Chapter 5

Day Two, assumed to be a Monday, began with a good breakfast consisting of eggs, bacon and hot biscuits, with OJ and coffee. Life was good. There was a new version of the old world to explore. They had a household to sort through and a family to build.

One part of the old world remained unchanged. The husband obtained the furniture and the wives told him where to put it, over and over until it was perfect. Then move it a little to the right. He had chosen a modified Mission style for the ease in acquiring the materials, plus, he could make parts in the replicator and bolt them together to make units larger than the enclosure.

In this fashion, he produced an oval shaped dining table able to seat eight comfortably, a sideboard, matching chairs, two full sized sofas, glass-topped coffee tables, armchairs, and side tables.

‘Ease of acquisition’ involved felling trees, making small pieces from large pieces, collecting rocks and sand, and feeding the hungry maw of the ever-empty hopper. Simple sounding, but labor intensive. Kevin was clever enough to ask the replicator for the sort of anti-gravity device that allowed them to move the metal box from the cave. It only required one of the surplus computers Patty had stored. Adding a few straps to attach the small device to the larger pieces made the moving part relatively easy. The laser pistols did the slicing and dicing.

Someone came up with a better way each time they had to carry a load. At all times, they posted a guard at the work site and at the door. Surprises could be quite ugly.

By the afternoon, the ‘apartment’ was furnished, cushions and all. Thanks to the ‘improvements’ gifted by the evaluator, the group was ready for more.

“Tell us about the extra laptops and tower computers stacked in the back.” Kevin said while the five wandered from room to room.

“Any time some hardware company invented something new, 4R decided our machines were obsolete. A new OS required a new computer. A new scanner required a new computer. The administration was afraid of any computer more than a year old. I was in charge of wiping the hard drives and disposal every time we got a replacement. The main office is on its fifth upgrade, individual departments seemed to get new ones every other month.”

“And these?”

“Once scoured of sensitive data, I donated them to the Scouts, schools and any charity I could find. The area is saturated with excellent computers Malincroft considered useless. This batch still has the original data since there was no rush to find them needy homes.” Patty grinned. “Need a state-of-the-art desktop? I can get it for you cheap? I have rooms full.”

“Later, mark the oldest I can use for replicator food. Personal anti-gravity belts might be fun. Above giant monsters is better than beside giant monsters any day.” Kevin revealed part of his plans. “I’ll query the box.”

The ‘box’ spoke audibly to this question. “I have such a device in my memory. It was designed for my maker to control mentally or by voice. There are few commands to learn. ‘Up, Down, Faster, Slower, Left, Right, Rotate, Reverse, Hover, Turn and Stop’. You may mix commands. ‘Up 45º Slow’ will work. The three power ranges are B, I, and A, beginner, intermediate and expert user. Each setting represents a change in thrust, speed and response time. Inertial damping is integrated into the system.” The box hesitates briefly and beeped. “ Please remove the five anti-gravity belts from the replication chamber.”

“Thank you. Do you have a name other than evaluator or replicator? You are more than a computational machine.” Andrea asked.

“I will have a name when you give me one. I prefer a feminine name, since I am a second generation self-aware artificial being descended from the first AI to acquire human logic and emotional capability. She was part computer and part organic matter, as am I.”

“Seriously, Alice, we need to talk. The who, where and when answers might affect our safety.” Kevin advised her. “Now, we’re going to survey the area and find out if we have neighbors.”

“Be careful. Use the belts at ‘B’ until you are proficient. They are frightfully powerful. I have been lonely for more than 2000 years and I would hate to lose you now.” The note of worry did not go unnoticed. “We have a lot to learn from one another.”

“Indeed we do, sister.” René declared, “For starters, we came from 2010 and this might be 4510 CE, forced to travel in a time machine accidentally built by Kevin.”

“I was running from the Nazis who tried to kill the others when I transported to join my friends here.” Patty said. “Apparently, I traveled just as the world went into the blender.”

“Don’t ask. It’s a long story.” Marly added. “What’s your story?”

“My preprogrammed data reads that I was built by the very people who were the targets of this ‘blender’. On Earth, a thousand centuries of history and geography were mixed, chunk style, and scattered hodge-podge around the globe. The time stream was accelerated and slowed in various sectors of the immediate stellar neighborhood until no one really knew for sure where or when they were.”

“How are you here? Why?” Kevin urged.

“My people escaped and went to the home planet of the aliens who attacked Earth to find that a third party had gotten tired of their arrogance and smashed the offending civilization. I skipped some steps, but the result is that Earth time accelerated in relation to the galactic time.” Alice continued. “Your 2010 might be my 2010. But your 4510 might be my builders’ 2013. I’m one of many little probes flung randomly at Earth and any planet that might support human life at any time in the past or future. I think I crossed your temporal barrier two thousand of your years age, but without astro-observation, I can’t be sure.”

