Chapter 429: Category #5; The 42,000 Marks Turn Over New Leaves

Back to Monday, June 30 to Thursday, July 3, 2008

There are about 3.5 billion dimensions in Category #5, in which Mark had single-mindedly and ignorantly remained out of my ascendancy adventure. I wrote at length about the first category of dimensions, those that had 32-minded Marks, and I'll write at length about this, the last category with any of my loved ones in it. In the first category, my families knew more about my uniqueness than my families in any other type of dimension. In this category, their Marks had no uniqueness to know about. It's illuminating to write about both ends of the wide contrast.

I defined this category to include the few remaining two-minded Marks because their family circumstances are so similar to those of the single-minded Marks. The two-minded Marks have slightly more knowledge about déjà vu's than the less-minded versions, but they don't have enough power to have made any significant changes to their lives yet, although they did MUCH better at school, are doing very well at OSU, and their bodies have improved noticeably but not extremely. There are so few of them and their families' circumstances are identical to the single-minded Marks', so it wouldn't be interesting to write about them. Just about everything that I say about single-minded Marks hereafter applies almost as much to the two-minded versions. If not, I'll either comment on the difference or it'll be obvious to you.

Also included in the definition of this category are 42,000 Marks who were single-minded for most of my ascendancy, but between three and four weeks ago were upgraded to eight minds each. That had happened when I, the Mark who'd captained the Voyage of Discovery, had each night for a week added seven minds to 6,000 single-minded Marks, with me picking up a copy of their mind each time. Because their upgrade from being single-minded is so recent, they're best included in this category and discussed just by backing up the chronology a little.

In the vast majority of this category's dimensions, the single-minded Marks were living their dull, depressed, daily existences, then on July 25, 2008 they were contacted by another version of themself and mentally told, "You're part of the God of the Universe now." You can probably imagine their surprise! I'll be writing about their experiences later, but I'm starting with the chronologically earlier subcategory: the 42,000 eight-minded Marks.

When I'd stopped doing those upgrades, on July 4, my plan had been to do no more merging or upgrading for the remainder of the already started three-month test period, to reassure myself that it was safe for all the other Marks in the Universe to upgrade to about 1,400 minds. I still laugh at my thinking that there wasn't any real benefit in all the Marks going beyond about a thousand minds since we'd never be able to use that much power. I'd been thinking small! Like many of my plans during my Voyage of Discovery, it hadn't lasted long, being changed as having more minds had enabled me to gain greater understanding of the Universe. Another week into the two-months-to-go "No More Upgrades Reassurance Period" I'd gained an understanding of what minds are, and I no longer needed the relatively poor quality of reassurance provided by waiting two more months because I knew the underlying processes well enough to be certain that no problems would develop.

From July 4 to 25, while I (the Voyager) was creating for myself an ever-increasing number of new minds and heading toward godhood, the 42,000 newly created eight-minded Marks stuck to the plan they'd been told to follow:

• To improve their lives as much as they were able using their new abilities and the advice of their seven new minds.

• Not to merge until they got word to do so, which would be after the Reassurance Period was over, presuming the Voyaging Mark developed no problems.

• Then provided they could learn how to cut déjà vu links off prematurely, to upgrade during déjà vu's as often as they felt comfortable. If they couldn't use the necessary technique, wait for one or more rounds of upgrades from larger Marks, and then upgrade themselves thereafter.

At the time I'd given them seven minds, I'd envisaged that these Marks would wait about eight weeks for the Reassurance Period to be over, and then another three or four weeks to get the word that upgrading had been given the green light. Given the attraction of having more power and that most of their minds were used to having it, I'd assumed they'd upgrade to about 1,400 minds as rapidly as they could. The final stopping point was uncertain because something would need to be done about lifting the low-minded Marks, but ignoring that issue, I'd thought it'd take the 42,000 Marks about four months from when I last talked to them to reach their likely stopping point. As you know, things turned out somewhat different, but not immediately. I'm backing up nearly four weeks now, to write about the experiences of a just-made-eight-minded Mark that I'll use to represent the experiences of his 41,999 peers.

