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The Loop

By: Enrique Avalle ...

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Thanks go to:
(In no particular order)

Severian, for being totally honest
Karistan, for her support
Juan Martin for liking it

All my friends which
encouraged me on keeping with the idea
of writing my first lengthy story.




CONTENTS:




Introduction:7
CHAPTER 1: The Awakening9
CHAPTER 2: Treat and Vengeance43
CHAPTER 3: Inside Storm's eye53
CHAPTER 4: Show must go on...65
CHAPTER 5: Serious Talking81
CHAPTER 6: Enlightenment97
CHAPTER 7: Unknown universe125
CHAPTER 8: Chat with our Gods.141
CHAPTER 9: The Void155
CHAPTER 10: The End of our Story169




Introduction:


It all started back in January 1998 ... :)

... as an English excercise. I felt quite useless in the use of my english, so I decided to start practicing it.

The first chapter was left untouched inside my Compaq C120+ (windows CE palmtop) for several months, until I decided to move on and prove myself that I could really write a complete story. Since then, I got the help of some people which gave me their opinions on it. Well ? I know I am no writer, specially in English ! But then again: this is an exercise ... Anyway, I would like to hear everyone?s opinion very much. Please e-mail me at avalle@adinet.com.uy) and tell me the raw truth about it :) ...


Thanks for your help, I really hope this story might end up interesting you;

enrique.



CHAPTER 1: The Awakening













I found myself walking back home in this early morning, just at that time of the night when the city appears to be absent of living creatures. The only allowed thing out here -besides any furtive walker, as me- was the Ray Bradbury's Circus, I jokingly thought. I loved that kind of literature.

I comforted myself by realising that this particularly warm and dry night was perfect for a long walk ... trying to forget the sad fact that it was also the only way to reach my small rented pension room, located over the city's west border. I focused my eyes on the street, sparsely lit with that dim yellow hue which usually comes from those cheap street lights, hanging a couple of meters above me. My eyes reached for the sky then, trying to pinpoint any celestial bodies that could be disguised from the city's glowing atmosphere, formed by the smog-reflected lights.

No luck.

I noticed that the air smelled rather pure and innocuous, after a few hours of relief from each working day rush, including the vehicle's exhausts and all the other artificial odours, usually generated in the modern cities. I gave up on my quest for any visible star, lowering my sight again and paying attention to the sidewalk now: I started wondering about those little rectangular stones that formed it...But none of this things really mattered at all: I was only trying to fill up my mind with any suitable thought on my way home, but was too tired to dive into any kind of deeper considerations...

Gradually, as fading in from an infinite spot, the engine of a car started to resonate several blocks away.

It was coming from my back, over this very same street, being this sole fact just enough trouble for me as chances were that it was a police car.

They would stop me just for fun. They probably were really bored, given this early hour. Sadly enough, this kind of situations was pretty common, particularly during the night-time. All that one could do was to follow their orders and behave like a good, humble and happy citizen -not that I didn't fill into such categories- but in an extreme way. You could end up being their main night attraction by trying to discuss anything with them. Plenty of sad stories filled the young urban population, and I've heard just enough of them to get pretty concerned at this time.

A couple of seconds later, the vehicle was rolling towards me just some meters away from my position. I managed to peek over my left shoulder only to find out that I was wrong. No police car.

It carried no roof-lights or sirens and a lonely driver occupied it. I quickly recognised the stylised shape of a top model Mercedes Benz car. I could only smile, joyed by the cool design of this rare and expensive model, which passed near me at slow speed. I had to wipe out that smile from my face just a second later: It stopped some meters ahead of me.

I continued my walking while pretending that everything was cool, but I was really worried about what was going on. After reaching a proper angle, I managed to discover that its lonely driver was stepping out of her seat. Relief: It was a very impressive blonde woman, I realised, while she proceeded to walk around the car with the obvious intention of engaging me.

Now she was standing in front of me.

"Hi Matt", she said, "It's time for us to get together again"

?What ?? I replied, fully surprised.

This was all the way wrong. That was not my name and I never met a girl like her before for sure. I was going to add this to her, but she spoke again, correcting herself:

"Okay, sorry ... let's see ... (closing her eyes for a second) Paul Dylon, that's your actual name. You might be a little confused now, but you don't have to worry about me ... It happens that I know you! please get into the car ... we got to talk about this".

She had a wonderful smile on her face.

Strangely enough, she was right on my name now. I could only stand up in there and stare at her, trying to understand what kind of weird stuff was getting over me, but didn't have the time to make any progress on that anyway: She opened the passenger's door and gently pushed me inside. I just couldn't resist on this. There was no chance that this could be a kidnapping, I hoped. I got no money or properties ... On the other hand, she was a pretty good-looking girl... and she was also alone! I could probably end up this night in a better place than my own room.

Once inside the vehicle, she proceeded to carefully look at me. I paralysed under this heavily ocular inspection. It felt certainly weird. And that is some kind of understatement.

"Hmmm ... she might be crazy", I thought, as another possible explanation for the ongoing situation.

I started to be really worried about her mental state. Her eyes were particularly bright, and she seemed to be very nervous, I quickly noticed.

"Look, lady, I can't remember you at all. It's obvious that we met before ... perhaps you can tell me a bit about yourself ... particularly about how do you know my name... or even better yet: how did you find me" I asked her.

She stared at me for a couple of seconds more, and said something which was the craziest thing I ever heard up to that date:


"Okay, you are not meant to remember me. Those were your very own and personal instructions, after all. But we are about to reverse this. You will remember everything about your real life quite soon. Look at me ... don´t you really recall me? My face? Don't you even feel some kind of deja-vú?"

I was frankly shocked. This was the first time I took a real glance into her face, given the chance. Strangely enough, I thought that I could vaguely recognise her.

"Well lady, you are quite pretty. I think I recall you from somewhere. But this does not surprise me that much, as you might be the girl of anyone's dream, I think." I started saying.

It suddenly hit me. That was it!

That was the plain weird truth, actually. I did recall dreaming on her several times! Especially on this last year. I was sure now. That face can't be that easily forgotten.

This was really wicked ... I never heard about a dream coming true before... at least not in this way! What's more... you can easily imagine what kind of thoughts I had with a girl like her! I decided to finish this strange conversation (and probably the free ride on this nice, fancy car) with the very aggressive statement "I dreamed on you a couple of times, yes, doing nasty things. The both of us. And I am talking about sex in here, girl". I waited for the slap on my face, but she smiled instead of the rather obvious -offended-kind- action.

"You remember something about us, after all. This is good news".

That was just too much for my mind, so I decided to mute myself for the rest of this "Twilight Zone" trip, dedicating myself to pay attention into the vehicle's instrument panel, clustered with digital displays. I always thought that Mercedes Benz used analogue equipment only. This particular model, on the contrary, featured an unusual massive population of LCD displays, biased in such a way that only the driver could comfortably lecture them. I realised that this probably was a -very expensive- custom-made model.

We arrived at a huge modern house, a couple of minutes later, surrounded by a high metal-bar fence. The house itself was located above a three meters tall artificial hill.

An automatic gate opened ahead the car and we drove in the house's park, making our way right into the garage, which emerged from the base of this artificial hill bellow the front of the building. I could not see any details due to the low light available, provided by some windows that were still somewhat open, letting their inner room's lights escape into the park.

We got into the garage and there was no good light inside there too. Only a dim, indirect glow provided by several soft spots shyly spread over the place. I could count two more vehicles parked inside there. I was able to quickly identify one of them, as it had the unmistakably shape of a Hummer all-terrain van.

"Cool", I said to myself. Crazy or not, the girl had a good -and expensive- taste for cars.

"By the way, my name is Lana. Now follow me, Matt."

She used the wrong name again.

We walked towards a crystal door that gave us access to a little elevator. It silently lifted us up inside the house. With a soft click, we emerged into a huge living room (I couldn't resist thinking about the last Batman movies), which was superbly decorated, in a cool, modern, fashion way. The space was filled with many huge couches, a really big glass table, and plenty of masterly placed soft focus spotlights, which managed to illuminate the whole scene as a perfect and sophisticated TV program set.

"Please, sit down here Matt..." She said, while grabbing a little square-shaped metal thing (I thought it could be some sort of calculator) from a shelve I didn't notice yet. Then she sat near me. "Be prepared for this. It's rather ... intense!"

Now I was really worried about my immediate future! I started to device a way to get out of there, quickly as hell. She started calling me Matt again! Also, What in the hell was that weird box, which -according to her- promised to be an "intense" experience?

"My parents will be really worried by now, you know. You can find me again tomorrow, just as you did it this night. We can resume this interesting chat at that time" I quickly replicated, standing on my feet, worried by her possible reactions. I just wanted to run the hell out from there. Perhaps that metal box was some kind of electrical-charge weapon so commonly found on lady's purses ... hmm. Nasty!

To my very deep concern, she pressed something like a button on that little metal box, which in turn started emitting a green light ray towards me. I almost dismayed with that green stroke that hit me in front of my eyes. I could only shout once. A second later I realised that no pain was actually being issued into my body, as the green stuff kept coming into my eyes, focusing into some kind of ... alphanumeric display! A bunch of green characters and numbers were dancing in front of me. After a second or so, they scaled down, jumping right into the border of my eyesight, just barely visible. It had the time on it, and a message that read "Welcome back, Matt".

I could only shake my head, being this some kind of automatic reaction, but the display just kept solid in there, in the same lower part of my sight. The girl, Lana, started to laugh. "Hey, it will not faint away in that way. You better listen to me: That image comes from INSIDE of you, from your very own optical nerves ... All I did was to switch your terminal back on, located inside your brain. Now I can restore your real memories again. This will take some time, but you will be unconscious during the procedure. When you get back, you'll remember everything ... it is fun ... don't worry about it ... You'll see what I mean". After these astonishing words, she pressed that metal thing again, and I was put to sleep.








---x---








I woke up inside a cute big room. I had no idea on how much time did I sleep, but then the alphanumeric display flashed twice showing it's embedded clock to me. It was mid-morning now, so I've been down for several hours.

I re-focused my thoughts. I felt like I was kind of reborn. I could sense that something had changed inside me.

Just for a start, I kept reading that display under my eyes, but now I knew that it was a direct brain link with my Artificial Intelligence computer, code-named "Eishell" (all kind of new bits of information started to pop inside me now).

This computer -my very own computer- was physically distributed over several places all around the world, well buried below of what seemed to be just plain, normal houses like this one. I used to live in them too. They worked as my earth based operation centres, actually, and they were mine of course. I was responsible of designing Eishell's particularly powerful AI engine, as well.

Cool of me, I thought and grinned about it.

Humbleness still needed a bit of workout, for sure ...

Although I felt a bit dizzy, I did remember this room. In fact, I perfectly managed to recall that I designed not only this room, but the whole house. This was pretty obvious, as no other person on earth could possibly understand the complex issues of security and spacing my A.I. computer required in order to be properly protected.

As seconds ticked away, my head kept bringing new pieces of memory.

Eishell kept a neural network running between her domain. This included my five houses (there was one built over each continent), but also the androids, spaceships, and even several outposts spread all over the galaxy.

I was in permanent touch with Eishell trough my implanted brain link. The computer could communicate with my mind by interfering with the electric impulses inside me. That was the trick which made possible the digital display image floating right under my eyes, and It was perfectly normal for me now.

All this technology was adopted as the interface of choice between humans and computer equipment in the middle of the twenty-first century, I recalled right away. This fact emerged into my consciousness with surprisingly easiness. I could remember up to the smallest detail about everything I did yesterday, but somewhat, somehow, a lot of extra information was merged into my thinking process, yet feeling totally normal if not absolutely familiar too.

Then, the computer spoke, and It really surprised me. Even if I knew what to expect. The voice came directly from the inside of my head. I was already aware that it could perform such trick, but it was kind of spooky, anyway.

"Hi there, Matt... Welcome back. Lana has already been informed that you are awake... she will be in your room in twenty seconds, as she is coming up through the stairs right now." Eishell informed me.

"Thanks" I replied.

I turned my attention back into this bedroom: It was big enough to be filled up with four of my former pension's room. I was lying over this really big and nice bed. The place itself was softly lit, furnished in a very strange and modern concept way (which made me feel very comfortable too). I noticed the huge flat grey area in the wall in front of me and I instantly knew that it was a high-resolution tri-dimensional imaging unit. A soft knocking on the door interrupted my ongoing room analysis. The door opened to a side, sliding right into the wall.

I instantly smiled. There she was, Lana, carrying a rather big breakfast bed-table. She proceeded to place it over the bed, graciously taking place over the bed, along me, after that.

Lots of things were flowing inside my mind. I started to detect several holes in it, which I could not explain at this time.

All this thoughts still managed to jump over me while I ate the perfect breakfast that Lana brought. She was still at my side, laying over the bed, stretched all her way up down looking at me from near my feet, with absent eyes and an enigmatic smile...

"I'm sorry about leaving you alone with all this food, but I already took my own breakfast, well over an hour ago. So, please ... don't feel guilty if I keep staring at you while you finish it? it happens that I like to do that on you.¨ She explained while keeping that smile.

Most notably, -I continued with my introspection- I could not find any trace of two specific topics inside my memories: The first one was really disturbing, as it involved this entire ongoing situation. It was the fact that I just could not sort out my place in this huge puzzle!

My second memory fault was more on the personal side, involving the lack of information about my relationship with this girl, Lana. I took a moment to carefully look at her again. I noticed once more how nearly she was to -what I considered to be- perfection. Her body appeared to be designed by higher standards than the rest of us. This was particularly noticeable in her face.

I was really intrigued by her motivation in this game, too. Perhaps it should be the right time to ask her about it, but then, she did not even let me start the question. She re-focused her eyes on me, coming down to earth again... saying "A penny for your thoughts" while blinking her right eye.

"Did you read my mind or something?" I asked, really alarmed.

"Not at all. It happens that I know you quite well ... So come on, tell me! ... And don't be afraid ... No one can read your thoughts, unless you let or even force them do so" She said with a laugh.

I exposed her everything about my memory holes, leaving intentionally out the corresponding bit about my lack of memory on our eventual relation. I was disappointed on realising that she didn't surprise at all. She waved her head twice while listening to me and then a smile started forming in her lips. Her eyes sparkled with unusual strength as she replied me with another question:

"Is this all what you find to be missing of your memory, Matt?"

"Hmm" I said. It was pretty clear now that she knew me quite well, assuming that she did not lie when she said she could not read my mind.

"I've been wondering about us, Lana... I don't recall a single bit of information about our relationship... Quite strange, I do remember you ... and me ... well, you know, I already told you about it in the car. I got this quite strong feeling that you are totally trusty, in the sense of a very close friend ... or partner!". I shyly told her.

"Oh poor Matt. You got to be confused. I was hoping that you could at least rest for a couple more of days before starting to discuss about certain issues, but I suppose that you are willing to solve this situation right now. Let me take out this breakfast table from over you before we continue our chat.".

We heard three soft knocks over the door, just after she finished her last sentence. It promptly opened and a rather pretty girl dressed with the classic maid uniform came into the bedroom. She carried a wide smile on her face. "Hi Matt, welcome back!" she greeted me while taking the breakfast table off my top.

"Thanks, Eileen ... good to see you too", I managed to say, quite surprised by this visit. All her actions were performed with quite a noticeable and graceful precision. She left the bedroom while the door automatically closed after her.

I did know everything about her specifications. I had four of them in operational conditions inside each one of my houses. I designed them as personal utility tools. They were a versatile piece of machinery. Mechanically and electronically engineered by both Eishell and me.

Eileen was an Android. She was not the only type of android, I recalled, as we had several different models, intended for different kind of tasks. All of them had almost every aspect of a human brain embedded in their circuits, including the emotional part.

We have recognised them as a true race of independent living creatures, meaning by this that they had their own rights and will. Every android that we build is asked about what does it want to do with its life ... I was quite proud that up to this day, with no exception, all of them joined us in our rather complicated and non-regarding job by their own free choice.

It was quite an honour to learn that they often referred to us as their "fathers".

"I was a bit confused when Eileen came in... You called her, is this right?" I asked Lana. She changed her upside-down position in the bed to a normal one, laying her head near mine. She had the same link as I had with the AI, Eishell explained me, after I mentally addressed her about it.

"Of course I did, dear. We share the same abilities, as you are just re-discovering it" She said blinking again her right eye to me. "Now let's move on to some answers for your earlier questions... Truth is that you actually had selective parts of your memory whipped out, yes. It was me who did it actually, but at your very specific request." Lana calmly said, pausing for a moment, giving me some seconds to digest this last sentence.

"It was your own decision to have the life you had until earlier today ... You asked for it as some kind of permanent vacations, or -as you stated- a deserved way to end up your material days over the earth: Like a normal citizen. Although it was a strange decision -even coming up from you-, coupled with the fact that you also asked me to move all your real memories into our memory banks, leaving you only with the normal knowledge of an earth native. The Great Ones council did agree, anyway. You really deserved every bit of what you asked. This included the erasing of some specific parts of your memory that you didn't want to come back even in the very remote case that you were needed again, which -oddly enough- has happened now ... Do you follow me up to here, Matt?" She exposed, and then layered some pillows on her back.

Lot of things jumped inside my brain. The Great Ones ... I am one of them! We are a genetically enhanced race. We were conceived inside a scientific station over a Jupiter moon, as the result of a research team that flew over there from the earth, back in the year 2900. "Great Ones" ... I always thought that we did deserve a more specific name than the one we got, but then again, this was the way it has been for almost a century now. It appears that we travel (or used to travel) in time. My memory was not so clear over this part of the story.

"I *think* I am following you, Lana ... Please don't stop" I anxiously replied.

"Cool. Okay ... I did what you asked. I cleaned your memory and then proceeded to place you in your chosen latitudes for living. After accomplishing those tasks, I chose to dedicate myself just to hang around in our installation -when I refer to ours, it means you and me, Matt-. I also decided to maintain my full memories safely with me ... way opposed to you".

She took a deep grasp of air, and continued her story...

"Anyway, I did look after you for a couple of times in this last 4 years, but I never interfered on your new life, like I promised you in first place... until now. Eishell received an -unusually weak- urgent message from the Sanctuary, stating that your presence was required to solve some sort of serious problem." She paused again, moving a bit closer to me.

I tried to hold myself as if I did not notice or care about that action of her -with no success at all- as she gave me a very subtle smile, blinking her eye once more.

Then I recalled about the Sanctuary. That was the operations centre that we -The Great Ones- had, conveniently placed over the centre of the galaxies cluster that allocated the main alien races which in turn comprised the Alien Federation. It was a very nice -and artificial- planet, of course.

Lana continued:

"We couldn't decode the exact meaning of the urgent message, as you are the only one which fully understands the Great One's language -being you one of them-. Eishell could get the general idea out of it. I was pretty confused Matt, as I was determined to never disrupt you from your permanent vacations. I decided to ask back to the Great Ones headquarters for a confirmation on the message, which I promptly did ... But no reply has reached us up to this day. This was far beyond my scope, so I did call you back, Matt. You must agree with me that the lack of any further messages is completely weird ... or even worse. I really needed you back in control" She said, extending her arm and playing gently with her fingers into my hair. This play was just too much for me to pretend that it was totally normal, so I changed the topic -not that I did consider the former one a banal one-.

"Hey, Lana, this is unfair. I do not know anything about you. I need you to explain me about us, as I am totally confused. First thing that needs to be sorted out is the following question: are you another android?" I managed to ask, much worried by this chance.

"Good grief, no! I am made of flesh and bones, just like you, Matt. But I might be sharing something in common with your androids. Beauty, for example...", she said, blinking once again her left eye and making a pause, and then added:

"You might be aware now that in fact, I love you, Matt." She said, while lowering her voice in this last statement.

"But then Lana, why did I ask you to erase all my memories about yourself? Why did I refused to live in this comfort with you and completely aware of my real identity?" I said, more confused than ever. This new bit of information was quite illogical before my actual eyes.

"Oh no! You don't want to hear the answer for that, Matt... That is why, after all, you asked me to erase that portion of your memory in the first place. Don't worry, you will get more answers... in the correct time and place." she said, introducing another brief pause.

"Enough said for now! I want to welcome you in the way you deserve ... This is a special moment for me, Matt, which I've been looking forward for it over this last four years, in the hope that it could become a reality ... while you were sleeping, doing your play as a normal earth-born citizen." She said rolling over me, and taking out both her clothes and mine with surprising agility.

What could I do but follow her on this play ... I wanted it since the first time I saw her. Now that I know about her actual feelings, I was really willing to reach her like this.



---x---




We managed to get out of the bed after a couple of very interesting hours, just in time for supper. We went downstairs, getting into the lower level of the house. Lana suddenly seemed to remember something, turning around and facing me: "Oh ... I almost forget about something, dear. Better if we fix this right now ... you follow me, please".

We walked into a small passage located near the ending of the stairs that guided us into a rather strange room. I instantly recognised it as one of our terminals room, connected in turn to Eishell's main control room, which was located way below the house. This room was filled with computer terminals and racks full of electronic gear? but it was nothing compared with Eishell's main control room.

"We better plug our wrist terminals in ... We can talk about them while we eat." she said, as she proceeded to take something very similar to an ordinary wristwatch, with the exception of having those several needles -razor sharp- in the back of it. I recalled now that those dreaded looking needles actually worked as data terminals. They were designed to be inserted into the appropriate interface, which was hidden below the skin in our wrists. This, in turn, was connected to the very small implant that we had inside our brain. This piece of equipment was responsible of the tricks that Eishell could perform on me, like writing and speaking directly into my brain.

Once that this controller was put in place, it looked like a normal digital watch. Firstly, it acted as an amplification transceiver for the communications link between Eishell and my brain implant. Until now, Eishell could connect to our brain implants in a perimeter of a few kilometres only. So, -as long as the wrist controller was kept in place-, the complex network between the computer and us could be established at any range (distance didn't matter, that is) with no delay at all, as it did not use any kind of radio wave, but something quite identical to thought transmission energy. Other important task that this controller performed was to act as a pinpoint locator, which allowed Eishell to keep permanent track of us. It also served as a tele-transporting projection system (for planetary ranges only). This was the most used function of the gadget: It provided an instant way to travel to any place in the planet.

The last -worth to mention- function was a dual one. First, it has the ability to detect any kind of approaching object, and after some complex calculations based on its speed, shape and mass, it can either redirect it or destroy it. Secondly, -If for whatever reason we get hurt in any way- this controller has a complex organic matter generator capable of recovering and regenerating any damage that we could get, provided that there is enough of us left to get the appropriate DNA information.

All this tasks (coupled with a few more, just too specific and non-important to be mentioned) were devised around a couple of formulas and laws that have to do with matter-into-energy-into-matter transposing. Eishell, based on an idea I had... laboured them. My computer's ability to elaborate my ideas was quite incredible!. It had several times bigger I.Q. than what the human scale allowed to measure. Anyway, the I.Q. scale was not meant to be used in measuring the degree of an artificial intelligence module. It was like mixing oil and water. They worked in totally different ways to allow the same kind of evaluation!: They actually complemented themselves. I usually ended up giving it the initial idea that it then worked out into a finished product.

So, once you asked Eishell for a practical way to develop the weirdest thing you could device, it always came promptly with a suitable solution. It was fun to test the computer abilities on these puzzle-solving situations.


We dedicated ourselves to a very interesting and comforting meal, superbly crafted by a couple of Eileen androids, as a way to greet me back. I learned from Lana that -usually- the food was summarily synthesised from Eishell's memory banks. This had the side effect of a normalised and perfectly balanced diet ... where every dish tasted always the same!. But they really prepared and cooked it this time. Lana made me notice that this was clearly a special occasion for them.

So, this ended up being a small supper ceremony. I thanked both androids for such an honour, making it clear to them that everything was absolutely delicious. It could be interesting if they decided to repeat such an action. "Motivation" I simply said, once we left the kitchen. Lana couldn't hold the laughter: "Oh yeah! And they didn't notice it ... you the subtle one!"




---x---




We decided to find out what really happened with the Great One's Headquarter. The sole fact that they did not attempt any further communication with us was quite frightening and demanded an urgent investigation.

In the following hours, I had several mental chats with Eishell, as a way to exercise this incredible way of communication, and of learning a bit more about myself. We ended up our last chat jumping into the conclusion that Lana was right on waking me up from my voluntary retirement. Chances were that something went dreadful wrong in the Master Plan plot. The computer told me all what it knew about this plan, but it had only partial answers, as it was not entitled to know every bit of it. It was in the Great Ones Council hands only to know all the details of such a monumental task. Some security issue, obviously.

Bottom line: I got to familiarise with my computer -and my new abilities- a bit more yet. I learned quite a lot by doing so up to now, I thought. There was this Master Plan. This was the name that encircled our work, active right since after some kind of catastrophe destroyed the earth along all their inhabitants. No details on this topic were left in my memory, but only this up-to-the-bone chilling sensation. Eishell had a similar memory problem. The computer tried to excuse itself by saying that all this kind of information was not meant to be known by it. But then it turned out that Eishell wasn't really sure on it either.

The truth was far more terrible ... but we would not know about it until later.

As my computer and I joined different bits of information, I figured out that our job was something like time and space travel, fixing up all the subtleties that ended up in the loss of the earth. Again, my brain was just too messy, but I wanted more answers fast.

Our work on earth should be almost finished by this time. We were only six months away from the final chapter of this great Gods-like Play, and me being one of the lasts field player, did set up everything in order to the final pieces of this gigantic puzzle to fall in every right place. This was all done just before I decided to take my vacations. I learned trough Eishell that it was just because of this that I retired, as I chose to live the dawn of the new era as a normal citizen, so I could be able to marvel at it on it's full extent. The Great Ones Council itself was also preparing to shut down our operations centre, willing to follow my steps too: Each other member of the Council (which was the only population left from our rather ephemeral and artificial race) had been choosing some civilisation and time in the history to immerse in, in order to end up their days in a joyful and peaceful life.

Enough of this mental chat. Lana came into the room. Time to move.




---x---




"Are you ready, Matt?" she asked.

"Let's do it now! Eishell: proceed right away..." I promptly replied.

The computer tele-transported ourselves into the small space shuttle which awaited us in a very high geo-stationary orbit around the earth. This vessel would transport us into the Great Ones Headquarters. It was a cute little spaceship, filled with very simple commodities, just like a small apartment. There was no need for anything else, as space travelling was quite instantaneous for us, consisting on several consecutive tele-transporting jumps of the entire ship's structure, until reaching our destination. We were placed right in the middle of the multipurpose back-room, right behind the cockpit, which had a very close resemblance to that big motor homes back in earth, but with a far more modern and practical design. Later, I would learn that this one was my very own ship. Cool.

"Greetings, Captain Matt... now please remember to put on your integral suits, both of you" Eishell announced through some hidden loudspeakers.

