in 3 1/2. They sent probes home once in a while, and they'd catch a dispatch probe when they were lucky.

The boys, Ham and Japheth, were built to a certain genetic standard to be law givers in the Universe. They were less police than teachers. They had virtual carte blanche to do whatever it took to help a primitive planet advance. They were basically going to set me up as a sort of demigoddess.

They said that they were leaving in a few days to go check out the other populated Systems in the area, and they planned to be gone about a month, give or take. I was feeling a little bitchy because I wanted my old house back, and I was having some PMS. Geeze, what a pain woman’s problems are? Maybe they were leaving because I was biting everyone's heads off. The trigger seemed to be last night when I was frustrated and angry and started losing it. They’d have never known but the doors on the cupboards were making satisfying bangs when I slammed them, and some of the pots were small enough to throw; making satisfying noises when they crashed into breakable things. Later, I was sitting on the floor of the kitchen sobbing, and trying to pick up some of the things I'd broken.

"Well, ya'll feel better now?" Ham asked.

It was then that I realised that I was just blowin off some excess estrogen. I giggled and sat there with a red face. "Yes, I do, it was most satisfying."

"Good"

The boys had found me a nice ranch up in the hills of Montana not that far from Butte, Montana, and "Our Lady of The Rockies". They'd nestled the ship in a ravine near the house and did some creative artistry to make it look like it belonged there. They also put some gadgets near it that made people not want to go there or look at it. They'd bored a quick tunnel between the house and the ship to make it easy for me to get back and forth. The walls of the tunnel were glassy and smooth. Somehow, they made them glow in rainbow colors. It was so pretty that I almost wanted to live in the tunnel rather than the house. The phone and cable lines to the house quickly proved inadequate, so the ship inspired the local company to run 5 new optical lines there.
I was watching what the ship was doing and found out, that I was now a work at home stock trader. The ship and I talked back and forth so much and it seemed so agreeable and intelligent that I decided to name her Prudence. I had her go out and buy me a car suitable for Montana, and she had a Hummer looking thing delivered.

"Prudence, this is not a girl's car."

I complained but she assured me that the additional equipment required a car that size. I didn't even get in it for a few days, until I decided I wanted to go shopping in Butte, but they didn’t even have a Target, so I drove on down to Bozeman. Before I could go, I had Prue get me some suitable Montana woman's clothes and the UPS guy shows up with boots, jeans and a pretty top. For some reason, I did not like pants, but did not know why.

Well, I got in the car, and at first I knew that I would not be able to drive it but as I piteously complained to Prue, she moved things around until I could reach the pedals, could see, and it felt good. She wouldn't let me go until she talked to me about what the car could do. It could not get stuck in the snow, and could defend its self. It could take me anywhere in the world very fast, like in seconds.

As I went through town and decided that the place should be named Butt. It was ugly, dirty, smelly and just yukky. There was still a K Mart there but I wanted Macy’s or even Target. The drive down to Bozeman was pretty flat and relaxing.

I picked up a few things only to have Prudence tell me what was better and where I could get it. After a while Prudence's mothering began to get oppressive. Finally, rather than have words with her, I simply gave up and let her take me home with a boot load of meagre treasures. One item included a denim mini skirt; something that Prue really tried to talk me out of buying.

When we got there, several things were on my desk, needing immediate attention. It looked like India and Pakistan were about to be at loggerheads. Another report said that China was very intent on dominating world markets. Saudi Arabia was very concerned about its dropping income from oil and was being forced to charge fair prices. I gave Prue permission to hire some very svelte looking bad boys to tamper with the politics in the Far East. They were to find the crooks and warn them, and later kill them if required.

I hired an Engineering group to convince Saudi Arabia that it needed to educate everyone there fairly, including the Shia and women. I decided that if pushed, I'd introduce genetics in Saudi Arabia to make the rich too dumb to run things, make the radical mullahs incapable of memorization, and among other things get women driver's licenses! I even sent several probes over there to reprogram the Mutaween (religious police). There would be no more stoning or hangings. Along the way, we figured out that the men were such bad drivers that the women were not safe driving there, so I had to back down a little on that.

Oh, there was so much manipulation to do all over the world, what’s a girl to do?

I decided not to fix global warming right away. It gave them something to focus on.

Things went pretty smoothly for a couple more weeks. The boys should be back soon, I hoped. It was in the days before the boys came back that I began to sense someone was fighting back at me, but I couldn't figure out whom. As Prudence analyzed money and communication flows, a pattern began to emerge. It seemed as if there were seven power centers. Immediately, I thought of the old tales of seven families that ruled the world with satanic power. At first I just laughed.

Then Prudence's technology, as powerful as it was, began to develop blind spots. I even contemplated sending armed troops into one power center to see what we could find. One by one, the satellites that over flew those areas began to malfunction as they passed over where I felt the power centers were, only to resume normal operation when out of range. It was getting to be far too much for me when I noticed that the boys had returned.

