Chapter 12: Pussy Riot - In The Park

Then, the harem almost bit off more than they could chew. It happened this way...

Rachel, Cathleen, and Hannah were all on the ground leading small, targeted pickups of various specialists that colonies had requested. These excursions also let them extract a few specialists for the Harrad Colony. Having a list of needs from the various colonies greatly assisted in identifying probable needs for their own.

While waiting in their ‘ready room’ should backup be needed, Michael, Patricia, and Naomi were kept company by Gingerbread, Carole, and Katie -- the family’s operations and strategic planners. The ever-present Dora floated her avatar in its usual posture and position. Dora was chastising Michael, assisted by his ladies. “Michael, this whole family is woefully under concubined! Your only remaining official concubines are Victor, Vicky, and Ayesha.”

She floated over to Michael, and he was quite glad she couldn’t grab him by the ears like his other wives. “With the colony’s new CAP guidelines, most of the family’s companions will graduate as soon as you decide to implement them, and the remainder are quite likely to become sponsors in the predictable future. I don’t see how you can avoid marrying Abigail and Naomi, even if you want to, but I think you need to encourage your other companions to establish satellite families like the Nerds have. If you don’t, this whole colony is going to consist of two families - yours and Jonathan Hoag’s!”

Dora assumed the posture and demeanor of an old-fashioned college professor, even donning a robe and mortarboard hat and carrying a pointer. The effect was somewhat negated by the sexy, semitransparent harem pants peeking under the too-short robe. “You would set a bad example by not extracting as many concubines as possible. More important, you’ve already shown that proper guidance and example help concubines achieve sponsor level scores - though I will say that proper selection helped a lot. You can’t just fill the Lolli with filles du roi. They need guidance and protection.”

Michael’s ladies looked at him as Dora continued, “Plus, my review of all colony records show them to be woefully short of dependents in the ages between infant and thirteen. While there are exceptions, the majority of concubines extracted are teens without children nor experience rearing them.”

“Think about it. If we are to breed fighting forces, there is a huge deficit in numbers between the coming tsunami of new babies and those of the current age of majority. And that doesn’t take into account the need for a minimum of two concubines for every sponsor. What’s going to happen to our supply of troops and baby-makers if and when Earthat is interdicted? That’s virtually a 14-year desert -- talk about a generation gap!”

She put her hands on her hips, lost her robe and cap, and then resumed her usual posture sitting at eye level. “I’m done. I showed you the issue. You’re smart. You figure out what you are going to do about it.”

So they did.

In the Chicago suburbs, just north of the Botanical Gardens, previous site of an extraction, was a music venue formally known as the Ravinia Festival(r), occupying thirty six acres of parkland and lawn. It was the summer home of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and also the location for a wide variety of summer concerts held in the three thousand, four-hundred seat pavilion. The music could be piped through high-quality speakers to the lawn, where an additional audience of upwards of twelve thousand could picnic before and during the concerts. While there were several high-quality restaurants and a take-out café on site, most lawn goers brought their own meals, wine, and other adult beverages.

Okay, time out for a question and answer period:

‘Why keep returning to the Chicago area for extractions?’ Well, Chicago was on the Swarm’s projected advance route. It seemed prudent to look in an area that would need to be evacuated anyway. In fact, folks were already heading south. Chicago area parents, desperate to get their children to safety, had begun following versions of the British during WWII -- foster their children to volunteer families far out of the projected path of the invaders.

Then, some bright couple had each child carry a notarized contingency custody authorization with the space for the guardian left blank. The practice caught on, and prudent parents only allowed their children to accompany an adult they would trust as guardian. Imperfect -- yes -- but the number of children extracted increased exponentially.

‘Why the northern ‘burbs and not the Southside or center city - you prejudiced or something?’ Not really. With all the high tech companies and research located in the northern ‘burbs, extractions were netting a widely diverse population in terms of ethnicity and skill sets. Plus, contingent custody authorizations were much more prevalent in the north.

Okay, boys and girls, back to the main attraction.

The Ravinia concert venue attracted the harem’s attention. They were about to break the pattern again, planning back-to-back extractions from the same location. The first extraction was a dream.

On the selected Sunday, Ravinia featured Bugs Bunny At The Symphony with a guest orchestra playing Looney Tunes cartoon soundtracks based on famous classical compositions. The cartoons were shown on screens in the Pavilion and on a huge screen erected on the lawn. Turnout for this concert was typically very good, with lots of children of all ages and just as desirable, attentive parents and older siblings. To increase turnout, lawn passes were purchased by the harem and distributed free to all the area’s libraries, schools, and religious organizations.

For the week prior to the scheduled pickup, Dora’s drones patrolled the park, looking for suspicious people, activities, or anomalies. The park’s security continued to search bags and coolers, but given the volume of people entering, the drones’ remote sensors were more effective than could be achieved without shutting down an event.

When the interdiction field came down at the concert’s end, Dora projected Michael’s image and voice to all the screens and speakers. He announced the extraction, and then told his audience that stripping and concubine selection would take place in the moon. After the usual stipulation that weapons would not be tolerated, interested adults were to remain in place while those not wishing to join the Confederacy were to gather at the north end of the park or pavilion, as appropriate.

As it happened, there were four Earth Firster families present. Three, in the interest of protecting their children, elected to surrender their weapons. The wife of the fourth decked him with a bottle as he started to draw, and Dora’s nearby drone was able to retrieve his pistol without a problem. When he sat up, holding his head, the unhappy wife told him, “Get your sorry ass to the north end of the park. Me and the kids are leaving!” No one told her that he was extracted into orbit sans spacesuit. Attempting to disrupt a Confederacy extraction - especially with deadly force - was a death sentence.

Michael chose this extraction to violate - well alter - another Darjee imposed rule, law, directive? Whatever. Using Dora’s input, carefully selected grandparents were surprised to be asked if they would like to be extracted with their grandkids. With the number of children being ‘targeted’ for extraction, having some mature, experienced adults available who were not going to be baby machines made a lot of sense to him. Not too many, mind you, but leavening. He planned to extract a few others who were beyond child bearing, but that was for another time and extraction.

The targeted artist to headline and open the second night’s concert was a pop teen vocalist known as Inkie. She wrote and produced her own songs and had topped the charts for three years. In short, Inkie was brilliant, a genius in her own right, and not a teen product (however talented) of a Disney TV series or movie.