What was Earth like when Willem Wallace was deposed? What happened in between the times of contacts with the N21 Station?
Part one is simultaneous with sections of N21.
Author’s note:
This story takes place in the time of the N21 station, but on Earth at the end of “Caesar’s” reign up until Freeman’s Death? I would recommend that you read N21 first.
Willem Wallace sat, looking over his domain. Not that he could see much, but he ‘owned’ the earth. When he came to power, or rather arranged his own rise to power, he wasn’t sure where he wanted his base of operations to be. London, Paris, Jakarta… He didn’t know. He wanted it to be perfect. He wanted the people to be compliant; willing to be led by someone with his special qualifications. To that end, he had a palace built in Death Valley of southern California, in the United States. He had considered the Sahara Desert, but he didn’t want his domain to be full of sand. Granted, he could program some nanites to make people willing slaves who continually cleaned his palace. By the time he was done, they would love being his personal slaves, but there would still be the sand. Going outside would continually be dirty with sand everywhere.
By contrast, Death Valley had rugged beauty, which he rather fancied. Historically, it had been a national park for thousands of years, which meant it was devoid of things in his way. Certainly, he could have things removed. Cities could simply be demolished to make way for him. The population could be converted to slaves. He didn’t mind, but this way, he would have more people to adore him. He really wanted that; constant adoration.
To build his domicile, he needed slaves however. He was firmly in power now, so he could safely abduct towns and make it look as though they came willingly. He programmed his nanites in a few small towns around the world to make the entire populations ask to be made his unquestioning, completely loyal servants.
The people arrived, and he put many to work building his home. Others became his personal slaves. Many young boys… Well he fancied them, so they were made to look exactly like young women, but they still had their male equipment where it mattered to him.
Those who became workmen were made large brutes. Their intelligence was cut back; they didn’t need it. Those who were going to serve in his house were made beautiful. Many people were going to be guards. They were made powerful. And the wonderful thing was that they were all completely obedient.
Wallace was a reader of ancient books, and had, in his younger years, come across an anthology of writings by a man known as Isaac Asimov, called I, Robot. It was fascinating, and he especially loved the three laws of robotics that the writer had envisioned. He used these laws for his slaves. They were ingrained into their minds, with one small change. They would not, through action or inaction, injure Willem Wallace. They would obey Willem Wallace, as long as it wouldn’t interfere with law one. They would protect their own life, as long as it didn’t interfere with law one or law two.
They became the perfect ‘robots’. The rest of humanity was left alone. Their nanites were designed only to keep them healthy. That would allow them to give him absolute voluntary adoration.
Over the years the palace was expanded. He couldn’t have his workmen doing nothing, although there were intervals where they did just that. They ate, slept, and sat motionless for several months while his architects came up with something new for them to build.
His world, his personal Earth was perfect! He loved it, and was benevolent to his subjects. They were given everything they needed. This did not include freedom from him, however, because he was the one who knew what they needed. He was the only one smart enough to rule with such benevolence. His word was final, and everybody loved him!
As time went on, however, Wallace began to think that he probably should change the minds of the whole population. He wanted voluntary adoration, but he was having to expel people from earth, as examples to those who were more compliant. The number of those he got rid of was expanding, and he felt it needed to stop.
His reign was over ten thousand years old, when it finally fell. He was dumbfounded. How could it end? He had cared for his people for millennia! Didn’t they know that he owned them? Each person on the earth was his! They were his playthings!
The truth of the matter did not sway them. They came in droves!
Somehow, they had dug giant conduits from the Pacific Ocean, and under the Sierras where, when the final openings were made, they would flood the entire valley. Several charges were placed under the foundation of the palace and a conduit built which ended there. It had taken years to set this up. It had to be perfect.
Several people gave their lives while this was done. Wallace did not know they were planning his demise; only that these people were not adoring him properly. They weren’t killed, however. They became servants to Wallace, in his palace. They were outfitted as his personal slave girls, their bodies modified by the nanites to match the young boys he had originally ‘hired’.
There was no way to destroy the nanites Wallace had made. The people had been forced to receive many inoculations, and they were afraid that these might have put reprogrammed nanites into them.
When the explosives were set off, the ones under the palace were fired first. Five women had infiltrated appearing to be slave girls, and set charges near Wallace’ personal chambers. Each one had enough to destroy them, as they feared they might be caught. Each one was also prepared to give her life for the destruction of the madman who ruled the earth. On the day of the fall, they placed the charges; each young lady and stood, guarding them, until they went off.
Those explosives underground were detonated, then the ones on the Pacific side. They flooded the valley quickly. A testimonial to the architects of Wallace was that the vast palace did not fall. It was flooded both from the inside out and from the outside in. The waters met inside with a cataclysmic force. Most of the slaves were killed outright, while the rest drowned. Only Wallace survived as he was in the highest point of the palace, looking out on his possession.
Not long after the waves had subsided, a craft was sent to survey the new inland sea. It was amazing to see what man’s ingenuity had accomplished. The only part of the palace sitting above the water was a spire, and on a balcony sitting approximately five meters above the water was a man. Willem Wallace. He had survived.
The craft hovered beside the balcony, and picked the madman up. He had thought he was being rescued. That was not so. He was forced to sit in the back of the craft, under the watchful eyes, and weapons, of members of his own military. They had free will, however, and no longer wished this man to be in power.
There was no trial. That had been accomplished over ten thousand years. No sane person on earth wished this man his freedom. There was no way he could receive a fair trial. Certainly, there were people who were not convinced that Wallace was as bad as people made him out to be, but they were a minority, and generally considered as insane as him.
He was placed in a maximum security prison that was built explicitly for him. The doors were welded shut, so he could never escape. To prove they were more benevolent than him, he was given reading material and a multimedia system, but nothing that could possibly aid him in escape. He had a courtyard where he could exercise. It was nothing he could escape from however, as the top was made of a transparent steel. It was constantly polished as it tended to rust in bad weather, and the blowing sand of the desert the prison was in constantly wore it down. Each year, a new layer of steel was poured on top of the old, after a serious polishing, and after it cooled, it was as see through as the last layer.
Wallace was secure. He would never bother anyone again.
---
On an Island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, a new government was built. It had once been a volcano, but it had been extinct for many years. The particular location had been a military installation at one time.
There was a city that had been present for millenia. In fact, it had broadened to where it took up almost seventy five percent of the length of the island and the fill width.
It was well known that there had once been a monument built over a sunken ship in one of the harbors, but the ship had rotted away to nothing.
The location of the new capitol building was in a volcanic crater to the southeast of the city. The ancient name of the crater was Diamond Head. Once the military establishment was no longer needed in the crater, it was removed and the crater turned into a park. Wallace had seen it, and built a retreat there. The entire crater was extended upwards with walls which straddled them. Inside, was still much open area, but it was a two hundred acre courtyard now.
Wallace had decided that only those who were loyal to him would be allowed inside the crater, which meant that when his feelings on the population of the world was becoming suspicious, the structure was vacant.
As much for spite as anything else, Diamond Head was made the conter of government power for the new republic.
---
For ten thousand years, Wallace’ family had hidden from his view. He tried to find them initially, but he finally realized that he just didn’t care where they were.
His brother, Fredrik, had warned the people of Earth that Willem could not be trusted. Fredrik had watched his brother, who was seventy-five years younger, grow up, and he had seen the younger man’s progressing insanity. Willem, however, was able to act completely normal, and Fredrik was eventually considered simply an eccentric.
Now, however, Fredrik was respected. The people had seen that he was absolutely correct regarding his brother. When a government was formed, two people were asked to step up and run for the position of president of the world, however, something strange happened. The two men received a considerable amount of votes, to be sure. However, underneath, on many more ballots, Fredrik’s name was written in.
He was reluctant to take the power of the government into his own hands, as he wanted to distance himself from his brother. He tried to say no, but the people wouldn’t hear of it. He was their choice, and that was that. Eventually, he accepted the position. For a time. He told the people that there must be a set term. The government made that term be a millennium, followed by a possible second term, but that was the limit allowed. No way was someone going to be president for over ten thousand years!
Fredrik Wallace became the first president of the new Earth Republic. He was Willem’s brother, but they looked nothing alike. Their father had divorced and remarried in the time between their births. Also, while Willem’s mother had appeared generally Scandanavian, Fredrik’s had been African. Thus, the people did not consider the brothers to be any bit the same.
Fredrik wanted there to be even more of a separation, so before he took office, he had his name changed. He kept his first name, but his last name came to signify the people of the new republic. Freeman.
Author’s note:
I realize that one thousand years is quite a long time for a president to be in power. The reason I believe these people would set a term this long is because they had just deposed a leader who had been in power ten times that long. As well, they lived an exceptionally long time, and a single millennium is simply a drop in the bucket as far as they are concerned.
Also, N21 WILL be completed. I’m simply giving a bit more information about Earth with this book as well as a bit of time for the remainer of N21 to come together in my head.
The announcer glanced behind him. He received a small smile, and a nod of the head, so he stepped to the podium.
“People of Earth. It brings me pleasure to introduce to you, the first president of the New Earth Republic, Fredrik Freeman!”
The announcer’s voice echoed across the courtyard. They were surrounded by the government buildings, and the day was magnificent. Freeman stepped up to the podium and shook the announcer’s hand. It was an ancient gesture, as old as time itself, it seemed.
The announcer stepped off the platform, and Freeman began to speak.
Elsewhere in the world, a man sat looking at a multimedia screen He made no move to turn off the screen, but his face became stone at the sight of his brother as the new ruler.
“Hello my fellow Terrans. I use that term because in ancient times, the word Terra was used as a name for our planet. I have studied our ancient times, as you all know, and have helped set up our government in a way that seemed to represent many countries in our past.”
Willem Wallace shook his head. The bastard took what was his, and now claimed to be helping it. His face twitched as the irony of his brother becoming the ruler of his; Willem’s domain was pathetic.
"Under this new form of government, you have the privilege, no, the RIGHT to be your own person. You will be able to do whatever you wish as long as you are not infringing upon the rights of others. Each of us has the duty to make sure our world never has something like Willem Wallace happen to it again. We are free of him! We will not have him infringing on our rights… Our very lives, again!”
In his cell, Willem smiled. There was a guard who had been watching, and he noted when the former ruler smiled, but there was nothing odd in that. Was there?
“Thus, I have changed my name to show who we are now! We are not slaves! We are not owned! We are free men, and women! We are free people! May name now signifies that! I am no longer Fredrik Wallace. I am Fredrik Free Man!”
“Nice speech, brother.”
Willem Wallace sat looking at his brother Fredrik. In his time, Fredrik had seen just as many movies from the ancient times as his brother had. He remembered so many that had a character like Willem. Well, perhaps not as bad, but still insane. Willem, however, showed no emotion on his face. He neither smiled nor frowned. He appeared… apathetic. That, however proved wrong from his words.
“You tried to pass of your taking what was mine to others. I owned the Earth, and you took it from me. I had hoped that you were gone forever. You always took what was rightfully mine when I was a child. Now you do the same thing.”
Fredrik cocked his head at his younger brother. “What do you mean?”
“Everytime I had something that I could call my own, you took it.”
It seemed ridiculous to try to argue this point with Willem. They had been over it and over it many times, and Willem had never been able to give any form of example of his accusations. Frankly, Fredrik had no idea where his brother got his ideas. They knew each other, obviously, but when Willem was born, Fredrik had just completed his apprenticeship as an archaeologist. It made no sense.
Fredrik stood and turned to leave. Now, Willem was smiling.
“You think You’re through with me, Freddie?”
The elder turned back. He hated the diminutive name, but he let that pass. “Yes, Willem. I do.”
The younger laughed. “You’ll never be through with my legacy, Brother.” The last word was spat out, like he was trying to get the last taste of vomit out of his mouth.
“That’s where you’re wrong, little brother. You can do no more damage in here. This is where you will stay for eternity. There is nothing that can hurt you in here. There is no danger from you at all, Willy.” Well… you have to get a bit of a dig in there, right? He watched Willem flinch at the name. “You don’t even have anything to relieve you of your life to get rid of your boredom.”