Ham acted like a hound on a scent. Japheth took me into the diagnostics room and had me get in the chamber. He didn't say half dozen words to me. I was very worried, but fell right to sleep. Later, I woke up feeling like I had been drinking all night. Right away, I noticed that I could not hear Prudence. Ham and Japheth were both there and looked concerned.

"Hanna, we have some bad news for you. We have had to shut down 'Prudence' as you named her and we don't know when or if we can restart her."

I had come to depend on her so much, "What am I going to do without her?" I was confused. Tears were streaming down my face. I was grieving for her.

"Oh, we'll work this out little lady" Ham said in his best cowboy imitation.

As they explained it to me, some really bad people had managed to escape the law thousands of years ago and came out to our neighborhood to set themselves up. It looked as if there were about 50 power centers in the half dozen solar systems in our galactic area. The boys didn't figure that out until they got their ship well away from mine. The whole thing seemed really undefined and complicated.

We moved into the Kitchen and I began to fix them Dinner of Roast Beef, Mashed Potatoes and Asparagus. Both the boys insisted that my cooking was better than the processor; well Duh!

They explained to me that once they were a light year or so away from Earth, signal levels indicated strong traffic between the local systems, and upon eaves dropping on those messages, they figured out that the locals were aware of my presence. It took the bad guys a while to decide, but they had taken over Prue, and were going to destroy me and her.

Apparently my ship and I were originally set up to monitor the known government of the universe, meaning Ham, Japheth and everyone like them. The criminals that had come here were trying to set up a system of power that could challenge the legal government of the center of the Universe. Mr. Pervert had apparently been on his way to drop me off near civilization for me to begin reporting. My ship was the transmitter and I was the eavesdropping device they told me.

"Um, boys, if he was taking me somewhere, who was picking him up?

“We don’t know yet, but we suspicion that you were made in Earth orbit and that means they could have, and probably do have more ships in this and the other solar systems. We’ve gone to 6th dimensional stealth and we do not think they will be able to detect us.”

In a few minutes, after dinner, they decided to fly Prue, the ship that is, up to their ship and put her in the hold of their vessel. They seemed sort of tense for a few minutes because they explained to me that the primary controls in Prue were shut down and they were flying her manually. It took some doing but they finally got poor Prue situated.

“Do you think that you can fix her?” I asked.

“Hanna, it depends on what they did to create the Artificial Intelligence. Prudence was one of the more sophisticated ones we’ve seen out this far. We don’t even bother putting them in a box and where I am from. They are mostly mobile, though our laws prevent us from putting them in something that imitates life.”

“I am going to miss her.”

“I will see what I can do to repair her.”

As they flew Prue out to their ship, I got to see for the first time that my little ship was about the size of two ranch houses at home, and pretty boxy. As I looked out one of very few real view ports in a little bubble, I could see that their ship was about the size of a shopping center back home. It was not streamlined or anything either, just an ovoid sphere. Geeze, that was really unglamorous. I thought the ships would be pretty and streamlined, but nope they weren’t.

In a few hours we were sitting out beyond the Oort cloud. As we made the trip, they explained to me that both the Kuiper belt and the Oort cloud were part of a system that fed water and other elements to the inner planets of our solar system. I was like totally flabbergasted to find that Earth got lots of ice meteors every day; some of them as big as 40 tons.
As soon as we got situated out there, the boys started programing a probe that would make the run back to the home galaxies. Along the way, it would send out queries for any available patrol to rendezvous with us to give aid. Ordinarily they wouldn’t but this was a treasonous act that they’d uncovered and those were treated very seriously.

“Will there be war?” I asked cautiously.

“I am afraid so Hanna. First, scouts will assess who is here and how many there are. For this solar system, I am going to recommend that we sterilize the planet you call Mars first, and set up terraforming equipment and atmospheric sheilding. In less than one of your Earth years, there can be arable soil, free water, and air suitable for humans to breathe there. Then, when the fleet arrives, the sterilization process on Earth will begin. Every living human on earth will be removed, checked for improper DNA and placed on Mars. Every effort to keep family units together will be made."

“In the process, any interlopers will be dealt with, and either neutralized, sent to a suitable confinement area, or vaporized. They have been in this system a long time and may account for the reason that your area was given such a low score on previous probe missions. We think that they genetically modified humans so they could blend in.”

“You know, in our mythology, there are daemons and the satan. They are said to live underground in a place called hell.” I said.

“Well, that’s a wrinkle I had not heard of.” Japheth said.

“We’ll have to get that in the dispatches we send to the rear.” Shem said.

We talked about it for a while and given that new idea the boys pretty quickly began to gather data that supported what I said. Geeze, I had only thought a little, I had no idea. Maybe it was information that Mr. Pervert had put in me?

