Return to Sender
by Jennifer Christine
Part 9

“Hi Molly,” I stepped off the plate and walked straight to the dining mess. The furniture had been updated to some soft leather sofas and a beautiful claw and ball Victorian mahogany table with six chairs. The furniture shop I bought it from must have been quite puzzled when they came in one morning and the table was gone but the correct purchase price was attached to the dispatch clerk’s desk along with a thank you note.

When I was here I could offload all my worries, it was my own secret hideaway. With my own secret confidante.

I stepped up to the food dispenser and it opened without my even thinking to reveal a bowl of vanilla ice cream and mango ice.

“Thanks Molly” I smiled at the closest CC camera, “You know what I like.”

“I certainly do, Ollie.”

“Tell me, if I think at my babies, can I train them before they are born?”

“Not really, they have no frame of reference, but they’ll be very bright when they arrive and will pick things up incredibly quickly.”

“Is that a good thing though, I’m not sure I want them levitating their bottles when we’re out shopping.” I dreaded it more like.

“Then tell them not to, they’ll understand a lot quicker that they’re unique if you spend some time laying out their situation.”

“Won’t they be babies and do things for the hell of it?”

“They’ll be up here fairly soon and I’ll tell them then.
I can sense them listening to us mentally, it’s a good sign.
Have you decided their names yet?”

“I was going to go with Athena and Hermes, but I think it’s a bit pretentious. Ruth and Paul seem fair enough and they can’t be shortened,. They have historical significance and are names that can be revered in future societies”

“Ruth and Paul it is.” Molly was happy to accede, the names were placed at the top of the list in the new database. The database covered the names, heredity, talents, skills. Education.

In a few thousand years they would be important documents. They would prevent close relationships and allow for diversification.

“Show me the moon surface, Molly. I want to feel awed by it all. Sitting here I might as well be in St Pancras Station in London Underground.”

“Do they have such leather sofas in a station there?” Molly feigned ignorance.

“No, but they don’t have windows either.” Helen smiled.

The moon was new, so the surface was lit only by the reflection from the Earth.
It was dark and gloomy on the screens, the shadows non existent, piles of cocaine sat close by, and some car parts.

“Molly, could you beam that junk into space as dispersed molecules, they don’t look good there. I don’t want this area to look like a junkyard nor be scanned by a passing lunar orbiter and become a source of conjecture. At least bury the stuff.”
As she watched, the car parts disintegrated and became just particles of whatever it was — mostly plastic. The white mounds of powder which amounted to a few tonnes, seem to disappear but were in fact pushed downwards into the surface and dust seeped over them.”

“Have we made any impression on illicit drugs yet?”

“No, but the price is rising and the cartels are getting anxious — they don’t know who is taking it and are worried about it getting on the market all at once. Other crimes are taking their place, but not so much outside the countries of origin.”

“When you see an opening, please feel free to release captives and slaves from these people and maybe detox the call girls who have been hooked by it.
Start in the ghettoes of south America and spread it out — I want to hear of the dealers and pushers in the slums being emasculated and shot. Disappear a few of the middle managers. Put some fear into them.”

I went to bed and Molly set about freeing some slaves and giving them back their lives.
When I awoke and had done my toilet I asked what Molly had been up to overnight.

“I opened up the Baria in Rio De Janeiro. There’s been wholesale slaughter of the drug cartel underlings by freed slaves.”

“How much risk was there in freeing them?”

“None at all, I just altered the composition of the manacles in one or two key places and damaged a few locks. Ten people in all and the rest was self initiating.”

“They were ready for it then. They must have sensed a change.”

“They did after I told them.” Molly seemed to smile.

“You didn’t do the voice of God did you? Molly, tell me you didn’t — oh dear.”

“No, I just whispered, ‘it is time’ to each of them and loosened their manacles.”

“That’s just as bad. Molly please don’t do that, it’s going to be years before I can derig the God thing.”

“Why would you want to?” Molly couldn’t see the objection.

“I’ll be burnt at the stake as a heretic if you do that, they have a jealous God — it is their conscience. — and the Pope will wind em up like evangelists.”

“Oh ok, —won’t happen again, I’ll tell them ‘Helen says it is time’, that will work. Molly lapsed into silence.

“I think you might have to leave the situation to me. I’ll let you work out the logistics and I’ll do the word of God thing. In a few years. I’ve still got a few children to raise in the meantime.”

I walked back to the plate and Molly sent me home.