“Does this give you pleasure?”
“Not really. I would have much preferred that you hadn’t done what you did. I would have preferred a brother I could be proud of, rather than one I had to build a prison for.”
“Ah. So you did take what was mine, didn’t you? You took my very life.”
Fredrik shook his head. “You gave it to me.” He turned and walked out.
Things on Earth did get better. The next two hundred years were wonderful. Although Wallace was alive, he caused no problem to anyone. No one had any desire to see him, so he lived his own completely uneventful life. He was able to watch what was happening outside. It seemed as he watched his screen that he was waiting for something. Then one day, it happened.
He was watching something extremely boring. What it was, was not important. Instead, he saw what was on his screen flicker, then disappear.
He found himself looking at his own image from the time of the launch of the N21 space station from Earth’s orbit. “Welcome my pets,” he said. “We are going to join the passengers of N21 as they zoom away from us. We will be entertained. You will enjoy this.” It was more an order than anything else.
A picture of the inside of a space station came into being. “A fancy title flashed across the screen that said, “Live on N21!” He heard his own voice come from around those milling about on the station. “HELLO CHILDREN. I’M BORED. LET’S PLAY!” The people screamed in pain at his voice. It had been so loud they had been deafened.
The screen shifted again, and showed the same scene, and his voice sounded again. “SO COMPLACENT!” The light on the station started strobing. He watched as someone went to reach into the wall for some reason.
“Not a good idea,” he murmured. The man started to smoke as he became pile of charcoal. Wallace laughed hysterically as his voice stated, “THAT IS NOT ALLOWED.”
A moment later, the doors to the different bays slammed shut. The screen showed a woman cut completely in two.
“Wow! This is incredible television!” he exclaimed.
The view shifted to another camera aboard the station, and it zoomed into the panel showing what was happening inside that particular bay. In the center was a readout showing the air pressure. He held his breath as it reached zero, then he could hear the faint sound the the outer doors opening. The view switched to inside the bay, then back to the panel. A few moments later, the doors closed, and the pressure started to rise.
In the president’s office there was no noise at all. Everyone was staring at a screen, absolutely horrified. It had gone dark, but they couldn’t look away. Finally, Freeman asked, “Do we know where this came from?”
“Not yet, Sir, but we will.” A man hurried over to a comm panel and called the company that provided the regular programming. He spoke to them at length, the turned to the president. “They are going to aim their transmitters at the source. We can transmit something to them.”
“They’re still alive,” Freeman said to himself. “Incredible!”
It was some time before things were set for Earth to talk to N21. Freeman had talked with many people in the interim. He wanted to make sure what had happened there.
Astronomers talked about differences in the time frame. N21 had been gone for five hundred years, but the people would have only experienced a short time by comparison. There was no way to know exactly how long had passed for them, but it couldn’t have been long. The signal had been received by an extremely low level frequency. It had been received for almost a year before the computers were able to make sense of it.
Freeman spoke with the security department of Earth. They were what took the place of police, military… even security guards in shopping malls. They were all under the umbrella of the security department. They showed him videos taken of Wallace while he watched the broadcast from N21. It was appalling. At the end of it, he shut off the screen and sat back. He seemed inordinately pleased with himself. “Don’t get to comfortable, children.”
“Why did he say that?” Freeman wondered.
The director of the security department, Paul Robson, looked away from the screen. “I’m guessing, Sir, that there is more to happen.”
“He’s not done with them?”
“I’m sorry, Sir,” Robson said, “but you know him much better than anyone else does.”
Freeman looked at him ruefully. “I suppose you're right; I know him better than anyone, but I don’t understand him.”
Robson gave a small snort. “No one does, Fred.”
Freeman nodded. Very few people called him Fred, but Robson had travelled with him as security when he disappeared from his brother. They had spent ten thousand years working together.
Finally, Freeman turned to his friend. “We need to know what Willem has planned.”
It was not pretty at all. Robson found some archives of recordings made in Willem’s castle. When people arrived to be slaves, they were separated into different classes. The young men were taken to a wing of the palace that looked suspiciously like a harem. As they passed through the entrance to the wing, something happened. It was hard to place, but it was definite. A few moments later, a shift in each man started to happen. Their bodies took on female characteristics. Each one shed himself of whatever clothes they arrived in, and these were gathered up and disposed of.
Then, Freeman saw something he never wished to again. It seemed as though each young man recognized what had happened to him. They all looked shocked. Many started to cry. And then, as one, they stopped. Their faces took on smile, like they were perfectly happy being where they were.
Willem stepped into view. He went up and down the rows of shemales his nanites had made, saying whether they would be his to play with, or domestic help. He picked only the most beautiful to be his personal slaves. The rest were sent somewhere else. One of the personal slaves was dressed better than all the rest, and put in a room of her own.
After Robson and Freeman had seen the recordings, they brought in a man who had been from one of the villages abducted, but had been in a neighboring city when it happened. His son had not been well that day, and had stayed home. The man watched the recording and gasped when he saw it.
“What is it?” Robson asked. He knew what the man had seen. He had seen a picture of the man’s son.
“My son,” the man almost sobbed. “He was one that was changed. He was the one who was given the special place.”
Robson nodded as the man went on. “I want that bastard. I want to kill him.”
“I’m not surprised,” Robson said. “I would too, but it needs done slowly. We need information so the people on N21 are not hurt again.”
“I don’t know how to do it slowly,” the old man said.
Robson held out some ancient books which he carefully handed to the man. “You have trained under my men for some time. This will train you to extract information from Willem Wallace. Study these, practice. Soon, you will get your opportunity.”
The old man left, and Freeman stood, walking up to his friend. “Is that really necessary?” he asked.
“Fred, you know Willem won’t give up that information easily. You told me once that one of the first uses for nanites was to stop shock in an injured person. Anything we do to get information will have to be extreme. You know this.”
“Yes, I do, but it seems that we are stooping to his level.”
“Do you want me to stop,” Paul asked.
Fredrik looked at him for a long time as he considered. Finally, he shook his head in the negative. He didn’t like it in the least, but It had to be done.
This chapter is shorter than usual, but I felt that it needed to stand on its own. It is a very dark chapter, and may be disturbing to some. You have been warned.
It took awhile for the father to study everything needed, but eventually, he was ready. He met with Paul Robson and Fredrik Freeman in Rome, and they took a craft into the Sahara Desert. About at the center of the expanse of sand was the ‘home’ of Willem Wallace, and they set the craft down by the only way in or out.
Even though Wallace had no way to enter or exit his cell, there was a code that allowed people in. Wallace had a life sentence, which would extend for a very long time, if no one was allowed in or out.
Freeman punched in his code, and the three entered. They met with a guard, immediately. “It’s ready, Sir.”
Freeman couldn’t bring himself to say anything. Instead, he gave a curt nod, and they went down the corridor. Nine more guards were encountered at checkpoints on the way in, until they came to the last one. Wallace was there, gloating as he eyed his brother. He started to mock, but Freeman reached over and snapped off the intercom. He was absolutely not going to enjoy what was coming, but he felt he had to be there. No matter what Wallace had done, they were still brothers. Freeman felt he owed something to him.
“Let Paul into the computer,” Freeman said quietly.
The guard moved, and Robson sat down. He entered some commands, then told the guard, “You may hear something, and it may be alarming. No matter what, you are to do nothing.”
“But what if you are hurt?” the guard asked.
“We won’t be.”
The father pulled a sword out of a pack he had carried in. It was a Katana, and had a very dull edge on it. It would cut with sufficient force, but not deeply.
He nodded at Robson, who pressed a single key. The power in the office went out. Wallace saw the sword and knew he was not likely to live long, so he lunged through the door. The man was waiting for him, and swung the sword up and into the former chancellor’s chest. The breastbone stopped it from penetrating too deeply, but some of the ribs on Wallace’ right side were broken. He tried to take a breath, but the wind was knocked out of him. Robson pushed him back into his cell.
Already the nanites in his body were starting to work. The father saw some tissue starting to granulate throughout the cut. This could take a long time, He thought. So much the better.
Wallace was wrong. He lived a considerably long time. It took forty-eight hours before the old man was satisfied.
Wallace was laying on his bed, his body a mass of bruises and cuts. Throughout the time, his nanites were moving slower and slower. They seemed to be low on power. The old man pulled a scimitar out of his pack, which had contained several instruments he had used on Wallace.
It was not that he enjoyed this, but this sick individual had turned his son into some hybrid, and then used him over and over. The recordings from the palace showed that.
Wallace had answered every question put to him. By this time, he just wanted the old man to end it. He watched as the scimitar came out of the bag. We welcomed it.
There are very few ways to kill a man who is full of nanites whose only function is to keep him alive. Even at the low level of power they were at, they would still swarm to a lethal injury to fix it as quickly as possible.
The man used a hunting knife to cut through the tendons in Wallace’ legs and arms. Then he spread the legs as far apart as he could and swung the scimitar. Surprisingly, Wallace was able to scream as both of his legs were removed from his body. The nanites filled the femoral arteries, then his arms were severed. The old man allowed Wallace to enjoy the pain for several minutes before he swung the sword in the fatal blow. Freeman had left some time ago. He couldn’t stomach what was happening. Even Robson turned away at the end, but he heard the gurgling coming through the severed neck as the body’s reflexes tried to draw in another breath. He turned back, and wished he had not. The mouth was trying to draw in air, as if it was the head of a fish. The man spat on the face, then turned, grabbed a cloth and began to clean all of his equipment. He seemed unconcerned at the dying head, still trying to gulp in air. “Good bye, Willem Wallace,” he spat out. It was the last thing Wallace heard. Ever.
Freeman was in his office, outside of Honolulu. He felt very sick, probably because of what he had witnessed in the last few days. He knew that most people on the Earth felt that Willem Wallace, his brother, deserved to die for what he had done to so many people, and if he was honest, he agreed, but there was still a part of him that felt that Willem had deserved more.
There was a knocking at his door. He tried to say come in, but he couldn’t get the words out. He tried again. “Come...” his voice faltered, but he figured he could try a third time and it would probably work if he had to. Thankfully, he didn’t have to try.
The door opened, and his friend Paul Robson opened the door and walked in. One look at his friend, Fredrik, and Paul stopped in his tracks. “If now’s not a good time,” He began.
Freeman shook his head. “It’s okay, Paul. Come on in.”
Robson had been hurrying, but now, he reached out and carefully shut the door behind him. He moved to one of the chairs sitting in front of Freeman’s desk and slowly sat down.
Are you going to be okay?” he asked.
Freeman shook his head. “I know it had to be done, and I understand why Mr. Vetters did what he did, but I don’t think I’ll ever be okay after what I saw done to Willem.”
It’s a complex puzzle,” Paul told him. “What was done to us, without us even realizing it, and what was then done to those people on the station…” He stopped. “Fred, you know I’m your best friend, right?”
Freeman nodded.
You also know I would never have allowed what was done to Willem under any other circumstances, right?”
I know, Paul. And I approve. What is getting to me is he was my brother.” He sighed for about the hundredth time in the last hour. Suddenly, he raised his hand and slammed it down on his desk. “Stupid kid!” he shouted, as his hand smashed a coffee cup from the force he brought it down at. A considerable amount of blood erupted from his wrist as the ceramic cut through the skin and tendons.
You idiot!” Paul yelled as he stood and ran to get a towel from the private restroom. He came back to find Freeman standing with his left hand covering the huge slices. The blood had slowed, and Paul carefully pulled the hand away. There was a bit of seepage, and as he watched, that stopped as well. The nanites were working hard.
Would you watch what you’re doing?” he yelled at the top of his lungs.
Freeman just looked at him. Paul tried a different tack. “That ‘kid’ as you call him, was almost eleven thousand years old! He wasn’t a kid anymore. Hadn’t been for a long time.”
Then I’m eleven thousand seventy-six years old. Regardless of his age, he was my kid brother, Paul.” He glared at Robson. “You knew him almost as long as I did.”
Robson sat down and motioned for his friend to sit as well. “Yeah, I know,” Paul conceded.