I wondered about on which basis did Eishell did choose between the different ways it used to communicate with us: It could always send us written or audible messages respectively through our optical and hearing nerves ... or even by the use of a loudspeaker, like it just did ... It was quite easy to tell the difference between the actual real sound, naturally bouncing and echoing through the different walls and rooms, against the perfectly shaped -echo free- and stereo sound of her voice linked directly into our brains.

Next, after hearing a loud "Tsk! Tsk!" which came from Lana's direction, I focused in the plastic bag that carried my integral suit, which She held towards me, while grinning, obviously aware that I was fully immersed in my thoughts.

"Oh sorry, Lana ... I was gone, as usual, I know!", I grinned, excusing myself.

We used these suits by norm on all our official tasks. They were fabricated in a thin silver-plated material, which had the unique property (once you dressed up with it) of memorising its user body shape and then offer an almost infinite resistance to any object or pressure that tried to deform or punctuate it -after certain threshold was reached- (It felt just like a normal gym suit, until you tried to harm its user). This suit could hopefully protect us against any kind of attack in the very remote event that our wrist controller could be neutralised.

It took us less than a minute to get dressed on them.

"Oh! Cute! Both of us in our working uniform!" Lana said, smiling.

Eishell opened the cockpit access door for us, which revealed a small space, with two huge pilot seats. I proceeded to sit down in the left pilot's place, as Lana occupied the other one. Both of them were streamlined into the spaceship's structure, and felt absolutely comfortable. I looked around me, checking out every aspect of this small space. The instruments panel was cleverly organised and illuminated, but quite unnecessary (just in emergency situations, actually) as we could drive this baby by using our brain implant link. So, I mentally gave the appropriate orders to Eishell.

It instantly proceeded to execute my commands, as omnipresent and omnipotent as it was, taking charge of all the intricacies of the ship. I recalled every aspect on this quite unusual interface, which proved to be very simple. And powerful.

I suddenly felt a rather rude force grabbing me into my seat. It was the gravity net, obviously turned on by Eishell. This was meant to keep us glued in our places, as Eishell had to disconnect the ship's gravity generator in order to be able to start our jumping sequence. Getting a bit more technical over this travelling technique, it involved jumping into different sub-dimensional planes, which allowed us to cover tremendous linear distances by moving just a few kilometres from our relative position. Normally, this would not be felt at all by the passengers... more than the side effect of the gravity loss. This gravity net prevented us from starting to bounce all over the place.

Great Ones travelling technology, of course.

"Check this out, Lana, I'm driving with no hands!" I messaged her right into her optical nerve.

"Oh boy! Try not to fall" she messaged back, chuckling.

After some moments, we both heard the computer's voice: "No one will fall ... I will take care about that. Starting transport sequence now. Twenty jumps needed. You both please stand by and behave!", speaking through our hearing nerves. A visual countdown floated in front of my eyes.

We ended up realising the twenty jumps in less than thirty seconds.

"Finished. " Eishell wrote before our eyes, just after the countdown disappeared.

"Well done, Eishell, thank you ... Now please, tell us what do our sensors say" I told her.

"Quite alarming, Matt, as the Great Ones Headquarters are totally unshielded right now. I mean both physical and mental shields. I cannot sense any life form either ... please stand by." she started to explain, introducing a small pause while collecting more data from the ship's scanning system.

"No functional energy source too ... everything seems to be dead!" Eishell ended her report with a rather worried voice.

The operations centre was located in an earth-like planet, inhabited only by the Great Ones Council, which was originally composed of twelve humans. At the time I ended up my work -when I decided to retire- only seven of us were left. The rest of our brothers and sisters quit at different stages of our Master Plan procedures. It was just too much pressure... even for them.

The place itself was always illuminated by at least one of the three suns that gifted this particularly spectacular star system -artificially crafted from scratch by our ancestors-, which kept the planet at an ideal temperature, light, humidity and pressure.

The actual room that the council used as the official meeting temple did not even had walls ... It resembled the Parthenon building, back in Earth, only that in a really bigger scale. Quite a complex construction.

All the communications gear, as well as the logical and tactical electronics were located below this huge construction, I recalled. The magic of the place was not meant to be broken up by the display of such technical apparatus. It didn't correspond to the sanctuary-like atmosphere that reigned in there. At least, that was the rule around the place last time I was here. But now things were totally bizarre.

"Oh no! Let's go down RIGHT NOW " I added, standing up. I was truly worried about this whole situation. This Great Ones Sanctuary was totally unbreakable by any of the known civilisation?s technology. Eishell´s last scanning job evidenced just the contrary.

We tele-transported right into the middle of the Council meeting room.

As we stood there, It took us a few seconds to understand and assimilate the picture that appeared before our eyes. All what was left was RUINS! The evenly red light provided by both the eastern and southern suns revealed -with crude details- that what has once been a maximum exponent of architectural beauty, now was all bent and cracked down into pieces.

We couldn't articulate a single word. A couple of tears managed to escape from my eyes. I realised all the implications of this terrific sight.

I started to walk towards the Great Ones table, located at one end of this huge rectangle-shaped temple, sorting out all the big chunks of stone that went down from the ceiling and columns. I was trembling quite a lot, afraid of the view that could be awaiting me on the other side of it. A few more steps towards it and I started to disguise the shape of a human corpse down in the floor. And another one. Seven of them. I repaired on the fact that those where not actually the corpses of the Great ones, but their clothes only. Whatever weapon the evil used against them, it was able to eliminate their bodies. No DNA sample, No physical reconstruction.

There was still one chance left on finding out what happened in here. As a rule, the sanctuary's computer logged everything. It was magnitudes bigger than Eishell, being the responsible of holding up all the intricacies that comprised the Master Plan, and powerful enough for us to ask it for advice on how to solve this situation. But I was quite afraid that the computer didn't make it too. No signs of it up to this moment.

"Lana, let's go and check the computer room. That is the only chance we got of solving what happened in here." I said with an almost non-existent voice.

We headed towards the small stairs that allowed the entrance to the inner rooms, located below the Sanctuary room. Once there, the same havoc view repeated itself, for our outmost despair. All windows were crashed into pieces. All equipment destroyed. The central memory bank, located in the middle of the room, was smashed into pieces. That memory block was very similar to Eishell's: a cubic piece of refined diamond-like crystalline structure, about one cubic meter big, allowing the storage and retrieval of information in a molecular basis, as fast as light speed.

Eishell's central memory bank had a backup system that replicated all the information into each other memory banks, located in each one of our houses -back in earth- and into every other installation that included an instance of it's artificial engine. (Eishell was in fact a huge network of processing units. They had the ability of being quite autonomous, but yet are able to seamlessly join their processing power when needed- disseminated around our galaxy). Sanctuary's computer -on the contrary- did not have a backup system. It was assumed that this was the safest place in the universe.

Until now.

I was the only one left alive? and I was alone. This was the most terrifying thought I could ever have. I always worked in total co-ordination with the rest of my brothers and sisters, which in turn devised the best possible way to stick into the Master Plan. I had none of those right now. I felt down into my knees, as the mental pain was consuming me. I was horrified about the earth's future. The ones that did this were far more powerful than me. No chances that I could solve this out.

As I sank into these obscure thougbts, I felt Lana's hands, as she was holding me, trying to get me back on my feet.

"Don't break down. You are capable of work things out. You MUST work things out. Your duty is still the same. You must get in touch with the Alien Federation and start an investigation about this. Don't do this to yourself." she said with a low trembling voice.

"You can't know how bad do I feel.- I am alone ... I am afraid that I am not up to this task. This is terrible."- I managed to say.

"You ... I know you better than that ... You did design me too. I didn't want to talk with you about this yet, but now you will have to listen me: This happened after your former partner died. All I know is that she was a Great One too, as this is the only thing you once told me about her. You were affected in such a way that you could not continue with your tasks, both practically -as you really need to work in pairs- and emotionally. Then I was born. I owe you my life, and I am pretty sure that I am forever bonded to you. So ... you can be sure that you are NOT alone now. I am with you on this, until we finish it... for good!. So stop it, please..."

I glanced at her, just to discover that she was silently crying. She did realise how bad things had gone too. I could only hug her for a long minute, while thinking on her last words. Then we walked out of the main computer room, and re-established communication with Eishell computer, up in our ship.

"Bring up with you that chunk of central memory that was left over its original place. Chances are that the Sanctuary's AI reorganised its data in such a way that all the relevant information about this attack was positioned in this segment, given that it had the best chance of staying right in its place in the event of a destruction attempt, due to its contact with the room's floor. In fact, I would have done just that. We can extract and reconstruct some of the information contained in there "Eishell said into our ears.

She was right. The central memory bank was blasted into pieces... but a big piece of its crystalline structure, positioned against the floor, was kept intact, as the floor absorbed the blasting energy.




---x---




Once back in our spaceship, our first priority was to send that big piece of memory bank back to one of Eishell's headquarters, back in earth. She could analyse it in there while we investigated about this terrible situation by meeting with the Alien Federation. They must have witnessed this attack, I was sure on that. This Federation was the devised mechanism by which the Master Plan could be achieved. The plan itself consisted -roughly put- in achieving the union of our local galaxy's alien civilisations, bringing a true and long lasting peace among them, projecting in turn a sense of strength and confidence between all the yet-to-be-known races in the rest of the universe. Such a task could be accomplished only when the last race in our list will accept and integrate the Federation. The actual date for this to happen was close, six months from now.

The only race left to join the Federation was located in the third planet of the so-called "Solar System"... The human race. A great deal of my work was oriented into such a task:

We had to smooth the terrain and wait until the humans were psychologically and technologically prepared for such an encounter. That is why this last hundred (terrestrial) years or so, I did live quite a lot in there.

Right now, all the major world leaders were aware that in six months from now, the world as they know it would reach into an end, giving birth to a new era. That was my last assigned job. I did prepare them well enough. Everything was set to go.

That was about the time when I decided to take my vacation -now interrupted-, cleaning up my mind, and being inserted into the earth's society just as one more citizen. I was supposed, by this way, to be totally unaware of the upcoming event, so that I would enjoy it in it's full extent. That was my chosen prize after such a hard work!.

Anyway, everything was so distant now ... The Great Ones Council Destroyed? No more Master Plan? I am on my very own and lonely way! Could I really cope with all this? I quickly shook my head, erasing such thoughts from there.

"Eishell, please send a message to the Alien Federation, stating that I am back into business. Ask them for an urgent meeting. We shall go there once we deliver this memory bank piece to you." I said.

"Message sent. " it answered only a second later. That´s efficiency!.

We created the Alien Federation hundreds of years ago.

I was named its president since then, all the way up until my retirement, four years ago. I did enjoy my work in there, as all this aliens pictured me as some kind of God. I was a Great One, after all ... what else should you expect? Of course, that was until now.

"Matt: The Federation has delivered an answer through an urgent channel. They state that an unknown spaceship is heading towards the solar system's co-ordinates. This spaceship appears to be the same that attacked the Great Ones headquarters. The Federation board is waiting for us right now, in order to inform us with all the details. I think that they are pretty scared about all this" Eishell announced.

After leaving that memory piece back in earth, we headed ourselves to the Alien Federation Headquarters. This time the travel would have a duration of several minutes, as the distance was far, far superior.

"Eishell ... you better wake up our two Destructor spaceships. I hope this will help us in keeping them away from the earth! ... You start tracking this unknown spaceship. Forward me all the info you can fetch on it as quickly as possible!" I told it.

This was a sad moment. I just ordered the computer to reactivate two weapons that we all thought would NEVER ever be needed again. These spaceships had enough power to destroy an entire planet. They were hidden from the earth's point of view, orbiting near Pluto. We used all the Great Ones expertise on weaponry, materials, electronic, and organic areas on their construction, I recalled. The original purpose of this spaceships was to be used in the early times of the Master Plan, when some of the newest alien civilisations refused to stop their own little wars between them. This two doomsday machines were an integral part of those civilisation?s legends by now.

Our little spaceship finally performed it´s last travel jump. We ended up in front of the Federation's main dock-station. I smiled at the message that Eishell injected in my optical nerve, announcing that we were being scanned from there. These Aliens performed that trick every time I approached their installations, just to find out that it was a no-no for them. They kept it doing anyway, just as some kind of joke, I learned some decades ago. We decided to leave our spaceship just floating out there, instead of correctly docking it in our assigned place. This was -in turn- our own joke. Not that they promoted such a behaviour... but didn't dare to replicate us either.

We tele-transported right into their Briefing room. They were all together in that place (this was previously informed by Eishell, which could scan THEIR installations with no restriction at all, at her plain will, just in contrast with their own limits). They were not surprised at all when we appeared in front of their oval table, facing the twelve alien representatives which integrated the Federation chairman?s board. They grew accustomed to our apparent magic...

The humanoid like creatures were seated around that table, in this rather simple room, scarcely illuminated over the visual frequency range. One of them got up, while making a simple and fast reverence, and started an obviously predefined speech, offering me -among other boring stuff- my former chairman's rank back, which I quickly declined. Such a thing was not on my scope at this time.

I just wanted the Sanctuary's destruction facts, and I let them know this right away. They ended up the greeting ceremony going straight into the topic: They were not able to establish communication with the unknown spaceship. Once that they realised that this spaceship's intention was to actually attack the Great One's Headquarters, they sent all the armed spaceships they could call up into the region, but It was too late.

By the time that they arrived in there, the unknown spaceship was gone and all Sanctuary's life terminated. Needless to say, they did not even dare to land on the planet's surface. They venerated -and feared- the inhabitants of that planet just too much ... not to mention that they also were pretty shocked about the whole incident. When they heard about me returning into the scene, they where quite happy.... Relief ? for them only.

This story of theirs confirmed the actual seriousness and danger level of our situation. I mentally ordered our computer to prepare a small -but heavily armed- scout ship with a compact crew of two android units in charge of it to follow the unknown spaceship from a safe distance. Eishell proceeded to promptly carry away this task, as some few minutes later it informed me about the successful deployment of the vessel.

Rounding up our meeting with the Federation, they were quite impressed by the way this unknown spaceship disappeared before their eyes, after destroying the Great Ones Headquarters. It simply vanished from their sensors. No trace of inter-dimensional jump or any kind of energy was left behind them. They just couldn't follow them, they told us, as they played back to us the different images and data that their sensors were able to register in the small interval time that the unknown spaceship was visible. The only other race that could do such a disappearing act was actually mi own one, the Great Ones.




---x---




We turned back into our own spaceship, and headed back to earth.

Eishell kept following the unknown spaceship, which was definitely moving towards into the solar system neighbourhood. Our computer was instructed to hold into that pursuing position, until we devised a good strategy against them. They were still too far away to represent any eventual harm yet, and we needed the time: I was aware that it wouldn't be easy -or even possible- without the information that might be hidden in that big chunk of memory bank we took from the Sanctuary to satisfactorily end up this situation. Time to find out about that ?

"Eishell ... how are you doing with the analysis of the severed piece of memory bank?" I asked.

"I got to digitise it, generating a virtual copy of it's structure into my memory, which happens to be SMALLER in size as a whole than this single piece of Sanctuary's memory. So, I got to do it in small cubic segments at a time, reconstructing all the information that has been stored in there. It will take a long time, no doubt about it at all..." the computer answered.


---x---




Once back in orbit around the Earth, we decided to take a couple of hours for ourselves in order to discuss our future line of action. I chose our Europe's based house this time, located near a small and lovely town where I particularly enjoyed the old art -that is for me- of car driving, as it was quite a joyful experience due to the different sights which that region offered. Besides, I really needed something like that: Fresh air, an open space, and a vehicle that still needed a human being in order to be operated. All this was greatly welcome. We could always talk while we took an automobile ride in there.

"Hey, Lana, would you like to join me on one of my famous car tours? We might deliberate about our possible lines of action while in there, while enjoying the view!" I informed, more than rather asking her. She knew that I loved to do that, even if I actually didn't drive earth-born vehicles that good. It is just that I needed to enhance my spirit with such an experience from time to time, but specially when I had to solve big problems.

Lana knew all this, and nodded, giving the appropriate instructions to Eishell.

We tele-transported into the inside of our house's garage, going directly into one of the cars. Each one of our houses had the very same cars in them. I took a mental note that we should change that, as it was becoming quite boring to drive the very same cars in all the different places... but that could wait for sure!. Eishell opened the garage's door, followed by the outer fence's door.

This house was surrounded by a cute small park, well protected by a high fence and all kind of surveillance devices, not to count all the weapons and force fields that kept the house's park free from any living creature that tried to step on it uninvited. Don't get this wrong, as all the animals -including- humans and alien people were mostly welcome to join us in here at any time, provided that they don't represent any harm either to us or the house's structure (hence the computer memory bank which it protects). Eishell assumed a passive defensive role whenever it detected an intrusion, not turning into a defensive action until it was clear enough that the intruder carried some nasty intentions.

I drove through our park and into the reddish gravel path that connected the house's entrance with the local route, which in turn, some miles ahead from us, would end up right into that village.

We did talk long. I was quite worried that we actually didn't know a single fact about this unknown alien civilisation.

Several questions raised, such as why did they attack and destroy the Great Ones? Or what is their ultimate goal?

I was really concerned. There could be a chance that now they were after the Great Ones... but right now that meant no other than ME! But then again ... just WHY? We never met this race before. No single address on them is stored in Eishell's memory banks. No harm -even political- could possible be made against them in any way I could think about of. We better try first a diplomatic solution: It was quite obvious that we should communicate with them. Lana totally agreed with me on this.

The sun was setting down, so we decided to head back to the house. It was an impressive view, as we drove between a huge valley, where we were able to see all the orange tinted clouds clustered in the middle of it, as the last sun's rays to pass through them, and their shadows covered the different portions of the land, moving in slow but steady pace.

Then Eishell spoke: "Attention: I am receiving an urgent live message from the spaceship which is following the unknown ones. I will proceed to communicate them with you. I'll better command the car while you talk, Matt" it said, while all the car's windows tainted into black. The front glass started to glow, displaying the projected image of the spaceship 's interior, along with two red-haired androids in first plane. We used, together with other signs, the hair's colour in order to quickly distinguish the different specialised androids. These ones were form our intelligence task unit. Their codename was Lia. This particular two looked very worried.

"Hi father! We are really worried. The alien spaceship did stop for some minutes, but then started to move in the opposite direction, just into us. When we tried to perform a big turn around in order to reposition ourselves in THEIR back again, they just did the same movement, cancelling ours. We have been discovered. Right now we are having trouble to match the alien spaceship's speed, which keeps accelerating in a steady way. We did try to jump away from their course, but this alien spaceship is generating a very big inter-dimensional interference field that is preventing us from doing such a manoeuvre. We are afraid that the situation is quite urgent in here. We need your advice." The androids quickly informed, by telling each one a part of the message, in perfect synchronisation.

I looked into Lana's direction. Then I muted the transmission.

"This sucks. They have no chances left other than ending this chase at once. We shall try a different approach. We better tell our androids to stop their engines and try to communicate with them. This definitely is an awful situation..." I said to Lana, which silently nodded. I didn't like to loose a single android, they were an integral part of Eishell's consciousness and also pretty close friends for us. We really were their fathers, in the sense that we constructed them -or as they like to point out quite often-, gifted them with the joy of life.

After a few silent seconds, Lana re-started the audio and video link towards them, instructing both androids to stop the spaceship and try to communicate with them. They did agree with us that this was the only logical action left. Then, they proceeded to stop. The Aliens did came closer and closer ... with no response to our communication request.

Then, the transmission link began to break down, due to the enormous quantity of energy that the big alien spaceship was emanating, now too close to our scout ship. They could also have some kind of communications interference system, but anyway both options were equally dreadful at this time. Within seconds, the image link with our spaceship was almost indistinguishable from the digital static patterns, and finally everything went black. After a couple of seconds of black silence, a new, clear and strong signal appeared in our monitors, showing a big control room full of androids, both with black and red hair. It was the main control room from one of our destroyers (Every information about the source link was summarily displayed in the left side of the front window, but I instantly recognised the view anyway).

The captain android was quite inexpressive, but I could tell that at least two of her most close officials where holding their breath (If that expression could be applicable at all in their case). She proceeded to inform me that they confirmed the destruction of our small spaceship. "Father, Mother... our two sisters didn't even have the chance of communicate with that alien vessel, not to mention the ability to defend themselves.

"This aliens just disintegrated them. What should we do now?" The captain said, finishing her report with such a difficult question.

"You stay put in your position. Try to investigate, based on all the data that our spaceship sent us up to the moment of its destruction. Try to focus on what kind of power did this aliens use in their weaponry, shields and transportation system. We have no time to cry for our lost sons now. Our efforts must be dedicated to the future, especially on preventing any more situations like this one. We shall device a way to stop and -if necessary- even destroy this alien spaceship. You better start working on this right now" I ended up saying with a strong, convincing voice, closing the link after that. I was devastated by this last alien's action. They wanted to play hardball.

I didn't.

It was all dark now, as we entered the house's park. Eishell opened again the fence for us.












CHAPTER 2: Treat and Vengeance






It was early in the morning, as sun was just above our latitude's horizon. All of a sudden, something really out of place awakened Lana and me: The rather familiar but totally out of context sound of an ALARM.

We decided to take a needed rest, while we waited for Eishell to decode the eventual information contained in the memory fragment that we saved from the sanctuary ruins ... We were exhausted after last day's work, and it took me several seconds to realise that it was not a dream -or nightmare- but the real sound, mixed with Eishell's voice, asking for our urgent awakening. I realised then that this was a serious situation. Eishell was in real trouble ... I turned on the light, sitting up in the bed, trying to focus my eyes, which still refused to remain opened ...

Mental note: I didn't perform that well in emergency awakenings like this one.

"Okay, Eishell ... we are all awake now. Please tell us what's going on" I managed to say, still somewhat asleep. I noticed that Lana was struggling with herself in order to gain a sitting posture over the bed too.

"This is a security emergency. Our house's park perimeter has been breached by three unknown organic life forms. They are trying to force their way into the house. Please go into our main control room now." Eishell quickly ordered, opening the bedroom's door for us.

These words managed to completely and instantly awake both of us. Lana jumped off the bed, instantly dressing into her uniform's suit, which was spread over the floor near her. I did the same. We left the bedroom, running downstairs, rushing into the passage that gave us access to Eishell's control room. I asked, while running through this corridor, some quickly and basic questions:

"Eishell: were did these beings come from? Please inform me about every bit of information, including all the countermeasures you've taken, or are planning to take.".

We reached into an elevator, awaiting us at the end of the passage, as Eishell's Control Room was actually buried several floors down into the earth. The door opened fast and silently, while the inner light was automatically turned on, while we stepped into it.

"Ok." Eishell continued. "They just materialised inside our park's perimeter. I tried to neutralise them, but the external defensive weapons did not have any effect. Then, I proceeded to seal up the house, and to wake up our four Eileen's android team, which are on line now, ready to defend us in the event that these creatures actually break in here. Right at this moment, the creatures are inspecting our outer sealed walls, searching for a way to get in, I presume."

Finally, the elevator stopped, while stepped out into the control room. The computer proceeded then to seal that access path too. The room itself was pretty small and crowded, filled with all kind of electronic equipment. Right in the middle of it, there were two empty seats, surrounded by an impressive set of consoles.

I recalled everything relating to this place: We jumped into our respective seats, each one in front of a virtual control console. Eishell displayed in there several different views of the external eastern side of our house, were you could see three quite repulsive beings, remotely resembling a humanoid body, that slowly walked near the metallic-alloy seal-walls that covered the normal house structure. They seemed to be reading some small instrument that they held in their hands.

"Eishell ... they had to come from somewhere. Please, double check the earth's orbit for any unknown spaceship." Lana said.

Eishell didn't need to do such a thing. The answer appeared right in front of us, as a huge alien spacecraft materialised over the house, just as if it had heard her. This was quite unbelievable, as no known alien federation's civilisation shared the technological knowledge to do such a materialising trick while managing to not be detected by our computer. Eishell was really baffled:

"I got no explanation for this, Matt. None of my sensors actually measured any incoming spaceship ... and I checked up all the different dimensional planes known by me." it said, kind of guessing my thoughts. "I seriously recommend that Lana and you should tele-transport into your spaceship. This place is by no means secure. This alien spaceship shape corresponds to the one that destroyed the Great Ones Headquarters, according with the federation's files.? It finished saying.

I had to think really fast. These nasty guys were after me. They were bold enough to come directly into my co-ordinates... I was pretty sure by now that they won't hesitate in taking whatever line of action they got planned.

"Eishell start an urgent transmission to the federation showing them this images. Start a security backup dump of your last acquired knowledge, especially about this incident into the rest of your memory banks, just in case this building gets destroyed. You also start a red alert on both of our destroyer spaceships. Mobilise one of them up to an earth's orbit. Instruct them to maintain themselves hidden to all kind of scans, and to watch out closely to this alien spaceship. I want them captured as..." I quickly instructed Eishell, but the computer suddenly interrupted me with a very urgent voice:

"Matt, Lana, right now the alien creatures are inside the house. They managed to get inside by tele-transporting themselves. They defeated all our force fields!. Our four Eileen androids are in the same room as they are now, trying to hold them back. Please, get off this place at once. You are in real danger."

"Ok Eishell do it now! And you, Matt do not even think of staying in here." Lana shouted, grabbing me while pressing a quick sequence of keys in her wrist controller. A couple of seconds later, we were on our space shuttle, safely located at several thousands of miles away from the house. No way they could possibly track out tele-transportation system into here.

I rushed into the cockpit, were I could follow up the entire situation. Eishell was displaying all the concerning data and images in there, in several virtual monitors which conveniently floated all around the two pilot seats. Eileen's team was useless, as their weapons proved to be as ineffective as the ones intended to defend the outer park perimeter. Each time they tried to blast one of these creatures, a light halo encircled them, managing to dissipate the energy. It was obvious now that they shared a similar technological knowledge that the Great Ones mastered!. I thought about this fact in complete despair.

There were plenty of them. I was alone. They already knew this fact -given that they were responsible of killing my brothers and sisters- and then they came directly into my co-ordinates. They got plenty of advantages. I didn't!. I had to run from my very own house!

All of a sudden, the creatures disappeared once again. I started to wonder if they decided to go back into their spaceship, but then Eishell interrupted my thoughts once again with some terrible news, adding -yet- another degree of unpleasant surprise and deep concern to them:

"Matt, Lana ... the creatures are in the house's control room ... They managed to tele-transport inside down there, despite again of all the energy forces that have been placed!. I am very afraid about them getting inside me."

This was an extreme situation. I could only think about trying to communicate with them, as the only mean to develop a way to get some bits of information from these alien guys.

"Eishell: start a real-time holographic projection of myself inside your control room at once. Did you finish your backup dump?" I asked, standing up and going into the room behind the cockpit, in order to have space for the holocams to work.

