TEOTWAWKI
# 114: Melvin - Video Call
With increasing amounts of SSmoke came increasing opportunities and options. They each individually, had a significant amount of SSmoke. Everyone’s OmniSuits glittered with bands of scales. SSmoke looked like Crystal Bling when in storage mode. The marauders were slowly diamond plating themselves with crystal scale armor.
Everyday they practiced working together for hours. Drill time, Melvin called it. Eventually Melvin could control the linked bodies much better than he could drive a bus. He was, in effect, tele-operating their linked omni-suits. This freed their minds for undistracted independent tele-operations of their drones. They experimented with different formations to see which worked best. Oddly enough the fastest formation looked something like a huge bluefin tuna. They weren’t aware of that but with practice the power assisted OmniSuits allowed them to actually swim faster than the real tuna. Unlike the live tuna the ‘formation’ never got tired. Melvin drilled them for hours until he was expert at ‘driving the bus’, at moving the unconscious bodies in formation.
At the same time, while Melvin was controlling their unconscious bodies TigerMom was directing their conscious minds. She was drilling them on the use of their Avatars. They learned to act in formation or independently.
She taught them tactics, individual and small unit maneuvers, among other things.
For some inexplicable reason Carl had taken it upon himself to periodically check on Melvin. Melvin actually began to look forward to the call. Carl was actually a younger, tamer version of Melvin at that age. The two were drawn to each other. They’d always chat for a bit, sometimes for quite long while . One day Carl casually mentioned the MagLib.
“Um...Carl? You used a word I don’t understand” Melvin said “What is a MagLib?”
“OH!” Carl was alarmed. “You mean I didn’t tell you about it? I’m so sorry. I’ll get yelled at for this...... I know I will.“
“Calm DOWN Carl” Melvin grinned to show he was teasing. “Just tell me what it is. No one is going to yell at you, least of all me. If someone does tell them to come talk to me about it. I’ll sic the TigerMom on them.”
“Well the MagLib is the Mage’s Library.” Carl said “I thought I told you about it. I’m so sorry. It’s got some really cooooool Stuff init. It’s like the old internet but it has more stuff and it’s all true.”
“I’ll just bet it is” Melvin mused. “I’ll just bet it is.”
“No really.” Carl said “It’s all true. Joshua and Chad explained it to me one day. It’s SoulStone Magic. When the Old Dragon thinks something should be available to us he puts it in the MagLib. No one has any control over it.”
“Old Dragon?” Now Melvin was openly grinning.
Carl grinned back “Well yeah. What they really said was foot long words about Cybernetic this, Heuristic that and autonomous synchronization and.....it BaffleGab like you wouldn’t believe. They tortured some of those poor words until they were pleading for mercy. I just call it “old dragon” and let it go at that. It works for me.”
Melvin nodded. Carl was wise beyond his years. Some stuff didn’t need to be understood in fine detail in order to be of value. “If it was stupid, and it worked, it wasn’t stupid”, could be taken in many different ways. Old Dragon indeed.
Melvin told the TigerMom and all the kids. Some time later they were all browsing the MagLib. Figuratively speaking another door had opened. Behind it was a universe full of opportunities.
“Oh look” TigerMom said via her Avatar “Clothes, and SHOES! Look at all those shoes!”
Melvin thought about that for a minute. They were over fifty to a hundred feet of water and it was getting deeper. TigerMom was using a Dragon Avatar to look at shoes. He blinked. TigerMom grinned and elbowed him on the shoulder.
Good, he thought. She’d hit him with her real elbow, not the Avatar’s. That meant she still liked him,
They stayed on the roof of the Store until long past when it had become submerged under the water. There wasn’t any particular need to go anywhere. They had everything they needed right there. One foggy identical day after another made it damn hard to keep track of time even if they had been trying. No one was trying. No one cared. They might have been there for months. It was definitely warmer. The ice had all gone away.
Eventually they cleaned out the little store. They removed everything thing edible and every scrap of carbon. They ate the food they needed as they needed it and stored what they could for later use. Anything that they couldn’t use or store or that had spoiled the Avatars ate. The Avatars also ate anything with any carbon content. When they were done the inside of the Store was only cement and metal. Even the paint and linoleum had been converted to SSmoke.
At dawn they would RIDE!
“What’s our GOTH?” TigerMom asked Melvin as they prepared to spend one last night on the submerged roof of the small grocery, just before they went to sleep.
“Goth? You mean the skinny little gurls with too much eye makeup?” Melvin asked.