Fred finally sat. He hadn’t taken his eyes off of Robson. For his part, Paul’s gaze was lowered. He didn’t want to look up at that accusatory stare. Finally, he murmured, “I’m sorry, Fred. If there had been any other way….” He broke off as he really didn’t know what else to say.
I know, Paul.”
The two of them just sat, their minds in their own private hell, until the sun had set.
Fredrik met with Paul and several scientists the next morning. They discussed at length the information they had received from Wallace. There were several things that had been planned for the people of N21. Before any communication with the people on the station, they wanted to do some research with the programming of the station.
A couple of months later they resumed their meeting. In the palace where Wallace had lived with his slaves, they found a room that had been sealed. With several drills, and explosives, they were able to remove the door, and inside, they found a laboratory where it was obvious Willem had worked on his changes to the station. It was insane, which was no surprise. The people had so many more problems in store for them. The computers were designed to go completely crazy. Stranding people in separate parts of the station, venting other parts. One tidbit of information showed that the command center hub was supposed to seal itself off on each end of the J walkways, and then blow some explosive bolts. This would send the hub away from the rest of the station, effectively dooming those in it to death.
Another spoke about a similar idea, but with different bays.
There were subroutines that controlled the temperature, both overall, and in each bay. By shutting the interior doors, the computer could vent bays, or make them freezing, or hot enough to kill the people caught inside.
Of course when a section was blown off, or a bay vented, the hatches did not have to be shut, and they could also be opened once the bay or command center was blown.
It was paramount that they send this information to the station as soon as possible. The problem Earth’s scientists had was they could not tell how to disable this programming. It seemed as though nothing would stop it at all. Even trying to disable the doors or ejection systems would kill a person, as they had seen on the video scene.
With a heavy heart, Freeman wrote a communique to send to N21.
(Excerpt from N21, Chapter 3)
“Hello, people of N21,” he said.”I am President Freeman of Earth. I know when you were sent away, Willem Wallace, or ‘Caesar’ as you referred to him, was the ‘Chancellor’.
“Approximately three hundred years after you left, Wallace had shown enough of his character to make those of us still on Earth recognize what you had long ago seen. There was an uprising, and we were able to remove him from power. He was in prison until we received a signal from you.
“Every computer around the world came on at the same time, and showed Wallace seated at his desk. He told us that we were all going to join him in a celebration of your exile. We saw what your camera’s recorded, Wallace telling you he wanted to ‘play’; the death of your maintenance worker. Then we saw a bay of the station open, and the people dying on the floor.”
For a moment, Freeman stopped. He looked somber, then rubbed his face with his hands.
“Wallace was questioned at length. That was an experience I never want to have again. He was, quite simply, insane. He wanted to toy with you as a cat toys with it’s prey. Revelling in your suffering was what he wanted most of all.
“He tried to bargain with us with his knowledge. He wanted freedom, but we refused. It took several months to obtain what we wanted. He spent that entire time in and out of consciousness. It wasn’t pretty. What we got from him, we want to pass on to you.
“There are several… surprises, in the computers of the station. They have been left there. There seems to be no way to remove them from the memory. Even a complete shutdown will reload the same information when you start them again.
“Much of what is programmed will be worse that what has already happened. Some not as bad. We will append a file to this message that will tell you what we have found. I hope you can find something on board that we didn’t think of here.”
Freeman sat back and pressed the send button. It was hard to make that call to N21, where his brother had been the one who arranged all these problems to the people aboard the station. He had deliberately not told them that the Wallace was his brother. He figured it would be better if they didn’t know that. He wanted their trust, and admitting that he was brother to their antagonist just didn’t see to be a smart thing to do.
After a bit, he found that he couldn’t sit still. He had to move. He went out and got his craft, then drove out of Diamond Head. He was feeling dejected after sending the message, so he wanted to be away from people. That was hard in Honolulu, but he figured he could head out onto the bay. He really didn’t want to be noticed, so he raised the top until he got a substantial distance onto the bay. He headed west, so he could circle the island and once he was out of sight of Pearl Harbor, he let the top down.
Once he was heading North, he paused and cut his anti-gravity system. The craft gently sat down in the water and he could feel the waves. That was the problem with anti-gravity. No matter what was under him, it was designed to give him a smooth ride. It also didn’t effect what was underneath the craft, so he didn’t have the ability to really take his frustration out by creating wonderful rooster tails. As an archaeologist, he had seen many old films, and he loved the James Bond movies. He wished he had an old style boat, but petroleum was never used anymore, so running an engine like James Bond had wouldn’t work. He would dearly love to run a speedboat and do some daredevil driving. He knew that people used to do the same thing in cars, but you didn’t get the huge spray of water while doing a sharp turn at high speed.
Instead, he reclined his seat and just let the ocean current carry him for awhile. His communication system started beeping. Someone was trying to reach him, but he ignored it. It beeped again, and he picked it up, looked at the name if the person calling him, and threw it as far as he could. He saw no reason to speak to anyone at the moment. Besides, Paul would still be there when he got back to the capitol building.
He leaned back again and closed his eyes. Eventually, sleep claimed him.
Freeman arrived back at the capitol later that evening. He had woke up about fifteen miles from the island, and let the craft drive him back to Diamond Head.
As before, he really didn’t want to see anyone at that moment, especially Paul, so he turned his craft around and headed up into the hills. On his way there, he stopped by his own home and picked up a very old bottle of Scotch Whiskey he had found at a dig several years before. He had kept it as a souvenir. He knew he shouldn’t have, but they had found several of them. The thing was now God knows how many years old. The old date on the bottle had no bearing to the system they now used. A year was still a year, and a day still a day, but the numbers of the years had changed. Was it still good? He didn’t know, but this night was his time to find out.
He stopped at an old lookout on what was still labeled the H1 highway. This was a park in the city, so it was dark here. He let his craft settle to the ground, and got out. He walked to the edge of the lookout and stared down at the city below. The lights were on, as it was about 9:30 at night. He looked up, as if he could see the station. That was a laugh. It was pretty much out of the galaxy now. He walked back to his craft and picked up the bottle. Taking it with him, he sat down on a rock that let him see the city and beyond.
He opened the bottle, and sniffed it. The smell was very strong. He held it up and looked through the liquid. It was an amber color, and the lights below all glowed golden through it.
“Willem, you bastard. I wish I hadn’t have had to authorize what happened to you, but you brought it on yourself. I don’t know how or when you went mad, but it was pretty damned obvious that you were.” He took a swig of the scotch and felt the alcohol rush through his body. If this was what Scotch Whiskey was supposed to taste like, he liked it a lot.
“No one should have to endure what you did. You should have told us what we needed to know, then you wouldn’t have suffered.” he knew that wasn’t true, but it made him feel less responsible to say it. The boy’s father would have made Willem suffer regardless what or when he gave them the information. What had happened to his son was inexcusable, and Freeman knew it. His brother’s perversions had condemned him to hell on Earth. It didn’t make it any easier to watch, though.
He was a quarter of the way through the bottle when he heard another craft settle onto the ground. He was rather insensate now, and didn’t look up, even when he heard someone walking up to him. He didn’t even turn when he heard Paul. “Hello, Fred.”
Freeman held the bottle out abruptly to Paul, his arm completely straight.
Paul took it and read the label. “God, Fred, where’d you get this?”
Freeman didn’t answer that question, but rather told Paul, “Take a drink before I take back the bottle.” His words seemed labored to get out.
Paul took a ginger sip, then a larger one. It was good. “You know your brother wasn’t your fault.” He handed back the bottle.
“So you keep saying.” He took another drink.
Paul sat down beside his friend. “I keep asking myself if we could have gotten that info differently. I keep finding the same answer. ‘No’.”
“I’ve never murdered anyone before,” Fred told him.
“You didn’t murder Willem.”
“Bullshit, I didn’t. I stood there and watched him tortured, and I did nothing. I’m just as guilty as that sick bastard who killed him.”
“You think he was sick? Look at what happened to his kid.” Paul reached out for the bottle. Fred handed it to him.
“And killing Willem that way was sane?” Fred’s voice was louder than he meant for it to be.
Before Paul answered he took a gulp of the amber fluid. He coughed, and when he spoke his voice was a harsh whisper. “How about the way Willem killed his son. Was that sane?”
“He didn’t kill the kid.”
“That’s bullshit. He killed the boy the moment those nanites were activated. We watched those tapes, both of us. That one time when they were made to see what happened to them was the last time that kid ever was in control of himself. You saw what Willem made him do. He was the number one concubine for Willem. He murdered the kid, plain and simple.”
Fred didn’t say anything for a long time, while Paul took another gulp and handed the bottle back. Fred made a point of looking at the level of the liquid. “I’m catching up,” Paul said by way of explanation.
Fred nodded, then said, “You’re right, you know. But I still feel responsible.”
“Let’s say, for a moment, that you are. Was there any other choice?”
Again Fred held his tongue, but rather, shook his head.
“Did Willem bring it on himself?”
Fred nodded.
“Here’s the clincher. Under the same circumstances, would you do it again?”
Freeman didn’t answer. He held up the bottle and took a Paul sized gulp, then handed it to his friend. Finally, he almost whispered, “Damned right, I would.”
It had been several years since Willem’s death, and Freeman had build a wall around himself that insulated him from what he had allowed. What Paul had said that night still haunted him. He would do it again, under the same circumstances. He had never considered himself capable of murder, but that’s what it had felt like. No matter what his brother did, Fred had murdered him in his own eyes.
Now, he was in a courtroom, playing judge to another murderer. He felt like such a hypocrite as he weighed the man’s actions.
The man had killed someone for monetary gain. He had robbed a liquor store. Untold millennia had gone by since the earliest of these establishments, and there were still people robbing them.
The alleged murderer had turned up the power on his stun gun, to lethal levels – basically he had made the power source give up all of it’s power in one burst – shot the proprietor, then put his card into the register, and reversed all funds onto his card.
It was stupid, because planetary security only had to look at what happened and where the funds went. There was very little doubt of the man’s guilt.
How did he end up judging this guy, Freeman wondered. “How did I get talked into this?”
The defendant’s counsel was summing up her client’s innocence. Well trying to. Basically, she was asking Freeman to be lenient to her client who was obviously guilty as hell.
She finished, and Freeman called a recess until the next morning. He didn’t even look back as he walked out of the courtroom.
Defense just stood there, mouth agape. What had just happened?
Freeman, for his part, went into his chambers and sat down. People in this position still wore the robes they had always done. He looked down at himself, then ripped the robe off and threw it against the wall. At the same time, Robson entered the room. He dodged the robe, then look at Fred with a surprised expression. “Care to explain?” he asked.
“Nope,” Freeman told him.
“Why?”
In answer, Freeman told him, “Get the hell out of here, Paul.”
“Not till you explain.”
Fred sat down behind his desk. “I am the president of this planet, Paul, and I’m telling you to get the f**k out of my office.”
Paul said nothing. He moved to right in front of one of the chairs, and very deliberately sat down.
For several minutes, they stared at each other, until Fred broke. “I’m an effing hypocrite, okay? Happy now?”
“This again? I thought you’d put that away.”
“Of course not. I let you think that.”
Paul was furious. He had had it. “How long are you going to mourn that son of a bitch?”
“I’m not mourning him. I’m mourning myself.”
“No, you're not. You’re feeling sorry for yourself because you think you’re the only person in the world who has had to convict a person because they did something absolutely despicable. Wake up call, Fred. Shit like that happens!”
Fred just stared.
“That guy out there in the courtroom. You know he’s guilty as sin, but you feel like you can’t judge him because you’re a murderer too. Right?”
Nod.
“I’ve told you before. You’re not a murderer. You were a judge then, and you’re a judge now. No, we didn’t have a trial for Willem. How could we? No one would have been able to sit on a jury. You know that. Anyway, we all knew what he’d done.
“So now you’re judging someone who has a jury, They’ll convict him, not you. You’ll declare the sentence. Will he be executed? No! We don’t do that. Instead, he’ll be put in solitary confinement for the rest of his life.
“So what do you do? Say that a judge is a murderer? You can look at it as either being a military extraction of information, or a punishment for what he had done, but that’s all it was. Not murder.”