"I did finish my backup ... I know what you want. Self-destruction. I am ready for it... on your mark." The computer said, while my holographic image formed in front of the creatures, down there. I stared at them, while they pointed their weapons on it. Then they realised that it was not really me but a projection, and lowered their weapons, whilst making strange noises which could only be interpreted as some kind of weird language.

"It seems to be a pure form of Ingramian language. It has not been used for centuries, but this version has some unknown structures ... I am having trouble decoding it. Wait..." Eishell said, and then she started to make the very same noises to them. The creatures stopped their babbling at once and the three of them stepped back, surprised by this new voice. When Eishell finished her own babbling-talking, they started again.

After a while, Eishell mentally told me: "I think I just sorted out up to a decent extent the differences between this language and the original one. This version is quite shorter, faster, holding a really small vocabulary. It has been degenerated into a subset from the original by what seems to be a warriors civilisation, which needed a simpler, practical version of it." ... the babbling nonsense continued for some more seconds. Now, Eishell generated those weird sounds at the same pace (if not faster) than the creatures.

"I asked them about their intentions. This is a very interesting story. They state that they've been monitoring our activity all this past centuries, and now they are upset on us, particularly because they can't stand the fact that we are organising all the other alien civilisations into a federation. They say that, after deciding to find who was responsible of such an idea, it was quite easy to pinpoint the Great One's planet, and so, they decided to put an end to the whole plan. Actually they are going to form their own federation between all this alien races, but with their own -tiranic- rules, which includes the transforming of all the alien citizens into servants, I'm afraid. This is what they are talking about right now. They are including all kind of unnecessary and nasty details on how will this process be performed." Eishell continued. This nonsense didn't surprise me at all. The sole fact that they exposed their entire plan at once indicated no political, diplomatic, or even strategic intelligence from their side. Just brute guys sharing high-tech tricks.

No.

Something is missing in this picture. There must be a brain somewhere behind them. But then, the brain was not -that- tightly connected to this soldiers.

Interesting. Typical low-budget film story-line, if you ask. These creatures are really serious about it, anyway.

"I assume that you did try to scan their body. If not, please do it right now! ... We shall try to gather all the information we can while they are babbling in there with you!" I mentally ordered. They continued talking, totally unaware of our mental link.

"That is right, Matt... I successfully finished to perform a scan on them. And they didn't detect it! The scan was quite juicy. I found out a couple of interesting stuff: They are similar as we are in organic complexity. The main difference is a rather technological one. Their weapons are really powerful. They also have a similar suit as you do. Their suit's main control panel is located inside that kind of belt. I am trying to decode the circuits contained in there. It is quite a difficult task, but anyway, I did already digitise the entire structure of one of these beings inside my memory. I am duplicating this digital scan into my other memory banks, as a backup. Wait please ... finished. I got an answer on how to disconnect their personal force fields." Eishell ended in a rather triumphant mental voice, if such a thing existed at all.

"You disconnect them now. Then, destroy two of the three creatures ... We shall keep the third one alive for an exhaustive interrogation session." I quickly commanded her.

The creatures stopped their babbling, and started to manipulate their belts, quite surprised. They finally realised what happened, as all their protection fields went down, and some kind of alarm light glowed from their small control box. They tried to turn it on again, moving their limbs over it, but then a light beam emerged from Eishell´s own weapons, hidden in different places of the control room. Two of the three creatures were instantly disintegrated, and the third one dropped into what I expected to be an unconsciousness state.

"Done ... the third one will be knocked out for several hours now. I am sure ... Wait! There is some kind of energy activity emanating from their spaceship above me." Eishell started saying, but all mental connection (I was receiving the full set of image, sound and position sensations directly into my brain, from my holographic projection) stopped.

I was back into our small spaceship, miles away from the house, as my native senses came back to me. I looked into Lana's direction, seated in the spaceship's cockpit. She was shouting all kind of swear words into the different monitors. Then, she looked back at me, and said, "This bastards bombed our house. They destroyed everything in a square mile round. The blasting even reached the Eishell's memory banks down there. !".

"OH no! That's it. Eishell, please tell me you got some answers on how shall we destroy once and for all this damned alien spaceship before they continue with their destructive actions!" I shouted with anger.

"Ok ... I still have the digital image of this creatures in the other four memory banks from our other houses, so don't worry. It is pretty obvious that this aliens do not know the location of this other homes, but I am sure that they somewhat know your position, Matt. ... They must be locating you through one of the communications link from your wrist controller, as this is the only answer left. ..." Eishell told us.

I looked at my wrist controller with real surprise. "What do you want me to do Eishell? Wait. .. It is quite clear that -provided your theory is correct- they will come right were I am now. Please, let's jump near the position of our Destructor spaceship... try to device a way of shutting down their force fields ... We will set up a cute party for them" I quickly instructed the computer.

We performed an almost instant jump, and relocated ourselves just near our way-big doomsday spaceship.

After a while Eishell informed, in a triumphant voice: "It seems to be quite simple. The force fields in their body are on the same frequency than those found in their spaceship. I can issue a polarised carrier frequency that could penetrate them. Once inside them, I can open a window, and ... we got them ... in theory at least! .... Wait there... now they are moving ... they are coming right here Matt. I will set-up the frequency polarisation. Estimated Arrival Time: twenty-five seconds".

I winked at Lana while quickly jumping into the cockpit's captain seat. Then I commanded: "Whenever you are ready, I need you to perform these actions: First, neutralise their force fields. Secondly, I want you to interfere all known communication channels, just in case they are broadcasting this show into their own planet. Third, I want you to literally crack down the alien spaceship all wide long ... I want it cut in two parts ... at once! Please use the antimatter-based beam. We shall test how effective it is on this weird aliens spaceship's technology." ... A sweet revenge. Then I added "oh ... do not forget to feed the alien federation with live video and audio channels, they will enjoy this spectacle".

The Alien spaceship was at close range now. "All ready to go ... I am waiting your firing command" Eishell informed.

"Do it NOW" I shouted.

Two seconds later, a light plane, kilometres wide, was originated from our doomsday machine. It intersected the alien spaceship right in the middle, and hanged in there for almost a second. Then it stopped. This was followed by a rather impressive view! Up there, were the beam hit the alien vessel, a small reddish line started to show up. It was like an electric beam-light, which extended in the full width of it´s structure. Next, just like a magic spell, the spaceship started to slowly crack up whilst the red line started to glow more and more. A silent explosion, originated on the very centre of the alien vehicle, quickly grew up, reaching up to its border. It was the end of it. After the incredible light that emanated from there stopped, there was nothing left. It was incredible: Matter transformed into antimatter by one of my most powerful weapons we had.

I was quite relieved, as our rather old war doomsday spaceship proved to be as effective as ever, even with these new guys in the neighbourhood.

We tele-transported ourselves Back to earth. This time I chose our Australian house. Needless to say that we materialised directly into our bedroom, as we were totally exhausted -again-. Well, not that we could sleep that much the last night, considering all the trouble we've been into.

First, I took off my wrist controller just as an added precaution until I could investigate Eishell's theory about me being located by pinpointing it's transmissions.

Lana, which was fully extended along the bed, started to sing over and over again something like "Just another day in paradise, just another working day for us...", as I was carefully cleaning up the controller's needle contacts, before storing it in a proper place.

"Yeah yeah, Lana ... I see now why I did erase all my memories regarding this job ... I frankly hope that this last actions are not a sample of the usual kind of work that we will have to deal with in the future!" I said to her, and then started laughing at her face ... "You clown ... stop rolling your eyes in that way!" I added.

"Kiss me then" she answered, pulling me over her.















CHAPTER 3: Inside Storm's eye















We managed to stay on bed until late that afternoon.

I was starting to worry about Eishell's work on the sanctuary's memory, when I heard three soft knocks on the bedroom's door. "That's it" I thought, and then commanded the door to be opened. It was an Eileen, which got inside the room, widely smiling, while bringing two cups of coffee with her.

"Hi there, Matt, Lana! You really gave those creatures the treatment they deserved ... We enjoyed that beautiful explosion of their spaceship ... Now, you better speak with Eishell, as it got some interesting news regarding the memory bank piece ... " she said, while leaving the room.

Eishell, which was waiting for an appropriate moment to interrupt us, finally started to speak. We both incorporated in the bed, paying close attention to the computer's report:

"I think I got it. You were right, Matt. All the relevant information was cleverly positioned inside that memory storage's fragment. It seems that this hostile race was pretty clever: They just materialized in front of the Great Ones planet. They defeated the different shielding forces that were placed all around the planet and installations, sending down a group of creatures which summarily disintegrated all the Great Ones. Your brothers didn't had a chance of retaliating them, as they weren't able to turn off the creature's own shields. We've been a lot luckier: We got barely enough time to perform a scan on their bodies, and -thanks gods- succeeded. On the other hand, it seems that this alien technology is able to play the disappearing trick only for a short period of time. You shall remember that the Alien Federation detected their spaceship coming towards this galaxy ... It seems that they did turn on their invisibility shield just a couple of light years away from our solar system, Almost at the same time in which the creatures appeared inside the house's park. This fact also suggests that they got a very similar ´travel-jump´ technology as we do. I am not able to detect them while in ´invisible´ mode. I'm afraid that we will need to get one or more of those creatures alive, or better yet, an entire spaceship in order to get more answers on this topic!".

"Turning into another aspect of this disaster", Eishell continued, "The Alien spaceship has been sighted by several humans, including a local television station channel, located in the nearby's city. The entire world is totally commotioned right now by the news. Things get even worse yet, when they include images of the house?s blasting, as a result. I am afraid that we will have to reschedule our world wide revealing of the Alien Federation existence ... It's the only solution I am able to recommend at this time." it concluded.

I looked into Lana's direction, briefly enough to see her nodding at me, and then replied: "Okay. You shall communicate with each one of the trusted world nations presidents, and schedule a meeting for tomorrow at -say- ten o'clock in the morning. We shall get everything solved in there. Send another communication to the Alien Federation stating that we will introduce the human race to them in the next five or so days. Advice them to form an emergency committee in order to be presented in here. Oh! Also ... you better start a permanent deep scan all around our galaxy in the search for any incoming alien spaceship. We must get an early warning this time ... I am quite sure that they will show up again pretty soon!"

Then, in a most surprisingly action, Eishell mentally talked to me: "Matt: This is only for you. I need to talk yo you in private. You better come right now into my control's room. Get rid of Lana ... You are good for excuses ... invent one as necessary, but come over here right away" it ended.

It took me a few moments to digest this last message. Then, I told Lana "You better stay a bit more in the bed, I got to do some thinking, alone. I will be in Eishell's Control Room".

"Is there anything I can do to help you, Matt?" she asked me back.

"No, Lana, I want to be alone now. Don't worry about me, it is just that I need to do some thinking, as I said, but thanks anyway" I replied, walking out of the bedroom. I went directly into the control room. Once in, I asked Eishell for her private message.

What I was about to hear was way too shocking:

"Matt: That Sanctuary's computer was quite amazing: It managed to sort out all the relevant information, filling her whole memory with it in a very compact and redundant array scheme, just in the event that you -the only one that could go back in there and eventually recover a piece of memory, like you really did- could decode it. I've decoded many other things stored in there, including an annoying message for you! ." Eishell started explaining.

"Go on, please" I quickly said to it.

"Let's start from the beginning: According to this data, Sanctuary's computer sent that urgent calling message for you when it discovered that unknown alien spaceship orbiting above them. These Aliens, in turn, detected -and apparently decoded- this transmission, and proceeded to destroy all their communications gear as their first target. This confirms my theory that they are able to scan our transmission frequencies." Our computer said, introducing a brief pause.

"That is quite obvious by now... We know that they somewhat master the different dimensional frames-." I told her ... then added "continue, please ... sorry"

"Then, these aliens proceeded to invade the Sanctuary building. When the main computer realized that this creatures actually managed to disintegrate all your brothers and sisters, it sealed all the entrances to it's main room. The Aliens were decidedly headed directly in there with the obvious intention of salvaging everything, but the sealed doors managed to stop them for some time. The computer used these extra seconds into the recording process of this message all over and over again, filling the entire memory bank with it. The rest of the story, sadly enough, is quite short: The aliens finally gained access into the room and blasted the memory bank, together with every other piece of equipment that comprised the Sanctuary's computer hardware, thus terminating it's -synthetic- life. This brings us to the interesting part: The main body of the message left to you is quite serious! It involves Lana, our memory loss, and your former partner! .... Are you ready for it?" Eishell asked, pausing for my answer.

"I see. Well ... You better go on, Eishell" I quickly replied, taking my place in the master control station chair. Just as an added precaution, I locked all entrances to this room -in case Lana suddenly decided to join me down here-.

"About your former Great One partner. Her name is Kia. This message states something way opposite to what Lana keeps telling you about her. She is not dead! Let me get into the real facts:

It's true that -on a rather nasty Yoshiyian incident- she was seriously injured, yes ... but not killed ... at least not in such a way that she couldn't be reconstructed after that incident. So, she was restored, but -according to this new information- she was emotionally overdriven by those last events. Your Council decided to put her into vacations (just as yourself voluntarily did, later), but keeping track of her as an eventual backup for you. According to this data, she is alive right now with a blank memory (just as yourself did, until a few days ago) on every bit relating about her identity as a Great One sister.

In the eventual situation of trouble, you were marked as the first one to be called -as you actually had-, and then, once confirmed that it was a really nasty situation, Kia was also supposed to be awakened too. She was intended to be your partner again-It seems that it was up to you to decide on calling her back or not.

Here comes the sad part: Lana knows everything about this, according to the information. You designed her as a substitute for your real partner, and then she was commanded to take care of both Kia and you. Lana became the permanent -and only- connection between you two and the Great One's Headquarters."


"And this is not the worst part yet. I got yet more ... " the computer added, pausing.

"I am ready for it... you better go on, Eishell" I almost whispered, as I was rather shocked by all the implications that this new twist brought into the scene. Eishell continued:

"I don't remember anything at all about this incident. I can't find a single reference of Kia being reconstructed and then put in vacations, inside my memory bank. This means only one thing: My conclusions are that someone managed to erase that particular piece of data from me. This is a terrible action ... very scary ... you actually know how does it feel; To have a portion of your memory wiped out without your agreement or knowledge. Only three persons could perform such an action at that time. Kia, You, and of course ... Lana. So, the only logical answer is the name of the same person that lied you about Kia's death: Lana." the computer said and then paused, waiting for my questions, if any, as I was totally drowned inside this quite frightening discovery.

Lana obviously erased all this information from my mind backup too, taking advantage that it was stored in our computer's memory bank. Eishell was quite correct. I knew how it felt to have portions of my memory erased without my approval or awareness.

"Can we find out where is Kia living now?" I managed to ask.

"I can't find any precise information on her location other than her originally assigned country. She was positioned in Argentina, South America. But then, again, Lana is the only one that can issue an answer to us... She was in charge of watching after both of you during your vacations, until the Master Plan could reach to a positive end. She is the only one who actually may know where is Kia living right now!" Eishell said.

Why did she act in such a way? She's gone really crazy! I was quite worried about Lana lying to me ... up to what extent did she go into this? ! ...We needed to solve this issue as soon as possible...

"We need to talk with Lana right now ... bring her down here at once! " I commanded.

Less than a minute later, she was sitting in her station's chair. She realised almost immediately that something was wrong. She didn't say a word, anyway, probably impressed by my angry face.

"I am totally disappointed about you. You've been lying to us, Lana ... and you better start telling all the truth right now, as it might be the only chance you got on somewhat fixing your evil actions before I decide what to do with you...", I rather shouted to her.

"I don't know what you are talking about, Matt" She said, in a rather ridiculous attempt to escape from this nasty situation.

Then, Eishell spoke, (I mentally commanded it to do so): "We know everything about Kia, Lana. We know every bit of your last actions involving her, not to mention the other issues, such as my own memory erasing and lying to Matt over the death of his partner. We just want to know why did you do that, and we also want to know about her actual location.".

Lana's face showed great deal of surprise at first, but then, as Eishell developed it´s speech, she transformed it into a very frightening one. She started to open her eyes just too wide while her mouth delineated some kind of weird smile, being the whole picture a clearly crazy one.

"Truth is, dear Matt, that you are meant to be mine. You don't need Kia at all. I can fulfil every bit of your expectations outstandingly better than she can. ! You created me for that purpose ... So, you must thank me on every action I took, particularly regarding Kia. Now you don't depend on her anymore. What's more: I don't have the faintest idea on where is her now. You better don't care about her ... You got me!. I am sure you do understand. I love you." she said. Her face was totally distorted by that insane mask ... She was totally away from reality.

"You are crazy. Your mind couldn't stand it ... I am quite sorry Lana." I muttered. This could only be labelled as a complete catastrophe... I packed all the strength I could, and continued:

"I will have to turn you down ... I will try to fix you! " I said, as tears emerged from my eyes. This was very tough for me. She was the only person in the entire universe that held a link between The Great Ones and myself ... And I just found out that she was totally unreliable. Right now, I had the impression that the last pieces of my world were tearing apart.

All of a sudden, she stood up and came towards me, but then she fell in the floor, totally unconscious. Eishell turned her down. A couple of Eileen androids came in, picking her up and effortlessly carrying her near one of the room's wall. A hatch opened to a side in there, revealing a kind of cat-scan device. This was the scanner that Eishell had for digitising -and repairing- human bodies.

First, she scanned the body, making an exact copy of it inside its memory banks. Once in there, the computer could perform several tricks. One of them consisted in being able to run some sort of simulation, which regained a controlled consciousness in the digitised individual, while the computer interfaced directly with the patient's thinking processes.

Quite useful.

"Digitising completed, Matt. What shall I do next?" Eishell asked.

"Try to find any new answers ... We need to know where Kia is now! After that, you better try to fix up her madness..." I started commanding Eishell, but then I paused, while my brain worked out a better choice.

"No no wait. I got a better idea. First, turn her on again. We shall give her two choices. The first one will be that we shall leave her mind un-retouched, but we will do the same to her that she did to the three of us -we shall erase all of her memories regarding us- and then we will place her in a random place around the earth globe. Second choice involves fixing her brain and eliminating several processes from it. She will be turned into a domesticated, quiet and ready to work girl, staying near me, at my command. You wait until she gives an answer and then just do whatever she decides." I finished instructing Eishell.

"Interesting move, Matt ... I am asking her right now." the computer replicated.

"Thanks ... Let's see what's her choice..." I wondered

" Uhmm. She answered quite promptly, selecting the first choice. She will not allow you or anybody else to turn her into 'another robot'. Now I am offended. I really need to correct her on this! She's got the wrong idea on us... she will be turned into a servant, yes, but not like me or my sister androids are. We decided to follow you on our own will ... you are our father, and your quest for peace and union -which includes our own specie- is worth to be followed. This is the vision we got. She will not have that choice. I just explained this to her. She maintains her first choice ... Well ... I won't blame her for doing so, I would have chosen the same option, actually" Eishell explained.

"Okay. proceed then. We shall start a search on Kia as soon as possible" I commanded the computer, and then left the control room, heading right into the exterior of the house. I was worried about the whole situation. I was quite scared as I could sense that I was pretty close to that flipping moment ... the split second in which you turned officially crazy. I could only hope that the computer didn't sense my stress yet. This last situation added a new degree of pressure in my mind, and I was starting to get tired of acting like I could calmly walk over all this trouble.

"You tell me at once when you manage to find Kia, please. I am looking forward on getting her back in business again. Now, please Eishell, tell me about any bit of information left in that chunk of memory ... " I mentally asked the computer while proceeding to lie down in a chair, near the pool.. the sun was way up in the sky, and it just felt right over my skin. I needed that.

"Ok Matt ... Lets see ... There is a general narration about the story of the Great ones that might throw some new light on certain aspects about us. Do you want me to read it for you?" it asked.

"Of course I do. Start, please"

Here it goes..." Eishell proceeded to tell me some interesting facts -most of them unknown to me- about our history, resumed as follows:

The Master Plan was designed after the successful elimination by an unknown alien race of all the human beings in the earth. Only some -rather few- top class scientists were the only ones left alive, in a remote research base far away in space. All this events happened sometime near the mid of the 30th century. This scientists group were developing a set of tools which could solve one of the biggest, mind blowing and frustrating limitations for the humans up to that date: time travel. They continued their work, in the hope that it could be used to reverse the way things ended up back on earth.

After several years of constant and totally devoted work, they finally succeeded. Then, they created the general guidelines of the master plan and prepared their sons into the necessary quest to accomplish one. This included several genetic enhances, being the most notable one the inclusion of the brain implant and the wrist controller. An added bonus of these devices was that -while they were connected- its user would not grow older: His or her cells were replaced by an exact copy, managing to keep the whole body the same through the ages. I, myself, was quite old! Several hundred years old!

Back to the scientific´s children: Coupled with all this enhancements, they would become the first Great Ones. They -time travelling is a knowledge that is lost now for several generations- proceeded to send them back into a suitable earth's past date to start their work. The scientists provided them with all their knowledge and toolkits. The mission was quite complex. First, they had to transit through the last period of the earth's history, performing a serie of subtle changes which would ease the human race into a merging with the Alien federation. Secondly, the Great Ones were meant to actually create the alien federation, preside it, and -mostly important- use it neutralise the attack of the alien race to the earth by any means.

I recalled now on one of the main teachings we received back in our training: We were taught by our Master brothers and sisters against being alone in the decisions involving any modification to the Master Plan. Any decision of us would end up having a deep impact on the human race as a whole. The actual situation prevented me on following such a rule. It was truly important for me to get Kia back into business. But then, perhaps it was too late now. Things were reaching into an end in the next couple of days.

So, the Great Ones plan was now reaching to an end. We *thought* that we found the Alien enemies to be the Yoshiyian specie. We tried a diplomatic approach into them ... but these stupid creatures did ambush us, managing to seriously injury my partner -Kia at that time-. We proceeded then to use our big destroyer spaceships. This action settled things down between them and us: They finally surrended. After some years on probation, we finally let them get into the alien federation. They were no threat for us or to the rest of the Alien Federation members, after our little corrective treatment.

Now, a terrible question arises: Perhaps it was not the Yoshiyian people the one that were supposed to destroy us. This new alien race proved to be more technologically advanced than them. They even managed to destroy all the Great Ones but me, and, as recently discovered Kia. We both were the last line of descendant of the Great Ones (ironically enough, as our cast was created in the future). I was decided to find her and try to get her memory back. It was also the only possible path to an eventual -remote- success. I ended up the day driving again, but this time alone, over the Australian desert dunes that surrounded Eishell's house, while thinking about this last story twist... I couldn't help to stop feeling quite tired of all this ... If only I could get back to my normal, citizen life of before ...

But I was in a one-way-only road, trapped in an upside down situation. I wondered just how much more of it I would be able to stand! I felt sick. Time to go home, take a bath and get some sleep...





CHAPTER 4: Show must go on...















Eishell's voice finally woke me up. Last night, I couldn't get to sleep until well past midnight. My head kept rolling for hours, filled with the impulse from that day. Just when I managed to drop into a deep, repairing rest, the computer's voice turned me back into reality. Unfair.

"Matt: You better wake up. You got the president's meeting that you requested yesterday. They are waiting for you. They are already feeding their signals into the teleconference system right now. You better hurry ...unless you want me to impersonate you and do your work! .... " Eishell said, quite loudly, doing the evil job of an -effective- alarm clock as she spoke.

About Eishell impersonating me: it was no joke. This computer already did such a thing several times. It was a quite common routine for it, actually. She carried almost all the incoming phone calls and video conferencing. At the end of the day, it updated me with the most relevant of them. But this was not the case. I should better run this particular teleconference show for myself. I'll better follow my previously traced plan, not that I got things darkened enough at this time!

"Oh! I got a surprise for you: I found Kia too, while you were sleeping." Eishell added then.

"Cool! Congratulations on that. Let me manage this president's meeting first ... I'll join in five minutes. You tell them, please" I answered, jumping off the bed at once. Eishell's last phrase took away from me any trace of bad humour.

Something that I really loved was to take my time to get off the bed. This probably had a very simple reason: I was getting older, no doubt on that. Well, At least my mind was, actually. But then again, I did not have the wrist controller with me since that alien attack episode, I thought. I glanced in the general direction over which that gadget was stored.

So, I was getting older for real now.... But no way I could feel this ... or could I? Typical sleepy line of thoughts, I said to myself while quietly laughing.

"Please, give me an advance regarding Kia's situation, Eishell." I mentally addressed the computer while going downstairs.

"I found her, as I told you, yesterday at night, while you were sleeping, I had a positive trace of her DNA signature in Chile, Latin America. " It said.

"Did you make any contact?" I asked.

"I pinpoint located her. Then I made contact through the Internet network with her. I spent many hours on chatting in there ... but I suggest you that we can continue with Kia's topic when you are finished with this guys, Matt" the computer said. She was right. I was quite exited on Kia being alive and within reach. If I only could remember anything about her ... Damned Lana! She really screwed things up by erasing all that information from Eishell (and me) ... I was determined to get through this as Kia was the only I could really trust on...

I was ready now for the conference.

"Eishell, send me a cup of coffee, and please, do generate a virtual background to be placed in my video feed -background theme at your will, as usual-. I will attend it from the control room." I said, while walking off the bedroom. I better dispatch them as quickly as possible. I got to solve plenty of other things. Particularly about Kia. I wanted to know about everything about her!

But now, I had to deal with these presidents-meeting thing. I tried to clear my mind on everything about Kia, while I entered the control room.

"Good to see that all of you could make it to be present today, giving the busy agenda you may all have. I guess that everyone might have an added interest in being here, given the last incident ? am I right?" I said, drinking some coffee, while all the heads in the virtual monitor, which floated in the middle of the control room, nodded. Then continued:

"You all might be well aware of the alien situation in that Europe's small village. It was me, of course. We got new aliens in the neighbourhood, and they are not very fond with the idea of our Federation. They got nasty plans, such as slavery, among others, for each one of the civilisations involved. Needless to say that I am taking care of them right now. Anyway, I decided that we better move our schedule ahead in time, setting up the Earth's merging day up into five days from now." I said, introducing a brief pause, in order to watch their faces to explode in surprise.

"But ... that was not supposed to happen until six more months!" one of them managed to say.

"I am plainly aware about that, but we don't need the media people going mad in the wrong direction about this blasting incident, causing the kind of panic that is already starting to rule the world at this time. We got a few days to organise everything, so I suggest you better dedicate yourselves to discuss all the different aspects of the -err- "show" -remember to follow the document guidelines that I already gave you- and send me back the new agenda. The Alien ambassadors had already been informed of this new twist, and they are ready for it. Both them and I are looking forward into that day." I said, drinking some more coffee. This was about all the time I would give them, I decided.

"Now, you'll excuse me. I really need attend something quite urgent (Eishell was signalling me through the alphanumeric display)." I said, and then I added, "Thanks for your time!" closing my connection, not without starting to hear the first objections from them. No problem at all ... they could handle this for sure, and I was not in the mood to be condescending on them at this time. I ended up my cup of coffee in one shot. Thanks God there was no caffeine in there?