In my autobiography, "I" usually refers to the central character, the specific Mark that this autobiography has been following for the last five years. Of late, "I" has been referring to the captain of the Voyage of Discovery, even though the autobiography's original mind had been duplicated into other bodies. In the text that follows, "I" will be from the point of view of the newly eight-minded, representative Mark. Most autobiographies don't have as much choice about where to focus as I do.

On Monday, June 30, having just been upgraded to eight minds, my first activity was a great deal of inactivity. I had a LONG internal dialogue, as my recently acquired minds explained everything they knew to my totally ignorant original mind, especially:

• Demonstrating the abilities having eight minds made possible, with explanations about how the abilities would improve as more minds got added later.

• Descriptions of the lives the seven imported mind-copies had lived from their first merge until they'd came to this dimension.

• With particular emphasis on, and graphic imagery from, the lifestyles they'd enjoyed with the Anderson and Williams families as well as with Ava and Nevaeh. You can probably imagine the enthusiasm with which my ignorant mind responded to the memories that were sent to him! That was interrupted while I changed my shorts; my seven imported minds had forgotten one of the consequences of my (#1) being so inexperienced, and hadn't noticed the surprisingly quick need to demonstrate the go-soft ability. Appropriately, the first special ability to appear when our ascendancy started was the first one I needed here - cock softening is Universally useful.

Once I'd calmed down enough for intelligent thought, I started planning how to recreate that lifestyle. I'm starting from scratch and currently have only eight minds, so I can't do anything awesome. [This Mark's using the Grand Tour of a new Refuge home as a way of explaining his godhood to his family wasn't possible, since I'm writing about a period in the first week of July, three weeks before godhood was reached and before the planet of Refuge was discovered.]

Intellectually speaking, there's no need for me to hurry to transform my lifestyles, but hormones aren't known for their intellect - somewhat the reverse, actually. #1 was especially eager to start changing his life because he wanted personal experience of those delights. #'s 2 through 8 recommended caution as our family would adapt better if they weren't traumatized by too many shocking revelations too quickly, so I started just by showing my new personality. The seven recently arrived minds were much more self-confident, attentive, knowledgeable about social interactions, and even knew what "menarche" meant so could talk about issues that the original mind would've been very uncomfortable with.

Being 7/8ths self-confident now, I had no self-conscious hesitation about tackling the changes to my family's internal dynamics head-on, but a delay was still necessary. It took me a couple of days for all the internal dialogue, replaying of favorite memories, shorts changing, ability demonstrations, initial planning, new skills practicing, some body adaptation, and for #1 to feel comfortable with his radically new situation; where "to feel comfortable with" mostly means "to calm down about", because the rest of us didn't want him to run off at the mouth at the wrong time. In #1's excitement he could have the most control over our mouth, so could easily blurt out something stupidly sexual to Carol. By the third day, I was ready to start changing my family's lives.

Toward the end of our Wednesday evening's dinner, I told my family, "I've got a family announcement to make. You may have noticed that I've been even quieter than normal for the last couple of days. I've been going through a process of self-discovery and I want you to know that I've turned over a new leaf. I've picked a REALLY big leaf to turn over, so you're going to find that I've changed a great deal more than you'll believe possible. It's not just a change in attitude:

^-- "Donna and Dad, you're going to find that I'm much better at sports now. More athletic, better coordinated, etc.

^-- "Mom, I know you worry about my lack of social contact, but that's going to change a great deal. Especially with girls, I'm happy to say. Over the next month or two my face is going to become considerably more handsome, I'll be growing to six foot three, developing cut muscles, impressively wide shoulders, a waist women will die for, and will have the cutest male ass in Corvallis." I'd specified a month or two because that was my guess about how long it'd take with only eight minds. I wouldn't be able to change my body as rapidly as the three weeks it'd taken a 32-minded version of me to make the radical Mark-to-Ron transformation. I continued still to Mom, "I'm going to be a much better conversationalist, more confident and more likeable with people, and I'm going to start wearing clothes which suit me much better. So you'll be seeing me being far more social than previously. I have no doubt that you'll soon be thinking that I'm 'social' with too many girls.