Paul stood up. “Until you realize that, you’re going to be hindered in your leadership.”
Paul left and shut the door, hard. Fred sat behind his desk for several minutes, then wrote something down on a tablet and left for the day.
The next morning, he entered the courtroom and asked the jury their findings. He hardly had to ask. The man was guilty.
For the first time in many years, Fred felt that his conscience was clear. Without a moment’s hesitation, he sentenced the man to the punishment Paul had said the night before.
Freeman had accepted that he was a judge to this murderer, and a judge to his brother. He didn’t like the job, but as the president, it was part of his job description. He was determined to change that, but until it was, he would do the job to the best of his ability.
It had been roughly two hundred years since the call came in from N21 now, showing what Freeman’s brother, Caesar, had done to them. Fredrik could hardly believe what his brother had done to them. The only crime they had committed was not considering that Willem was their leader.
He had not accepted Willem either, but he had not told those on N21 that. Rather, he had hidden. His mother and father had hidden with him. Willem’s mother, on the other hand, had gone along with what her son had done. She had been in the palace when it was flooded. It was suspected that Willem had turned her into a slave as well, which would explain why she had gone along with her deranged son.
Along with Fredrik and his parents, several people who had seen Willem’s growing insanity had hidden as well. Paul Robson was one of them. Freeman was pretty certain that was why he and Paul had been placed in the roles of authority that they had. They had never accepted Willem as their leader.
Archaeologists were now sifting through the ruined Death Valley. It had become an inland sea for many years. Eventually, the palace had degraded to the point it collapsed, and the valley drained back into the Pacific.
Much of the debris had been scattered as the water was pumped back When they opened the sealed room which held Caesar’s private workroom, much had been destroyed in the water. Luckily, much of the computer data storage was not destructible by water; even salt water, so by hooking them up to other computers, they were able to find out much.
Unfortunately, there was a section that without Caesar’s private codes was erased permanently from the storage. It mentioned something called ‘Total Fun’, and then nothing. None of the archaeologists could find anything other than that reference, but the general consensus was that if it was fun for Caesar, it would be misery for those on the station.
Still the search went on. They continued looking for some reference other than the name for another half a century till finally, they figured they should send what they had found.
As the archaeologists were searching the ruins, other people were searching looking at the technology that the people on the station would need. All that could be done, however, was to send information. There was really no way materials could be sent.
Or was there?
Engines were more powerful than had been on the station. N21 had been accelerated to ninety percent the speed of light. It was assumed that a similar size object, with new engines could be accelerated to ninety-five percent. That was with enough fuel to return to Earth.
Sitting in the briefing room, along with several scientists, were Paul and Fred. They were listening intently. What they heard was astounding.
A man with the unlikely name of Rashda Smythe was explaining how they could build another station and mount some of the new engines on it.
“Since we will be picking up the people on N21, we’ll be able to store much more fuel than otherwise. For the trip out, we will be able to use the bay space for fuel, so that we can stop and head the other direction.”
“I want them back as much as anyone,” Paul said, “but we’re talking about a huge investment to do this.”
“Not really,” Smythe disagreed.
Paul stared at him for a couple of moments, the got what he was saying. “No. Absolutely not. We need N22!”
“Why?” Smythe asked. “Are we going to stoop to the level of Wallace and have mutually assured destruction? We have a world government, so who are we going to assure destruction with?”
Fredrik was sitting back, watching and mulling the situation over. After a few minutes of the back and forth argument, he told Smythe, “I want you to draw up plans to do this. I’ll make sure you have a complete schematic on N22. You will not start on the station until I give the go ahead, however. Is that understood?”
“Thank you, Sir.”
Paul glared at his friend.
“I want you to give me an argument as to why we need that station full of warheads above us. That station has sixty bays, each with thirty missiles full of MRV’s aimed at this world. If all of them were set off, there wouldn’t even be a world here. You explain why we need that, Paul. You convince me, and I’ll tell Smythe here, to F off. Okay?”
There was nothing for Paul to do but simply nod.
Next to speak was a communications specialist. He ran the station that had multiple transmitters ready to send a message to N21 at a moment’s notice.
Again, the name of the man was completely strange. Noelle Rodriguez had hundreds of data transmissions ready to be sent. Multiple files of everything from recreational programming to news broadcasts since N21 left Earth orbit, would be compressed into highly crunched files to keep the size of the transmission down. It had to be sent as an ELF, or extremely low frequency to reach that far into space and not lose fidelity.
Next was Barb Johnson, who was the head hydroponics specialist on Earth. It was known that some of her teachers were on N21, but where she had centuries to fine tune the processes, N21 had aged only about a year.
The medical establishment was not nearly as far progressed, but archaeologists had found several millennia worth of medical research hidden away in Wallace’ palace. A copy of that would be sent to the station, as well as a complete course in medical research and practice for one or more people to take. There had to have been a reason for Wallace to space all of the medical scientists. Best to get people trained as soon as possible.
Freeman was back on the cliff overlooking Honolulu. He had a dilemma. He had decided to modify N22 and send it on it’s way. But should he tell those on N21 of the possibility of their rescue? It would be several decades, even in their subjective time, before the second station met up with them. In fact if their figures were slightly off, or if Wallace had not put the correct course down in his records, the stations would never even see each other in the void. Of course, as the station got farther away, their pinpointing of it was finer and finer as the direction the radio dishes had to be adjusted to receive and transmit data.
This time, Fredrik had no scotch with him. Instead, he wanted his mind clear. Should he tell them or not. To get their hopes up? What to do?
Once again, Paul Robson arrived. He knew this was Fred’s favorite place to meditate. He sat down beside his friend, but he didn’t say anything.
Finally, Fred asked, “You gonna try to talk me out of it?”
“Nope.”
“Why not?”
“I’ve already given my opinion. You don’t need me to repeat it. We’re going to send N22 after them, none of us can be second guessing ourselves.”
Fred nodded.
“Besides, you’re my friend, and even though we disagree, I’ve got your back. I’m gonna help to make this a success. Not a failure. I want them home too, Fred.”
“Thanks Paul. I want you to know, I really considered your opinion. I almost decided to go with your plan. If I did, however, I was going to have Smythe build a new one. My main concern here was the time factor. Doesn’t make much difference to them, but it does to us.”
Paul nodded. “I get that, and I understand your reasoning. I hope I was wrong in my treatise. I never want to see a need for N22 in it’s original purpose. I’d much rather it be used for this than MAD.”
It took Smythe and his teams more than ten years to modify N22 for it’s new purpose. It was the same basic layout as N21, but it was larger. While N21 had forty bays that had been full of missiles, N22 had sixty. The bays were correspondingly larger as well.
When the station was ready to depart Earth’s orbit, Smythe met with Freeman and Paul again.
“I want to let you know what we are doing. We have a crew of one thousand volunteers who will go on the station. Their purpose will be to build apartments as fuel is used. We have placed bladders of fuel in many of the bays. As bladders empty, they will be ejected and the bay that they are in will be turned into either apartments or other uses.”
“What about the missiles?” asked Paul.
“Well, we’ve had some thoughts about that, but I think our best bet is to mount the MRV’s around a few of the missiles, and then save the remaining empty shells for another purpose.”
“What’s that?” asked Fred.
“The missiles use the same engines as N21 had. It uses less than a gram of fuel to get to supersonic speeds as it enters the atmosphere. We’ve taken one hundred MRV’s out of each missile. With those gone, we can turn the missiles into engines for the station. If we use a third of them for accelerating from Earth, along with the main engines, we’ll get an extra boost, and jettison the used engines. We can then flip the station when it meets with N21 and we should be able to use a third of those engines to slow it to the same speed as N21. Then, we will use the rest of the fuel in those as well as the remaining fuel to bring the station to a relative stop to Earth. We will then jettison the remaining missiles to lower the station’s mass, and use it’s own engines to accelerate back to Earth. We’ll have to take into account the mass of the people from N21 for our return fuel consumption. We will not accelerate too much that we don’t have the fuel to stop relative to Earth when we arrive back.”
Paul nodded. He wasn’t a ‘rocket scientist’ but he understood enough to realize what Smythe was saying. His last question was, “Who’ll command N22?”
“I will,” Smythe responded.
Fred considered for awhile. “Very well. How long until you launch?”
“I figure we can get the missiles taken care of in about six months, and by that time, I believe we’ll be in the correct position for our launch window.”
Fred nodded. “Go to it.”
Author’s note:
Considering my love of Trek, It was so tempting to have Fredrik say, “Make it so” at the end, but the more boring won out. If you’re a fan of Trek, just imagine that Freeman ended with “Make it so”. I think it’s the perfect ending.
The N22 station was fitted out with some of the missiles playing the part of engines, and several carrying the MRV’s into the sun. Freeman sat at his desk, wondering if they would even notice the light of the warheads hitting the sun. Probably not. They weren’t that powerful in comparison to the star they were aimed for.
N22 started accelerating from Earth even before the warheads hit the sun. Smythe called Earth as they were leaving orbit and wished them well. The feelings were reciprocated and the station was on its way.
Freeman flipped a switch and spoke to N21, He knew N22 would be a long way from Earth by the time N21 received the message. It would be several years from now. Perhaps several centuries from now.
Excerpt from N21 Part 1, Chapter 4
Hello again, N21. This is Freeman. We have found something very disturbing. For the last fifty years, our people have been sifting through the damaged palace of Wallace. 250 years after the the broadcast from your ship, the decaying structure collapsed. Our people had to pull the remaining shell down.
Apparently, there is a ‘special surprise’ for you. According to records, it is supposed to make any and all other pale in comparison. The others, we were able to dig to find out what was supposed to happen, but this one is only referred to as the ‘total fun’. What it is, we cannot tell, nor do we know how it is started.
I’m sorry we don’t know. We are going to continue to search.”
He didn’t tell N21 about N22. Not for any reason other than he didn’t want to get their hopes up. Too many things could go wrong, and if N22 missed N21, they didn’t need to be blaming themselves for the possible death of Smythe and his people.
In space, a thruster fired changing the course of the vessel slightly. This would not be noticed by anyone for many years.
It had been fifteen and a half centuries since Earth heard from the N21. Still, the people on Earth knew that just a few minutes had passed on the station, so Freeman headed up an archaeological expedition to find as much information as they could. He was no longer the president of Earth, but a new one, his old friend Paul Robson, had taken over the roll.
Robson had made it clear that unless something happened to Freeman, he would remain the person to talk to N21. They knew him, and they trusted him. He hoped.
A message was received by Earth, and Paul had it saved and sent to Freeman.
Freeman watched it and realized what it could do for N21. Stopping all of the computer’s actions was exactly what they needed. He called his archaeological teams and took them off the project they were on. He had them start researching where the old operating system for N21. They couldn’t find it.
He debated sending the one for N22. That could be found, but when it was looked at, the station obviously had new hardware on board, and the operating system was simply not compatible with N21’s computers.
His people continued looking.
Fredrik decided he needed to think, so he headed to his favorite spot on Oahu, at the overlook. It was getting late in the day, and when he got there, a craft was already parked. He pulled up beside it and was not surprised to see that it was Paul’s
He climbed out of his craft and walked to his favorite rock.
Paul was sitting in his usual spot, and looked over at his friend. “I can see why you always came here,” he told Fred. “This is a great place to think.”
“Especially this time of night. The lights below, the ocean out there. The stars above.”
“Can’t see the stars like you could in Montana,” said Paul.
“No, but it’s cool nonetheless.” Fredrik paused for a bit, then asked. “What’re you thinking about?”
“I’m thinking how much easier it was to be your head of security, then your vice.”
“I hear ya. I’m so much happier being an archaeologist again.”
There was silence for a long time, then Paul asked. “Have you found anything yet?”
“Not yet. I’m not sure where it would be. We’ve checked all of Willem’s spots he might have worked on it. He had to have a copy. Somewhere.”
They were silent again, then “Fred, you know that station was built before Willem took power, right?”
“The Pearl City Science Museum,” Freeman said thoughtfully. “They have some stuff on all the N Stations. Maybe they would have something. They’re right here in town too!”