The urgent voice of Eishell demanded my attention.

"I'm afraid that this Alien bastards did it again. I am sensing a whole fleet of their own acquaintance coming towards our galaxy. This means no surprise for me ... It was obvious that they were going to pay a visit to us pretty soon again." it said.

The computer was right. These new guys already proved to be insistent. We were expecting this course of action. I got no chances left other than to make them to desist on their destructive ideas. I was aware that brute force was the only way to accomplish such a thing. I could only hope to stand still against them.

"Keep an eye over these guys, please. We shall let them come a bit closer. We'll have some pretty serious talk with them first. You instruct our fleet to be prepared ... both destroyer ships." I commanded it. Then I added "They will be truly sorry if this eventual negotiation instance does not succeed".

All what was left to do was to wait. Now I could get back into more nearby business: "Now, please, tell me more about Kia."

"Okay. Here it goes: It is pretty obvious that she is unaware of her real identity. I had the chance of maintaining a long chat with her over the net last night, as I already told you. Needless to say that I impersonated you. I worked things out in such a way that now things are optimally set up between you both to meet..." it said, introducing a brief pause. I was going to start complaining on such a behaviour, but then the computer added:

"I even sent her a picture of you, Matt." Something very close to a chuckle modulated this last sentence.

"Okay. I don't want to know what did you talk with her. You should have awakened me up yesterday. Anyway, now you better find a suitable moment to meet her and then inform it to me" I concluded.

I really hated to wait. This was particularly true when I was alone, just like now. I decided to take another car ride. I could use a trip to the closest town. I could have a normal, greasy-but tasty meal in there, and I would also be surrounded of normal human beings. Perhaps this could help me to calm down.

Two hours later, I was back in my house, just in time to answer a teleconference call: It was one of the presidents, which held that meeting with me earlier this morning. After some tough debates, they reached into an agreement on the place that the first contact between the Alien Council and the terrestrial humans committee would take place. The whole document was promptly transferred to me. They did choose the American's -not so- secret "51" military base, as it happened to be equipped with all sort of technical stuff to eventually assist the alien crews.

I only could laugh at this occurrence. I hoped that my alien friends didn't get too curious by asking for a complete tour into those installations! They would probably end up discovering some of their parents dissected in there ... even if the American president kept telling me a while ago that such a thing was never done in there. Both the Alien Federation and myself were aware about more than one spaceship crashing over the earth. In none of those cases the aliens succeeded in the rescue of their crews, just because the humans happened to be faster than them -an unidentified army fleet usually followed those damaged alien spaceships well before they actually crashed-. So it was pretty clear for all us that at least one earth's government kept those spaceships and crews in secret laboratories.

It was not that impossible to have an idea on which governments held such a treasure in their domain, by inspecting their achievements in aeronautical science.

Going back into the event planning, they won't allow the presence of the general public, but it will be globally televised, anyway. They will start promoting it -as well as extending an invitation to all the other country presidents, which are still ignorant on this plans- within the next twenty-four hours. They will allow a small committee from each country to be present in there. They all agreed on keeping it simple and safe. Interesting concept, specially considering that they were organising what would become the most important and transcendental event in mankind's history.

After fixing a couple of minor glitches, I decided that their plan was ready to go. I sent it back to the president's council, in order for them to be aware of my corrections, with a copy to the Alien Federation Headquarters. This part of the story was ready to go, I thought with relief, as I needed the time to solve much more serious problems:

"So, Eishell ... what's the current situation on the incoming alien fleet?"

"It's moving towards us. We already placed another scout ship behind them. Needless to say that our crew has been carefully instructed to follow them at a safe distance. They are confident that they will not be destroyed this time. They've been equipped with an antimatter subsystem, very similar to the one we used in our first victory against them. At their current pace, they might reach our solar system in four days from now." Eishell informed.

I considered this. It gave us some time. We would try to engage them while still in outer space. First, we would try to communicate with them. This should be our plan unless they did an illegal move.

"Hmmm ... I see. We won't allow them to come that closer anyway. Please mobilise both destroyer spaceships in order to engage them at half that distance. We shall join them tomorrow. We will try to talk to these aliens first. Also, please send my regards to the scout ship crew, and tell them to not hesitate on taking any line of action they would think it's required, at any time." I said.

I didn't want to loose this spaceship too. I hated the idea on having two more androids in such a similar situation as the first ones we finally lost, but we needed to have the alien fleet under close surveillance. Our fixed sensors, installed in different co-ordinates around the solar system, could not gather as much exact information as our spaceship did from their -supposedly hidden- pursuit position. I only had to wait until tomorrow ... and I got another issue still pending...

"Now, Eishell ... what's up with Kia?" I asked.

"She lives in Chile since last year. She has an appointment on a foreign embassy down there, right today. She needs some certificates from them, as she told me on our interesting chat. We can arrange to meet her in there, given -err- your peculiar friendship with every country's president, in such a way that she would be quite impressed. This shall prove to be an excellent occasion to reach her in a correct frame of mind to explain her about her real identity." Eishell proposed to me.

"That would do just okay. You better brief me on the details and I will do the rest." I replied.

"As you wish, Matt" the computer answered, in a not-so-pleasant voice -as it wanted to be part of the "Kia rescue plan"-. It proceeded to explain me every aspect on the topic. Then I made a phone call. Things turned out quite in a satisfactory way. I had 'carte-blanche' inside that embassy, as well as in the South American County in which it was located. Not that I could ever accept anything less than that, provided the friends I had in that (and almost every other) country!

I proceeded to put back on me my wrist controller. It didn't matter now, really ... Everything was set-up, so I didn't mind showing them my position ... at least for a couple of hours. Anyway, I changed the wrist controller configuration in order to use a different communication path. Chances were that they wouldn't be able to find out this new frequencies set.



---xxx---



An hour later, I was parking my favourite car -the same one that Lana used to pick me up at first- outside the foreign embassy building in Chile. Typical construction, I noticed. Bulky. Secure. Functional. Obviously made by a legion of civilian engineers, rather than architects, as no sign of art was left in this big, solid shoes box.

I proceeded to walk into the entrance door. The ambassador was already waiting me. I was sure that it was quite an interesting situation for him, as he already knew for sure about our next week party with the alien federation, and now he had the chance of meeting me, the mysterious key person in all this affair. I knew that this would end up into an endless series of boring questions. This proved to be it, as the first words of the ambassador, after introducing himself, were:

"So ... you are the guy! Come on in, I got some drinks waiting us in my dispatch, were you can enlighten me with your talking ... " John -he asked me to call him just by his first name- said, and so, there we went into the building, as good old friends. All the embassy's personnel had this funny looking on them, as they pretended not to be inspecting me, but with not much effectiveness. Once inside his office -he kept talking all the way up into there- I interrupted him.

"Now, John, listen up, please, before we continue our talk, I am waiting for this woman that will come into the embassy at any moment. I don't know her name, or how does she look like. She has an appointment with the documents section sometime within the next half-hour. All I know is that she needs some kind of certificate. You will lend me your office and do whatever I tell you -It won't be that much, you better don't worry- while I take care of her." I said to him.

It was an easy task, but John looked at me with a terrorised expression. It was quite an understandable reaction, as I was blatantly intruding into his very own territory ... he had no choice but to obey, really. He swallowed really hard, picked up his phone, and asked for the documentation's-section appointment list. Kia was the only one on their list for this morning. I tried to cheer up John for the next fifteen minutes or so, until another phone call told us that she was waiting in the entrance hall.

"Now, John, you come with me. Just follow me and don't worry, there will be no violence involved ... " I grinned, then continued "Actually, it is a friendly, innocent meeting" I said to him while we walked off his office. He silently nodded and obediently followed me into the corridor. She was sitting near the reception desk, with another woman at her side. I had no problem in determining whom of the two was Kia, as I immediately felt some kind of easiness on her. This was of no surprise for me. She felt the same, for sure, coupled with twice as big the surprise, while she recognised me from the picture Eishell sent her through the net. She was caught totally off-guard, so I decided to be very kind with her. The other woman -her secretary, as I got to learn some seconds later- was aware by now that something rather weird was going on, but she did not dare to say a single word, as she -in turn- recognised the ambassador, which was standing at my side while watching the whole scene. Quite a moment ... worth a picture for sure. !

Then I spoke "You might be quite surprised ... look at your face! I am delighted on meeting you for real! Oh! You might already know the person I got at my side, but let me introduce him to you anyway. This is the Ambassador." I told her, while she managed to shake hands with my friend John. After a couple of seconds, she finally spoke: "And this is my secretary... " Introducing the other woman to both of us.

"Cool ... Now, let's give John the chance to get all the information and documents you came in here for. John, please, Take care of everything ... " and looking in Kia's secretary direction, I added "Your secretary will direct him on all the details you need, while we use this time to chat ... is this okay with you?" I asked her.

"I ... I think it's fine!" Kia said.

"Then you follow me through this corridor ... John will lend us his personal office room" I concluded, indicating her way. John and Kia's secretary freeze for some seconds in their standing places, while they processed whatever they thought it was happening. I opened the ambassador's dispatch door, letting Kia come in, and closed it again after me.

"So I am quite happy I could meet you ... but I think you might find this a bit strange ... so please, talk, you can ask me whatever you want. Don't loose your chance of doing so, as I got plenty of things that I want to talk with you." I said, while comfortably seating into the ambassador's couch. She stared at me for a while. Then she said:

"Well ... I was very impressed with your chatting, yesterday in the net. We concluded that we should meet for real. I did not expect it to be this soon and in such a place. This two facts alone got me totally off context when I saw you. Sorry about that! I realise that I did not even welcome you in the reception hall. But ... anyway, I was very impressed to see you coming along with the ambassador himself. You might know him very well ... I mean, you got a high degree of confidence with him! Tell me what are you doing in here..." She asked me.

"OH! Well, first, I realised about your surprise when I appeared in front of you, and I told it to you back there. No problem at all with that. Secondly, for me and John ... well ... we are lovers!" I said, introducing a small pause. Temptation exceeded every consideration I could have had. Then I quickly added: "No no. It was a joke. I know him just since thirty minutes ago, to be totally honest. Lastly, in answer to what am I doing in here, well ... it is quite clear: I wanted to meet you." I told her. Her eyes were wide opened now.

"Do you realise how scary does you words sound? ... I mean, If I got to believe you on that, then who are you for real?" she asked.

?James Bond?? I said, like a question, bursting then into a controlled laugh.

"You don't tell me that you are scared, please! I have a big list of good friends in many country governments, and then it happens that the North American one is included in there. Anyway, I'm afraid that the only way to answer you whom I really am, in a precise and satisfactory way, is that you positively answer my next question!" I said. I was going to apply the 'next question will accept only a yes by logic' old trick.

"Which is...?" She quickly asked.

"I would really like to invite you -and your secretary, of course- to have lunch now, since it's a bit past midday ... So ... question arises: Shall you accept it or not?" I said, engaging a wide smile on my face. I had no chance other than to extend the invitation to the secretary. She was Kia's friend too ... and chances were that she wouldn't have accepted such a proposal if she had to leave her friend alone.

"Not that I got any chance ...do I? I am very curious on your explanation ... so ... Why not?" she answered.

Logically.

I used John's phone to discover that he already gave Kia's certificate to her secretary, and that both of them were waiting outside his office. This surely was worth another picture, I thought.

"Let's go then..." I said to Kia, standing up from John's seat, and then added "And believe me, this next hour will prove to be quite interesting for you!" She could only nod. I gave John my thanks regarding his invaluable assistance and promised him that I would tell everything about it to his superiors. He left me quite convinced that this was the most interesting and important day of his whole diplomatic career. He was probably right, actually.

Kia and her secretary were waiting me a couple of meters away. I joined them right away. Kia did already update her secretary about our lunch plans. Her secretary had this funny look -kind of 'I know what's gong on now' thing-.

"I would be really honoured if you join me in my car" I proposed her.

"Oh well ... I would love to do so ... But I've brought my own car, so we better follow you in it" she replied.

I was not going to be so easily beaten, so I quickly suggested her: "You can give your car's key to your secretary. I bet that she is uses your car quite often ... I insist on this, Lady ... We can continue our talking on our way to the restaurant."

She turned into her purse reaching for the keys: "okay, I'll do it that way, as you insist ... ".

We walked out of the foreign embassy building. The door guards saluted me in the military way, just in case. Good Grief! Kia stared at them. I wondered up to what extent she was investigating different hypothesis on what was going on. She silently followed me up to my car, and I opened the door for her. When I got inside after turning around the front of it, I found her really busy inspecting the instrument panel.

"This is not normal. I know this brand of cars quite well, and I can tell you that this is no standard equipment." she said. I turned the engine on, and slowly moved into the exit gate, which opened for us. Kia's secretary was following us right behind our car. I got into the traffic, speeding up: "I agree with you on that. This is the best one of my cars. It has a very advanced computer embedded in it. This computer has even a name: Eishell, and can be voice driven, provided that you address it by it's name when issuing your commands to it... let me show you" I explained her while Eishell wrote all kind of unpleasant -but yet funny- comments about my under-statement on it, over my optic nerve display. Eishell was aware that I was lost in this foreign country without its help. I had no clue on where I was heading up right at this moment.

"Eishell, please show me the route to a suitable restaurant" and looked in Kia's direction, which had an exceptical air with her. A second later, Eishell spoke, while showing in one of the LCD displays over the instrument panel the actual car position and the route to follow.

"Okay Matt. Here you have the exact route. I hope that you like it. Oh! By the way.... The 'advanced computer' wishes to salute your passenger. So ... hello there" It said, while Kia's eyes almost popped out from their orbits. She managed to say "Hello there" anyway. Then she told me "Don't tell me now that this is some kind of artificial intelligence driven computer. You got all this prepared for me, no other explanation suits in here! You got to explain this..." but she could not finish that sentence. Eishell interrupted her.

"Sorry. I got an urgent, real-time transmission from our scout ship. Sorry Matt, but you really got to answer it now." she said.

The car slowed down it's pace until reaching into a complete halt, while it parked at the side of the street. It's windows gradually tinted up into black until almost no exterior light reached us. The car was converting itself into an improvised teleconference room. Quite a futuristic concept for the time I was in now. The front windshield, totally opaque now, lightened up, showing a wide screen computer display. This was totally unscheduled, and it really scared me out: This could only mean the worst. The alien spaceship discovered us.

"You may see some 'next level' stuff now. I only hope you can assimilate it ... in the best possible way" I said to my passenger.

It was quite clear that she already assumed something like that, considering her look.

I instructed Eishell to start the transmission. The virtual monitor, over the front windshield, displayed a three-dimensional image -like some sort of magical window, for the unaware ones on this technology- of the interior of the scout ship. All kind of stuff was floating around the place, while one of the two androids crew suddenly popped into the scene, into a really closed up plane, with her both arms turned towards the camera, fixing it to better frame her. Then, she spoke:

"It's happening again. They are aware of our existence. We managed to cheat their sensors now by hiding inside a sub-dimensional plane. We are still following them, but we've lost our artificial gravity system due to the activation of the sub-dimensional travelling engine. We decided about not using our weaponry system yet, as they surely grow under tight pressure by knowing that we are following them." she said.

"Okay. I like that. But please, don't risk your lives. You better finish the chase before they find a way to detect you over your position. You are in charge of the mission. This are my suggestions ... only that." I said. Now the first Lia -Lia was the generic name for this kind of androids- positioned the camera in such an angle that both of them were in frame, floating in front of the lenses. They nodded.

"We will hold on our actual relative position. We will inform you on any changes in our situation. Now we'll close this connection in order to save energy." they stated. I asked them -again- to exercise extreme caution on any move that they might do from now on. The virtual monitor changed the image into a different scale of view, depicting the main control room inside one of our destroyer ships, full of busy androids. The communications officer walked into frame and positioned at one side of the image.

"We suggest that one of our ships should get prepared for an emergency jump into the alien fleet's location, just in case that they manage to find our scout ship." she said. I could only agree with her, and I just told it so. She nodded, walking out of frame, while the image dissolved. Finally, the car's glasses gradually became transparent again. I remembered about Kia, sitting at my side. She was kind of shocked, of course.

"I told you ... 'next level' stuff." I said to her, smiling.

"What the hell was that? I mean ... those women where floating! I can't believe it. And then, that big room! All the women in there were identical. Well, I think I saw at least two different face patterns between them! And what kind of device did you use to project the image? It's experimental for sure. I never saw something so realistic before! ... You better explain all this to me now." She demanded.

"Oh! I will. But you might not believe me at all. If that shall be the case, then be aware that I can prove you every bit of this in the most convincing and direct possible way, so you better hear me first and then I shall show you. Okay?" I asked her. She nodded. Then I went on:

"They were floating because there was no gravity in there. They are located in outer space. Something quite incredible -I think is the biggest stuff since the human kind inception- is going to happen on our planet the next week. Did you hear about that UFO incident in the small Europe's village?" ... she nodded. I continued:

"Okay then. All biggest nations of the world -well, actually very few people in each government of them- knows about this for months now. Earth is finally going to meet some alien civilisations. It will go public today, so you will be able to check it out on TV at any time from now. It just happens that one of the alien races is not very happy, and we are having some trouble with them right now. So, this explains -quite fantastically for you, I'm sure- those floating women. For the room full of clones, well ... they are androids. They are produced according three different patterns, which in turn shows their particular speciality. You just saw the intelligence -red haired- and the military -black haired- breed. This explains your second question." I made a small pause. She had that popping-eyes expression again. I continued:

"For your third question, the image projection system used to display that three-dimensional view over the car?s front windshield is based in some principles which are being developed by the NHK TV network in Japan right now. This particular design corresponds to several decades of technical advances and research. And yes ... this means that it comes from what you would erroneously say the future, as It actually corresponds to our past." I concluded. I realised that this last phrase could be only categorised as really confusing.

"Everything that you've just said sounds like nonsense! But then ... who are you, for real?" she asked.

"I am just the same as you are!" I simply answered. The plain truth, actually.

"You better don't insult me by saying that you are a normal guy! At least, you are way crazy, and this is just for a start!" She replicated.
"Oh ... well ... it just happens that you are not an ordinary person too. Only that you don't know it yet." I answered, while parking the car in the front of what appeared to be a typical restaurant.

"I am hungry, and this will prove to be an interesting lunch, so ... let's go" I added, stepping out of the car. She followed me.

I was afraid that she would turn around and run into her own car, scared to hell out of my 'little' talking, but she didn't.

She is a brave woman, I decided.

Just the way it should be, anyway.

















CHAPTER 5: Serious Talking








The restaurant was quite uncrowded, luckily enough, so we could easily find a table that was conveniently away from the rest of the people. A fancy T.V set was hanging from one of the walls, just a few meters away from the entrance, tuned into musical channel with -thanks gods- it's audio muted. She continued with her questions right after the typical ceremony of food ordering was accomplished. Her secretary could only stare at us, completely ignorant about all our previous chat, back in my car. Not that we could easily update her, particularly about the real-time videoconference with a spaceship located out of the boundaries of our galaxy! No ... we better keep her under the protection of her actual ignorance. On the other hand, I was quite happy on the fact that Kia kept asking me about almost everything, even after the rather shocking amount of information she received back in the car. I grew more and more confident on her ability to regain her former identity.

"Could you explain me a bit more about your job?" she asked. She made this question to sound like a normal one. I found this very funny, so I decided to follow her game.

"Oh! Well... Let's put it like this: I supervise all the political and technical aspects on a ... err ... merging between several -really big- commercial and hmm ... ethnical groups, on the interest of a little but powerful team of err ... again, how can I put it ...well ... 'investors' should fit. Almost everyone inside this investors group was recently killed in some kind of terrorist act. This terrorists are part of another group that don't want the concretion of the merging we are crafting, which will nevertheless occur in the next week.

This event is of such a gigantic proportion, that it will be publicly announced on TV, and will become the most important one on the history of Mankind." I explained her. This last part of my speech made her secretary's eye to almost jump off her orbits too. It was about time, I considered, to give her a dose of surprise too.

"That was too vague. But it sounds dangerous enough for me!" she said, while her secretary kept looking at me, now with this terrified expression. She had no real clue at all about what we were talking about.

Kia decided to change her interrogation line: "Now, can you explain me how did you get all this technology -I mean, if it's real at all-?" she asked.

"Of course it's real. I would never lie or cheat you! Part of it was devised by myself and the rest was obtained from the ´investors´ group I already told you..." I explained her. Then, the sudden movement that was taking part inside the restaurant distracted me.

The rest of the people were paying close attention to the TV set. They restored the audio. I could recognise the face of one of the presidents that were present in that teleconference link I held back in this morning. This was quite cool ... they decided to go public at this very convenient moment.

"That's it!" I said. "You better go there and see what's going on TV You will find the confirmation on my answers in there, believe it or not! Go! Get closer to it and listen carefully." I asked both of them.

They got up, joining the small crowd now gathered around the television. Perhaps it was not just luck. I wondered if Eishell arranged this speech to be broadcasted just at this time in order to generate this situation. Hmm ... it was of great help then.

I patiently waited, while looking into their general direction. All the people in there were making exclamation and excitation sounds. Kia watched the TV while glancing towards me from time to time.

Then, something happened. My embedded display flashed a really awful message into my optical nerves. We lost contact with our exploration vessel. That could mean only one thing: these aliens got rid of them too. I freezed in my seat, mentally addressing Eishell in the request for more details.

"Their last data transmission indicates that the aliens managed to find them again. They went into a new series of sub-dimensional jumps, hoping that they could get rid of them again. There's a chance that they managed to do so, but that manoeuvre they performed, coupled with their already ongoing energy shortage left them totally useless. We got to search for them now." Eishell mentally answered me.

"I understand. Now this is what we are going to do. First, position both destroyer ships into our previously planned intercepting route. Keep one of them under a suitable sub-dimension making it invisible for the alien fleet. It will become our backup strength. The other one, plainly visible, will stop those alien spaceships. I'm going there right now, so tell the both captains to wait for me before starting any action. I will take Kia with me, so please, send two Lia androids to my spaceship in order to help her. You may also deploy all the necessary rescue ships to search for our lost crew. Proceed" I mentally commanded the computer. Both Kia and her secretary were staring at me now, I realised, glancing into that direction. I got up from my chair, walking into the surprised group, which kept watching the newsbreak, and gently grabbed Kia's shoulder.

"Please come with me." I said to Kia, while turning around. She followed me into an empty space, around a corner in the restaurant. I turned back, once there, facing her again. She was still under some kind of shock after that TV announcement speech from the president. It was understandable. Finally, she focused her eyes back on me.

"Are you here, girl?" I asked her.

"Yes, sorry. This is too ... intense. I'm okay, considering that I'm inside the Twilight Zone right now." she grinned. Fabulous ... she was making jokes even.

"I can prove you in a much convincing way about the story I told you -and- what you have just heard on the news. It is your decision now if you want to participate in it." I proposed her. I was sure now that she could cope with anything I threw on her. Then, added "You can say "NO" at any time and I will respect your decision, but you better be prepared:: You will enter into a new reality about facts of life - and what's more- you will learn a few own about yourself that -this is quite revealing, and pretty unverifiable by you- were erased from your very own mind a few years ago. So, what do you say? Do you want to go on with this? Don't tell me now that you will miss this 'Twilight Zone' chapter after being part from the beginning! " I asked her.

"Oh Yes then." She said.

"Let's hope that you don't get easily dizzy. You better hold off my hand now, and be prepared for this ... but don't worry, it won't hurt at all" I grinned to her, while setting up our tele-transporting co-ordinates for our spaceship, waiting for us in earth's orbit. Two seconds later, we materialised in there, while the two Lia androids kindly held Kia, just in case she could faint after the tele-transporting experience.

"What was that? And where are we now?" she managed to say. She was far from fainting, I observed. One of the androids asked her how did she feel. Kia suddenly became aware of the two androids, standing at her side, and answered that she felt absolutely fine. The androids proceeded to leave Kia alone, taking one step back from their former position.

"You are inside a spaceship, orbiting around the earth. We got an artificial gravity field activated, just to prevent you from bouncing all over the place. . But, we can turn it off, if you think that you are ready for it." I explained her.

Devil of me.

"You ... you turn it off now. I really need to know if..." she replicated.

Eishell instantly proceeded to turn it off.

Kia started to float around. She turned speechless again, holding this funny surprise-like face with her while she freely floated near the ceiling.

"Now, don't panic. Try to get hold on anything and impulse yourself with it. There are other ways of moving around in a zero gravity environment, but none of them are available inside here. So, you'll have to suffice with this tip I just gave you." I said to her, holding my laugh. She reacted, regaining her voice capabilities: "You ... you turn that gravity generator back on now." with a threatening tone, but then adding in a whisper -given my merciless face expression- "Oh, Please.".

She wasn't prepared yet for the zero gravity experience, I decided. Kia started to slowly, safely come down again, thanks to Eishell's expertise, which restored the gravity field in very small steps. One thing was for sure: She had no doubts by now that she was inside a spaceship. Now it was time to feed her with the first pack of real data about herself.

"I think you are ready for another kind of lesson. This time you don't need to worry: it won't involve any gravity tricks!" I said, introducing a pause. She nodded back to me.

Time for the real story to emerge. This would prove to be intense for her. I could only hope that she would stand over everything what I was about to reveal her.

"Your real name is Kia. You come from the same place as I do.? I started saying, introducing a dramatic, but brief pause.

?You were born in a small moon, orbiting around Jupiter. All this information was erased from your mind lost forever. We have a partially reconstructed history that will be briefed to you when we get some time for that. Your life in the earth was meant to be some kind of vacations for you. Like a therapy. But it went completely out of control because of this devil person, which also did the same to me. Like I just told you, this entire sad story can wait until we find a suitable moment to quietly discuss it. Right now, we are under a very critical situation, and I decided to call you back and explain everything to you, in the hope that you will help me to finish our job. We don't have much time left now, so you better stick with me over the next couple of hours. You will have plenty of time later to decide what will you do with your future. You might take this as a quite cool journey now ... I can only promise you that things will only keep better and better." I told her. She nodded. Speechless again. I continued:

"Now, you will have to change your clothes. This two women will instruct you about it." I explained, grabbing my own integral suit and walking into the cockpit.

I better change myself in there.

Three minutes later, the cockpit access door opened and Kia walked in, followed by the two Lia androids. She looked quite fantastic in her suit. She sat at my side, on her pilot seat, not without both androids help. After turning on the gravity seal that held her back into her seat, the two Lias walked out of the cockpit.

We were alone. I commanded the spaceship to regain the transparency status on all the cockpit windows. The amazing earth's view ahead of us filled the small room with a very bright and colourful light.

"Quite a picture, isn't it?" I commented her, trying to be as casual as possible. I knew that she was watching one of the most impressive views she ever did, considering that her real memory was lost. She didn't answer. Speechless yet again.