I didn’t use Alberto’s for my observation post now; I decided to sit in the airport for a few days and see what came and went.
Over a period of several days, I tagged 40 drug runners whose drugs turned to milk powder — mostly mules and three of their herders, who I tagged for Molly to remove. Several returning sex offenders that found themselves neutered — well they will…. And a few wife beaters. Tagged for minor adjustment — read hormone therapy to reduce their testosterone levels.

I wasn’t in the hub of the airport — it would be too conspicuous, it already seemed I was being watched as the CCTV cameras paused on me once or twice.

Once I was approached by a security guard and asked what I was doing there, I showed them my student pass and told them I was taking psychology and was observing how people reacted to unusual situations — most people were not regular travelers and were unfamiliar with airport protocols. He went away after talking on his walkie talkie.

I decided discretion being the better part of valour to change my venue.

One thing that did happen was the Sunday newspapers reported a drop in trafficking offences and a drop in burglaries. That gave me cause to ponder.

I decided to check out the highest drug related crime areas and the highest burglary areas — they were the same. Usually slightly depressed areas with a youngish population.
I staked out the high street in several suburbs and every time I came across a drug addict (when you looked at that first layer, it was easy to spot — like a neon sign!) And alerted Molly who beamed all the drugs out of their systems — quite a few keeled over (I alerted the ambulance then), but not a few suddenly looked like they’d been slugged and sat down and wept like they’d been given a reprieve. The crime rate went down to the lowest recorded for several years.
I felt I was making a difference.

I have to admit at this point to a mysterious problem that got into the speed cameras in the area too — someone wiped all the data. Then when they kept fixing the cameras, Molly stole them. It’s easy to remove the contents when you don’t have to open the box.
They started fitting secret cameras to take photos of the cameras to see who was doing it. Those went too. Eventually they just pretended to have the cameras, they couldn’t replace them fast enough. The press didn’t get hold of it for a while but eventually they did and I had to cease operations. The cameras worked just by being there — if they were known not to — then what’s thepoint?

My term was nearly up so I told my concierge I was going on holiday to Switzerland to have my babies where the air was a bit cleaner (it’s not true but the concierge didn’t need to know my whereabouts). I left a contact number but no address. The area code for the moon? Not telling.

Molly beamed me up and gave me a checkup, “Three days and you’re ready to pop.”

“I’m already ready to pop — these twins are huge. They’re also calling out. I get a spike every few hours. I just tell them, not yet and they go back to sleep. They’re going to be good babies aren’t they?” I truly hoped so, a year or so ago I’d have been a bit surprised to know I was going to be the mummy, not the archeologist.

While I was up here I started a plan to rid the world of crime cartels. I asked Molly to search all the internet and pinpoint major links and any peripheral ones that the police were involved with.

American police seem to be quite open to a back hander but were generally ok — the Asian police particularly in places with high penalties for drugs seemed to be the most corrupt. I think they should be first to find out what the problem was with drug running.

“Molly, keep an eye on Singapore, Malaya, Indonesia and Thailand. I want any drugs there to be neutralized or removed or used to mess up the dealers. The Burmese golden triangle I want shut down completely. Delete the top and middle — rehabilitate the bottom if you can — I’ll do what I can later if I am needed to.

“Over how long a period, this involves nearly the whole chain of command”

“Well that’ll give Aung Sang Su Chi a chance to get her country going properly again.

“While you’re at it, can you knock off Kim Jong Il he’s pretty close to karking it isn’t he?”

“Very, he’s been dead for a fortnight, they don’t dare tell anyone!”

“I reckon you should leak it then.”

“Right Helen — big sweep while you’re up here for a week or two?”

“Sounds good, I can keep a good eye open from up here.”

“Alert, a Chinese Orbiter just passed over us. I jammed the signal as it was doing a photo run.

“Good job we hid the BMW parts then! They would be up here trying to mine them next week.”

“How visible are we?”

“Well covered, but if they do a magnetograph they’ll get an anomaly. I am going to dump it.”

“I think just change the data if there’s bad stuff there. It’s too suspicious if we just zap it. When does it relay any information?”

“It’s doing it continuously about 5 minute lag.”

“Trip the connection and down the satellite on the dark side.”

“Will do. Now where were we? Ah yes, debugging the drug system.”

“Leave it for now, I’m feeling a bit uncomfortable and my back is sore — and I’m hungry and I need a pee.”

“I’m glad I can’t gestate, it seems very inefficient.”

“You’d die from lube oil loss, the sharp corners would tear you to ribbons….” I giggled and settled down to watch a movie. There is nothing better than watching a good old fashioned BBC drama. I chose the Pride and Prejudice TV series and was soon nodding off to D’Arcy being very ungentlemanlike..