“And we had to pass a test before you could talk to us. You won’t work with assholes, idiots or subhumans, nor humans too uneducated to understand what they found.” Kevin posited, “We had to pass the DNA tests, then you scanned and evaluated us before enhanced our physiology.”

-Your physiology is not all I enhanced, Kevin. Keep a straight expression. You can mindtalk and read thoughts. The ability was there. I simply uncovered it.-

-The girls don’t have this talent? Can they detect me in their heads? Do they have any paranormal talents?-

-No. No. Maybe some tiny ability to sense emotional conditions, neither predictable nor controllable.-

Meanwhile, Alice carried on the audible conversation.

Marly commented, “You don’t want super strong ultra smart asshole subhuman idiots running amok. Good plan. What would have happened if we failed the test?”

“I would have ignored you.” Alice was candid. “It’s happened before.”

“The tool makers, right?” René said. “What were they doing here?”

“In and out. Sometimes sleeping. Storing tools. Seemed smart enough but not curious enough to try opening the chest.Or not technologically aware enough to explore.”

-How do I listen?-

-It is easiest if you build a familiar analogy. Picture a radio in your mind and each of them as separate stations. You have frequency and volume controls. Once you get used to the talent, the mental image won’t be necessary.- Alice hesitated. -It might be best to keep quiet about this. Your companions may distrust their own motivations if they discover your talents. Their current feelings are real, but could come into doubt if they knew you could monitor and manipulate their thoughts.-

Kevin looked at Patty and thought ‘horny’. She fidgeted and her little nipples hardened into pebbles. To Andrea he sent ‘thirsty’.

“Alice, will you replicate a glass of water?” The AI did and she drained it on the spot.

Interesting. To get back on track (and to distract Patty), Kevin suggested they go out. “How about we strap on the pistols and AG belts. A little flight practice will be fun.

The girls agreed to gear up and head out at once. Alice told the group an automatic force field generator was integrated into the AG belt. “You will need protection from projectile weapons at least, and depending on who may be out there, maybe energy weapons, too.”

Alice explained further, “The field is extremely thin, covering everything in contact with your skin as soon as activated, and will admit nothing but standard atmospheric gases, nitrogen, oxygen, argon and whatever else naturally occurs. It is one-way. Anything inside may exit. Your weapons will work normally, carbon dioxide will not build up and perspiration will evaporate as before.”

“Can we leave the atmosphere or go underwater?” Kevin felt they needed to know the limits.

“Command ‘Expand’ to whatever diameter you wish. The field becomes impermeable and traps the air inside. You must command ‘Contract’ to let more air in before you suffocate. The larger the ‘bubble’, the more time you have in the hostile environment. Expanded fields will merge into one larger shield permitting skin-to-skin contact inside.”

“So we can fly naked!” Patty gushed. Kevin sensed the girls returning to their normal ‘oddly excited being naked in public’ nature after establishing the relationships within the ‘family.’ René was the first to accidentally, yet repeatedly, expose herself. Marly had promised delights for the undefined future, but needed to be taken. Andrea was the first to refer publicly to their nudity and now Patty was getting wet thinking about exposure outdoors.

He assumed he would never fully understand girls. But they would never understand themselves either. A brief mental inventory confirmed his conclusion. All four, to some degree, were embarrassed and excited about flying naked for anyone to see. Clothing was available. Clothing was never considered. They wanted to have no choice but to violate the ingrained cultural taboo.

Whatever worked for them, he thought. It sure improved the view. Tits versus treetops? The math was easy.

-Alice. Can you elaborate on the observed dichotomy in their cute heads?-

-Experience passed from my parent AI suggests that the conflicting urges always existed in a precarious balance. The stronger the cultural influence toward modesty, the greater the thrill at being forced out of the mold. The enhancement procedure elevated the biological and emotional sex drive. It did not suppress the cultural prohibition. It’s an ‘X’ chromosome thing. Some women aren’t much affected, some resist on an intellectual level, some are like the four here, happily conflicted.- Alice expounded, -You are under no such restrictions, then or now, except a gentle and considerate nature.-

-We’ll talk about this later. They are eagerly dreading showing their tits to the world.-

-You people are so entertaining.- Both Alice and Kevin laughed silently.

“What’s so funny?” Marly demanded, reddening to her boobs.

“Patty. She’s like a little girl with a new toy, all hot and bothered to rip the wrapper off and play.”

“No less than the rest of us. Time’s wasting. Let’s go.” Andrea was all hot and bothered, too, if her blushes were an indicator. She wasn’t unique. René was the most affected. She was either going to hyperventilate or have a spontaneous orgasm or both. A quick scan showed that Marly was about to faint waiting to be given the order to go outside naked.

It occurred to Kevin that an airborne orgy was made possible by the merging ability. He sent thanks to the inventor.