I assumed that this first trip would trigger plenty more of those talk-muting states in her.

"You cruel one, why don't you officially introduce me to her?" Eishell mentally suggested me. That was right. Kia needed to be acquainted with the real power of our computer, the sooner the better. She was the only other being that would ever share my same level of authority with it.

"Let me present you -again, but this time formally as part of our crew- to Eishell, our artificial intelligence computer." I said.

"Hi there, Kia. Good to have you back with us. We might have a good talk at any time, I hope. I will be looking forward into that." the computer said.

"Oh! ... Thanks, I think." Kia managed to answer. She was still captivated by the magnificent view of the good old planet earth, which filled almost half of our windows field of vision. .

"We are going to have some serious chat with this hmm.... Alien terrorists I told you back in the earth's restaurant. ... Oh! By the way ... don't worry about your secretary. We got some tricks in here. We can use all the time that we want in our current mission. When we go back down into that restaurant, we will be gone for one minute only. Your secretary will never notice that we disappeared. Right now she is thinking that we are talking right where we could not be seen. We master some very useful time-tricks up here, as I already said."

Not completely true. The vest trick of all -time travel- was a no-no at this time; We could only change local time pace, but by no means we could go backwards.

We jumped forward into the deep space zone. Eishell, humorous as ever -she was really happy of having Kia back- started playing some nasty background music (kind of badly synthesised). Kia looked in my direction, while I started to laugh.

"You better grow accustomed to Eishell's musical taste, Kia" I said, while still chuckling. We reached into our destination just thirty seconds later. . Eishell quickly excused herself and finally stopped her silly tune "The music was a Joke, of course ... I will proceed now to sync into the same sub-dimension that hides our destroyer spaceship."

A couple of seconds later, a metallic wall -which seemed totally out of scale- appeared in front of the cockpit windows, completely covering our view.

"This is a small part of one of our biggest spaceships, Kia. It has been built under a small planetary scale ... We got two of them, both in place over this co-ordinates. The first one is visible, waiting for this alien fleet somewhere ahead of us. The second one..." I signalled the seamless metal wall in front of us- "... this one, is hidden inside a sub dimensional space. We will command all the action from here. Obviously this big ships of us are intended for a pacifying action, but we usually achieve such a goal after blasting some stuff away. Hence the "Destroyer" name, Kia ... In this particular plot, the first destroyer ship will stop the alien fleet. It represents more than enough power for that task. Now, get off that seat and follow me, please." I explained her.

The cockpit back door opened and the two Lia androids got in, showing Kia how should she could disconnect the gravity net that held her against her pilot seat, while Eishell engaged the docking sequence. Our spaceship would become an integral part of our destroyer's hull. We stepped into our ship's back room, standing near it's inner hatch, waiting.

"Eishell is the brain behind all the intricacies that involves each one of our spaceships, including both destroyers. This means that not only all the androids -but also all this huge ships- are part of the same being. A distributed being which fully co-operates with us, thankfully. Quite a blessing, specially on our actual situation." I explained Kia.

We got into the destroyer after walking a couple of meters through a connection tunnel. Two more Lia androids were waiting on the other end of it for us. It turned out that the alien fleet had already discovered our first destroyer ship, and stopped their engines, freezing themselves in front of it. They obviously were figuring out what to do next.

We didn't have much more time, I thought, while we reached into the main control room. It was full of androids, placed in their respective terminal stations. I was surprised by the silence that filled this huge place. I didn't remember about this small detail. It was quite an impressive picture. Kia, standing at my side now, was experiencing the same -if not stronger- impression.

"This is weird, I know, but of easy explanation: There is no need for talking, being all androids as they are. They are all happily networked. This represents a communication path magnitudes faster and complete than our primitive chat! ... Now, please, follow me." I explained her.

We stepped into the main terminal station, taking place in -our- two empty seats. The monitors in there presented quite a powerful image to us: The alien fleet looked really diminutive, halted at the side of our other destroyer ship.

"Transmit a message in every known language stating that we demand to meet their guy in charge. We shall wait a few minutes for their answer. Be prepared for a hostile reaction too." I commanded.

And, needless to say, that was precisely what they did on us. They fired some kind of energy blast against the destroyer's hull, but it was rather innocuous. The energy was totally absorbed by the external shielding system. Poor guys, we got them, but they didn't realize it yet.

I repeated my last command. This time, we would give them only ten seconds to answer. They did so with another energy blast, several magnitudes stronger than the first one. This ended up as another statistical log in the external shields energy system, as it was completely harmless for our ship. Kia silently watched all the unfolding events, until she couldn't resist any more. She almost shouted: "This aliens are asking for it. No way out of this situation other than answer them in their same language."

She was right.

We proceeded to show them a bit more about ourselves, using a very interesting weapon to accomplish this. It was normally used for pacific tasks, as it allowed us to easily move -or remove- big portions of matter including entire asteroids, small chunks of planets, or whatever we marked on it's action area. I instructed our weaponry officer to select the exact half of one of those alien's ships, and then to displace it a few meters away from the first half. Our Lia androids proceeded to calculate the co-ordinates, and then performed our moving trick. The alien ship was neatly cut up by a half, collapsing as it obviously lost all their different support systems. Some kind of fire started to burst from both parts, while a few escape pods managed to get out from the outer border of the cracked hull. Nice.

"We shall give them a minute until we repeat it into another spaceship. Tell them that we will keep doing this until no one is left, unless they decide to talk with us. You also explain to them that in the very same moment that they decide to escape, we will give this treatment to all of them at once. We got enough power for that." I commanded our communication officer.

A couple of seconds after the message was delivered, the answer came back in the form of another attack. They tried a different weapon on us. This time they managed to blow up a small section of a refrigeration unit from the destroyer ship.

It could be considered as a scratch.

We tore apart several more of their ships at once. They got only three left. We messaged them again. We would wait for another minute until proceeding to destroy all their ships left. This proved to be necessary, sadly enough. They tried to escape -an obvious choice, under their actual circumstances-, but now I really wanted to talk with them, so I quickly ordered to destroy two of the three ships of them. This action was summarily accomplished. Only one of their ships was left.

We moved our own destroyer ship into their escape course, while we uncloaked ourselves, proceeding to freeze their engines. They got a really impressive view from there, as we got both destroyers on their side now. The induced gravity field that surrounded both of our spaceships prevented any move from their side. I turned around to explain this fact to Kia, just to realise that she was not at my side anymore. She has moved into one of the communication stations, quite lost between all the androids that were busily -and silently- walking around doing their tasks. She was looking around, absorbing every bit of it. I started to walk towards her, but an incoming message from the aliens started to reverberate in the main control room.

The main body of it was quite funny: They were willing to talk with such a powerful being, capable of create this spaceships and weapons. They wanted to discuss our future. I could only laugh at their arrogance. 'Our future?' They can't even move. I answered them, arranging an immediate meeting with their spaceship leader. I accepted their offer on doing it inside their ship.

"Kia ... you might come with me, but only if you really want to. It won't be dangerous, only a bit repulsive, as this aliens are quite disgusting. I already met them once before, so you can take my word for it " I said.

Kia instantly nodded at me.

I asked one of our androids to get an ear bug for Kia, in order for Eishell to be able to transmit voice messages to her. I did not activate her own nerve implant yet. This will have to wait until we got back from this meeting. I wanted to explain her about it, but there was no time for that now. She jumped off her seat and followed me. This was her first alien encounter since her memory wipe. It surely was quite an adventure for her... despite every bit of effort that Eishell spent trying to discourage me on such an idea. Our computer was quite right on the fact that we could meet these nasty guys in our own spaceship. But that was no fun. I really wanted to see how did their habitat look like. Eishell managed to convince me on sending four Eileen androids with us, as an emergency backup for any unexpected situation that could eventually arise.

We tele-transported into their co-ordinates, ending up in a really dark place. We got this big table positioned in front of us, coupled with two strange chairs placed at each side. These simple pieces of furniture were the lonely target of the existing light source, in the form of a very brilliant and focused spotlight which prevented me from distinguishing anything else in the room.

The four androids didn't have that problem, of course. Their image sensors worked on an extended bandwidth, even complemented by other sensors which acted like a sort of radar, forming a very complete tri-dimensional view inside their electronic brains. This was accomplished despite of the lack (or excess) of light, as well as any kind of atmospheric hazard like fog, rain, or anything you could imagine of. I mentally addressed Eishell asking her to project a view into my optical nerves, based on one of the Eileen's sensor input. As a result, my visual perception was enhanced by several magnitudes.

We were inside a really big round-shaped room, with a dozen or so columns all around it ... and twice as much aliens, standing very quiet and still along the perimeter of the room. They were wearing some kind of Monk-like dressing, covering them all their way up to their heads.

"Kia ... You just do what I tell you... Everything will be okay. I think you should know that we are not alone. There are some aliens standing around us. Nothing to be worried about. They seem very kind and polite standing so silent and still all over the place." I whispered her, grinning. We could always instantly tele-transport back into our ship. I told her about that too.

"You are overdoing your ironic side for sure ... I will try not to shout, and keep myself in control, but this is a bit too spooky." she whispered back.

A door, hidden in the darkness until now, silently opened, right ahead of us, and an alien stepped into the room, slowly walking towards us until it reached the table. He seated at one side of it. Then he spoke, using the same ancient language that those other three ones did back in our now pulverised house.

Eishell took care of the translation. He was asking me to sit down and talk.

I did so. "You must immediately stop any further intent of aggression against us. Otherwise you will leave me no other solution than a full retaliation against your race." I said, in their own language, as Eishell commanded my mouth while I mentally fed her with the original speech. Cool trick, considering the weird babbling I was producing with my own mouth.

Kia was standing right at my side, a bit apart from the table. The four Eileen androids were just around her, watching for any kind of movement from the other aliens, still standing back there in the dark.

After a couple of silent seconds, he talked back.

"You came in here with this four primitive walking machines and this female specimen of your own race. You are so fragile ... We don't like fragile beings. You can hide inside your big weapons. But we will not respect you, anyway. We do not make deals with any weak being." it said.

Things started to look quite unpolite now. I looked into Kia's direction. I could easily tell that she was quite nervous.

"You got it all the way wrong. You are the one that comes from a weak breed. The only chance you had to kill our brothers was to catch them by surprise as you did. That's got only one kind of universal qualifier: cowardliness. I will have to speak to a superior of you now. This has turned into a pointless conversation, given your dumbness in diplomatic affairs." I answered back, holding my nerves in turn.

The creature tensed all it's muscles, like preparing to jump over me. I managed to get it mad for a moment, but then it relaxed. It was smarter than that:

"We are pleased to see that you dare to insult us. Such an action can only mean that you are prepared to stand up by your words, if you are honourable enough, that is. Now we want you to show us that we are wrong. We want a clean, body to body fight... you and me. No weapons but our own strength and speed. This simple action will end all discussion from our side." The creature said.

An alarm flashed in my visor. Eishell requested my immediate attention. But the alien continued his speech:

"You are alone again. We mastered the whole situation from the very beginning. You don't know where our planetary system is located. You are not in position to demand anything. In fact, it is us the ones that got you just where we want. Prepare to die ... both of you. I will accomplish my mission now." it said, while heavily standing up.

Party time.

Eishell started to talk into my mind: "Matt: the alien spaceship managed to jump into another sub dimensional plane. We momentarily lost you. No way to get you back from here. Your situation is extremely dangerous now. You got to manually engage your tele-transport system from your wrist controller, and get out from there now!" it quickly said.

No time for that, unfortunately. Something really nasty happened while the computer spoke. A group of alien creatures quickly moved over us, grabbing Kia away from my side. The Eileens managed to get several of these big creatures into the floor, but they finally managed to neutralise our androids, as they outnumbered us. Our weapons were able to destroy them, but they always seemed to keep a card in their sleeves. We underestimated them.

I am a fool: I positioned Kia into real trouble now. I only got my wrist controller. I needed to have physical contact with Kia in order to perform a tele-transport jump for both of us.

"Your female partner will die now. We want you to watch everything that we do on her, as an added bonus. You will have the chance of fighting with me after that. You can use it as a motivation kick. " The alien said.

I could only do one thing. I mentally configured my wrist controller to start tele-transportation in the next four seconds. I disengaged the safety clip that kept it around my wrist, pulling it out from its place, counted up to three, and threw it into Kia's direction. It hit her just in time.

Both her and the alien creature which held her back, disappeared. I saved her. Now, she was safely guarded inside the destroyer. The automatic filter that controlled each tele-transportation system of our ships surely rejected the creature that was grabbing her.

I turned back, facing the alien with relief. "This is between you and me now ... " I said to it. Kia was out of here, back in a safe place. That was absolutely necessary for my own peace of mind. The creature seemed quite angry now. I ended up giving it a good deal of motivation by saving my partner. I smiled to myself.

"You get undressed. We don't like the suit you are using now. By not doing so, you will prove that you are a coward, and you will be promptly and summarily killed." the alien said, as it took off his monk-like dress too. Its body was really big and powerful. I realised that I had no chance of surviving without my integral suit. Things get nicer now... I got to fight, anyway, so all I could do was to take it on the philosophical side.

I took off my integral suit and prepared myself to give this really big alien my best kick. I hoped that Eishell did trace the tele-transportation path that my wrist controller solved out to carry Kia back, while I tried to reach the creature with my fist.

My best shot passed almost unnoticed for my opponent. He didn't move even an inch. He grabbed me by the neck and easily crushed it. It was that simple. This bastard didn't loose any time with me.


I am dead now.












CHAPTER 6: Enlightenment








Kia materialised back inside our destroyer spaceship. No trace of the alien creature that was holding her, she realized after quickly turning around: Eishell instantly filtered it away. Kia's arm was still hurting, just where this nasty creature rudely held her until some instants ago.

An Eileen android was standing at her side. As soon as Kia noticed the android's presence, Eileen´s voice instructed her to follow the Eileen.

They both walked out of the tele-transporting room, into some kind of cute bedroom. The android explained Kia that she was instructed to take care of her during this small crisis. Kia, which felt a bit better now, realised that there were no signs of Matt around. This was quite odd, as she was pretty aware that Matt kept her at his side since they first met. Now she was worried. She asked the android about him

The Eileen told her about Matt's decision on saving her, instead of himself. Eishell - and by extension, the whole android community- learned about all the details by analysing the latest bits of information stored in his wrist controller's Log, which tele-transported Kia back to this ship. Kia listened to all this facts and jumped into the logical conclusions.

"Oh no! Matt is still inside that spaceship ... He will be killed by those creatures!" she said, after a couple of seconds in silence.

The android calmed her down by telling her how they were able to bring Matt back by regenerating him from the stored DNA information in his wrist controller -that was in the worst possible scenario-, but there was a big chance that they could take into assault the now hidden alien spaceship before those beings disintegrated his body. Eishell could repair him directly from the original, in the extreme case that he ended up injured in any way.

"Eishell is tracing the alien spaceship position inside the different sub dimensional planes right now. It will succeed by studying the path that you used to get back in here." the android finished it's explanation. Kia didn't listen these last words. She was very confused. She felt quite lost...

Eishell, sensing Kia's actual emotional situation decided that it was time to turn her brain implant on.

Quite a decision.

They could establish a better relation between themselves. Tighten up their communication channel by this way. This was quite necessary at this time.

The Eileen that accompanied Kia explained her what was about to happen: "You will fall asleep for some minutes. You will understand a lot more about the ongoing situation after that. I promise." she said to Kia, while Eishell transmitted the key sequence into Kia's brain.

As soon as her brain implant was reactivated, She put Kia to sleep, under a frame of mind-state in which Kia and Eishell could mentally communicate between them without any external interference.

The computer used this time to explain Kia about the Great Ones history, the Sanctuary, Matt and herself. Kia made plenty of questions. Curiosity raised as fast as she eliminated the last exceptical bits left in her. Finally, all her barriers were down, and she was accepting the new, true reality.



---x---



Eishell finally sorted out in which sub-dimension the alien ship was hidden. They reconfigured both destroyers to sync up with it, performing the jump. The alien spaceship reappeared between them, just in the same place as before. The destroyer's mass was so huge that they induced a gravity and magnetic field in all the dimensional space. This kept the alien spaceship cautive in their original position, even if they were able to switch from one sub dimension to another, as they did the last time. This meant that they couldn?t run away, but only switch between sub-dimensional co-ordinates. Lame for them.

Eishell learned all this after finding them again: Our computer was learning up to what extent did this aliens got the power to fool the universal dimensional rules ... and this situation was not in their hands. They got some very welcome limitations.

Eishell proceeded to place the whole alien vessel inside one of the destroyer's bay, opening several holes in their hull and then proceeded to take over it, with a small army of fully armed androids. Everything was over, just some minutes later. We got almost two thousand aliens held as prisoners now. They also found Matt. Dead ... But in a whole piece. They will not have to rebuild him from his DNA sample and memory backup held in his controller. They moved his body into a regeneration chamber, so Eishell could play her "digitise-repair-regenerate" trick. It would take almost thirty minutes to do so ... it was a lengthy process ... to act as god.



---x---





Kia finally woke up. The Eileen android was seated still, near her bed, at her side, apparently sleeping. Kia read the "Welcome back" message that flashed in the lower portion of her eyesight.

"Thanks, Eishell" she mentally addressed the computer.

"No, thanks you, Great One" Eishell spoke directly into Kia's brain. "I got some news for you: Matt is back with us. He was dead, when we found him. Now we are regenerating him. This is quite similar to what happened with you just before you were put on vacations. Anyway, no vacations for him at this time, I'm afraid" Eishell mentally said to Kia, while producing something close to a chuckling.

The Eileen opened her eyes, looking into Kia's direction.

"Now you got full privileges on our world. Same level as Matt.?, the android said, obviously synchronized with Eishell´s speech.

?I hope that you decide to keep with us until all this play is over. Matt told you that you could leave whenever you want, and that is still an option for you, of course. But please remember that our actual situation will fully impact in the human race. Not that I am somewhat influencing in your decision, but you must be very aware about the simple facts of this story." The Eileen continued her talking.

"Oh good ... I see. So I got the option to forget about this... but then, whatever happens down there in the earth, will hang over my head too ... nice! I don't remember asking for any of this, of course!" Kia said.

"But you did! Your memory was destroyed after that. You got to understand that this is your real life. What you have been doing back in the earth for the last four years was a simple illusion, intended to serve you as a vacation playground. Anyway, this whole alien merging business will reach to an end quite soon. It won't take more than a couple of earth days, and then you can resume whatever kind of life you think is better suited to you." The Eileen answered her.

"I can't help getting the impression that I didn't ask for it. On the other hand, I shall add that I'm really exited. I feel perfectly comfortable in this world. I love the way it looks like, and this is one of the main reasons by which I will carry on with it. The other reason is that I would like to know Matt better. I might be influenced by the fact that we lived together for countless years before we both lost our records about each other, but, truth is that I really got the impression that I knew him for ages since the first time I saw him. A very strong deja-vu... not to mention that I want to learn all what I can about my real past. " Kia explained, mainly to herself.

"Matt felt exactly the same, if that helps you" the Eileen answered her. It hoped that this bit of information would make things better for her.

Kia nodded, silently.



---x---



Kia had plenty of things to analyze now. Her mind was doing a great deal of thinking.

A quite interesting list of related concepts encircled her. Things like " Clean" and "Superior".

A clear sense of team, embracing the same goal. What's more: Once that the ongoing goal was accomplished, she knew that this will leave on her a whole new meaning for the word "Freedom". She was ready to take the risk ... and the subsequent reward.



---x---


I woke up from my very own death, and -truth is- I really felt like brand new. Eishell's medical expertise -her virtual hands- did quite a good job.

I only found a minor glitch: My neck still hurt a little. My body was rescued just in time to be used as the original sample, instead of re-generating me from scratch from my stored DNA sample.

This was a routine job for my computer, I was aware of that. I could be blamed on being a romantic guy, but I preferred to be fixed up from my original image rather than being synthesised by using a DNA sample! That would have put me more on the clone side, instead of the original I once was. I shook my head twice, while closing my eyes. I would never be used to such a concept, I concluded, while massaging my once crashed and cracked neck.

I stretched in my bed, and decided to stand up. It was time to face reality again. I mentally asked Eishell about the alien ship situation, just to learn that it was safely captive in one of our hangars. This was a perfect chance for studying it, but obviously enough, the aliens managed to erase all their computer memory banks well before Eishell could set into them. That was an inevitable course of action. I would have done the very same, being put under their skins.

This also meant that we still had no information regarding the location of their native planetary system. We badly needed that. I was pretty sure by now that the only way to neutralize these aliens together with their idea of them avoiding the completion of our master plan was to pay a visit to their very own home, just in the same way they did to us. That would finally make the trick ... I thought.

But then, if it didn't, at least we would be able to get a close eye on these guys and promptly act in response to any attack signals from their side. Once we manage to find their native planetary system, they would be in no advantage from us, and I liked that. I would even consider an extreme action, like disintegrating their whole native planet.

That would fix this alien's behaviour for once and ever.

I decided to go in the search of Kia.

I opened the door of the room where I was, walking while immersed in my thoughts, for about a kilometre, when I started noticing the alarmed expressions in the faces of the different androids that crossed with me in my walk. No one used to walk for more than one hundred meters around here, even if they were tireless machines.

Finally, Eishell decided to send me a flashing message, posting the exact distance that I should cover to reach Kia's place. It was in kilometric units, and included several zeros on the right. The only way up there was by tele-transporting myself into her assigned bedroom.

"I knew that. I used this walk to think about our situation. Pretty odd, isn't it? We need this kind of actions from time to time, you cold computer " I mentally answered Eishell, while producing a soft laugh.

"I see. As long as I am networked with our thousands of androids, I do the heavy thinking, while they all do the walking thing for me. Quite convenient to be a computer, you human" Eishell answered. We both laughed this time.

I really used that walk. I devised a new approach into the alien's problem. We could get their home co-ordinates by applying this new plan.

"We shall play a different game with this guys, Eishell. We will behave nicely with them from now on ... Now please, get me into Kia's room" I asked her.

Kia was waiting for me.

Eishell told her that I was coming. It was the first time that she saw somebody else materialising in front of her. You could easily tell that she was amazed, just by her expression. I liked too the interference colour effect that it produced in the air that surrounded the transportation gate. It was really cute. I told her so:

"Nice effect, huh?" I asked Kia.

"Yes indeed!" she answered. Then, obviously recovered from my little lighting show, her eyes brightened and she added: "You are in one piece ! Okay then... Good to see you back ... "

She introduced a small pause, her face showing a certain degree of emotions running inside her, and then added "... and thank you."

The Eileen, which was still sitting at Kia's side until now, stood up and walked to the door. Her software got it quite right ... time to leave us alone.

"I'll leave you both alone. Cool to see you back, Matt" the android said while walking away from this place.

I mentally addressed our computer -just a small burst of communication- in order to congratulate it over the increasing degree of common sense it showed off. The answer was quite small -two words- but not very polite. I loved to pull Eishell's leg.

While this mental ping-pong was being produced, Kia kept carefully staring back at me, pretty unaware of my ongoing ironic-sarcasm session.

"Did you really have to fight with that big -hmm- alien monster?" she asked.

"I tried to, at least. Even if we have an optimised body complexion -that is, compared to terrestrial humans-, our physical strength is nothing compared with theirs. I tried to get it down, but it didn't even move an inch. After that try, the alien grabbed me from my neck -which still hurts, by the way- and easily crushed it. Now... If I only had my wrist controller still attached to me, then I could have taught that creature quite a lot about crushing necks." I answered her.

"You used that controller to send me back. I see. There was no other chance left...?" she asked.

"Nope. It was that simple. If they killed you, then there was no way of getting you back. I would have never forgiven myself on such a thing ... but I don't want to talk about that. It's over now. Let's get back to our small ship and return to earth. We shall discuss every bit about it in there... " I answered, walking towards her and grabbing her hand. We tele-transported ourselves directly into our ship's cockpit.

"Listen up, Eishell: We shall try a different approach into our alien's problem. We will let our captive aliens free, and even give them their spaceship back. Then, we pray that they will go back to their planet. We will be able to trace them all their way up there, by using some gadgets from our arsenal of inventions." I paused for a moment, while I thought about it, and then continued:

" First of all, we must be very convincing on our reasons to let them go. You tell them that they must give their people a message, and then just invent one that sounds good enough. They will suspect about being traced, anyway. So ... give them a not-so-easy-to-find sub dimensional tracking device. " I paused again.

Eishell said "That tracking device is a decoy, isn't it?"

"Yes it is. They will find it for sure. But then, we will place two more of such devices, but you will couple them with an AI subsystem of yours. This tracking devices will dynamically change their sub dimensional transmission paths in order to be virtually transparent to every scanning that the aliens could -and will- perform in the search of any similar gadget. Luckily enough they won't find them. If they do so, chances are that they'll only get into one of them. If they get into both ... well ... I'll be the backup. I will personally follow them on our spaceship. They won't find me, as I will outsmart them. I got my own ideas about that." I ended up saying.

Kia looked at me. Eishell didn't speak for a while.

"You are insane. I strongly suggest you not to do such a thing. They might get you -again- just in where they want to, totally defenceless, floating in the middle of one of their fleets!" Eishell replied. Kia nodded her head.

There was a chance for that to happen too. I will have to deal with it then. My spaceship was quite well equipped for any kind of trouble. It had several custom made improvements over the regular shuttles that we commonly used, product of our ideas and subsequent inventions. I could make it for sure.

"Naa... I will go anyway. I want to put a quick end over this. They killed all the Great Ones but us. Now they want me -and most probably Kia too, as I noticed that you gave her a wrist controller too-. I got plenty of reasons to get things sorted down as soon as possible. " I answered to Eishell

"You won't go alone then. I will go with you ... and you just can't argue with me on this. It seems that I got the same responsibility than you do in this game -as you called it once-." Kia said, with a very serious expression.

I had no choice on this one. She was right. I was going to answer her, but Eishell added:

"Oh no! You are both crazy! You better do whatever you please. Just don't forget to leave your Will in proper conditions before you leave!"

"Don't worry dear ... I am leaving all my stuff to you and our children Androids ... " I said with a laugh. Then I added: " ... and you, Kia, you might come with me. I would prefer you not to follow me in this one, as it is pretty dangerous ... But you are free to decide whatever you want."

"I will go anyway." she reassured me.

That was it, then. I changed the plans, deciding not to go back to earth now -no need to safely leave Kia back in there- but better go to our moon base, in order to get her accustomed to the space life. She could also meet some of the representatives from the Federation, which were residing there as part of the committee that would participate in the imminent earth ceremony, some days ahead from now. She better get acquainted with them as soon as possible.

"We won't go to the earth then. We will have some mini-vacations in the moon! I want you to meet some friends of us in there, Kia" I said.

"That's fine for me. Remember about my secretary, waiting for us in that restaurant back there." she replied. She was right! I almost forgot about that little detail. I'm getting old, my memory is cheating on me! I grinned on this last thought.