The next morning when I got up, I could hear the boys talking in their control room. Yep, I was still sleeping in that crib but the boys had been nice enough to remove the sides from it. I walked in there to see what was going on and they ignored me for a while.
Information was beginning to return from the Galactic Center, and the rulers were hopping mad. In a short few days they were told to expect a full Action Force, which would be around a hundred Task Forces. A task force was a planet class ship accompanied by 25 or so smaller vessels. My goodness, according to them, it was like sending a Tank to shoot a rabbit.

“Man Japheth, I thought it was gonna take a year to get them out here?”

“Well Hanna, I don’t know why they are moving so fast, but I can already see the distortion in the view back toward what you’d call our home. Here look back this way.” He explained that even though light only moved at "light speed", the 19th demensional waves that preceeded the Task Force, arrived almost instantaniously, though the task force would not.

We’d moved over to the bubble and he was pointing out what looked like a distortion in the glass. I could see it and it seemed to be moving and pulsating, though I doubted that it could be possible this soon. We would be informed later that this area was now thought to be the source of criminal activity along this section of the Universe.

“I’m really confused Japheth, not too long ago, I was a lineman, and on the weekends I’d take my truck out mudding. Now here I am in space and you’re talking about Galaxies and Universes and I don’t even know much about what they are.” I said.

“Ok, Hanna I see this is one area in which you were not programed. Where you are from, is one of a half dozen solar systems we located in the Perseus arm of your local Galaxy that you humans have chosen to call The Milky Way. Your Galaxy is about 200,000 light years across, and that is medium as Galaxies go. The Galaxy closest to your Milky Way is Andromeda and it is larger than the Milky Way. If you traveled to my home galaxy, you’d pass so many other galaxies that you couldn’t even begin to count them.” he said.

He displayed a diagram that showed the Milky Way and some of the surrounding galaxies. It made sense, but in no time at all I was thinking about what to fix for dinner.

“I’m not even going to try to explain how we travel. Even our finest scientists seem able to explain. There is a Guild and that is what they do. They build our ships. The one you are in has six propulsion units, one of which has failed. It is highly unlikely that another will fail within the life of this ship.” Japheth said.

“Ok, I get it, but I just don’t feel very curious about space or travel.”

“Well maybe he deliberately tuned that out of you to make room for other interests.”

“So now you are saying that he made even more changes than I even know about?”

“What about your mudding truck? Do you remember what you called it?”

It was then that the full impact of what was and was not in my memory anymore began to really sink in. It was almost good that I didn’t remember much about my lost family. Oh, I knew about them, but the pain was gone. Some of what the pervert had done really did have a soft side. I sighed as I thought about it and then went on to other things.
A few days later, as I was sitting in the observation window and ovoid spherical looking objects; some of them huge began to appear around us. There were hundreds of them, though Japheth told me that one of them could have done the job. The rulers were going to make sure that this was taken care of with no mix ups.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I watched as Earth began to recede in the view screen. It had actually taken several months to clean up the mess the outlaws had created. I was even allowed to return to my home town, and to move into my old house. Gosh, what a slob I’d been. I could no longer stand a mess and what was I thinking with those colors in my old bedroom and the kitchen? It just made me sick. I didn’t have to work, and since I knew so much, I even tried a stint tutoring at the local college. The college boys were drooling all the time and the young women were peevish because of my looks, but when their test scores began to soar, that evaporated pretty fast.

But there was still an underlying sadness to my life. Something was missing. The boys were off somewhere and all but a dozen of the big ships had gone on to other things. They were still finding genetically altered people, and once in a while they’d run into a really bad one. Their scanners had found pockets of them deep in the earth, proving the existence of sheol or at least their version of it. They found a pocket of them in the moon, and had begun scanning every moon and planet in this system. It would take a while but they were going to scan the sun too, though I could never figure out how anything could live in there.

As it turned out, nothing could live in the Sun, but they did have a transponder unit hovering near the surface, that would allow them 11th dimensional level transportation. The investigation of their intent and the existence of other units was continuing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was Japheth. Earth and the rest of my solar system had nearly disappeared against the background of surrounding stars.

“Hey lil girl, ya all feel like fixin me some dinner?”

“Why kind suh, ah jest think ah kin do jest that … “ I’d started giggling and then he started to tickle me along the side of my neck.

“Stop that Japheth!” I shrieked, but still giggling.

I ran off down the passage toward the kitchen, him in hot pursuit. Well, not actually. I knew that he could easily out distance me, but it was fun with a big handsome man who would soon be my husband on my heels. Yes, it had been seventeen months since we’d met. In 149 days and 7 hours we would marry. We were headed off a little further down the Perseus arm. Who knows what we would find? A little chill went up my spine as I wondered what our babies would look like.
The end?