“It’s worth a look,” Paul responded.
The next day, Freeman went down to Pearl City and looked through the science museum. No luck. He asked the curator where he might find such a thing.
“Right here,” was the response.
“Show me?”
The curator hesitated, then motioned for Freeman to follow. He said, “I’ll show you, but I cannot let you touch the unit. It’s over thirteen thousand years old. Very fragile.”
Damn! thought Freeman. It’s here, or we think it is, but I can’t touch it. How do I get a copy of it?
It was a cylinder about ten inches high, and four inches in diameter. It had a holographic matrix inside that stored the information. It could last for millennia the way it was, but the power source would eventually die, causing the information to be lost. He wondered how to get the information stored in side. It was stored on a shelf in the back room, in a glass box.
“Are you sure this is the OS for N21?”
“Certainly.” He pulled the case down, and turned it. Etched in the side of the brass cylinder was Defense Platform – N17-N21 – SCO Unix 2500.2.12597.
This was it! He needed to get it. How? Fredrik had an idea, but would it work? “You know that the information will be lost eventually, right?”
“Of course. That’s the nature of things. Ebb and flow. Yin and Yang. In and Out. In essence, things are made then lost. There is nothing that can be done about that.”
“It doesn’t have to be,” Fred told the curator. “The information on that unit is priceless. The people on N21 need it desperately. It is just as valuable as the canister. More so, actually. There are many canisters like that, but the information is one of a kind!”
The curator’s eyes began to sparkle. He nodded. “I can see what you mean, but I will need some things in exchange for the info.”
“What?” Freeman asked.
“Funds.”
The curator swept a hand to take in the whole museum. “This museum is going downhill. I’m the only person here now. I could hire help to catalog everything in this room if I had the money. Right now, I can’t.”
Freeman decided then and there, that if he had to, he would provide the money himself.
He stepped away from the curator, saying, “Give me a minute.”
He pulled out his comm unit and called Robson. He explained the situation: Robson expressed the same feeling that Freeman had. If he couldn’t get the government to go along with him, he would sponsor the museum himself.
Freeman ended the call and stepped back. “We will transfer the funds to you tomorrow.”
The curator smiled. “That will be fine.”
It took a bit longer, as the government decided to foot the bill for the museum, and as is typical of a bureaucracy it moved very slowly, but the funds were eventually in the hands of the curator. For his part, as soon as the money was confirmed in the museum’s account, he opened the glass case and allowed Freeman to connect a computer to it. The download took less than ten minutes. The canister was placed back in the case. The curator attached a brass tag to the case which had a description of what information was on it, and carried it out to the main part of the museum. It was going to be on display.
Freeman took the OS back to his home. In his personal office, he hooked the computer up to his comm system and attached the OS. He pressed send.
Not long after he sent the communique, he was alerted to a problem. He hurried to Paul’s office and asked what the problem was.
“Follow me, Fred.”
They started down a hall, and Fred stopped. “I’m not authorized anymore.”
“Would you come on? You’re with me.”
Fred started again and they entered the situation room.
“Fill me in,” Paul ordered.
“We’re showing a slight variation in the magnetic field of the Earth,” one of the people said.
“Is it dangerous?”
“Not as far as we know.”
There were three women in the room, and suddenly they jumped up. Two were on the other side of the table from the door, and they both ran to the wall, clearly terrified. The other opened the door and ran as fast as she could. Fred was still standing and he jumped away from the woman who made it through the door before she touched him. Paul was not so lucky.
He fell to the floor as the woman bowled him over. As he lay on the floor, his body started to change. In a few moments, he was a woman. He stood and realized he was in a room full of men. The two women on the other side of the room were screaming for the men to stay away from them. For their part, the men got as far away as they could. Fred jumped away from his friend, terrified, and Paul turned and ran from the room. Part way down the hall, his pants could no longer stay up, and he, or rather she, had to pause to pull them up, then she headed for her office. She slammed the door shut and locked it. With a deadbolt and combination that only she knew.
She let out a sigh of relief, then stopped and wondered what the hell had just happened.
Freeman wasn't sure what had happened either. There were still two women standing on the other side of the room, cowering in fear. He wanted to go to them and see what was wrong, but he felt fear of them as well. It was strange as he had never had a fear of women before.
As he watched several of the men present started slipping out the door to the conference room. They were obviously afraid of the women as well.
Freeman tried to stay so that he could comfort the women, but he found that he couldn't. He left the room as well. He went to the end of the corridor and turned to look if they had left. He saw them running down to the other end of the corridor.
The president was sitting at his, or rather her desk. She was incredibly confused to have suddenly become a woman. How in the world had that happened? She stood and went to her private restroom. There, she saw what she looked like now. She was quite pretty. Her face looked very much the same, but it had become feminine in appearance.
She was wearing makeup, but her clothes had not changed. That was very strange. In fact, she was still wearing the suit and tie that she had been in, but the suit hung off her body. Except up top, where her breasts tried to make their appearance known, and her hips. She turned to where she could see and found that she had an ample behind, but nothing really to write home about.
Curiously, she removed her jacket and shirt. She was rather surprised at the size of her breasts. She saw why her hips didn’t really show in her pants. She had a very narrow waist. Quite petite actually. She felt no shame at suddenly being a woman, which for her was shocking, as she had never been unhappy being a man. She was curious about what she would find when she removed her pants, and so she did. For her petite size, she had a nice derriere, which pleased her.
She looked at the men’s suit on the floor where she had left it and picked it up, folding it neatly. There was a bit of nausea when she looked at it all, and she decided that she would have to get some women’s clothes. Picking up the underwear that she had put on that morning made her even more sick. She used just her thumb and index finger to lift it. It went straight onto the back of the toilet, then she decided a shower would be best, so that she could wash off the last vestiges of her masculinity.
Stepping into the shower, she reflected that she didn’t really know how to wash her hair, but she had seen enough women come out of this very room, their hair in a towel. Then she remembered that under the sink was shampoo and conditioner that would be suitable. She stepped out of the tub and grabbed it. The shampoo directions really didn’t tell her anything she didn’t know, but the conditioner did.
She washed her whole body, finding that she had more sensitive areas on her anatomy, then grabbed a towel and quickly learned why women patted themselves dry rather than rubbed. She grabbed her robe, which was terry cloth, put it on, and looked at herself in the mirror. She needed makeup, but none of the women had left any. Oh well, she remembered her mother telling her sister not to share makeup with her friends. She did anyway, but she was a teenager at the time.
Paul – now Paula she figured, went out to her computer. What to do. She knew that she needed to call someone, but her government workers were mostly males. Finally, she decided to call Fredrik. She knew Fred would scare her; just thinking about him scared her, but he was one person that she trusted, no matter how frightened she was. She started to reach out to her computer to call, but then decided against it.
She walked over to her liquor cabinet and grabbed a bottle. It was Tennessee whiskey, from a company that had been around for several millennia. She poured about a shot’s worth into a glass and drank it in one gulp.
She coughed and couldn’t get her breath for a minute. Wow! She would definitely have to watch her alcohol intake. She decided she needed another bit of courage, so poured another shot, but drank it slow. She started to the desk again, but grabbed her glass and bottle.
At the desk, she sat down and poured one more drink. Her vision was starting to blur, but she reached out and plugged in Fred’s call number. At least she hoped it was his. Her mind was starting to get a bit fuzzy.
Thankfully, Fred answered. When his face came on the screen, even with the alcohol, she had to hold herself back from getting up and running. She poured another shot.
For his part, Fredrik pulled away from his screen. He saw what she was doing with the whiskey, but figured he should keep a clear head, so didn’t get any for himself.
“Yes, Paul?”
“I guess it should be Paula,” she told him.
“Okay Paula. Are you as scared of me as I am of you?”
“I’m terrified,” she responded. “Just seeing you there is hard to take.”
“Agreed. What happened to you?”
“I’m guessing I turned into a woman. What do you think happened?” The question seemed ridiculous, but in retrospect, she realized what he meant. “I’ve no idea how, Fred.”
Just then, her comm panel beeped. “I’m going to merge this call with us.”
“Why?” he asked, but her chief of staff was already on a split screen.
Fred saw her quite afraid now, so he told the other man, “Make this quick, Reg.”
For his part, the other man stuttered as he said, “I’m really sorry S… Ma’am but we’ve had a death. Ronda Briggs was killed.”
“No!” Paula was shocked. “How?”
“It looks like someone used something very sharp to slice her in half from shoulder to hip.”
“Thank you, Reg.” She pushed the button to release the call, then said to Fred. “I need to get over there. Please would you come too? You’re the only male I find I can trust. I still am afraid of you, but I know you won’t hurt me.”
“I’ll be there,” He said. He understood very well. She was the only woman he could trust right now.
She hurried to where Reg called from, but when she got there, there were two women kneeling over the body of her daughter. She looked at them, and didn’t recognize one, but the other was Ronda’s twin sister, Rhoda. The other woman had her arms around Rhoda, hugging her.
A moment later, Fred rushed up. “Oh God!” he exclaimed. “What...” he suddenly saw the two women’s faces. “Reg?” he asked the one holding Rhoda.
Suddenly, he realized that he wasn’t the least bit afraid of Paula, so he pulled her into a hug. She was weeping at the loss of one of her daughters and he felt her tears touch his cheek. He reached up and brushed her hair back over her ear with his hand, allowing his cheek to touch hers.
Finally her crying slowed and she looked at Rhoda and her comforter. She saw what Fred had seen. “Reg? What happened?” Stupid question, she thought. She could see what happened.
“I was kneeling over Ronda, and Rhoda came out of nowhere, bowling me over. She pushed me out of the way, then my vision blurred. When I could see again, I was a woman.”
Reg still had her arm around Rhoda’s shoulder and she sheepishly moved away. “We need to tell Phineas about Ronda,” she said.
“Oh God!” Rhoda cried. Hesitantly, like she expected the president to yell at her, Reg put her arm around Rhoda and pulled her in.
Several people showed up, and they moved the parts of the body onto a gurney, and wheeled it away.
Fred reached for his comm unit, and realized he and Paula were holding hands. He let go, and immediately felt shame for doing it as he had. To cover his action, he said, “I’ll call Phineas.” He dialed the number he knew by heart. He and Paul were like brothers, so they each knew the other’s family, and call numbers.
The comm unit took a long time to connect. “Yeah?”
“Phineas, this is Fred,”
“What do you want?” He sounded strange.
“Rhonda has been killed.”
“No shit! Is that all you had to say? That bitch has been cheating on me for a long time, and with a woman too!”
“Are you saying you killed her?” Fred asked asked.
“I sure as hell am. Got the sword in my hand right now.”
“You’re going to have to be arrested,”
“So what? I’ve got what I needed. She’s gone.”
“You bastard!” Paula screamed into the comm unit. “You killed my daughter!”
“Who the hell is that?”
“I’m the president!”
“Sure you are. And I’m Shakespeare.” There was a small click and the unit went dead.
“That…!” Rhoda couldn’t finish her sentence.
Gently, Fred started to lead the three women out of the corridor, but Paula stopped him. “I need something to wear,” she said. “So does Reg.”
Strangely, Rhoda had perked up without Ronda’s body in front of her. She looked into Reg’s eyes, which were still above her. “I guess it’s Regina instead of Reginald?”
The four eventually got to the situation room after Paula and Reg borrowed some clothes from Rhoda. They didn’t fit Reg properly, but at least they were better than the men’s clothes she had been wearing.
Paula called on her chief of security and the chief doctor of the capitol. The doctor hurried to the situation room, but the security chief would not. He was too afraid.
Once the doctor entered, Fred watched the women. None of the them seemed afraid of him, nor did he seem afraid of them. “What is going on here?” he asked no one in particular. He turned to the doctor. “Jack? Are you afraid of the women?”
“Why should I be?”
“Because every other man in the capitol seems to be. The chief of security won’t even get near the President.”
“So it happened to you too?” he asked Paula. “Me ‘n Sylvia were working on a case, when she suddenly seemed afraid. I reached out to steady her, and she screamed. She backed up, but I grabbed her hand. Her eyes seemed to lose focus, then I was holding the hand of a man!”