"We shall tele-transport back to earth, once in orbit around the moon, fixing that situation in a satisfactory way. Wait please " I answered her.

Twenty seconds later we were orbiting around the moon.

"Now, Kia, we better get dressed back as we were at that time. Follow me into the back of the ship. I will show you where are your clothes are stored." I said. She switched off her seat's gravity field and followed me. After doing that, I came back into the cockpit to change myself. I could have stayed and changed back in there too, I thought, while I finished tying up my rather lame, normal, and primitive terrestrial styled shoes.

We re-appeared just in the same place where we left, right around the corner, safely hidden from anyone?s view. We both walked around the wall, facing the same picture again: all the restaurant crew, coupled with the few clients that happened to be eating in there -including Kia's secretary- were around the T.V set.

"You better remember that we left only one minute ago, from the earth point of view." I said to Kia.

"This is way cool. Now, up to what extent shall I tell her about my new situation?" she asked me.

"You decide that. I can only recommend you to be concise on your explanation, just try to not confuse her too much, but it is up to you. Whatever amount of information you give her won't harm our job. Things are going to change a lot in here in the next few days, and this is no secret now." I answered her, while walking back into our table. Her secretary, who already saw us, was going into that direction too. Kia started talking as soon as we were all seated down again.

She told her secretary a lot deal more than what I would have done in her place. Her secretary was clearly overrun by it. Once finished, Kia gave her the car's key and instructed her to take care of everything relating to her work in the meantime. Poor girl...

We went back to our ship, were we changed our clothes yet again.

Once comfortably installed in our pilot seats, we headed ourselves into our moon base.

It took us a while to reach our destination co-ordinates as we didn't use the sub dimensional jumping system, but rather the normal impulse through space.

The view was worth the extra time.




---x---




We descended into a small platform, after flying over the entire base. I used that flight to explain Kia about all the different buildings that comprised our installations. Correction ... actually the visible part of them.

We could only see a small part of the complex, which emerged from the surface, just like an iceberg. Our lunar base extended for several kilometres under it. I overrode the automatic docking sequence, while I proceeded to command the ship by myself. A little thrill would be even healthy ...

A couple of minutes later, we landed on the station hangar. Eishell kept shouting about my entrance speed, but I had everything under control ... sort of. Finally, I commanded the computer to shut up.

"Oh boy! This is a bit childish, isn't it?" Kia said to me, barely conscious on what has been going on.

"I wanted to have some fun in here ... never mind. We are safely docked now, aren't we?" I answered her back with another question.

She could only grin. We walked into the spaceship's back room, reaching into the inner hatch. We were ready now to get into the base. There was no need for us to wear a spacesuit, nor to wait for Eishell to pressurise that entire base section, as our wrist controllers kept us isolated of any kind of atmosphere -or lack of it- by generating a micro-environment that surrounded our bodies like a second skin, less than a centimetre thick.

It wasn't that easy, anyway. Kia looked quite reluctant to walk out of the ship and follow me the couple of meters that separated us from one of the base's inner gate.

I went first.

Finally, she made up her mind and came after me. It proved to be no great deal for her ... she reached the gate with a wide smile.

"That was really funny." she said.

Hmm.

Our wrist controller shut down the micro atmosphere, which protected us, just to find out that something was wrong: my skin turned like chicken by the temperature and humidity difference.

Mental note: Investigate what was wrong with the climate controls in our spaceship. Our controller adopted the same values as the last place it was located before this function was turned on. It was supposed to be the same as in here? but I was chilling now!

All Eishell-controlled places had the same ideal temperature and humidity values. Then, it came to me: The alien Federation ambassadors committee was staying in this base, working through the details of the earth's addition to them, just a couple of days ahead from now. They must have changed the climate parameters. That was it.

I looked again into Kia's direction, just to find out that she still had that wide smile with her.

Right. Understandable.

She has had her first lunar walk. It was a couple of steps only. But she really enjoyed it! I felt almost sorry for her:

"Perhaps we shall go for a real walk later. I am sure that it will be a great experience for you" I commented. Her reaction was quite obvious.

"Oh! Yes! Please!" she, the anxious one, answered, while grabbing and shaking my shoulder in an uncontrolled excitement sign.

I pictured myself trying to get her back into the base, while she kept running all around the valley that surrounded us. It should be fun after all, and I could use the low gravity exercise too.

Enough said. I decided to change the topic.

"How about drinking some coffee on the moon?" I proposed. She nodded.

We went directly into the kitchen. Coffee time, then.

Once there, I commanded the oven to synthesise two big cups of it. We sat on some really comfortable chairs, around a nice metallic table. Kia located herself giving her back to the entrance door, as we started to chat. She was really interested on that eventual lunar walk that I mentioned.

The door silently opened, while we were chatting, revealing one of the aliens from the federation committee. He came in the search for some food, Eishell wrote in my visor.

He didn't even finish entering into the kitchen when he suddenly realised about my presence. He started an appropriate greeting gesture, but then he saw Kia's back, and instantly paralysed. He was not used to see any other human more than me around the base.

Kia remained unaware of his presence...

I decided that it was time to introduce each one to the other.

"Now Kia, didn?t I mention you that I wanted to present you some friends which are staying here, at the base?" I asked her.

She fixed her eyes on me, while she absently nodded to me. Then I continued: "They are from the alien committee that will take part in the earth's ceremony, some days ahead from now. They are staying in this base. I thought that you might be introduced to them." I explained her.

She was still unaware of our guest, standing in the door, right behind her. Fun.

"Oh sure, That would be nice. You might introduce them to me whenever you think it's appropriate" She answered. Poor girl.

"You got one behind you, just standing in the kitchen's door" I simply added.

She turned around, and produced some kind of noise, like a little shout, while jumping off her seat. A laugh instantly came out from me. I couldn't resist it.

She calmed down and stared at him for some seconds, until she was able to speak again. Her first words were excusing herself for her conduct. Very diplomatic, taking into consideration that she was obviously shocked: The reason was understandable, as this particular alien race was quite similar to the alien stereotype commonly found on earth's UFO stories and sights: Small complexion -like a child-, gray hairless skin, big head, big eyes and large fingers. Quite a picture! And it was no coincidence either: they really used to visit our planet, up to very recent dates. The drawings about them were particularly accurate, as everyone else back on earth would pretty soon discover too.

"Kia: let me introduce you to a very distinguished member of the alien federation. He came in here representing his civilisation, which carries a very complex name, completely unpronounceable by a human. His personal name also suffers from the same problem, so we call him by his handle: Sushi. He chose it by himself. He decided to keep it even after knowing what did it mean ... And you, sushi, I think you already know her... and her story" I said.

Sushi finally transposed the kitchen door, after staring at Kia for a couple of seconds. He was quite shocked too, but now he did recognise her. Quite well. They used to be very good friends, before Kia's accident.

"Good to see you both together again, Matt and Kia ... but specially you, girl, as the last notice I had about you stated that you were dead, almost five years ago, in a very serious battle." Sushi said, introducing a small pause, while he graciously took place in an empty chair on the opposite side of the table. Then, he continued:

"I'm aware that you don't remember anything about your past, as Eishell updated all of us with the details. I think that I might be of help. We used to talk a lot, back in the old times. I can help you to recover some bits of your salvaged memory ... We shall talk about it at any moment."

I wondered if Kia realised that Sushi did all his talking by telepathy. It was quite different from Eishell's trick, which was accomplished by interfering the appropriate nerves. This approach of Sushi was more on the natural side. The sensation was like if someone spoke to you very softly, but perfectly audible yet.

His race could only communicate by this mean. They've lost their vocal power somewhere in their evolution path, I learned once in a while ago, when revising their history inside the Great One?s computer. We could only receive their messages. We were not powerful enough to answer them -at least not with the aid of some amplifying circuits like our embedded hardware.

"Oh ... I see, Sushi. I am looking forward for that moment, too!" Kia answered.

"Okay! Now, please excuse me, I will search for some carbohydrates and get back to our meeting. We are rounding up all the earth's merging documents." Sushi said, standing up and walking up to the refrigerator. He opened the door and grabbed a small plastic bag, closing it right after that and leaving the kitchen. Kia kept staring at him until he was finally gone.

"It's just like those alien identikit drawings shown back in earth. As in the Rosswell case!" she said to me. I nodded, while ending up my cup of coffee.

"Oh yes, I know that. Those drawings are plain right. His civilisation used to study the human evolution -in situ-. Those are the real aliens that people have been sighting for years, Kia. But let me tell you something: if you are looking for real exotic aliens, wait until you see the rest of the alien federation members" I added.

"Oh dear ... I better won't walk alone around here then. " she, the easily-impressed one, said with a grin, finishing her cup of coffee too.

"Now... are you ready for a guided tour inside the base? You don't have to worry about this aliens thing. I will introduce them to you as they get into our way" I asked her.

"Sure. Let's go ... I am not that coward!" She, now the brave one, answered.

We both stood up at the same instant and left the kitchen.

It took to us almost an hour to walk through the different corridors and rooms that comprised the main body of our base, while I explained Kia about each detail on them. Right at the end of our instructive tour, we approached the conference room. It had its door wide opened and a very strange voice humble came from the inside. I grabbed Kia's hand, pulling her inside there.

It was softly lit, depicting a dozen or so of alien creatures, which were arguing around an oval-shaped conference table.

"Congratulations, Kia. You finally met the rest of the circus." I mentally said to her.

This managed to relax her from such an impressive view, as a subtle smile emerged in her face. The aliens were deliberating about the different proposal agreements that they would carry down to earth, as Sushi said to us back in the kitchen. I was interested in this topic, so I mentally asked Eishell to save a record of this meeting -fully tri-dimensional video and audio- as it would turn up into a valuable historic document in the years to come for all the interested parts.

"They've been delivering in this room for more than an hour now. I -ahem- witnessed everything, of course. I've also been recording it right from the beginning. The final agreement draft covers all the aspects on mineral, food, and technology trading." Eishell mentally answered me.

Interesting.

I was pretty sure that even whilst the terrestrial people played the inevitable role of the about-to-be-colonised Indians in this first encounter, the mirrors and souvenirs exchange that will be taking place, would be powerful enough to produce a technological revolution by themselves, back in there. Anyway, the "colonisation" concept was not right. The Alien Federation will not interfere with the normal work of the earth's inhabitants. They will limit to propose trading tasks, including cultural, medical and technological improvements for the earth. That is, if the earth accepted such a thing. If this doesn't happen, they won't insist. Just the same as they -we- did with each and every other civilisation which joined the Federation.

I briefly spoke to them, introducing Kia, as well as congratulating them on their ongoing work. Needless to say that it was clear for this alien committee that in some obscure way I was up to date on it's content. They didn't know about Eishell as an artificial intelligence driven computer.

They were aware of the existence of a very powerful computer -as the only mean to control such an installation- but that was it. They didn't have such a thing back in their own planets, and I felt quite safe because of this.

We walked out of the conference room, while the weird rumble regained volume, as they continued with their previous work. We covered the last bits of the station tour, until reaching into the personal bedrooms area. I just couldn't resist on showing her my own one -formerly OUR bedroom-.

You had to climb some steps before you could reach it's door (the room, round in shape, was at a slightly higher level than the rest of the base), in such a way that you could get an entire view of the installations and the lunar landscape through it's huge windows placed all around it.

"This is really impressive, Matt."

"Yes, indeed." I answered her. I was going to add a comment relating to the fact that she used it too, but then I decided it was not the right time yet... she would probably end up annoyed. I guided her back into the main bedroom section. It was time to rest, and we really needed that. We would start our tracking day tomorrow.

I couldn?t sleep in my cute bedroom that night. I chose a normal guests room, next to Kia's one. I didn't feel like walking up there again... not alone. Needless to say, I couldn't get any rest at all. I was too nervous for that.

I gave up and decided to go back into the hangar that hosted our ship. I dedicated myself to supervise the installation of the entire extra systems and weaponry that Eishell devised for this particularly risky journey of us. It included a countless list of enhancements -which usually worked, as everything that came from such a brilliant inventor did- but I wanted to familiarise with them in the easiness of a controlled environment, rather than in a real contingency. Particularly not in this trip. Too much was in risk on it: Those nasty aliens, my life, and of course, Kia's presence. I shook my head trying to clear it from such worries, but this time I just couldn't.


---xxx---




Six hours later, I was acquainted with every new aspect of almost all the gadgets installed both inside and outside our ship.

Most notably, We had a new power source, which was able to extract the so much needed power from the very emptiness of the deep space itself by performing a matter conversion trick. We also got a whole new selection of weapon tools, possible now due to our new power levels. We were ready to face these aliens, I thought while inspecting the inner parts of a circuitry panel inside the ship's electronic bay. I was quite confident on every modification and addition.

"Eishell, please send someone up to the bedrooms section in order to wake up Kia. We shall leave the base as soon as she is ready for it." I mentally asked the computer.

"No need for that. She is already awake. Right now she is playing -learning- with her room?s terminal. I will ask her to join you in here as soon as possible." She answered me. I nodded.

Eishell was like a good-intended Big Brother -or sister-. I could still shut it down, anyway, unlikely Orson Well's Vision. But ... Would I ever need such a thing? I hoped not. Eishell did take care of many systems all around our domain, and proved to be quite healthy and conscious. That is why it and the android population were considered just as another civilisation for us. I was immersed in such thoughts, inside the spaceship's cockpit now, comfortably seated in the pilot's place. I woke up from them, while I heard someone behind me.

"Good morning -or whatever time it is-, Let's go, Matt. I'm ready." Kia saluted, while seating at my right side. She already had her integral suit on.

Perfect.

The captive alien spaceship was leaving our big destroyer ship at that very same time.



---xxx---



We launched ourselves into a safe distance from the moon's surface and then proceeded to enter an almost untraceable sub dimensional path. Some seconds later we were positioned some few miles away from the alien spaceship, which was still floating near our destroyer ship. Those poor bastards were too surprised by their sudden release into space.

"They are running some primary scans on their systems. They might be already suspecting some kind of trick from our side." I explained to Kia, which had a rather exceptical face on her. But then, the alien ship vanished into a sub dimensional jump.

"Ok I was wrong. They were just calculating their trajectory. Let's start the chase" I said. No time for any kind of scan. At least not with the scanning technology that they carried with them. They were good enough to find our first tracking decoy, but it would take them several minutes to do so, as Eishell explained me while we were discussing the different aspects of our plan, just some hours ago. They jumped several times, changing their sub dimensional path in each turn. This was a basic tactic in order to loose any tracking ship. But we kept them locked due to the data stream that the artificial driven trackers provided from their ship. Then, all of a sudden, they stopped. We stopped near them, hidden inside a very opposite sub dimensional plane from them.

"Now they are running a real scan. Here it goes our tracking decoy" Eishell informed.

A couple of minutes later, the beaming signal of that decoy toy stopped. They did run that scanning three more times. Then, most surprisingly, started to move again, but in normal speed, leaving their sub dimensional plane and getting into normal, plain space travel.

Nonsense. Hours passed by. They showed no intentions on returning to the fast and convenient way of sub dimensional travelling.

"Now they are running several external scans around them. They are obviously suspecting about being followed. They will keep their normal space propulsion for some time, until they are convinced that we are not in here. Don't worry anyway, they won't find us. We are deeply buried into the negative sub dimensional axis." Eishell explained us.

"Let's have breakfast then" I suggested.

Kia got up from her seat almost instantly. We both walked into the ship's back room. The kitchen -a small table with two fixed chairs and a nearby food synthesiser unit- was located at the rear end of it. Once there, I commanded Eishell to generate a generous amount of breakfast food.

Perfect food: You could ask for whatever you liked, with the exact taste that you wanted. The real interesting part was that this synthesised food maintained an optimal balance between healthy components, regardless of whatever you asked. This part of the ship would become as much important for us as the cockpit itself.


--x---


Three days later, we were discussing something related to the ship´s commanding, as Kia wanted to know about everything of it, when Eishell interrupted us with some kind of alarm. I hated that. Last time she did the same thing, we ended up with those aliens inside one of our very own houses.

"They managed to lock into one of our intelligent trackers. The tracker is trying to get rid of their scanning system, but they somewhat manage to step again over it's transmission path, so the tracker has decided to remain in silence. It hopes that this might make them loose the game. Now wait ... no .... You both better take your pilot places." Eishell explained. We quickly run into the cockpit.

"Explain, Eishell, please..." I started shouting, but didn't finish my sentence, going silent due to the lack of air. The gravity net was automatically turned on, and held me just too tight on place. It's circuits -which carried a certain degree of independence from Eishell's will- were confused, due to the excessive pressure that my hurried jumping into the seat caused. No one to blame but me. Eishell regulated it into a normal value, aware of this. I took a big grasp of air.

"This will probably develop into more serious business. They intensified their internal scanning job while they also scan the sub-dimensional planes in their immediacy. I'll better start an evasive action" Eishell added

The ship started to roll, and the black space ahead of us turned instantly bright. The windows automatically lowered the allowed incoming luminance, as flashes of the interior of the alien ship appeared ahead of us. There was this really strong vibration then, something totally abnormal, especially inside a sub dimensional plane as we where. It was pretty obvious that both the alien ship and us shared the same space, in very adjacent sub-dimensions. Not a healthy thing to do, at it?s best!

Then, things went totally berserk. The windows automatically locked the extreme luminance from the outside and everything around us went totally black. No emergency lights! Our gravity nets tightened us again, really hard, while we started to have this sense of movement. Something was really wrong. Nothing of this could ever happen inside this spaceship. We could hear how that all the loose objects in the back room were flying and crashing against the walls.

The emergency lights finally went on, but we couldn't even move our heads in order to look into the back of the ship, because the tightness of the gravity net prevented us to do so. I started to move my fingers, reaching it's control panel, but then, an object came flying into the cockpit from the back of the ship, violently crashing into the front control console, over a small plasma monitor which exploded due to the force of the impact. I realised that the ship was totally out of control, moving at incredible speeds, in -what appeared to be- normal space. I decided to keep quiet in my place. I shouted Kia to do the same.

After a couple more of havoc seconds, filled with more crashing objects, everything went finally quiet and silent again. There was no gravity, as all the -now broken- stuff, which was loose over the ship started to float around us.

"Don't disconnect your gravity net yet, Kia." I quickly said. Then I added: "Eishell, please tell us what happened"

I waited for some seconds. No answer. I tried to mentally address it then. No answer at all either. Finally, I reached the gravity net switch and turned it off. I looked at Kia, which was still under her gravity net. She was pretty scared according to her face, but still okay. Then I looked into my wrist controller. It displayed a single message in its tiny status screen: "No Connection".

That was it. I looked back into Kia's direction. She already managed to turn her gravity net off, and was massaging her neck now.

"Please, tell me what does your wrist terminal indicates..." I asked her, quite alarmed.

"Weird. It reads No Connection ... but that's impossible. It must be broken" she answered me.

No way. It was fully self-repairing capable. It could also maintain its link with the rest of the network anywhere in the known universe. I got up from my seat and took a look around: Everything was upside down forming a nasty mess. I took a closer look into the status monitor, flashing at one side of the cockpit. It displayed the same simple message "No Connection" coupled with two more words: "With Host".

For some yet unknown event, Eishell left the ship and us alone.

No trace of it or even the carrier that held up the data link between the ship and our base.

I peeled off the keyboard cover, introducing the access password into the emergency local computer. I asked it for a complete status report, which would take a couple minutes to be completed. Kia was at my side now, watching the progress meter on the computer display. I looked at her. This will prove to be a difficult situation to overcome.

"This is a big nonsense, am I right?" She, the perceptive one, asked me.

"I'm afraid that you just enunciated an understatement. I am completely lost. Let's hope we can get more information from this report" I explained her. She nodded, and went into the back room, kicking all the garbage on her way to the food table.

"You won't be able to use the kitchen until the computer finishes this status report generation. All top level functions have been suspended until then." I warned her. She looked back at me, her face showing great despair. Then, she sat in one of the fixed chairs in there, after cleaning all the garbage that was deposited in it's top. She finished making her point by putting her feet over the table and saying: "Let's wait ... sitting in here ... with our arms crossed. We are useless. I hate this." She was quite angry.

The local computer spoke:

"Voice generation and recognition re-established. No connection to host available at this time. Current artificial intelligence engine available: level 1. Basic questioning and answering comprehension capabilities only."

I walked into the table and cleaned up another chair.

"Computer: Can you re-establish the kitchen cooking functions? " I loudly asked. No more mental speaking until Eishell regains control of the situation.

"Yes, sir. At once. You can use the kitchen subsystem now" it answered back.

"Computer: We need two cups of coffee right now" I commanded it, walking near the synthesiser oven and opening its door. I grabbed the two hot cups that were waiting in there for us and sat near Kia again, giving her a cup. Now we were ready to know about our actual situation.

"Computer: Proceed to inform us about your current status" I said. It was just the third time I had to address this lame computer and I was already starting to hate it. This computer was not smart enough to recognise an order, unless you started your sentence with it's title: "computer". I was afraid that I would end up saying hundreds of time the "computer" word.

"Sorting ...done. First level diagnosis proceeds: Current location: Unknown. No radio or sub dimensional beacons signal available. Current ship status: Stable. However, all our shielding systems are off-line for some unknown reason. Sub-Dimensional engine: Off-line. Auxiliary spatial impulse motors: Operative. Energy generator: Offline. Auxiliary generator: Operative. Ready to proceed with second level diagnosis at your command." the computer informed. Kia didn't understand a thing, but it was pretty clear for her that we've run into serious problems. I instructed the computer to continue with its diagnosis.

:"Second level diagnosis: The ship is failing on very specific things. I get nothing but overflow errors whenever I try to solve this engineering problems."

"I see. Computer: Can you take us on the exact reverse path by which we ended up in here " I asked the computer.

"I can do that. However, I can't compute the time it will take us to reach our last known location." It answered.

"Computer: Proceed then. The sooner, the better" I commanded her.

Kia and I could end up stuck in here for several days, weeks or even months before we could regain control of our situation. I ended up my coffee.

"This might take several days ... or even weeks." I said to her.

Kia nodded back.



















CHAPTER 7: Unknown universe
















"Approaching an unknown distortion sector. Imminent danger." all of a sudden the ship's on board computer announced in a loudly voice.

"Let's reach into the pilot seats right now. Don't even ask why. RUN into there" I shouted Kia.

This alarm caught us in the middle of what intended to be our daily meal, at the now so incredibly small and filled of garbage table in the back of the ship. Needless to say, we run into the cockpit, jumping into the protective gravity net that the pilot seats provided, just in time. Our spaceship started to furiously vibrate a clear signal that we were just entering the distortion gate that we used to get into this unknown place, I hoped. I could not even dare to think about going back through it just to emerge on yet another mysterious co-ordinates.

Things started to fly around inside the ship at astonishing speed, with the added havoc of all the garbage that we generated in the extended period of time -almost two weeks- in which we were forced to live. This was pretty much like a flying tin can. I crossed my fingers. I only wanted to get back into our own neighbourhood. Then, as if some unknown and omnipotent being just read my thoughts, everything went normal again. We reached into the other side of the tunnel. If everything went fine, we should be greeted by Eishell's voice at any time from now, as she re-established the link between us. There was some kind of omnipotent being, benevolently watching us, it seemed, as Eishell's voice surrounded us:

"You are back! This is Great! Welcome both of you! Where did you go?" Eishell voice loudly asked. Then it added, having obviously restored the visual link into our spaceship: "This is a mess! Poor Matt and Kia ... Let me bring both of you back into earth at once."

Most surprisingly, the sub dimensional engines were working just fine again. Eishell commanded the ship, and ten seconds later we were safely in orbit around earth. We turned off our gravity nets and proceeded to tele-transport down into our house.

We were exhausted.

I wanted to get acquainted on all the details that were automatically stored in our ship's internal log. This needed of Eishell's expertise. It was the only one able to perform an accurate exam on that log, given the amount and weirdness scale of the data it held.

We headed into our big living room. I jumped into one couch, waiting for the computer to start. Kia just let herself fall into another couch, her eyes closed.

"I found something quite interesting in there: You were thrown into a universe ruled by laws quite opposite to the logical and physical ones in here. This happened just after the alien spaceship inadvertently jumped over your very same sub-dimensional plane. They materialised so near you that you were blown away into the gate that in turn threw you both over this new -we shall call it universe, yes- by some yet unknown mechanism.

There must be another factor -or worse yet, a couple of them- which must have added up in order to create such a phenomenon. The alien ship suspected on someone following them, certainly, but never got to actually discover us, thankfully enough" Eishell burst into an explanation. Amazing luck.

"You try to decode everything about it. I want to go back in there, while managing to keep our ship in full operative status." I said to the computer.

Several things emerged into my consciousness: I suddenly recalled about earth's integration to the Alien federation. This was not the only pending thing ... What about the alien ship? Could Eishell successfully track them all the way up into their own planet? I asked the computer about all this topics.

"I'll better start with the alien ship odyssey. They found the second tracker just after you disappeared. They were fooled by the fact that they didn't had any more traces of any ship following them, so they grew confident and then guided us right into their planetary system, with the help of the last remaining tracker.

We went there right away, with both our destroyer ships. Did some diplomatic acts, like sending a small committee down into their planet and getting to the middle of their government building, were we had this little conversation with their rulers. They are pretty calmed down by now. I don't believe that they will ever bother us again" Eishell explained.

I preferred not to get acquainted with the content of the words or actions that were used against the alien government creatures, although I could perfectly picture all the beings flying over that room in a show choreographed by our androids. Not that I did mind at all, particularly after the fight in which I was killed. I always try to talk first, anyway.

"I see. I really appreciate the way you and our androids carried away this mission. Please communicate this to the rest of your team." I said.

"Done. Now, let's get into the second situation: Earth's governments received the alien committee as scheduled. No surprises. Everything went smooth, with the only sad exception that you were not present. We all missed both of you." Eishell said.

"Oh! I missed it too. I was very sad about it. There was nothing that we could do, anyway. Destiny prevented us on that." I added.

"Yes, indeed" Eishell ended up..

Kia opened her eyes. I turned at her, sensing it. We managed to get very close inside that spaceship. I could swear that some kind of connection -nothing to do with any kind of controllers or Eishell work- was established -or better yet, re-established- between us.

I thought that we were going to get into a more intimate plane up there, but strangely enough all what we did was serious talking, about everything. We went on with this for the next two hours.

"I don't want to sleep yet. I don't want to be alone either." She said, holding her eyes into mine.

"Oh gods! That was quite strong. I did not dare to say that to her first, due to the confusion that she obviously had, including the fact that she didn't remember me at all from before. I was afraid that she simply didn't feel the same, and I got no chance other than do not interfere with her in such a topic, at least not until we ended our work. That time was now.