^-- "Which takes me - last but very definitely not least - to Carol. The changes I'm going through are going to affect you the most out of my family, starting with my taking you clothes shopping as soon as you've got a whole day free so we can do it properly. It's your birthday in a few days and I'm going to do a much better job this year of not only celebrating it, but also making it beneficial for you. You're not so deep into your shell as you were a couple of years ago, but you're still unnecessarily deep, including your still using studying for college as an excuse to hide yourself away from people. You're not nearly as insecure as I was, but you've got a fantastic potential that needs to be brought out, and that's going to be a major project of ours over the next several months. Plus I know whom I'm going to marry and your help with that is ABSOLUTELY essential.

^-- "I can see that I've convinced you all that I'm insane, but I'll add even more to that impression by saying that the leaf I turned over also means I'm considerably smarter than I used to be, and that I'm going to find a way to make us stinking rich. That'll take me a few months, but I'm certain it'll happen."

^

I hadn't bothered to check whether Binion's Horseshoe Casino existed and accepted large bets, as that method was too dangerous in its attracting the attention of non-Government and Government criminals. I hadn't decided on how I'd make us stinking rich, but I knew I would achieve it. My current intention is to wait until after I've done several more upgrades, as then I'll have so much power that there'll surely be many easy ways of making huge amounts of money and handling anything bad that might happen afterward. I'll make do with being poor until then.

If upgrades get the red light for some very sad reason, I'll still be able to make a fortune. I currently have about 420 kilograms (925 pounds) of maximum force, which opens many doors. Plus I have a 500-foot sight blob range and the ability to operate twenty-odd sight blobs at the same time, which would make me a superb poker player, commercial spy, and doubtless several other financially useful activities. I also have a great deal of education supplied by other dimensions' OSU's that no one would expect and which could possibly be parlayed into something rewarding.

None of these moneymaking possibilities were worth worrying about yet. My family will have enough trouble adapting to my new abilities without my dumping a fortune into their laps; that would make their lives even more complicated and slow down their getting used to the 'new' (by 7/8ths) me. After getting my family used to me, I'll then be turning the Williams' worldview upside-down by introducing myself to them and showing them some of my special abilities. A good chunk of the remaining Reassurance Period should have been used up by the time both families have settled down, and that's about when it'd be good to have some more money. I should be able to wait just a few more weeks for me to be contacted and upgraded. [As you know, the green light didn't get activated in three months. In only three weeks the Voyaging Mark achieved godhood and everything changed.]

By the way, top of my current list for how to make money if the upgrades don't happen is to control the balls in a very high jackpot lottery barrel to ensure my numbers emerge. That'd be easy, safe, highly profitable (even after tax), it'd give us legally usable money, and wouldn't result in an army of casino investigators and hoodlum kidnappers chasing after me to learn how I'd cheated. It'd be best to make sure no one knew that I'd been 450 feet away from the barrel at the time of the drawing, but a simple disguise and a bit of care would make that easy. One unfortunate aspect is that Mom will be finding out about my NP soon, so she'd know that I cheated at the lottery. That'd probably be worse than having hoodlum gangsters on my ass, hence my preference to wait for the upgrades.

[As it happened, in quite a few of these dimensions we didn't become rich, "stinking" or otherwise. That was because when I later became part of the Super Mark-Network (or Super-Mark Network, the ambiguity is correct both ways), we preferred to live a lot of our lives under the radar. But at this time, all the newly eight-minded Marks thought it was up to each of them to make their individual lives as enjoyable as possible, and all of them wanted to be stinking rich.]

^

Meanwhile, around the Andersons' dinner table, my family was worried.