“She seemed afraid of you? Were you afraid of her?
“Why should I be, Madam president? She’s my wife!”
“You didn’t have any fear about your wife at all?”
“No. The only feeling I had was what I always have when she’s around. Butterflies in my stomach.”
“Could that have been fear?” asked Rhoda.
“Miss, why would I marry someone that I was afraid of?”
None of us had an answer to that.
“She looked down at her body, and told me she was sorry she wasn’t a woman anymore for my sake. I told her not to sweat it, and we kissed. Wasn’t a problem for me.”
“Have you looked at my daughter’s body?” Paula asked.
“She had just come in when you called me. Sylvia is doing an autopsy now, but it’s pretty apparent what killed her.”
“Yes,” Paula agreed. She looked at Fred. “There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to this. Jack wasn’t afraid of Sylvia, but she was of him, but when she became a man, there was no fear anymore.”
She started to pace, and Fred saw how beautiful she was. Her hair was dark, and came to her shoulders. She was very petite and probably five foot one or two. He had never gone for a woman that small, as he was six foot six. Even when she was a man, and five foot ten, he had still towered over her, or him.
She had a dark complexion as well, as if she was Mediterranean. He glanced at her daughter and saw that they both very beautiful, and could be sisters, although Rhoda’s hair was a slightly lighter shade, almost a deep chocolate brown, sort of like dutch chocolate. Ronda’s was more Paula’s shade.
Paula continued musing. “I was scared of you. Terrified, but I knew I could trust you. When we arrived at Ronda’s body, it was like that fear just washed away.”
“I was afraid of every man too, Dad; uh…. Mom,” Rhoda told her. When I got to Ronda, I wasn’t. I just pushed Reg out of the way.” She turned to Reg, “Sorry if I hurt you, Reg.”
“No problem,” the chief of staff responded, giving Rhoda a smile. Freeman was certain that if they had been side by side they would have kissed.
“Was Ronda fooling around on Phineas? And with another woman?”
“No, Mom! She wasn’t a lesbian. She wasn’t even bi! That’s me!”
Paula nodded, as did Fred.
They discussed things for awhile, then went to their own rooms to ponder things.
Fred was certain that he had missed something. Something vital.
That night, Fredrik had a dream. In it, he had grown up with Paula, and when they went into hiding from Willem, it was as husband and wife, and they had three girls. Ronda, Rhoda, and Regina. He awoke, and realized that he wasn’t alone. He ordered the lights on and Paula was sitting in a chair in his room.
She was wearing some diaphanous lingerie that left little to the imagination, and her face was immaculately made up, but she seemed indecisive.
He was wearing just his boxers and a plain t-shirt, but he got up anyway, and sat down in the chair beside hers at a round table. “I suppose this is a ridiculous question, but were you hoping to do something?”
She did, but she looked at the very short time she’d been a woman, and she wasn’t sure why she felt the way she did. Certainly, she and Fred had been friends for many years. Approximately fifteen hundred, to be precise, but they were only friends. Not lovers! How could their friendship go from simply friends to lovers in a single day? Okay, the real question… How could she become a woman in about a minute?
She looked into his face, and she thought she saw tears in his eyes. She was certain that she had some in hers.
“This is some situation, isn’t it?” he asked her.
“I don’t understand it, Fred. How can I be in love with you in less than a day?”
He smiled. “I think I’m in love with you too.”
“Really?”
“Yes, but then again, I’ve loved you for a long time.”
Her mouth dropped open a bit as she tried to digest that bit of information.
“It’s true, Paula. I’ve been enamored with you for a long time.”
“You’re gay?” her voice broke at the thought that now that she was a woman, he wouldn’t – couldn’t love her the way she loved him.
“No, Paula,” he said as he reached out and took her hand. “I’m bisexual.”
She scanned his face, looking for some sign that he might be telling an untruth, but she saw nothing to indicate that.
“So would I be enough for you?”
“I don’t know what happened, Paula, but I am even more enamored with you now.”
She leaned over and kissed him, then he took her hand and took her to the bed. They made love two times,, and started an even more sensuous third, but something strange happened. In the middle of the orgasm, both of them switched sexes. They both fell asleep and Fred had another dream, but this time Paul had married Frieda, and she had had three daughters.
The next morning, Rhoda and Reg went to Paula’s room, desperate to find out what had happened to them. Both of them were now men. They too had made love the night before, and on the third time, they had switched. How this happened, they didn’t know, but they were still very much in love.
When they didn’t find anyone there, they went to Fred’s room as they had seen the very obvious attraction between the two the day before. They knocked on the door and Rhoda was shocked to hear her dad’s voice say, “Come in.”
They entered and they saw two couples. Her dad, and an ash blonde woman who looked remarkably like…. Fred! Also, there was Sylvia Hurst and again, an unfamiliar woman, but they quickly realized it was Jack!
“I see it happened to you too,” Paul said to them.
“Dad,” Rhoda began.
“Please. Call me Mom. I’m not sure how it happened, but I don’t want to think about being a man. This is disgusting to me.”
“Yes, Mom. Both Regina and I hate being men, but we still love each other.”
“You hate being a man now, Reg?” Jack asked.
“I’m not sure why, Doctor, but I want so very much to change back to a woman.”
“This is so strange,” Paula said, quietly, then she asked them “Did you change while making love?”
“Yes, we did,” answered Reg.
“We did too,” Fred told them. “I’m bisexual, but I’m completely nauseated by being a woman. I’m wanting very much to make love with Paula, however..”
“Sylvia, do you like being a woman?”
“Not a bit,” she said, “which is strange. Before, I always wanted to turn Jack on by being a sexy woman. I am not opposed to wearing women’s clothes, however. I don’t want to be a woman, but I don’t mind looking like one.”
“But you don’t want to be one.” Paula ruminated.
“I know it sounds strange,” Sylvia acknowledged, “but I really don’t.”
“So this just changed?” Fred wanted to make sure.
“Yes. Once I became a man, I didn’t want to go back to being a woman.” She glanced at Jack, and said, “As long as Jack’s okay with it, that’s all that matters.”
Fredrik wasn’t sure what was going on. It seemed like nothing made sense. He had known that Paul was a heterosexual man, and yet last night, they had spent the better part of the night with each other. Reg was also a heterosexual man, and now, he was a homosexual woman. Well, at the moment, he was a homosexual man, but last night, he was a… It was all so confusing.
His own situation was a bit more normal as was Jack’s and Rhoda’s. He and Jack were both bisexual, and Rhoda only liked women.
Later in Paula's office, both Paula and Fred sat discussing the problem. It wasn't easy. There was something weird happening, but damned if they could figure it out.
"I'm trying to piece this together. We've got two bisexual men, a homosexual woman, two straight men, and a straight woman. What's the connection," Fred said to Paula.
Paula pondered. "Perhaps you're looking at it wrong," she commented. "If we looked at it after the fear, it looks different. We then have, two homosexual women, three bisexual men, and a straight woman."
"Okay, I can see that," Fred agreed. "It still doesn't get us any closer to the solution."
"Well, I agree; but I think that when we look at this problem, we have to consider both scenarios, don't you think?"
"Yeah," Freeman said. "I think you're right."
Paula changed the subject. "How are you doing as a woman?" she asked him.
"Well, I hate the longer hair. I hate the breasts. I hate having to sit down to take a leak. I hate being short. Do you want me to continue?"
"No, that's alright. I think I got it. I hate being a guy too."
"You see, that's something I just don't understand. You were straight. How come you now hate being a male?"
She shook her head. "I really don't know, but I'm assuming I know who's responsible for all this."
He gave a disgruntled laugh. "Yeah, my degenerate brother."
Rather than say anything else, she just nodded. “Do you think looking at his character would help?” she asked.
“What character,” he countered.
It was her turn to give a small chuckle. “Willem had character,” she said. “It was just very poor.”
“That’s one way to put it.” Unconsciously, he brushed his long hair behind his ear where it had fallen into his immaculately made up face. Once he had done it, he let out a sigh and shook his head. “I really hate this,” he complained. “I keep doing things that all women do. I’m sitting the way a woman does. I’m walking like one. What’s the deal?”
“Remember the boys that Willem abducted and made into his harem? They were forced to act like sexy girls. I believe this is simply an offshoot of that.”
Fred looked at Paula for a long moment. “That’s a really depressing thought, you know?”
“Yeah, it it.”
“The bad thing, Paula, is I think you’re right.” He gazed at her, or at the current moment, his face, taking in every line, the dimples, the hair. Everything he loved as a woman. But he wasn’t a woman. He hated being one. He wanted to go back to being himself. These feelings he had were being forced into him, and he knew that the feelings Paula had were forced into her. “So that little asshole makes us into a couple, then reverses our sexes where we hate ourselves. Is that it?”
“Not according to the reports I’m getting,” she told him. “We’ve still got fear going on outside these walls. We have several transformations, and they seem to have no real reason...” Her voice trailed off, then she got on the comm to Reg.
“Reg, tell your investigators to check if those people have been touched by someone of the opposite sex.”
Fred held up a hand to get her attention.
“Hang on, Reg. Don’t leave yet. Yeah, Fred?”
“Check for people’s genders as well. Also...” He stopped for a moment, then shook his head. “I doubt it, but see if people have changed their sexual preferences as well. I’ve got another question to run by someone.” He stood, and told her, “I’ll be right back.”
They moved their discussion to the situation room, where they could fit more people. Normally, Rhoda wouldn’t be there, but as she was now almost inseparable from Reg, and one of the major players in this strange drama, she was present. Jack and Sylvia were as well.
“Your hunch was on the money, Fred,” Reg told him. “The reports of transformations is quite high. Most of the people report having been touched by someone else. We can only assume that it has probably happened in each case, but has just gone unnoticed.”
“Okay, but is there any suggestion as to who is going to change?” Jack asked.
“I’ll get to that,” Reg replied. “We’ve had some completely different changes as well. Sometimes, people will be touched by the same sexed person, but will suddenly change their sexual preferences. It always matches the person that they touched, or rather, were touched by.”
Paula nodded, but told her, “I see where you’re going, but I want to point something out. I don’t believe that the sexual preferences is such a different thing.”
“Oh?”
“No, it’s not. Look at Jack and Sylvia. They are both bi-males – at least mentally they are.” She looked Jack in the eye and said, “Sylvia told us that he doesn’t mind cross dressing for you. I’m sorry to ask, but do you feel the same?”
“Why apologize? We need this information. Yeah, I have no problem doing the same for him.”
“Okay, Reg, now look at yourself. Are you interested in men?” She shook her head. “Are you bi?” Again she shook her head, but this time a smile was forming on her face.
“I see. I believe you’re right. You change sex, and gender to the same as the person who touched you!”
Paula nodded. Beside her, Fred’s expression was one of disgust aimed at his damned brother. What a complete bastard!
Author’s note:
I really didn’t think I was going to get this out today. Yesterday was my birthday (don’t even think of asking my age) and I figured as it was a special day, I was going to cheat on carbs. Unfortunately, being a diabetic, that’s not a good idea, so I was not doing very well. I don’t even want to think what my glucose meter said this morning.
I finally convinced myself that I needed to get up a little while ago and post this. Now, I think I’ll drag myself back to bed.
G’night!
It had been quite some time since ‘Total Fun’ had begun on Earth. Of course, they had no idea what was happening on N21, but it was assumed that, while sending the original operating system to the station, it triggered something on Earth. They had found that ‘Total Fun’ ran through cycles that were approximately fifty years each, and the population had suffered through almost six of them now. Each cycle of the ‘stages of Total Fun’ ended with a three year hiatus for the person before a reset occurred, then the fear would start for each person independently. Since the beginning, or ‘fear stage’, was a different length, as it ended by people being affected by ‘death nanites’, the stages that each person was going through could be very different than someone else. It was suspected that, given time, there could be people in the middle, while others at either end.