But then, I realised: It turned out that everything was over. Not that I was happy with it, as we missed all the happy endings, but that was it! Then, I thought: Perhaps this was our own private happy ending sweetened my look, answering:

"Dear, dear ... There are so many things that we can talk about, now that we are done with our... hmmm. 'Official' duties. You know that I loved you once. Since the first time I saw you back again, after my own memory loss, I couldn't help on feeling something very special on you." I said to her. A single tear managed to escape from my eyes, being this quite a surprising act, coming from me. Kia noticed that. She was all sweet now.

I felt in the same way, since the beginning. I need you, Matt" Kia said while standing up and walking towards me. I sat on the couch giving her some space to get near me.

Things proved to be complicated. Even if it was comfortable and big enough... the bed would have been the obvious choice. Not that I am complaining! Everything was sweet words, hugs and kisses, until we decided to run upstairs into our bedroom, a couple of minutes later.



---x---



I woke up early in the morning. I was very careful not to wake up Kia while I got off the bed. I went down into the House's control room.

"Eishell, please tell Eileen to prepare my breakfast and get it down here. I also want you to inform me about what you discovered on this new universe issue." I spoke. My voice was quite dumb, due to the asleep state in which I was yet immersed.

Once again: I didn?t like to get out of the bed this fast, but It was different today. I just made up my mind on what would be my future from now on.

"I got everything solved out about that new universe. We can open it and freely fly inside there now. I am already preparing a scout ship with two androids crew to do some exploration in there, Matt" Eishell said.

"NO! Definitely not. I want to personally go in there. You better prepare our own spaceship" I answered back. There it was. I was going back in there again. Silence for some moments. That was something that Eishell didn't really want. I could tell that.

"Have you gone mad? We don't know what?s going on over that place. You will be left unprotected in any kind of unknown event, as we just might not be able to handle things in there. I just applied all my expertise into solving the most basic problems in regard of the spaceship's functions which collapsed on you that first time. All that is left to be said by me is that I strongly advise you against going in there. Bottom Line."

"Nope. There is much more involved in this situation than what you suppose. It happens that I will go anyway. Not that I got to explain myself to you, but I can tell you something, Eishell: My work -and formal goal- in this life is finished now ?so, I am free to do whatever I desire. Not that this is just another vacation period, but I got the impression that I rather entered in my definite retirement phase. Sorry ... but things might get quite bored over these latitudes from now on. Enough said." I talked back.

"I can?t cope with the idea of loosing you again. Please, endult me on this one: I can choose about my future too, so, I want to go with you!" Eishell replicated.

Fair enough.

A voice behind me said, "I will go with you too ... of course. You won't get rid of me this easy, now!"

It was Kia.

She had woken up and silently came down here. I nodded. I was going to give her the chance of coming with me, actually.

"I see. Well ... I shall start the pertinent modifications on your spaceship right now. I will include a memory bank with the full backup of all my knowledge base. This will allow me to take care of you both up there." Eishell said.



---xxx---


Our poor old spaceship ... it would end up redesigned from scratch -once again, yet-. This time, the plans included a copy of Eishell's artificial intelligence engine, as well as everything that should be necessary to almost guarantee the solving of any problem that could eventually arise. Nothing comes with some "minor" drawbacks, anyway: these additions went in detriment of our own living space: The small all-purpose room that's located behind the cockpit has been reduced by almost half in space. Now it was turned into a really small cubicle to live in the next days or even weeks -no one could tell-, I decided, while inspecting every corner of it.

I wandered around the place for several minutes. Everything was properly set, I concluded. We should bravely cope with this room space problem. That's a small price to pay as the only mean to be reasonably immune to the physical law changing that apparently happens when entering a new universe.

"This is awfully small, Matt" Kia said, remarking my personal thoughts. She silently got inside the ship while I was peeking into a big control panel located in the back of the ship's room. I proceeded to take my head out from the inside of the panel and turned around while nodding to her.

"You can stay in the earth if you like. That's a valid option, you know" I answered with a grin. Kia stared at me. Her face showed signs of truly anger at first.

We've just been talking about this. She didn't understand at first why I was so embraced to this mostly dangerous and apparently meaningless search of mine. I got to explain her about my motivation again. There was no business for us in this place. The earth had finally joined the Alien Federation. The once dangerous alien race is totally neutralised now. We could safely assume that we did finish our job in these latitudes. I wanted my deserved retirement ... and I needed something to keep my life up to a goal, as right now it was meaningless, so, I decided to keep on my search for knowledge and answers instead of ending my material existence, which we both knew that this too was also a valid solution.

Travelling from one universe to another proved to be quite marvellous and a chance of getting a bit more of excitement, I concluded. Kia finally agreed with me. Not that I tried to induce her on that! She decided that she had nothing to loose over this planet, too. She was completely reborn into her real identity by now ... She found quite pointless to return to her ephemeral and banal business back in there. That?s why she decided to follow me in my journey.

Certainly, our mutual feelings -recently rediscovered- helped a lot in this decision of her.

"Naa ... there is enough space for both of us" she said, while walking up to my side. I opened my arms, receiving her. I hugged her in silence, for a whole minute.

"It will suffice ... I'm quite sure ... Well, it might prove fun, actually." I finally said, while releasing her. A third voice jumped into our conversation:

"I feel quite guilty! I ended up taking as three times more space than you both will have ... sorry!" Eishell loudly spoke. She was listening to our conversation, as usual.

I looked into Kia's eyes, grinning. Then I answered "You can stay on earth if you like too."

"No no no. I will go with you. Bottom line! You both need the care of a capable computer like me."

I said to Kia, in my most innocent voice "Computers ... they are so humble nowadays..."

"Ha Ha! Just as their owners." Kia added.

" Hey! You are my friends ... I won't leave you in such a journey! Don't even think about it ... I also want some fun too. I need vacations just as you do!" Eishell replicated.

"I only hope that you will leave enough privacy for us. This will be mandatory, in order of getting rid of the impulse on disconnecting you, Eishell, the ever-talking-computer" Kia added with a grin.

"Don't worry ... If you want me not to talk, I will please you. You both know me well enough" Eishell answered, with a voice that I would swear that sounded scared. Then I got no option but to laugh. I could only hope that the computer could keep up with such a promise.

We proceeded to get into the cockpit and take our places in the pilot's seats.

Once ready, I mentally commanded Eishell to start the launching sequence. Everything was set to go.

"Now entering the connection path with the new universe. This will get a bit shaky, I'm afraid!" The computer mentally advised us. Everything was tightly secured in its correct place at this time: No dangerous flying objects around us. That didn't prevent the shaking anyway ... not for too long, as things quickly calmed down again only a minute later.

"Interesting... It was like folding a bag from the inside up, only to be caught inside another bag. Hopefully you get the idea." Eishell exclaimed.

"You better learn how to totally master this bag trick then, Eishell" I said.

"Yes, sir!" the computer promptly answered back. She was -as usual- on a good mood. That also meant one other thing: everything was still under control. This computer was a really strong contender for any kind of trouble that would eventually arise.

Some minutes later, just when we decided to get something to eat, Eishell spoke again. As opportune as ever.

"I got a theory, folks. There seems to be an infinite succession of universes. Each one covering or folding over the next one. We just came into the one covering our native universe. The really interesting part of this is that I think I can manage to jump again, into the next outer one, and so on. I am curious now. We can try it! But we shall travel in sub dimensional space for several days until I find out a suitable spot for such a task, I should warn you, We can explore this universe in the meantime. What do you think?"

Interesting enough, I thought while grinning.

I looked into Kia's direction. She winked her right eye to me, while starting to grin too. She wanted to go for it. That was my idea too.

"Let's do it, Eishell. We've already done one ... let's go for the rest!" I answered.

"Okay. I expect a new physical set of laws in each following universe ... so be prepared ... there will be a certain risk involved" the computer warned us.

"But then, why can't we send a probe ahead of us, once we get in the right spot to perform the universe-jump trick?" Kia asked.

Now, wasn?t she a brilliant girl?.

"You are right. That is a clever way of gathering all the pertinent information from the new universe. I will start working on that right now. Please resume your lunch. I will tell you when I get any news" Eishell ended.



---x---




Even with the sub dimensional jumping engine engaged it took us almost two weeks to find another gate suitable enough for a jump. We didn't get bored this time. Kia and me were really busy enough exploring our new own feelings.

Anyway, we finally found the appropriate jump co-ordinates.

Following the -by now- tradition, Eishell discovered it just when we were getting our dinner. I started to laugh -couldn't help it, really- when the computer announced "Well ... sorry folks ... Before you start complaining on me, I will make pretty clear the fact that this time I will wait until you finish your meal. I've found another gate. Actually, I will use this time to send Kia's probes through it ... is this okay with you both?"

"Yes, sure! Congratulations on your discovery... and on the wise election of not making us to run into our cockpit?s seats protection again..." Kia answered, grinning.

"Oh thanks! ... Probes detached. They are programmed to enter the gate into this new universe, and then to immediately return through the same path, each probe at a different progressive time. We shall get at least some partial information on any physical law change by this means. We can only beg for the safe return of all our probes." It explained.

After a couple of silent seconds, the computer added, "Gate entered. Please stand by".

A Virtual monitor materialised in the middle of the room. Several images (one from each probe) were being shown, fainting out quite fast. After they all of them finally vanished, a single view, all black space was displayed, covering the entire monitor's area. It was a general view of the gate entrance, through one of our external cameras. During the next minute, all our probes should start re-emerging from that spot, each one separated by a window of ten seconds. If everything went right, that is.

The clock ticked. "First probe should be back on my mark ... now." Eishell said. There it was. The first of six probes. Just in time. Ten seconds later, the second probe materialised a couple of meters away from the first one.

"Interesting." Eishell said, enunciated mostly like a loud thought. I grinned. The computer was pulling my leg.

The third probe emerged, with a small light burst, followed by the fourth and fifth probe, which re-entered our space in their designated times.

But the last one never did.

"We want to hear your conclusions, Eishell ..." I anxiously said.

"Okay. The sixth probe was destroyed." The computer said, introducing a small pause.

Both Kia and me straightened up in our seats, and I was about to shout Eishell to continue, but it was not necessary... Eishell loved to speak, particularly when everyone was anxiously listening it?s voice.

"It was the only probe planned to make the whole travel all the way up into the other universe. The information gathered by the five previous ones fed me with all the needed data to extrapolate the parameters that rule that new universe. They indicate a new set of physical laws that renders our ship and our probes totally fragile and therefore useless. That's why I know that we lost our last probe." Eishell informed, using some kid of triumphant tone over it?s synthesised voice.

"Oh! But then I am sure that you will find (if you already didn't) a way to adapt us into those new universe's rules" I asked, truth is, impressed about our computer?s latest announcement.

"I am working on that ... Please wait..." Eishell answered.

This was quite an interesting concept. Universes placed one around the other, like onion skins, each one of them being progressively exposed to some kind of power that somewhat-somehow modifies the behaviour of even the most basic laws. We would end up in a place that could potentially be an opposite truth to the one that we know.

Cool.

I found particularly odd the fact that we never heard about such a thing before. There was no information about a phenomenon like this neither in Eishell's memory banks, nor in any other alien's Federation computer.

Our Great Ones ancestors did never discover this? Could this be just good (or -who knows- bad) luck? A correct chance of those mechanisms like chaos and randomness, that in a superb act allowed us to discover such a thing at this given time?

Lots of questions raised around our singular last adventure. Perhaps we could get some answers now.

"Done. There is a way to enter this new universe without being crushed like an eggshell. We must generate a certain field around the skull of our ship. I will synthesise four Eileen androids in order to accomplish this task. We will be set to go then!" Eishell spoke again, interrupting my thinking.

"Oh! I see." I said.

Then I thought on something, adding: "Let's introduce a small change in your plans. You materialise only two Eileen androids, in order to cover the needed work over the inside of the ship. Kia and me will proceed with the installation of the field generators over the outer skull, okay?" I asked the computer, while Kia formed a wide smile in her face.

"As you order, captain! ... " Eishell quickly answered. It tried to keep things really nice, particularly since I mentioned that I might be able to pull off it's plug whenever it started to overdo itself. That, on the very least, was very funny to be aware of.

Fact is: I promised Kia that I would take her on a walking, back in our moon base. I completely forgot about it. Now, a walk in open space ... It should prove as equal as exciting -if not more-, I hoped. An added plus of going into a space walk was the excellent view we had. We were located in the neighbourhood of a dual sun planetary system over the right side of the ship, and the nucleus of the galaxy itself at our left. The light intensity level out there was like the one found in an earth's sunny day.

Once we were ready for it, we opened the external hatch, and went out of the ship. We carried nothing more than our integral suits and our wrist controllers with us, as usual. These last ones did the necessary work to keep us comfortably alive. I wondered how could those earth's astronauts work in the space, carrying the heavy spacesuits they did use -and will keep using for a while yet-. The Alien Federation should provide them with better technology, given the appropriate commercial and political window... That didn?t mean the ones that we are using -Great Ones exclusive technology, of course- , but certainly something lighter and safer than what they have been suffering with for the last, say, forty years.

I interrupted my thoughts just to see how Kia went ballistic into outer space. Thankfully enough, I was clever enough to get Kia tied up to the hull of our vessel, just to prevent on turning this rather quiet space-walk into a 'chase the human space-ball' event.

"I told you not to jump. The suit's feet are magnetically polarised with a certain affinity to the hull ... but they can't keep you stick to it if you start dancing and jumping, you childish girl" I mentally told her while she managed to get her steps back over the ship?s smooth surface.

It took us almost ten minutes more to install that four field generators. They needed to be placed on the front, back and both sides of the ship. The actual complication was that they needed to be aligned in almost perfect symmetry, on the exact mean points of the hull. Eishell commanded us on it. Just as an added precaution, I was the one that fixed each one of the generators in place, while Kia was limited to hold the necessary tools for me, standing at my side. Neither Eishell nor I wanted to see her bouncing into space again by doing a wrong movement ... at least not before we ended up our delicate and precise installation business!

Some minutes later, we sat over the cockpit, after the last one of the boxes was safely in place, hugging together while staring at the view. The unrealistic, fantastic picture before our eyes drove both of us speechless now. Eishell didn't interrupt us too ... This was incredible! ... I loved the views that one could get by searching around, particularly when reaching towards the centre of a galaxy.

Neat enough.

























CHAPTER 8: Chat with our Gods.











"We are ready for it, Matt" Eishell said.

"Okay ... proceed then ... on my mark? Now!" I commanded.

The usual vibrations started almost immediately. This time, they were followed by something new: The hull started to show a ramping degree of transparency, starting out from each one of the four generators location. Kia started shouting, as the view ahead of us was a rather shocking experience, with unbearable lighting thresholds and a speed sensation that was -way- out of normal measurement scale.

At first, I thought that the ship was actually collapsing, disintegrating itself. After a few seconds I realised that by no way could Eishell miscalculate things with such an error margin. Some obscure part of the physics that ruled this new Universe were playing a trick on us, I concluded.

"What's going on, Eishell" I shouted, demanding an explanation, anyway.

"Just Close your eyes and don't worry. This is a side effect, but we are perfectly safe... I think!" Eishell announced.

?Nice. It thinks ?? I mentally commented to Kia. We both already got our eyes closed by that time.

In fact, our retinas got burned right on the first direct glance into this light source, but then, our wrist controller automatically reacted by regenerating them. This might have happened several times in those first seconds, until we finally closed them. The pain could not be blocked out until we did so, as the cause for such a thing was still present in front of us. The cockpit hull was totally transparent now and even with our eyes closed the light still made them hurt. This was something that would need to be fixed for the next time.

After countless seconds of pain, everything went gradually dark again. The hull turned back into its normal opaque texture as we reached into the new universe.

"Now ... wait a moment! What's going on?" The only one in the ship supposed not to do such a comment said that. Kia and I looked ourselves. My expression was of total disconcertion. I was about to ask Eishell what did it mean by such a question, when the cockpit disintegrated into a soundless burst of myriad of particles, which danced around us for about a second, only to finally reconfigure themselves into a totally new and unexpected place.

We were inside a simple room, filled with no other furniture more than three simple wood-like chairs and a table. There was a door, located at our right, and a window just in front of us. The table was placed in the middle of the room, with the chairs around it.

A creature, humanoid, resembling a very old man with white hair and a profuse beard of the same colour was standing near the window, apparently looking outside. This was a perfectly normal situation ? in the wrong place!.

It didn?t seem a violent situation, I thought with a minimal degree of relief, while trying to find any hidden detail in the room which could throw a bit more of light into our very -very- dark position. This is in a philosophical way, as the room was -in contrast with our situation- perfectly well lit.

The old man turned around and faced us. "Please, sons ... be seated. I would love to have a chat with you now ... but I can't see you standing on your feet" He said, while grabbing the third chair and taking place on it.

Kia looked at me. We were caught totally off-guard. The humanoid could speak. And it did so in a polite way. It surely could have said something more worrying -as ?Prepare to die? or similar- but he only wanted us to be seated. We both decided to do as suggested, .

Cool.

"Your questions first, Kia, Matt. ... I will do my best to provide you both with all the needed answers" He said.

What was going on? This creature knew our names, even while he lives in an universe that is totally unconnected to ours! This alone was very disturbing, I decided.

But then, he offers us answers. We shall choose very well our questions now.

He appeared in front of us, bypassing all the shields that Eishell implemented around our ship. Considering this, and all my earlier thoughts, I could only make him the most urgent questions, in a quick succession:

"Who are you? How did we end up in here? How do you know our names? ..." I managed to say with a trembling voice.

"I am your father." He simply answered. Then, he added, probably moved by our faces, painted with total disconcertion now:

" Let's see ...you and your people gave me an endless list of names, but the generic "god" denomination is quite a definition by itself. Not that we really deserve it...". He introduced a small pause, posing his eyes again into each one of us.

Then, he continued, apparently satisfied by our faces, showing total surprise at this time: " Me -well? my people- designed your race -humans- after our own image and resemblance, using our very own codes as a start-up for it. Therefore the most suitable denomination would be the one I used first: I'm your father. This would comprise the first answer. Did you understand?" He ended up staring at us with inquisitional eyes.

Silence for a few seconds. Holy shit. Holy God. This was just what I could think about in such an intense moment.

"Yes. I think we did..." I managed to say, totally shocked by his words.

I started to seriously think that we could be dead and this was the -crazy- show that the real god has prepared for us. That at least could have made sense with the guy's talking. I pinched up my arm with my fingernails, but it hurt like I was sure it wouldn't correspond to a death status. I was still conscious ... therefore there was still a serious chance that this could actually be happening for real.

"You triggered an automatic mechanism that was set up to respond to the visit of any human creature into our universe. That's why you ended up in here. I know your names because the electronic entity -code named Eishell by you- that you carry in your vessel just told it to us." the old man continued speaking. This explanation helped a lot on demystifying our current situation.

His words made me remember about our computer. It kept it?s mouth shut up all this time, being this fact alone a very intriguing thing. I tried to mentally address Eishell, only to realise that my wrist controller was completely out of order: No display ... no answer ... no error messages. Nothing. This was even worse than the first time we lost contact with it, back in our first universe jumping. At least our wrist controllers kept working at that time! I wandered about Kia's controller. I signalled my wrist to her. She closed her eyes for a moment, and started to imperceptibly negate with her head. She had her own controller dead too.

Nice situation. I turned my attention back into the old man, as no other options were left but to keep with our chat. One thing for sure: He was the boss.

He patiently waited up to this moment and then added: "You are at home now. You don't need those primitive gadgets in here... Relax and enjoy." This was quite revealing. He actually knew what was in our minds.

We didn't have the logistical support of our computer. We were not able to use any of our tricks. We were defenceless. At least, the old man still seemed quite inoffensive ...

"We visited your native universe a really long time ago. We were still testing our organic engineering abilities back then, which we selected a bunch of galaxies and then proceeded to seed them with our favourite creation designs: humanoid bipeds, just like us. This was part of an ongoing experiment, carefully monitored until the results finally arise. I recall about your planetary system that it was particularly beautiful. I was personally sure that your race would be on the successful birth and evolution side. This was confirmed by the data which flowed back to us from your world, of course." He commented, introducing a pause, while waving gently his hand over the table.

A luminous halo tracked that movement and a bunch of particles descended into the table, reconfiguring themselves into a set of things: A bottle, three glasses and dishes full of assorted stuff, obviously some kind of food.

"Be my guests. I know that you both like these things. This is part of my favourite stuff too, actually." He said, grinning, and proceeding to serve the liquid content of the bottle into the glasses.

"Oh thanks.? I quickly answered, while watching the golden-like liquid fill what would obviously become our glasses. I was kind of marvelled by the craft of the bottle. I added then ?Please understand that this ongoing situation is quite disturbing for us. You just said that you are god! I mean ... you created life in the different universes? Who created you?" I asked him. Kia was still speechless. I didn't blame her for that. I had to do that question, anyway.

"Oh my dears ... no. We are just like you. No, wait, let me be more precise. You actually outsmarted us. The student has the power to surpass the master, as a general clever rule. We've been in the scene a lot of time before you. We managed to master the genetic design of organic creatures (just as you, and your fathers -the Great Ones- did), and then we mastered the travelling between the different universes up to an extent ... like you are doing now. Then, we run into a war." He introduced another pause, grabbing his glass and drinking half of it's content.

Whatever it was, it was strong enough, judging the reaction in his face. He liked it, anyway, as he proceeded to drink it all the way to the bottom, after another brief pause. Satisfied, then, he continued:

"Now, there is only a bunch of us left ... old enough for not wanting anything else than staying quiet. We settled down in this place, enjoying the eventual visit of our children, like you did now. What we still don't know -and probably never will- is who created us. You, child, are lucky enough to get that answer ... and it is our pleasure to realise how did you raise and mature. We are aware that someone created us too, but we lost our real strength after that war. We lost any hope on finding our own creators after that devil act. Now, please, drink and eat while we talk... don't be afraid!"

Kia proved to be a brave woman by grabbing her corresponding glass and drinking a bit of the strange liquid from it. She nodded in my direction. "This is delicious. Certainly on the alcoholic side, incredibly rich taste..." she burst.

The old man grinned.

"Matt ... your turn to taste It.", pointing towards my full glass, still untouched. I couldn't do anything else but oblige myself to drink a bit of the liquor? just to find it really good. He nodded then, approving my action, and continued:

"Now, let me give you a little lesson on your very own history: your ancestors, the very first Great Ones, discovered a coded message in their own DNA while doing their research over genetic design. We did leave this message inside all our creations as a mean to enlighten and guide all those creatures advanced enough to decode it, into the knowledge of our existence. They finally managed to contact us." He introduced a small pause, apparently noting our gestures of surprise.

" We felt very sorry by their situation at that time, so we ended up giving them -you- all the necessary support ... We co-authored the plot for the Master Plan together with your grandfathers. We agreed on the need of fixing things up just to get a second -and pacific- chance for the earth people." He paused again, getting something that appeared to be a nut from one of the dishes.

I wanted to speak, but then he added: "Oh ... by the way ... part of the power that your first ancestors had, was not a product of their science, BUT that of their very own mind power. As they dissected each tiny bit of code inside themselves, they did learn about many hidden features held inside their brains, just waiting to be awakened. The interesting part of this story is that they actually enhanced them in their sons ... so, congratulations. -That means both of you-. You got quite an interesting surprise inside yourselves waiting to be discovered" and then proceeded to grab another nut from the dish, while he made an inviting gesture in our direction to get some too.

"What is he talking about?" Kia burst again, while looking in my direction. This whole scene flashed to me as particularly comic ... she was totally out of her normal frame of control. The situation in here was really weird, but I could only laugh. The old man did the same.

"Let me be more specific, Kia. Matt and you got plenty of hidden abilities within yourselves, readily available once you learn how to unlock them from deep inside of your brain. These new tricks would leave your little wrist gadget like a simple toy ... And, yes, this was the kind of magic that you all -last generation of Great Ones- thought that ended up buried with your ancestors. Well? Surprise! It was not. It has always been with you." He added, with a small grin forming over his mouth.

I decided that it was time to eat one of those strange nuts. "I wonder ...How can we unlock such a feature?" I asked, quite excited. This was too cool to be true.

The man grinned. "It has just been unlocked for you. Now you got to learn about how does it work. Not an easy task at all ... you are on your very own with it. That is: It must be accomplished with no help from my brothers, or me I'm afraid. It involves a very intimate and internal process of training. But that shall be no impediment at all, so cheer up! This is a surprise we wanted to give you both..." He said, while filling his glass again and drinking it in one shot.

Yet again: Interesting enough ? but a bit disappointing. I felt just in the same way as before ... no superpowers were emerging from the tip of my fingers.

I shrugged, and winked an eye in Kia's direction. "If you say so ... then we thank you for whatever you have just gifted to us! It deserves a toast for sure" I proceeded to drink the rest of my strange beverage.

It was strong enough, obviously. I was feeling way too happy for the situation in which we were immersed right now. And -what is yet worse- I just couldn't help about it.

"Now you shall return to your ship. You may continue with your quest. We are confident that you will surpass us in every bit of achievements. Just remember to drop by and tell us about your most important discoveries. We like to be visited by our sons, specially by gifted child like you both, dears" the old man ended.

I was going to replicate him, still full of questions, but the room, coupled with the scarce furniture that surrounded us, started to disintegrate in particles again. This was it. Our interview with this God was over. We were both back into our spaceship's cockpit, positioned in our pilot seats with the gravity net fully engaged, just in the way we were before being transported into that room.

"Who was that old man? I mean, he actually explained me who he was ... but I am having a really hard time accepting it." Eishell's voice filled the interior of the ship. I didn?t feel like answering that question. It was hard for us too. I proceeded to disconnect my gravity net. No need for that now.

"He won't be able to do that kidnapping trick again anyway. I already found out how to shield us from such an action!" The computer added.

We were back into our good old and known territory, including Eishell, which was talkative as ever. I couldn?t blame it.

Relief.

"Shut up, Eishell, please! No one kidnapped us. That old man actually is who he states..." Kia shouted, stating what we both felt at this time.

I thought about the words of the man, stating that we carried something very special with us. He was right. Our computer had a way more advanced intelligence module than anything achievable through organic design did. It was us who crafted such a digital being, ironically enough.

We -the students- already surpassed them -the masters- from such an angle of view. By using this new being, we were able to find new answers, magnitudes faster than what they ever managed to do at their best. Our scope was quite farther than theirs, just because of that.

I walked into the ship's back room and asked the computer to synthesise two glasses, full of plain cold water. Once they were materialised over the table, I took the first one and pointed at the other to Kia. I got this idea...

"Trough the simplest manifestation of this basic element of our lives, I toast in honour of the ancient and brave race that -through countless millenniums- dedicated their lives and knowledge in seeding life through the entire set of universes that were known by them. This shall be the very best way to salute them" I solemnly stated, obviously still influenced by that liquor, and then drank all the water at once, while winking an eye to Kia. No need to drink anything stronger than water, once back in our reign!