I picked up eight peas from my plate and juggled them, three days having been enough time for the power of eight minds to increase my physical coordination and I'd practiced with socks in my room. I said, "A few days ago I was poorly coordinated, now I can juggle eight objects at once. After dinner, I'll take Donna outside and beat the pants off her at any sport she cares to name; although I really should've used a different expression given how strongly Donna wants to have sex these days."

I had a pathetically short six-foot proximity range - 7/8ths of my minds had come from the Voyager and he'd learned ways to extend the limits on many of his abilities, but proximity's range was too fundamental to be improved - but since I'd acquired it, I'd deliberately gotten close enough to Donna on a couple of suitable occasions to sense how strong her lust was, finding it to be delightfully strong. In this dimension there'd been a truly grievous paucity of sex. #1 had managed to lose my virginity once (so to speak), but under circumstances not to be proud of. It'd been at a party where I'd had too much booze, and had hit on an ugly girl who'd had even more to drink than me. I hadn't managed to get lucky again ever since, not even with the same girl as she was refusing to take my calls. [The two-minded Marks, because of their improved social observation skills, had done considerably better in that field of masculine endeavor.] Without the inspirational example I'd provided in my successful dimensions, these Anderson kids were sexually inactive, although Donna had developed a strong desire to be the exact opposite.

My "Donna wants to have sex these days" comment created the intended ruckus. Most of the ruckus was naturally from Mom, and when she paused, I said, "Your comments are wrong, Mom. Let me demonstrate how big my overturned leaf is by telling you that you're misreading the sexual proclivities of EVERYONE here, not just Donna. Starting with her though: She has a much higher sex-drive than you're aware of because you're expecting her to behave like Carol. Donna has spent several years experimenting with girls in her sports teams and is now very eager to try guys."

^-- After a pause for more ruckus, with Donna's denials being much louder this time, I quelled both Mom's and Donna's objections by holding up a hand and forcefully calling for silence, surprising them into it. In the lull I said, "Your denials won't convince me, Donna. To save your embarrassment I won't say what you did," to avoid shocking Mom too, not so much that Donna would do such things but that I'd talk about them openly, "but:" I closed my raised hand, extended a finger and I counted off each event in Donna's sexual history, using the format, "At age x, with person y, in room/place z." My reciting just those details would be more than enough to make my point about how much I knew. [After my third merge - into the dimension where the Mark had stupidly not started a loving, sexual relationship with his Carol - I'd realized that it was a very good idea to learn such details as I was reciting now. I'd gotten my favorite dozen girls to tell me their sexual histories in considerable detail, their sexual fantasies, hopes for the future, favorite flowers, best gifts they had ever been given, how they thought they would recognize their ideal boyfriend, and other pieces of knowledge I could make good use of if I ever merged into another badly managed dimension. Although there weren't many dimensions in which Mark and Carol hadn't got together as first described herein, that failure had happened often enough that word of it spread through the early version of the grapevine, as had the idea of learning those useful facts about our favorite girls. Most Marks had repeated the same just-in-case preparation.]

By the time I'd finished reciting the three facts for the third finger, Donna had gone silent, which is totally unlike Donna when she's defending herself. It took Mom another two fingers to notice Donna's quietness, and then to glance at her. The expression on Donna's face closed Mom's mouth.

Before Mom could regroup, I said, "Having established that I speak with some credibility about Donna's sexual past, and more knowledgeably about it than you, Mom, I hope you'll accept that I have a reasonable shot at predicting her sexual future. Donna DOES have a particularly high sex-drive and she's feeling it very strongly these days. I think it's very doubtful that her virginity will survive the summer, and once she discovers how much fun full-on sex with guys is, she's going to have a great deal of it, probably with at least three or four different guys because she's very curious and isn't focused on any specific boy. You should've had Donna on the pill already and I suggest you do it very soon."

^-- Mom started saying something, but I couldn't allow that. "NO! Don't interrupt. You need to discuss this with Donna, not argue about it with me. Next on the list is Carol..."

