#81: Banana Slug - SubConscious Talking

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A night or two later

“Damn.” Shelby muttered “My subconscious is trying to tell me something. I need coffee.”

Rather than make his own coffee Shelby adjusted his omni-suit to ‘fit to be around people’ and flew to Ernie's. Shelby had no idea how Ernie did it but the restaurant was open 24/7, like an old TruckStop.

“Coffee please” he told the waitress and found a chair. She had the coffee to him almost before he got seated.

A voice asked him. “Mind if I join you or do you want privacy?”

Shelby looked up to see Wilbur the drifter.

“Have a seat.” he said. “What are you doing up this time of night?”

“I’m a hoot-owl” Wilbur explained “I’ve spent most of my life working nightshifts. This is normal to me. I’ve noticed that it’s kind of rare around here though. It doesn’t seem that a lot of people stay up all night. Makes me wonder about this Cafe.”

“This Cafe is Ernie’s passion.” Shelby told him. “It’s his religion you could say. Cafe’s aren’t much good to anyone if they are closed, so this one doesn’t.”

“So what’s bugging you?” Wilbur asked.

“sniff He claims that his sub-conscious is trying to tell him something, as if I wouldn’t know.” Elvira said. She was sitting on Shelby’s shoulder as always.

“Blink” Wilbur was momentarily silent.” No offense, but that’s just weird. A talking Avatar. How’s that possible? Mine doesn’t talk to me.”

Like everyone else Wilbur had adopted the custom of keeping an avatar. The extra set of eyes and hands were just too handy, especially for a Jack-of-All-Trades such as Wilbur.

“It’s a long story.” Shelby said.

“I got time.” Wilbur said “I always like to hear a good story. Unless there’s something you’d rather not tell me. I don’t mean to pry.”

“No, no that’s ok. I don’t talk about it much but many of the others know. You’re one of us now so there’s no reason not to tell you too.” Shelby said and for the next few hours he recounted an edited version of the story of the SoulStone to Wilbur.

“Well I’ll be damned” Wilbur said when Shelby had finished. “SubConscious huh? Well that’s the problem.”

“What’s the problem?” Shelby asked.

“You’re trying to do something your SubConscious doesn’t approve of.” Wilbur told him.

“ I recognize the symptoms. My GranPa had this mule one time and and he told me about it.....” Wilbur was off on his OWN story. It wasn’t near as long and it was even a little bit funny.

Shelby wasn’t sure if Wilbur was serious or not. He didn’t know much about Mules but he didn’t think a mule could do that. It didn’t matter. Shelby had an idea.

“Hang on a second?” Shelby told him. “I want some more opinions.”

From Wilbur’s point of view Shelby closed his eyes for a little bit then opened them.

“We’ve sit here all night almost. It’s time for breakfast. I just invited some people to come eat with us and talk about your mule. You’ll stay won’t you and provide more input? Do you like Omelettes or breakfast steak? Perhaps something else? Ernie is very versatile.” Shelby chattered. He was still some shook up about those dreams.

It didn’t take long before the Maggi, the DragonForce and even members of the RowdyBunch begin to fly in. Ernie raised an eyebrow in passing. Shelby nodded.

“Let’s move to the dining room folks” he said “it’ll be easier for everyone that way.”

So they did.

“I imagine you all wonder why I called you here?” Shelby smiled. That was the Dragon Lady’s line, she tilted an eyebrow at him “Well I think we’re doing it all wrong.”

“Doing what all wrong?” Marc said around a pile of Hash-browns and gravy.

“We’re designing the Banana Slug replacement wrong somehow. We’re thinking wrong.” Shelby said “We have SmartMatter. We need to design smart. We’re not using it to it’s full extent so much as just using it as another type of glue or wallboard.”

Everyone chewed on that for a little bit, as well as their breakfast.

Cody, as usual was the first to catch on. His eyes lit up like beacons. He began to almost vibrate in place.

“Need to go to the bathroom?” Joshua asked. He knew better but he loved to tease his little buddy.

“I think he’s got an idea” Carl said “I had one of those once. They can be painful.”

“What’cha got Cody?” Shelby asked.

“Well, well.“ Cody WAS excited. “Isn’t one of your favorite sayings “Massively Parallel. Highly Redundant and Widely Distributed?”

“Yes it is” Shelby said

Joshua’s eyes lit up. He saw where Cody was going. Carl and Wilbur were showing intense interest too.

“Well what about swarms?” Cody said. “or schools or flocks. Don’t those exhibit MP,HR,WD?”

“I wonder how long it will be before someone comes up with a sexy acronym for that” the Dragon Lady muttered to Captain.

“Yes?” Chad agreed with hesitation.

“Well isn’t it obvious?” Cody asked.

Everyone looked at one and other. Even Joshua, Wilbur and Carl. Then they all looked back at Cody at the same time.

“Nooooooo.” they all said as if on cue.

“It’s not all that obvious Cody. You might want to unpack it a bit” Carl said around a breakfast burrito, his third.

Suddenly Yvette eyes lit up. “Vampire!”

That was a bit alarming coming from a small dragon. One of three that were Sapient.

“YES! That’s it!” Cody said

“Sparkles?” Wilbur muttered

“Er, No. Not that.” Cody said. “Remember in the old , OLD, vampire movies where the Vampire can turn into fog then fly through a keyhole or some such and then reassemble somewhere else? It’s like that. Lookit a school of fish, or a flock of birds. Notice how they all turn at the same time? The Flock or the School is a unit, a ‘thing’, but they both break up into subunits easily?”

Shelby and the rest finally began to nod.

“So.” he said “Let me get this straight. One example of what you are saying, in reference to designing the Banana Slug Replacement is that it would break-up into fog when need be?”

“YES!” Cody said “Well not fog. That’s why I mentioned fish or birds. Small subunits, something like the prototype we tested. Maybe scaled up to something the size of a personal manta-boat maybe, a puffer suit. Being able to do that would provide an an unimaginable number of advantages. The associated disadvantages don’t matter since it IS SSmoke.”

Cody’s eyes were bright as he looked around at everyone.

“Are you going to eat that breakfast burrito?” Carl asked.

after long hours of conference

“Ok kids” Shelby was tired. Creative work was HARD.”I think we whupped it.”

Everyone else was tired too, but they were proud and happy. They’d conceptualized a masterpiece.

Next came the hard part...design it.

Then came the harder part...build it.

All in due time.

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The Next Episode Is
#82: Weldon-Purpose…
The Previous Episode was
#80: Banana Slug - Test to Destruction…
The First Episode was
# 1 : Prologue…
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Book One: SoulStone
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