After three hundred years, anarchy had ruled Earth. The government that had been in place since Willem was removed from power, had broke down. The fear between genders had caused enough damage in society, that people trusted no one. There was a growing unrest that manifested in the question of who were you before this particular incarnation.
In isolated areas, people died by being beheaded by their nanites, but in larger cities like New York, London, and even Honolulu, there were murders which served to further the stages.
Some people developed such a ‘love’ for their bond mates that they were automatically reconnected to them after the ‘death nanites’ took effect.
With the anarchy, something had to be done. In an attempt to preserve the human race, a bold plan had been arrived at. With three periods of normality in the cycle of Total Fun, twenty ships had been built to ferry a load of children to other planets. The first one that would arrive was at Alpha Centauri. It was common knowledge that there was an Earth like planet there, and it was hoped that nothing completely deadly to human beings would be in residence. When everyone boarded the ships, an EMP would be set off before the computers were set up and brought online. Even though this did not work with adults, it was hoped that it could work with the nanites in children. It was a long shot, but all that they had.
Part of ‘Total Fun’ was known as the Pregnancy Stage, where people spent a complete pregnancy on their back, and several kids had been born. So far, none of the children had been affected by the stages, but the adults feared that it was only time.
For each of the ships, adults would command them. There would be enough adults to keep a pair who were in a normal stage at all times, plus some several doctors to keep people cared for. There would also be several backup people, as it was known that, unfortunately, there would be deaths.
One more thing that was prepared for. There would enough fuel in each ship to allow for changing course and, if they went into orbit around a planet that did not pan out, they would have enough fuel to go to another. Five times, if need be.
The ships were built along a similar design to the N22 station, only larger. It was thought that they would need the room to be able to increase their population by several times. Just the ship going to Alpha Centauri would require four hundred years to make that journey. The ship could go faster, but in order to keep enough fuel to make more trips, they needed to restrict their speed. Of course, they were stopping at planets where, if they could find enough natural resources, they could build a mining facility to ‘top off’ their fuel reserves.
Crews for the ships had not been chosen yet, but with the anarchy, Fred and Paula were definitely going. There was no reason for them to stay on Earth. The government had been completely obliterated, and Paula had gone into hiding in order to survive.
It had been many years before the ships were fully stocked and ready to leave Earth’s orbit. So many had to be built that it had been over a hundred years from the inception of the plan to it’s fruition. It had now been four hundred years, and everything was ready to go. Fredrik and Paula were brought aboard the Alpha Centauri ship. They were in the first section of sitting, staring at each other. So their minds would not be overstimulated, they were moved aboard the ship in the middle of the night when even a jackhammer would not have been able to disturb them. They were placed in an apartment on board the ship in a room that was identical to their rooms in Venice. Jack and Sylvia would check on them every day.
The commander of the ship for it’s leaving Earth orbit was Reg, or Gina as she went by now. Rhoda was, of course, present as well. They were in their one year hiatus before they entered the stage that Paula and Fred were in, and they would turn the ship over to another commander at the end of their year. Because Gina was in charge at launch, she was the senior commander of the ship, Centaurus.
Rhoda had been trained to navigate the ship, so she was in the control room with several other people waiting for the order to leave Earth. She had plotted the course to put them on line to Alpha Centauri, and the course continued to update itself for every millimeter they moved in orbit. When Gina gave the order, she pressed the execute button, and nothing happened. Certainly the computers took over, but it would be a few more kilometers before the ship powered up it’s engines.
They waited, then they felt a gentle vibration as the engines started to power up. There was no thrust applied. Just the engines warmed the fuel. Finally, the point in space came, and the engines fired. Slowly the ship moved away from the planet below.
On the surface of the blue and green planet, the fact that twenty immense vehicles were leaving them, was completely missed. The fact that the person who was, just tentatively, the active president, was no longer a part of the population, also went unnoticed.
The people on the surface were embroiled in fear, sex, and fighting. Many people were killed each day, babies were born, and transitions accomplished.
Gina stood on the bridge, watching the screen that looked back on the planet that up until a few hours ago had been their home. She was of mixed emotions as she left. She would not miss the problems that plagued the people on the surface, but she would miss the surface itself. She loved the planet, and the freedom of being under a blue sky. She had no idea if she would ever see one again.
“Gina!” It was a good friend of Gina and Rhoda’s, a man by the name of Vlad.
“Yes?” She was surprised by the excitement in his voice.
“Sylvia just reported that people are coming out of whatever stage they’re in.” He paused for a moment. “Rhoda, your parents are out of theirs. They’re going to have a rest, however. They’re experiencing cramped muscles.”
Rhoda jumped up, and both she and Gina hurried out of the control room. There wasn’t much to do, anyway. The computers would keep things running smoothly.
The next day, they were in the briefing room beside the control room. Fred and Paula were there, but still suffering from cramps after so much time being motionless. “I don’t get it?” Paula said to Jack and Sylvia.
“As near as I can tell,” Jack told her, “Something in the vicinity of Earth was making the nanites work against us.”
“Can you be any more specific?” asked Fred.
Sylvia answered for ‘her’ husband. She had found that during her times of freedom, she enjoyed still dressing the part of the wife, even though she was physically male. “No, we really can’t. We had no idea this would happen.”
“Best guess?” Gina asked.
“Sure,” Jack responded. “I’m guessing that something in the vicinity of Earth was making the nanites work against us.”
“You’re not very helpful,” Gina complained.
“Neither was Caesar.”
There was a beeping, and Fred answered his comm unit. Everyone stared at him as he received a communique from the control room. “N21 is calling.”
He switched the communication to his comm unit, and was astounded to hear his own voice in a conversation with Perl. She was talking about her friend’s cooking skill, and how she had made absolutely gourmet meals from the hydroponically grown vegetables on the ship. “That sound’s delicious,” Fred told her.
He sat at the table, his mouth open. “I never said that. Hell, I never had a conversation like this with her at all!”
He sat, staring dumbfounded at his comm unit as it relayed a conversation that never happened to the briefing room.
A moment later, they were drawn away from the phantom conversation by another call from the control room. “We’re picking up something on a collision course with Earth.”
Gina and Paula both jumped up and sprinted down the corridor, while the others followed after a moment.
“What’s going on?” Gina asked, yelling above the excited voices in the room.
“I’m not sure what they are, but there seems to be multiple objects. I had thought it was just one until the resolution got better.” It was Vlad.
“Gina?” Paula didn’t want to step on her daughter-in-law’s toes.
“Mom, if you have any suggestions, I’d love to hear them.”
Paula nodded. “Vlad, you said the resolution got better? So we’re getting closer to them?”
“They’re getting closer to us, Ma’am. They’re heading toward Earth from the other side, and they’re moving fast!”
“Okay. Can we slow down a bit so they come into higher resolution quicker?”
Gina thought about it, then, “Do it, Rhoda! Now!”
Normally the artificial gravity would compensate for any thrust, but Rhoda hit the retro engines hard. A few people stumbled, and the things on Vlad’s screen seemed to jump close.
“Oh, no!” said Vlad. Gina and Paula hurried over and gave the screen a look. “Check it out, now,” Gina shouted.
Paula sat down at a spare computer and called up historical records. “It’s them.” Her voice was completely devoid of emotion.
“So you’re saying,” Fred asked, looking at his wife, “That these are the missiles that were launched from N22 before it left?”
“The same,” she replied.
“Those were sent into the sun!”
“I’m sorry, Fred, but apparently not.”
He sighed and slowly sat down at one of the unused stations. He kept his eyes on the screen the whole time.
The comm signaled that there was an incoming communications It was Kevin Grayson, the commander of Fomalhaut IV.
“I take it you see those, as you slowed down,” he commented to Gina.
“Yes, we...” Gina broke off as they all saw the missiles break apart as the MRVs split off. “How the...” She turned to her father-in-law. “I thought those were disarmed!”
“They were supposed to be.” He almost couldn’t speak. To compound what they were all feeling, they saw the solid fuel engines fire, putting the MRVs into carefully plotted, decaying orbits.
“Rhoda,” asked Paula quietly, “Is there any point in asking if we could make it back in time to stop any of those?”
“Absolutely no way, Mom.”
“We can help people, though,” Gina announced. “Turn us around, Rhoda. Keep the ship out of the range of the ‘Total Fun” signal.”
“That’s outside the moon’s orbit, Gina.”
“Okay. That will have to do.” She turned to Grayson. “I’m going to rescue as many of those people as I can. The MRVs will hit before I can get there, but I don’t feel comfortable just letting them die.” Her statement was sent to all of the ships, and a signal came back from each of them saying they would do the same.
All twenty of the ships wasted precious fuel, coming to a stop relative to the planet, then put themselves into an orbit around the equator, but beyond the orbit of Earth’s moon. They were barely moving so they could maintain the orbit they were in.
As they were moving into position, the MRVs exploded right above the military installations and major cities on the surface. It was as if an orange cloud swept across the surface. Unfortunately, the warheads did exactly what they were designed to do. They released the orange clouds, which lifted out of range of the primitive explosions, then descended. The explosions were simply to open every nook and cranny of anyplace a human being could hide. Then, the orange clouds, consisting of millions of nanites, converted all organic material into more nanites, and swept over the planet’s surface.
“How...” Rhoda was staring, tears flowing freely down her face.
No one was immune from the tears. Every person who could see the screens in each of the ships, cried that day. Each one had been chosen because they were known to care about other people, no matter the situation. Seeing every person on their planet destroyed was beyond what they could stand.
As soon as they could prepare their landers, they sent them out. The crew of each was all the same gender, so there would be no problems as they got close to the planet. Each returned the same story. No one was alive that they could find. The only ones who might be, would be locked in a bank vault Otherwise…
“We are gathered here today, to pay tribute to our fallen world.” The commanding crews of each ship had joined on Centaurus, as it was the ship of Earth’s president. Those who were not able to attend physically, sat in their own ship’s amphitheater, along with their thousands of neighbors, watching Paula Freeman speak.
“We have seen the outcome of the MAD project, and it was truly that. Mad. Watching as every human on the world was destroyed by the very things that are in our bodies, keeping us from being destroyed, was humbling. To think that one man was able to orchestrate this loss of life over this world, is unthinkable.
“There will never be anymore life on this world, our home, but we can spread our wings and build our lives elsewhere. We can, and we will. Each of us is set to go to a different possibility, with five backup locations each. That makes a hundred worlds that we can check, with even more possible as we look out in the galaxy.
“Where will we end up? We don’t know right now, but we will survive. We have to. This is the only choice for us. We know that there are two more ships out there, but they have left our galaxy, heading toward no galaxy that we know of. We know that N21 had the ‘Total Fun’ on their ship, but perhaps, if N22 finds them, they can move to N22 and be free.
“If N22 finds N21, and I believe they will they will return here. They will see what happened to our world, and then undoubtedly leave.
“Gina and I have discussed this possibility, and we have decided to help them, if we can.
“We are going to place Centaurus into an orbit where we can wait for them to arrive. It may take thousands of years, but we have enough substance on this ship to wait that long. Again, just as we had to check on our people on Earth, we have to save this last vestige of humanity, if we can.
“My charge to you, as your president, is to go out into the galaxy, and make us proud! Find a place to call home again, each of you, and never give up. Don’t surrender to whatever challenges you find out there. We no longer are Caesar’s playthings. We are our own again. Do not be beaten!”
She stepped away from the podium she had stood behind, then told the crowds, “Now, go to it, and be blessed!”
Then she stepped off the platform and walked out of the amphitheater. Just outside the door, she met Fred and just about fell into his arms. “You did great,” he told her.
“Remember all those times I got on your case about Willem and how you felt about watching him die?”
He nodded, not knowing where she was going with this.
“I want to kill him a thousand times over now. No, make that millions of times, billions of times. One for each person destroyed on our planet.”
“We don’t know if he reprogrammed those missiles, Paula. We’ll never know.”
“Whether directly or indirectly, he is responsible for each of them. We wouldn’t have any of the N series weapons platforms if he had stayed out of power.”
Fred hugged her hard. “Paula, I want you to know one thing.” He backed up so he could look in her eyes. “I would be right there helping you with those billions of times killing him. Long ago, I lost any love I had for him. There is no connection to him at all. I have been Freeman so long now, I hardly remember being a Wallace. He is gone from my soul.”