#3: <Don't even hint at knowing her fantasies. It'd only embarrass her and put her on the defensive with us, making her much harder to seduce later.>

#7: <Good point. Okay.>

" ... Reciting her sexual history is easy because Carol hasn't had one worth speaking of. Carol's been avoiding boys for years, and I suspect that the main purpose of her having a boyfriend now is so she can use Eric as an easy way of deflecting all the other guys that hit on her. It's sad because Carol would be an exceptionally wonderful partner in a committed relationship because she has it in her to be very generous with her love if she truly believed she was valued. But her passively retreating from people - especially boys - is stopping that happening and Eric is incapable of bringing her out of her shell." [In this dimension Carol and I - or anyone and I - didn't have a good relationship, so my saying anything more than casually nice about Carol was very unusual. My saying, "she has it in her to be very generous with her love if she truly believed she was valued," was so far beyond "unusual" as to be downright weird. My comments about Eric were because I'd moved within six feet of Carol when she'd been on the phone to him. I'd been jealous, but that'd quickly turned to happiness when her proximity reading showed only a small amount of liking for Eric and no lust registered at all. I'd concluded that it wasn't a real relationship, and then I'd gone to my room where I'd celebrated all I could without making too much noise.]

^-- "That sadness won't last for much longer though. I'm going to be taking on many new responsibilities in this family, especially including helping Carol improve some aspects of her life. Other than the mess mine used to be, Carol's life is the one most falling short of its wonderful potential. I know nothing in our history would make you welcome my involvement in your life, Carol, but by the end of our shopping day - I'm thinking next Monday if you've got it free - you'll understand that our history isn't relevant to our future. I'm a VERY different person now, and I'll make sure you understand that before I attempt to influence your life. Which brings me to me..."

"Hang on," interrupted Mom, who had to respond to how crazy she thought her son was being.

My seven new minds knew better than to let Mom get started, so I loudly overrode her interruption with, "LET ME SPEAK, Mom! I know my change in attitude is confusing you, but you'll get used to that soon. Concentrate on my message. I'm using your misunderstanding of all our sexual situations as a way of demonstrating how much greater my understanding is than any of you would've credited me with. None of you realized how close Donna is to becoming very sexually active. You saw the expression on Donna's face and you know I was on target with her. If anything, you would've thought Carol and Eric would be the first of us to become sexually active, but that isn't going to happen because Carol doesn't have any of those feelings for Eric, and he hasn't got a clue what her buttons are, let alone how to push them. I'm sure you've had sex talks with Carol since she started dating Eric, and that she's told you that she's not intending to have sex with him. I'm also sure that you haven't taken Carol's statement onboard nearly enough, because Carol will NOT be having sex with Eric. He's not Carol's boyfriend despite her pretending that he is. I understand both of those situations better than you do, Mom, so there's no point in your disputing them with me until you've talked to the girls in private.

^-- "I've still got two more sexual relationships to talk about, after which you can have your turn to speak, although I suspect you'll have other things on your mind by then. To continue chronologically, I'm the next subject of my own conversation. The only sexual relationship I've got is with my right hand, which hardly..." The surprised reactions around the table were amusing. My family didn't talk openly about sex and didn't crack such jokes over dinner. One-on-one sex talks with a parent in the privacy of our bedroom was our family style. Mom wasn't puritanical about sex; she could actually talk about it very well, just in total privacy because Mom was English. Her attitude had to change because it'd get in the way of my plans. Changing Mom's attitude was my main reason for my introducing my new personality in this way.

^-- I carried on over top of Donna's giggles, " ... which hardly needs much explanation. I do need to establish credibility with you though, and far more effective than any amount of talk will be demonstrating some sexual expertise. At the moment you think I've got none." I had been too ashamed of my sole prior experience, how ugly she was and that she'd refused to talk to me since, so I hadn't mention it to anyone, not even my male classmates. "It's rather awkward to demonstrate sexual expertise within a family so I'll find a girl I like and bring her back to my room one evening soon. Between the noises we'll be making, how long we'll be making them for, and what she'll say at breakfast, I'm sure your image of me will be turned upside down."