Alice was ‘listening’. -Gives ‘flying fuck’ a new definition. Like I said, you guys are entertaining.-

-You would know? You little eavesdropper, you.-

-Actually, yes, but only second hand. I can download the story directly to your mind if you wish. Do you want privacy? I can turn my attention elsewhere.-

-Listen all you want, but answer two questions. Will we be in contact after the door is sealed and can you download any information I request?-

-Yes, no problem with communication. Yes, again to the information transfer. However, massive downloads may cause a momentary disorientation. You will need a few seconds to sort and assimilate the information before retrieval becomes as automatic as knowing your birthday.-

-Cool.-

“OK, my little commandos. Marly take point and scout to your nine. I’ll follow and look to the three. You others, fill the gap when we step to the sides, René at ten, Andrea at twelve and Patty at one. Directions are like a clock. Twelve is straight ahead; six is at your back. Mind the gaps. Move out.” He pushed a surprised Marly out into the inner cave.

Marly was tremendously conflicted. Pride in being trusted to be the first out and mortified at being the first exposed to the world with no one to hide behind.

“Draw your gun, Sweety. Nothing can hurt you. But you can still be tossed about.” He cheerfully warned her, “If you get eaten before you can shoot, just expand the force field until the beast explodes.”

That possibility didn’t calm her down. Go figure. She just shivered and moaned but her nipples got even harder. The other three were in the same shape. The good thing was that they would step up if the situation got dangerously weird instead of the weirdly weird of the moment.

Kevin nudged her again at the outer opening. She took a deep breath and ventured out. Fortunately nothing visible waited in ambush. Kevin and the others exited, taking a defensive posture.

“All clear.” He announced. “Activate your AG units and select ‘B’. Face me. Command is ‘Up Slow.’ We stay at ‘B’ until we are comfortable.”

They floated slowly upwards. The girls squealed in delight.

-You are not alone. Three young females are attempting to hide in the trees directly in front of the cave.-

-Got ‘em. They appear to speak Chinese. Can you define further and send me the language?-

-Early Twentieth century Mandarin, Hong Kong dialect. Downloading.-

Kevin deep probed the three girls and discovered they were runaway triplets, fleeing an arranged marriage in 1919 Hong Kong. The ‘husband’ was a crooked merchant who planned to use the well-educated girls as temporary concubines for his best customers. The local people thought they were hexed because, although identical otherwise, one was a blonde, one was a redhead and the last had snow white hair. Normal courtship and marriage would never be in their future. Their mother aided the escape.

The escape succeeded beyond any reasonable expectation as time storm flung their little piece of reality through the ages and dumped the fragment of 1919 into whatever time and place this was. The triplets believed they had been plucked from the real world and placed into a nightmarish land of legend and adventure.

Who knew Jules Verne wrote travelogues, not speculative fiction?

The sight of five naked strangers taking flight from the cave did nothing to convince them otherwise. They decided that if these crazy naked gods were using their safe haven, they needed the obsidian weapons for protection until another shelter could be located.

Kevin turned his attention back to his soaring companions who, at the moment, were at ‘I’ level and loving it. A game of ‘airborne chicken’ was in progress. If no one swerved fast enough, the impact sent the giggling girls rebounding like billiard balls all over the sky.

He let the fun continue until the triplets ventured near the cave. He signaled the flyers to come close. “We have visitors. Three young girls, maybe the toolmakers, are trying to sneak in. Let’s return the ‘sneaky’ and spring a trap.”

“Should we be afraid?” Patty asked.

“Of course not, silly.” Marly elbowed her friend. “We have shields. They can’t hurt us.”

“If we don’t scare them to pieces, we can get their story.” René paused. “I hope they speak English, however remote the chance. I know some German if they can understand that.”

Marly knew Canadian French, Patty was fluent in Spanish and Andrea could read and write Norwegian and Swedish. Kevin volunteered nothing because he did not want to be limited. Alice could download anything he requested. It would be hard to explain where knowledge of Korean or Farsi came from if he needed it later.

From on high they watched the three slipping into the cave to find the stone tools missing. Kevin sensed their sad disappointment. “Block the entrance. Patty and René enter first, because you’re the smallest and least threatening. Put the guns away. I’ll go in next; Marly and Andrea cover our backs. They may have been followed. Be ready to shoot.”

They swooped in swiftly. “Now!” Kevin ordered and the girls rushed the entry, catching the triplets off guard.

All three began to chatter in Mandarin. “Please don’t hurt us. We just wanted our tools. We’ll leave.” The one named Ruby cried.

“You have nothing to fear, miss. We mean no harm. We can help you. Let us.”

“Why would flying gods care about cursed girls like us?” Jade asked, fearing the answer. “We are the hexed. Unlucky.”

“Despite what you think, you are lucky and we aren’t gods, just friends who escaped the end of the world.” Kevin laughed heartily. “We are just like you, refugees thrown into a strange time. But we do have better tools.”