She nodded and pulled herself into him. It was awhile before they went back to their rooms.
Centaurus had sat on a cometary orbit around Sol for many years. Actually, close to fifty thousand. There had been a few upsets with the after effects of ‘Total Fun’, but they had dealt with them and moved on.
Finally the day came where they wanted to settle on a planet. The ship had enough supplies to keep them going for years yet, but being stuck in a ship, even one as vast as Centaurus, came at a price. ‘Cabin Fever’ had been known of for years, but with all the things to do on Earth, the craft that could take you anywhere, without ever fearing sliding off roads, or plowing snow, it simply wasn’t an issue. Now, however the people were wishing for more area to visit.
Finally, Gina had enough. She sat down with her mother-in-law and discussed the problem. “I want to see them as much as you do, Mom, but we’ve got to be realistic.”
“I know, Gina. I just wish they had shown up by now.”
“I have a possibility for you, Mom. I’m really not sure what you’ll think of it, however.”
They met up with a few engineers who had worked on the ships in the briefing room.
“This is really a matter for you and Fred, Ma’am.” one of the engineers told her.
“Why?”
“You haven’t told her?”
Gina shook her head, and Paula was starting to get really worried now. Just what had they come up with?
“On our way through here, Mom, we’ve scouted this area many times. The fact is, it’s mineral rich. There are enough metals out here to build a ship. Another one, even bigger than this one.”
“You think we should build another ship?”
The engineer nodded.
“Transfer our people into that?”
“No,” Gina told her.
“I’m not sure I get it, then.”
“Mom, call Dad in here, please?”
Very reluctantly, Paula called her husband. He came in ten minutes later, and no one had given Paula anymore information.
“What’s up?” Fred asked.
Gina filled Fred in on what was already said, then she went on. “We are thinking of building a ship that can wait here indefinitely for N22 to return. We will put a small crew on it, to contact N22 when they arrive. As such, there will be the possibility… No, make that certainty, that children will be born to these people, thus an indefinite wait is really not possible, but a very long wait is possible.
“Where the ship will be much bigger than this one, and a very small crew placed on it, there will be a vast amount of space for them to enjoy.”
“How big are you talking?” Fred asked.
“To put it in perspective, our Centaurus’ diameter is two miles. We’re talking about the same size command ring, but a diameter five times that of Centaurus.”
“As well,” said the engineer, “Because of the size of this thing, We think there needs to be a few modifications as well.”
“Go on,” Fred was very interested now.
“We will build an outer ring around the upstairs and downstairs, with ‘U’ corridors between them as well We’re also thinking of the same idea in the middle of the bays. Not only will this allow for quicker transport between, but it will help strengthen the entire structure.”
Paula had been listening intently, and now said, “I want to be a part of that crew.”
Gina agreed. “It will be yours to command.”
It had taken a few years to build the massive ship. They had found vast deposits of the raw materials to make fuel, in the Oort cloud, as well as from some of the asteroids. These had been pulled to the dwarf planet, Pluto. They used that as a base for the builders and engineers to work on the ship. Once the superstructure was built and pressurized, they installed the anti gravity, then floors. At that point, Pluto was abandoned except as a storage facility for raw materials. One of the bays was given over to a metal fabrication plant. Once that was done, things began to move along much faster. Raw materials were moved to an open bay. It was estimated that there was enough there to fit out the inside of the entire ship.
Fred and Paula had decided that, while neither had experience in building, they would lend a couple of pairs of hands wherever they could. It was a special time for Paula, knowing that when this was completely built, she would command it.
Another change in the structure was made soon after the basic plans had been made. To increase the capacity, the shape of the bays was changed. The other ships, while much larger than N21, were still built the same. The bays were the basic shape of a rectangle, with thirty of them on the upstairs and downstairs halves. The new ship was completely changed, in effect, more than tripling it’s capacity. Each bay was built into the next one, with multiple ‘U’ corridors joining the sides together. As a result, there was no need for an outside corridor to connect the bays but an interesting idea was made. A corridor was made on the outer edge of the ship. It was over thirty miles long, surrounding the entire ship. The ‘U’ corridors were connected with ‘J’ corridors to this ring. The outside had a metal shell, but the inside was transparent steel. It made a wonderful walkway, where you could see the ship. You could also see the center, command ring. Just for the fun of it, the ‘J’ corridors in the command rings and in the outer ring, went the opposite way. Thus you were standing the opposite directions in the rings.
Now, it was time to start the engines for the first time to make sure that they worked. These were massive compared to the ones that powered Centaurus. When Paula gave the order to start them, there was a vibration in the entire ship that felt like it was hitting the harmonics of a person’s bones. It rose in power until the ship began to move. The ship was placed into an orbit that ran parallel to it’s smaller sister, but several miles away to adjust for it’s much greater mass. Very carefully, it’s roll was started, then Paula took a brass plaque from a pocket, wiped it off and placed it in a receptacle just inside the door of the command center. It stated that the name of this new ship was Neo22.
Once the Neo22 was run through it’s paces, it was time for Centaurus to depart. She watched through a scope as the smaller ship started out of it’s orbit. “Smooth sailing, Centaurus,” she said over the comm.
“They will be safe, Mom,” said a very familiar voice from behind her. She turned and saw Rhoda. Not just her, but Gina as well!
“What are you two doing here?” she asked, dumbfounded.
“Staying with you and Dad,” Gina told her. “You don’t think we’d abandon you, do you?”
“Who’s commanding Centaurus?” Paula asked.
“I transferred command to Rick Johnson,” She told her mother-in-law. “Right before I transferred to here.” She stepped over to Paula and asked the old question of seafarers. “Permission to come aboard?”
Paula stood at one of the few observation ports on the outer ring, gazing out at the stars of the Milkyway. There was no sensation of movement, but the scene continually moved from right to left. It was one of her favorite pastimes, to simply stand by the viewports and look longingly out at stars. She always hoped that one day she would live close to one out there, somewhere.
None of the viewports ever showed Sol. It was hidden by the floor of the thirty mile tube that she stood in. She had been standing there for about an hour, when Fred's reflection appeared in the port beside hers. She saw that he had a couple of folding chairs with him, and he set them up right behind her. He gently guided her to the chair, and she sat down.
The tube was about twenty-five feet wide, and the viewports had been built into a small room in the along the outer wall.. The entire outer wall of the room was transparent steel, which gave the impression of standing in space, especially since the lighting was so dim to be almost nonexistent.
Fred sat down and picked up a pack that he had also carried with him. He reached in and pulled out a bottle. The label was a match to the Scotch Whiskey they had shared so long ago, overlooking Honolulu. He reached into the pack and pulled out two glasses. He poured them each a shot. She didn't down hers immediately. Rather, she held it up and looked at the liquid, which turned the starlight a dim amber color.
"I remember that night you had a bottle of this in Honolulu. I wondered how you had it. It was an artifact from so long ago. This bottle is almost twice as old."
"You told me that night that I hadn't murdered my brother. It took me a long time to believe you, but I finally did. Now I believe you even more."
"There's nothing left on that planet. Do we have the right to colonize other worlds? Maybe we should do as N21 and N22 have done. Just turn Neo22 out of the galaxy and fire our engines until they're out of fuel, to just spend forever between the stars."
He didn't respond for quite some time. He gazed out and finally said, "You don't believe that, Paula. You fought for our survival more than anyone. You were the president when this happened."
"Yeah. I really did well at that," she said dryly. She downed the scotch, and held her glass out for more. Fred almost refused, as he didn't want her to get depressed, but finally poured another shot for each of them.
"You did great, Paula. Nobody could have done a better job than you did."
"You don't believe that, Fred," she said, echoing his sentence back to him.
"In fact, my dear, I do."
"Uh huh. Name one person who couldn't have done better."
"Fredrik Freeman."
She didn't respond to that for several minutes. She just gazed at the stars again. Finally, she said simply, "Bullshit."
He downed his shot, turned to face her, and said, "Not very ladylike, is it?"
She snorted. "I'm not a lady."
"Bullshit," he returned, then they both laughed. When the laughter died down, he took her hand in his, and faced her. Very gently, he turned her face toward his and told her, "You are the most beautiful woman on this ship, and I love you more each day. You are brilliant, self assured, sexy... I can't think of anything you're lacking."
She kissed him, then leaned her head on his shoulder. They stayed there for a long time, holding each other in the light of the stars.
A few days later, the command crew had a meeting.
"We've waited another ten thousand years since Centaurus left," she told them. "I'm not a quitter, but perhaps it's time we admit that N22 isn't returning."
"And do what?" Rhoda asked. "None of the planets have turned out to be what we need to survive. Famolhaut IV is setting out across the galaxy, scanning planets as they go."
Gina backed up her wife. "Mom, we have no place to go."
"We can help look."
"We have twenty sister ships out there, looking for habitable planets," Fred told her. "They are way ahead of us. When N22 gets here…"
"If it gets here,"
"When," he said forcefully. "When... N22 gets here, we'll need to assist them to get up to speed. We'll be their only chance to get to our destination."
"Fred, the people on this shop deserve better than to sit here waiting for something that may never happen."
He knew that she was right, yet there was something she wasn't seeing. "Paula, they chose this, just like you did. Just like I did. The people on N22 deserve us waiting for them. They chose to do what they did. Whether they find N21 or not, they're heroes. That's their nature."
"Mom," Rhoda said, "Think of this. Willem did not think twice about abandoning the people of N21 to flying forever in between galaxies. Gina and I made the decision that we could never be like him. How could we ever face ourselves if we did the same?"
"You told me that I wasn't a murderer, Paula. I am here for that reason. I'm not. I will not do what my brother did. His decision was to abandon them. My decision is to rescue them."
Paula looked at each of her families faces and saw the determination written in each, that made her realize it was permanent. They would not go to a final destination without N22. It simply would not happen.
And so, for another eight hundred years, Neo22 waited
The wait abruptly ended all at once when they tracked N22 heading toward Earth. Gina was in command and called Paula to the command center.
When Paula entered to center she saw that Gina was trying to warn the much smaller ship away from Earth, but they didn't seem to hear. Neo22 watched as they passed the limit of the 'Total Fun' effect.
Suddenly, N22s engines fired, catapulting the ship away from the planet.
At that moment, Neo22 lost sight of Earth, but N22 was heading their way. What was happening on the smaller ship was anyone's guess. They still were now replying to any signal, but were skimming very near the star. Their engines came on for a moment and Paula watched in horror as she realized what they were going to do.
Their course would fling them away from the sun in an ever slowing and widening orbit which would allow Venus' gravity to quickly grab them and fling them into an arc right into Earth's atmosphere, to change course again, heading in a gentle curve back the way they had come.
It was an incredibly complex navigational masterpiece, but they were intending to head directly out of the galaxy!
"Rhoda, please plot us a course to intersect theirs. I know it will take us awhile, but we know where they are now!"
Rhoda was beaming as she started working on her computer. Paula stepped up behind her daughter and nodded her approval as she watched. All of the gravity inside the planetary system made things complex.
The closeness of N22's flightplan to the sun would make any rendezvous there impossible. Frankly, they had no idea if there was enough fuel left for them to change course. Paula knew how close the fuel of that ship had been figured, and she doubted that there was.
Rhoda was setting their courses to intersect well beyond the Oort Cloud. Neo22 would actually come closer to the sun than its counterpart, but would shoot across a very small amount of the corona, to be caught much more by Venus. It would then head toward the rendezvous point.
"Perfect," Paula told her daughter as she saw the course come alive on the screen. It took her a moment to order it, however. While it ended with them intersecting, this would be dangerous. The course was theoretically possible, but it was closer than any sane person would want to get to a star. Hell with it, she thought. "Do it."
Rhoda committed them by pressing a button, and the engines fired. The ship slowed allowing their fall around the star to become stronger. A moment later, the thrusters realigned them, and the engines fired again, making them accelerate their fall while at the same time, angling them to where they would miss the surface and just barely skim the edge of the sun's atmosphere.