Now they thought I was even crazier. Donna giggled even louder, Carol didn't try very hard not to show that she thought I was an idiot, Mom momentarily hesitated unsure what to tell me off for first, which let Dad get in with, "You think you're going to get a girl to stay with you overnight?"

"Sure. I don't know who she'll be yet though. It'll be whomever I find first that's available one night soon. The girls I have in mind are all sexually active because I'm intending to demonstrate my expertise in that area. Those girls tend to have boyfriends so it's too hard to predict who I'll shake loose for a night first."

Now Mom knew what to tell me off for first. She rebuked, "You can't treat girls like that. You..."

"I'm going to be treating them with total honesty. I'm going to walk up to them and ask them to stay with me overnight for some no-strings-attached sex. I'll have to do some convincing, but if a girl agrees, then she'll know what she's agreeing to. Please ask her at breakfast whether she feels she was mistreated in any way. You'll find the answer educational."

"All you're going to achieve is a lot of annoyed girls. You can't go around asking girls for sex like that without..."

"You have NO IDEA what I can and cannot do, Mom. You didn't know I could juggle eight objects at once, you don't know how I understand more about Donna's and Carol's sexual development needs than you do, and you don't know how good I am at talking to girls. In the event that I have to ask more than one girl, I'll give you the names and numbers of the girls who rejected me so you can call them to ask how annoyed they were by my approach. I'll even tell them to expect your call. After you've talked with them, I'll accept whatever punishment you think is justified by their level of annoyance, just so long as it's based on THEIR reaction, not yours.

^-- "Speaking of 'yours', let me finish my fourth sexual-relationship discussion. Dad, this question is for you. I'd prefer you to answer it right away without looking to Mom for advice first. It's a question you should be able to easily answer right off the top of your head. Okay?"

"I'll give it a shot," answered Dad easily. He was the least affected by this discussion so far, as he doesn't take sex seriously, unlike Mom.

"Is Mom secure in your sexual relationship with her?"

Dad unhesitatingly answered, "Huh! Of course she is. You've slipped a cog, Mark..."

Mom added firmly, "Stop talking this nonsense, Mark!"

"I will, because it's time for you to take Dad into your bedroom and explain to him why his answer was wrong."

"You're talking nonsense!" insisted Mom. "Stop upsetting everyone with..."

"TUT TUT for lying, Mom! You and I both know it's not nonsense. Your insecurity over Dad's having affairs has been holding you back from fully committing to him for the entire duration of your relationship, which has been horribly unfair of you, considering Dad has NEVER misbehaved," (based on Dad's proximity-revealed emotional response to my saying, "Dad's having affairs" containing no guilt). "I'm guessing it's a result of something in your family history, but regardless of the cause, I'm not going to let you continue to shortchange Dad, nor let your bias badly affect your reactions to your kids' imminent sexual relationships. Take Dad into your bedroom NOW, or I'll tell him everything I've worked out. You know it should be you that tells him, not me, so jump to it!"

Dad and the girls could tell from Mom's expression that some sort of target had been hit, and were looking at her, waiting for her explanation.

Mom tried, "How on Earth could you know..."

"NO Mom! Satisfying your curiosity isn't the issue. You've got twenty five years of shortchanging Dad to make up for, so get your ass into your bedroom to explain it and to apologize to Dad. If you come out in less than three hours, I'm going to give you a kick on the ass and send you back in there to make up properly. I mean the 'three hours' too; if you come out in less than that I'm going to be very unimpressed by your inability to apologize as much as Dad deserves. You've been very unfair on him for YEARS, so you need to spend a good chunk of quality time explaining and apologizing to him."

Everyone was shocked by my assertiveness, but Mom agreed, giving Dad a signal that they needed to do what I'd 'suggested'.