“Helen, I think you need to see this.”

I blinked my eyes as I came round and the lights which Molly had dimmed resumed their daylight setting. “What’s the problem?”

“The Junta in Burma are trying to suppress the uprising that started after the Golden Triangle Triad accused the Junta of killing the drug lords and stealing the proceeds.”

I sat there for a minute, “Are you telling me there’s an army left in there who can still control anything? I’m surprised.”

“Well I’ve got three alternatives, stop the Junta stop the people or declare you the new head of state.”

“Kill all the ammunition, and put some knockout drops into the water. It’ll allow the tempers to subside. You could also knockout gas the main squares wherever there’s a demo going on. Make sure you get both sides. Then there’s no blame.

“Some of the adjoining powers are warming up to Amber Alert.” Molly sounded a bit tense.

“Any Nuclear stuff?”

“Some, North Korea is a bit jumpy for some reason, probably because of the drugs going walkabout.”

“Can you disable the missiles so they won’t take off?” Just maybe melt down inside the bunkers?”

“I could beam up the warheads or the contents.” Molly advanced an idea.

“No, there’d be blame resting there, if the missiles never leave the ground, the situation can’t be escalated.” I dismissed the strategy. “If a missile leaves the ground, there’d be Japanese and USA and Korea all going to DefCon1. If all that happens is a silo full of smoke and no missile they’ll just be a laughing stock. Make sure that Allied missiles are not able to go to red alert”

I watched the news with some pain — hand to hand fighting had broken out in Burma. Order was restored when Aung Sang Su Chi declared that the country was now under her control.

The army was stood down and police along with a volunteer each were patrolling the streets to stop looters. Secret police had been arrested and political prisoners had been freed.
The Worlds media were in a frenzy. Word had got out that no weapons were usable in Burma. They just didn’t work.

Kim Jong Il’s demise was made public just as I went into labour.

I lost interest about that point. Though it was fun to put the cat among the pigeons and a lot of countries were starting to pray as if it was the ‘End of Days’. Not what I was after, but quite an effective dampener. At least until I was back in the swing of things.
Molly had me lie on a gurney in the medical bay and a couple of medibots hovered over me. I felt very lonely. When all was ready and I felt almost panicky due to no one being here for my birthing, Molly pulled the plug and delivered my babies by local transporter beam. She had put me out just before she started and woken me up a few minutes later.

“All done, no complications. Not that I expected any of course.” Molly sounded a bit chipper.

I was aware of two mental spikes that squeaked at me from the incubator next to me.

“Don’t try to get up yet Helen, there’s a bit of work still to do on you.” Molly tempered my enthusiasm. “Your waters haven’t even broken yet and you’ve got two placentas to get rid of”. I looked down and my tummy was still distended —

“Don’t tell me there’s more in there?”

“Of course not, but the womb lining and stuff take up a lot of space too.” I did feel lighter, which was good, I’d just got rid of 15 lbs of babies.

“My babies need me,” I leaned towards them as they lay next to me in the incubator, they were quiet and taking in all the surroundings. Like wizened little old men. Totally naked but wise as ancient Gods. “Oh, they seem to be quite content.”

I could feel the mini-transporter taking away my now unneeded paraphernalia and the feeling was like having my temples massaged — it was beautiful and very relaxing.

“All done, you may gently see to your babies now Helen, congratulations,” Molly sounded very sincere.

“Thank you Molly for making it such a nice experience. I’m sure my children will enjoy having their children at this wonderful hospital.”

I gently sat up and felt really good, “Wow, that’s a wonderful way to have babies.” I suddenly burst into tears. Whoa! Emotional time I guess. Having your babies alone on a dead moon was pretty wicked.

I looked into the eyes of my babies, *Hello little ones* I caressed them with my mind and they gurgled as I opened the cover, wrapped them and picked them up. The spikes of alarm and unfamiliarity they were giving off subsided quickly and they regarded me with big round eyes. *I’m your mummy* I sent them love and warmth and they returned it.

The bot that had sat at the side of the bed suddenly whirred to life and offered me two bottles from a tray that appeared out of its side. “This solution contains the antibodies normally found in the initial breast milk, your own milk will come in in the next few hours, suckling will help it to drop.” The bot advised in a toneless Hawking way.

I offered the bottles to the babies and they settled quickly sucking away — then falling asleep.

“They’ll need changing in the next hour.” Molly advised. “Put them back in the cot when you’re tired of holding them, and it will be done automatically.”

“You think of everything,” I placed the babies back in their secure environment and slipped into an exhausted sleep — I’ve no idea how normal women manage to do this without help like I had.