“Wasn’t Felecia into that for a while?” he asked her. Felecia was one of the marauders.
“Not something silly like that” TigerMom said “OUR ‘Go-to-Hell-Plan’ . ”
“I figured we already got to Hell. Why do we need a plan to get here? I was feeling so good about ourselves.” Melvin replied. The kids were asleep. They’d adopted a new way of sleeping. Individually they looked a lot like huge paint blisters on the roof from the outside, or possibly low profile clam shells, from time to time a siphon would float to the surface to exchange air. Armored wombs was more like it. They were safe from almost anything up to direct hits from small cannon.
“Here I thought that we’d overcome tremendous odds, conquered horrible hardships and pretty much come out ok.” he said.
“We have!” TigerMom said “But the world as we know it has ended once already.”
She was silent for a moment. Melvin could picture her stroking her scar in his mind.” No, it’s happened more often than that. The end of the world as we knew it happened to every one among us when we went to the Big House, Whether as prisoner, trustee or as a guard. Then it happened again to some of us after we got there. Several times actually. In fact it’s getting to be a habit.” She said.
“What if it happens again? Not if but when? What do we do if it does? What’s our GOTH? Everyone needs a GOTH. What happens when we use up a grocery store, move to a new one, and find that someone else has already claimed it? What do we do then White-man?” she asked.
Melvin didn’t sleep well that night. In fact he dreamed that they moved to a new location, found a big grocery store and someone else had already claimed it.
What would they do? Fight?
Melvin was awakened the next morning by a Video Call.
Hello?
Hello Melvin. I have a job for you if you want it.
What kind of job and what does it pay.
I need SmokeCrystals. I need a lot of them. I’ll pay you to prospect carbon feedstock, process it and send the SmokeCrystals to me. Because I need so much carbon I’ll lease purchase you an industrial grade Fabricator. It will do the same thing that the micro-molecular furnace/smoke forges built into your drones but a thousand times faster PLUS it will make other stuff besides SSmoke. Like I said, I want SmokeCrystals real bad.
Caution: It’s DNA Keyed to you and whoever you designate to operate it. If anyone else tries to mess with it beyond a certain point or if it’s tampered with they’ll be able to see the flash from the moon.
Melvin grinned at that. Actually he wasn’t bothered much. He wasn’t a mechanic so why would he want to try to reverse engineer anything. He wouldn’t know where to begin.
What’s the pay?
Shelby told him. That sounded good.
What is your lease arrangement?
Shelby told him. That sounded better.
I’ll do it.
The fabricator is on the way. You are several hundred miles from here. It’s traveling at fifty knots. It’s built into a Cuttle-Fish Drone. A big one.
Melvin did the math.
It’ll be here after supper then. We’ll wait up.
When the TigerMom woke up Melvin explained it to her. She remained inscrutable.
The Next Episode Is
#115: Henry Drake : I intend to get her back… The Previous Episode was
#113: Daniel Freemartin - Video Call…
The First Episode was
# 1 : Prologue…
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Book One: SoulStone
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When watching the LameStream FakeNews Media
it's hard to tell what’s true or when they are lying isn’t it? It seems that they are more interested in influencing public opinion than they are reporting the facts.
SteemPunk Snail Image from Pixabay
Bigger equipment, bigger jobs, more responsibility, pretty soon, someone is going to see a big flash, I hope it isn't Melvin, tiger Mom, and the kids.
consider.
SSmoke is as much advanced over present tech as the IPhone vs the telegraph.
Imagine giving an Iphone to Edison and asking him to reverse engineer it.
But WAIT! there's more.
SSmoke can only be controled by neuro-loops. The neuro-loops are DNA coded to the individual user.
The Fabricators are coded to the DNA of the mages...of which there are only three. (Shelby, Joshua and Chad)...
They, and they alone have the 'keys' to access the 'supervisor' account...the root...or the source code. (how ever you want to look at it)
Anyone else, with the appropriated DNA matched keys and prior approval from Shelby or the Dragon Lady, have use privledges.
SO...the warning was more of a symbolic thing than a concern about someone really hacking it.
However...if that happened...ALL the nanites (eleventy seven godzillion of them) would overload their NStat fusors instantly...
bad ju ju.
Support, work, business opportunities for the victims, in direct contact with the owners of the business proposals ... "Come, come now, do not leave this fabulous offer for later" ... Of course Melvin agreed .
they're doing their best with what they have.
agains tremendous odds.