She silently nodded and drank the whole content of her glass too of a single shot. This was a necessary tribute. I ended up believing in the old man's story. It was true. I felt about it in that way.

"I guess that this is it. At least in this universe. We shall try to jump into another one. We may use this time to rest a bit." I said.

Kia noisily yawned and went straight into the small bed located at one side of the room, just before the cockpit's door. Actually both of us where really exhausted. I decided to give our computer the last set of instructions before going to sleep too.

"Well, Eishell ... mark up this time-space co-ordinates in such a way that we can return to it anytime... Is that possible?" I asked after some seconds of silent meditation.

"The only working way to access this and the other universes, right now, is by sequential access. ? Eishell talked back.

?So ? ?? I said. Damned computer. It could be a bit more descriptive, given our evident sleepish, focus-less state.

?This means that we must do the same route through the other ones to come back in here again. I am working on a random access technique, but it won't be finished until we jump into at least one new universe, in order for me to be able to safely extrapolate all the variables in the equation that I am building." The computer finally explained.

I refocused myself, while listening this.

"Let's continue our quest then! You may start searching for the next jumping gate inside here whenever you are up to it. Oh ... from now on, I want you to send back to our headquarters, back in Earth, a probe containing each new piece of information that we gather and is worth to be preserved. I want a backup of our ongoing expedition log back in home, just in case that we may get lost or whatever..." I commanded it.

"Consider it done, chief!" it answered. That "chief" word was kind of ironic.

"Yeah, I'm the chief now ... just remember that I can always unplug you!" I replicated, grinning.

"Okay. Enough said! Silence reigns in the valley from now on..." Eishell said.

Kia, which was sleeping at that time, was awakened by my laughter. She showed no signs of anger, but she kind of compacted herself against the wall, leaving enough space for me, instead.

"Lights off, Eishell ... do your work now, but quietly, please" I said while taking that place near Kia.

"aye aye, Capn' " It answered in a softly voice.

Another burst of laughter.



---x---



We found the next gate pretty soon.

After probing it, we decided to jump in there. No surprises waiting for us at the other side, thankfully enough.

After several minutes of intense computations, Eishell did find out the equation which solved the random access to the different Universes, as promised. The equation itself revealed that there were an infinite number of universe instances, just what our computer predicted a while ago. This was pretty interesting, remarking by itself it?s brilliant capacity.

We did also find out the fact that just as there are negative numbers, a zero number as a frontier and then the positive numbers sequence in the numeric ruler; the formula showed the same kind of behaviour in the number of universes. All the universes we have been into, including our very own, were immersed inside the first segment -under the numeric ruler analogy: we have been always under the negative numeric field-.

The obvious question now was what about the "positive field" universes ... or even more interesting: What about the one placed over the 'zero' position co-ordinates...?

In order to make a practical usage of its formula and therefore gain access to all those universes at will, Eishell had to introduce -again, yes- new electronic and structural changes to our ship, including the necessary fix for the hull's transparency issue. This full task would take almost three days.

No time to get bored for us. Something else happened while Eishell was busily immersed in its redesigning plans. Both Kia and I discovered that something new was present inside us, just like the old man said. We had some new features within our reach.

It all began when we noticed that we could still mentally talk even without the wrist controllers being activated. Real telepathy! This new ability was extended -most notably- into our dreams. We could -both of us- meet and talk inside there, and believe me: this proved to be really funny.

We were pretty excited about these new... features. The next two days were dedicated to study other new tricks that we kept discovering. We could move things around us -no physical contact needed, of course-. This was very handy, and it drained no noticeable strength or concentration power from us.

As a result, we started to feel things about each other in a totally new and deeper way. It was natural for us now to know how did the other feel about something. It was like if we could read each other's emotional information as an open book. It was enough for one of us to think about keeping it in a private way for the other not to be able to sense it anymore. This was quite a relieving discovery too. I hated the idea of no privacy -even with Kia-.

After some further thinking, I wandered about this new trick ... Was it extensible -at least unilaterally from our side- to every other living creature? Something inside me answered "Yes". If so, it could be very useful to know how does anyone felt about anything. A dream come true! So, this kind of stuff kept us busy over those days, until we ended up deciding that it was not fair to wander around, reading up everyone else's feelings. We will keep this particular power only for urgent situations, from now on.



---xxx---


Finally, Eishell announced that we were ready to do the randomic jump trick. That was a bold statement! I figured out an interesting action to accelerate our universe exploration ... kind of an extension on Kia's idea regarding the automatic probes.

"What if we send a different probe into each one of the universes ahead of us? They could be programmed to monitor every important variable in each one of them! Once they're back, we could easily sort out those universes with any outstanding characteristic -worth of our personal exploration- ... this could be very well worth to call up a number of exploration ships from our fleet, and start by this way a methodical investigation on each selected one. What do you think, Kia?" I asked.

"Hmm. ... well, that action could make us gain a lot in time, provided that such an exploration schedule has a meaning in itself at all. Do we have clearly enough our goals on going on with such a task?" she asked back.

That was a yet-to-be-studied question. Perhaps it was time to sort things out a bit. In first place, we were in the search of other intelligent life forms. This was one of our first motivations right now. Then, we also got the added task of searching for the first creator, if such a creature could be found at this time. The search for answers was a powerful motivation too. This was particularly valid after our visit to that room, with the old man. We could still learn a lot, getting in contact with the different beings that inhabited each universe.

There was another motivation, linked to all previous ones, raised from that meeting too: Our Great Ones ancestors knew about this inter-universe travelling. There could be a chance that they contacted other beings that in turn could help us to gain more knowledge about our past and ourselves. Who knows ... we might even find a Great Ones colony out there! That is highly unrealistic, I accept it. But there still is a remote chance that these last two things could really happen!

I discussed this 'motivation' list with Kia. She agreed up into different degrees over each one of them. We ended up deciding to go on with our new plan. The first phase of it included the launching of several probes into different universes. Secondly, we instructed our headquarters to send us an equal number of exploration ships, modified for random universe jumping, just as our own ship. They would take at least a week to arrive into our actual location, but it was fine ... It was almost the same projected time for our probes to return with usable information from each scanned universe.










CHAPTER 9: The Void

















The full set of scout ships was already gathered around our own ship and was ready to deploy into their assigned universes.

The probes, once back, got their data transferred into Eishell's memory bank and then sent back again into a new set of universes. We decided to take an added precaution, introducing -yet- another modification to our plan: The arrival and departure co-ordinates were set into this actual universe, just in case that something or someone with enough technical knowledge decided to follow back the probe into us. We didn't want to jeopardise the peace and safety of our own universe! So, our actual co-ordinates in this foreign one should do as our headquarters for this mission.

After some further analysing of our plans, we also decided that each probe would return to it's designated universe after downloading all the pertinent data into Eishell's banks and stay in there as a data collector and beacon for any future race that could eventually discover it. This meant two things: The first was that we needed to elaborate each probe's design into something more sophisticated, like including a subset of the artificial intelligence of Eishell coupled with an almost infinite power source. This was not really complicated. The second thing was that now we needed a really big number of probes! We dedicated into such tasks with renowned efforts. All our android sons where quite enthusiastic about this new exploration quest, and happily dedicated all their resources into it's accomplishment.

There was just one problem. All the probes kept coming back but one. This went unnoticed at first. Eishell decided then to send another one -not even bothering us with this issue- after a few weeks of working out the rest of the probe traffic. The second one didn't come back either. The fact that this was the only case of failure was quite remarkable now. This time, our computer addressed us with all the facts regarding it.

We realised that the assigned universe for this probe was the correspondent to the zero number in the -classic by now- analogy of the numeric ruler. The mean latitude, the frontier between positive and negative universes just earned some good new points over its mystic side.

As soon as Kia and I returned from the exploration of our most recent assigned universe -we worked just as another team, together with the rest of the androids-, we decided to dedicate ourselves into the solving of this unique case. We started by sending the good old sequence of probes -just as we did in the first case- programmed to automatically return at fixed intervals. Again, all of them but the last one came back. The data that they collected was surprisingly straightforward: the dimensional co-ordinates in this new universe were totally off scale. This remained to be seen yet in any of the other scanned universes.

The last probe could never ever get back under those circumstances. The on-board probe's computer was left without any valid dimensional reference -all the measure units became meaningless in there- and it was left freezed in its position, as a result. They were surely floating just in the place they emerged into that new space. The artificial intelligence unit that comprised the probe's on board computer was particularly biased into diplomatic relationships, but not on solving eventual topological-like problems. That kind of dilemmas required the full computing power of Eishell itself. And even our computer took it's time on getting suitable results for them.

"Now this one wins our first price in physical laws weirdness! Obviously, the solution is quite weird too: We must generate a local dimensional co-ordinates system that surrounds the probe -or, eventually our own spaceship- in order to be able to manoeuvre in there -even to place ourselves in condition to jump back in here again-. This means yet another redesign of the vessel's navigational systems. I need at least forty-eight more hours! Shall I proceed?" Eishell asked us.

"As soon as possible. You first test your idea with a modified probe, and then -when the results satisfy you- we will continue with our ship." I answered to the computer.

Kia silently nodded. At least that was what Eishell perceived. We did not use the wrist controllers anymore. Now we were able to communicate between ourselves ... and even Eishell, with our sole mind power. Our controllers once exclusively did accomplish such a task, but now we had a total control over the data which flowed between our computer and us. We could -Kia and I- privately mind chat now, without it ever noticing it. This was one of the gifts we already mastered by now. We were working on a couple more of tricks that still needed a lot more deal of investigation and practice.

Most notably, we discovered that we could materialise objects at our will -just as Eishell did- by reconfiguring the raw matter located around us into the atomic configuration of our desired object. This was quite handy too! No more machinery needed but our only will!




---x---



Eishell sent the test probe, after investing a couple of hours on re-designing it. No big deal: It came back as programmed.

The information that brought with it was quite incredible: it stated that space was filled with a perfectly breathable atmosphere in that universe. That plainly was impossible. We were certain that the jumping end on that side corresponded to outer space. No planets could be near there! This is a necessary part of the theory used in the equation that Eishell devised for the random jumping. And it did work, as the probe went into there and then came back! We were really curious about this and anxious on taking a look by ourselves.

Some more hours passed away, while our computer redesigned our own spaceship -as requested-. Eishell announced to us that everything was set to go. The ship was equipped now with the local-dimensional-co-ordinates generator we needed to maintain the coherence of the spatial units that would surround the ship. We jumped into our pilot seats.

"On my count, Eishell. Three, two, one ... Engage now!" I directed it. No shaking at this time. That new generator provided the necessary stability around the ship. It was as if our vessel floated inside some kind of fluid, which absorbed every turbulence around it, Eishell explained us.

We arrived into our destination, only a minute later. Eishell turned opaque every cockpit window, as a really white light started to pour inside our ship. I started to worry for real, again. Seconds passed, but the computer kept silent. No report. No comments ... nothing.

"Eishell ... could you tell us what's going on outside?" I commanded it.

"I ... I don't know. You will not accept it anyway. I ... I would prefer to leave the windows opaque for now ... for your own mental sanity." The computer answered.

It has gone nuts! It was even babbling.

"You let us see through the windows right now, Eishell" I commanded now.

The windows started to show a progressive degree of translucency.

White light.

It came from a gigantic soft-light spot. We were located -scales gone crazy- inside of what appeared to be a child's room from a typical home back in earth. Judging by the size of the furniture, we were microscopically sized in here.

"What the..." Kia started to say but then decided to keep silent. We both kept our mouths muted for several seconds now. I was busy, anyway, checking the different lectures which kept showing up in both my direct link -tons of questions flowed back and forth between Eishell and me- and the instruments in the different cockpit panels. All of it was useless but to confirm that the local co-ordinates generator system was holding on. We could move around ... and hopefully enough go back to our previous universe. Not that we would do such a thing right now! I wanted to explore a bit around now!

I stared into the bedroom view out of the ship's window, noticing the presence of a book, placed over a table in one corner of it. This was too weird. I immediately started to think about all this business. It could be the make up of somebody or something, rather than the real zero-universe.

"Okay, Eishell ... It's not that bad! At least we are still holding together in one piece! Now, could you manoeuvre the ship in order to position us near that table, right over the book placed there?" I asked it.

The ship flew up to that point. Our instruments indicated a path of almost half-light years covered in such a task. Scale was out of frame, definitely.

Surprise. The title was in plain common English. A kid's classical tale.

"I just don't get it!" Kia managed to say.

"Now, Eishell, let's move up to that window. Try to find a way to get out of this building. I want to see the sky!" I commanded.

"I'll do my best, Matt" Eishell answered, while moving the ship again, directly into the window's frame. We were small enough to pass through the edge of it.

"By the way, this window framing is furbished in plain, common wood, according to my sensors." the computer added.

I nodded. "Once out, let's analyse the star field up in the sky. I want you to determine this planet co-ordinates. Start to cross-check it with the most obvious choice: Earth's own sky" I said. Kia opened her eyes wide big. I grinned.

"Calm down. It's the obvious answer. All this is just too familiar ... I can't think of anything else!" I mentally said. We were outside the house now. The view was that of a normal residential neighbourhood. The night sky was empty of clouds, so the computer was able of scan it very easily. But that was not even necessary. I recognised that stars configuration with a simple glance.

"You are right Matt. We are back on Earth! We are located in a small town, over the equator line. I got the pinpoint accurate co-ordinates." Eishell informed us.

"Let's leave behind us some kind of mark in the outer wall of the building. Then we shall go back. We need to think about this once there... A lot!" I said.

I moved the ship into one side of the room's window. It was part of a typical house, small and humble but nicely worked out. I proceeded to arm a suitable weapon for this task, firing it against the wall. A small bunch of it exploded leaving a hole of about one square centimetre, measured in this world's co-ordinates. That would be enough. I wanted to verify our presence in here, once back in our own scale's Earth.

"Okay, Eishell ... it's all yours now. Send us back into our known domains." I said.

"No ... not yet ... wait please" A strange voice said. Kia produced some kind of soft screaming. What was that, for God?s sake ?

The voice was mentally heard, and it was not coming from Eishell...

"Don't be afraid. We want you to carefully listen us. You just be kind enough and don't transpose the gate to this universe again ... at least until we say you to do so." the voice said again.

"But ...who are you?" I managed to say.

"We are the ancient architects that built this universes complex, including it's original live content...? the voice said, introducing a small pause, after producing something which resembled a soft laugh, and then continued ?Content which became too smart!"

My mouth was wide open now. To say that this caught me in surprise was quite an understatement. Another God, father, or whatever ?

"Don't worry, we are pleased with this behaviour. It's only that you are not designed to enter in here and we don't want you to be harmed! Just keep out of this place." the voice ended up saying.

I was speechless. Not that I had the chance of doing any more questions. The voice was gone. We could feel that. I stared at Kia, which in turn stared at me. Her mouth was wide opened too, which reminded me of closing mine.

She did the same.

"We've reached as far as we will ever can, I'm afraid. This last thing was brilliant, anyway!" I said, as a loud thought. Kia was thinking the same. She nodded. We silently stood in there for several seconds, immersed in our own thoughts. Finally, I made up my mind:

"Eishell, please take us back into our domain. Let's jump directly into the Solar system" I concluded.

We ended up safely orbiting around the earth, a couple of minutes later, this time on the correct dimensional scale -for my secret relief-. This was a particular emotive view, due to all the time period we've been away, but particularly after our last touchy situation, which was not yet over: Another surprise was still waiting for us.

Two foreign objects were resting over the ship's backroom table. Eishell just found them while performing one of its continuous, cyclic scans over the entire structure of our vessel. They were furbished from an unknown metal, which made them more than evident for our computer scan. We were about to tele-transport ourselves down to earth when we were alerted about this.

Some seconds later we were closely inspecting what appeared to be two rings, obviously placed there by the unknown entity that addressed us in this last universe. Eishell was impressed on the fact that it didn't detect the moment in which those objects were deposited inside it's domain. That was another reason to seriously consider the voice?s warning. It was theoretically impossible to perform such a trick under Eishell?s vigilant eyes. Interesting.

I grabbed both rings with my hands, taking a very close inspection on them. Under normal sight, they could be confused with a pair of classic alliance rings, furbished in a plain, gold-like metal. I turned them around, carefully watching over their inner sides. They carried no visible inscription at all.

"It looks and feels like gold, but it isn't. Not to mention that I don't register that metal under the extensive element table I got. It is totally safe to wear them, anyway, as it?s molecular structure is one hundred percent neutral. On the other side, I think that -being an unknown material for us and all the civilisations known by us- those rings could be easily used to pinpoint their owners location, given a powerful enough scanning system. This might be one of the main reasons for this unexpected gift." The computer analysed.

I thought about it. Eishell was right, but I still couldn't find any reason for not wearing them. If those beings wanted to easily locate us, we would better satisfy them ... besides the cool fact that any gift from such a powerful mind was quite an honour. I decided to take those rings down to the earth with me. We could use them.

I was in the search of something like this, actually. The act of placing those rings on us demanded the crafting of a special moment, kind of a small private ceremony. I loved that idea. I could only expect that Kia would love it too.

"Eishell: Please arrange our tele-transportation back to earth. We want to visit the house that we marked away while in that zero universe. Place us near it." I asked the computer. Time to search for the mark we left in the house?s wall. I was pretty sure that we would find it right there.

We materialised ourselves just a few meters away from the building itself, right over the equator line. We walked up to the wall in question, and the small hole was blatantly noticeable...

"So, we have been in here for real!" Kia loudly commented. I nodded at her. We could not -by means of either our technological gadgets or our mental powers- achieve the kind of space-time distortion that this being effortlessly did on us. My skin got chicken-like by only thinking of this.

"Let's get out of here, Kia. We need to digest our last hours adventure."

We finally materialised into one of our houses, directly into it's bedroom. We really needed to rest, and the idea of a big, normal bed was almost unbelievable for us by now. No talking made once we were lying flat over the bed. Kia was asleep almost instantly. I followed her right away.


---x---


I woke up, several hours later. I got something going round and round inside my mind.

Kia was still sleeping. Good for her, she deserved it.

I didn't feel like I could get back into my own dreams ... not that they weren't pleasant enough ...they where about Kia and me! That was nice by itself, yes. But It also made me drive almost crazy.

I turned over the bed, rolling into her side, while staring at her. Even at my actual sleepiness level, I couldn't help not to think about our future ... and I was really scared on what she could actually think of our relationship.

Over these last weeks, I gradually discovered that Kia has turned into the most important person in my life. The sole goal of making her happy, loved and comfortable filled my will of settling down over this -or any- material world. I wondered up to what extent did she feel the same for me ... and I had yet to find enough courage to ask her about this.

So, things turn out like I am a coward now!, I thought. I wouldn't stand it if she answers me with a not-so-deep-commitment. I really got to solve this.

I silently slipped out of bed, walking over the room, grabbing those gifted rings with me. Then, I sneaked out of there.

That gift both amazed and scared me. But now, I hoped they would inspire me. I mentally addressed the computer to fix me breakfast, while going downstairs.

Another thinking beam interrupted my petition. It was Kia, which awakened just after I walked out of the room.

These new mind-powered abilities included a very delicate sense in regard of our proximity, whenever we didn't shield it away! And I just forgot to do so. We agreed that we would maintain our shielding to a minimum between us both, so I wasn't used to shield myself off it. I regretted this now, as I ended up waking her up and -most probably- worrying her about my early leaving from the bed.

"Eishell ... you better prepare two breakfasts, okay? ... Good morning, Matt! " Kia addressed both the computer and me. I was right. She was certainly worried. I could easily tell this by peeking into her.

"Sorry, Kia ... I forgot about not making -hmm... mental- noise. I ended up awaking you! Feel free to continue with your sleeping, dear: No need to follow my craziness over such an early hour!" I answered her, leaving Eishell out of the conversation -of course-.

"Don't need to worry about me. Besides, I wouldn't stand to be the only one left sleeping around the house. I will follow you into the kitchen in the next minute or so." She mentally said back.

Perhaps it was time to clarify our future for once. I decided while entering the kitchen room. I was welcome by two Eileen androids, busily working out our request.

"Breakfast will be ready in a couple of minutes, Matt" one of them said, while placing several delicious-looking stuff over the table. I sat down in front of it while my fingers absently played with those alien rings.

Kia came down a couple of minutes later, rushing, as usual, into the kitchen.

"Hi, people! I hope that breakfast is ready! Hi Matt! ..." She loudly said. And walked directly into my side. I earned a kiss. This was not -that- recomforting, given my actual worries. On the contrary, it made me grow more confused.

She almost whispered to me then: "What?s going on? You look like if a train rolled over you just some seconds ago! ... Tell me, my love, if I can be of any help at all..." and sat in the chair near me while grabbing two bread slices.

"Oh well... truth is that I've been thinking on you quite often, lately. " I managed to whisper back.

She stopped making her sandwich, looking at me with a really worried expression. "How can I be the cause of your actual unhappiness?" She managed to say with a trembling voice.

"It is not you, but me..." I hesitated for a moment, but then I continued, deciding to go for it and solve things out for good or bad.

"I really love you! I would like to live the rest of my life with this feeling. Problem arises when I don't know what is your mind on this matter! I suspect that you are taking this relationship more on the side of a brothership ... I didn't want to disturb you with my position over this topic. Not until our work was definitely over. Now we are back on earth, and everything points out that our big exploration days are over. We are idle again, ... and this topic moved into my foreground now, filling my mind in this last hours." I muttered.

I was going to add "... and I fear about you choosing to live your own life away from me", but that would have been totally unfair.

She had that choice, naturally, and I was meant not to interfere with her or anybody else's choice.

"Oh no! You should have freely spoken about this before! I am in love with you too! I assumed that this was pretty clear between us! ... I never thought that you could misinterpret my actions and feelings in such a way." She paused for a moment, grabbing my hand. She continued then:

" It is not your only fault then: It's both! Worsen by the fact that we got several non-conventional tools and ways to communicate between us, which we obviously didn?t use. We have been pretty dumb on solving this basic and simple thing! ... But this is being fixed right now, so cheer up!" she ended, grinning.

I felt like an idiot. Childish of me! Things were totally different to what I thought. I looked into my right hand, noticing both rings, patiently waiting in there. This could be the right moment to start using them.

"I got these rings in here ... Let's use them under the usual meaning among earth's natives." I managed to say.

"Okay with me, dear..." she answered with a very sweet voice.

I extended my open hand containing one of the alien rings while I fetched for her right hand with the other one.

I proceeded to place the ring on her. She, in turn, grabbed the other ring and performed the same action over me. I could easily detect a couple of tears coming out of her eyes. This is one of the most perfect moments in my entire life ... even if I had most of them erased from my memory, I still could sense that this was that kind of moments that one could be grateful forever.

So, This ended up being a pretty emotive breakfast ...including this spontaneous ceremony... Not exactly what I had planned in the first place, but effective as the best!














CHAPTER 10: The End of our Story














We finally decided to take some permanent vacations together -yet again- only that this time we -obviously- opted for no memory erasing. Our memories were pleasant enough, we decided.

"We got about forty years left to do whatever we want to ... let's start with our new life in this very same day! So, what do you want to do?" I asked Kia.

My last statement and subsequent question were based on the fact that -since we didn't use our wrist controllers any more- we invariably started to age again. There was no mind control over such a complex process? but don't get confused: we were not complaining about this. On the contrary, both of us preferred it in such a way. It was time to return into a normal and natural life.

On the other hand, our minds carried the ageing of almost a thousand years of hard working. It was of prime importance -after some hours of planning our future- for us to stop the -once necessary- abuse over it and allow our entire organic system to normally react to time.

Just as a precaution, we stored our wrist controllers in a safe place, but only for that, just in case. There was always the chance of an eventual need to shield -or more accurately put- enhance ourselves again with that gadget, given a new and unexpected threat which could endanger us, the earth or the federation. We didn?t want that either. Enough emotions for several lifetimes passed through us.

Next, we instructed Eishell to issue a message to everyone on the net, stating that we were officially retired from our duties with the earth and/or alien government. Our computer could guard and assist them, from now on.




---x---




Time passed by in the correct co-ordinates framing. This felt different, and definitely better. I was very glad about how things turned out to end.

Years passed in a full-of-perfect-content succession of days. Now we've been gifted with the presence of two children: a son and a daughter, which carried the same mental gifts as us. Things wouldn't stop there! ... We planned to have several more!

No regrets on each and all of our decisions up so far. We also had a couple more of interesting surprises awaiting us, being the most worthy one the release to the public of a video stream regarding our early work with the Alien Federation, including the moment in which I introduced Kia to that committee, the day before to signing the historical treaty.

It proved to be quite fun: Earth governments dedicated several instances to honour us, given that the world population was aware now about us. So, That part of the story was unveiled then, and I really wondered up to what extent was Eishell guilty of causing it, even while it denied every bit of such an action. The governments used the up to now hidden information to silently get all the credits into this whole Alien Federation negotiation. It was fun enough to see them in the obligation of recognising that the actual directors of such a transcendental event were two private -unknown- and apolitical humans.

Needless to say that we used Eishell's genetic and technological magic to change our faces just enough to not be recognised. This was urgently accomplished after a visit to a nearby town in one of our enjoyable car driving, with the aim of having a normal -earthlike- lunch. We were not aware on the release of such a documental video yet, so we got really alarmed when all the people started to gather around, effusively saluting us. Things went progressively dangerous, and we ended up running away from there.

Once back in the car, Eishell apologised. It had forgotten to tell it to us!

We also got to move into another house. This one was located over the Australian continent. It was built in the middle of a dessert place, with no neighbours at sight, and just a couple of meters away from the shore. It was decorated with a beautifully crafted park at it's front, while the backside was favoured with the access to the beach. The always-omnipresent Eishell carefully watched the entire perimeter.

We were not that far from civilisation either. A rather big city was only twenty miles away from us. But distances were still relative for us. We could always ask Eishell for a tele-transportation service to whatever place in the world we wanted to go. Straightforward and simple enough, something that we occasionally did.







---x---




In order to maintain our minds busy, we started several businesses around the world. No money problem ... only for the fun of it. The most successfully one was the medical unit, based in Eishell's ability to scan a human body and perform all the necessary modifications over the digital copy of it. It replaced then the original parts with the modified ones. This technology was really helpful in the solar system's colonisation, now that the earth shared all kind of technology with the Alien Federation. Earth's natives started to populate Mars, along with practically each suitable moon around every planet in the neighbourhood.

This equipment was also capable to find and enumerate not only the actual, but also almost all of the future illness that the individual had on him, and fix all of them.

After all this tasks were accomplished, the computer used a similar trick to the tele-transporting process, but instead of materialising the same body that Eishell used to scan, it inserted the new one instead, containing the patient's fixed data. This kind of devices was really necessary to survive in the deep-space age that the terrestrials were diving into, with astonishing speed.

Our medical -artificial intelligence commanded (guess who was behind of that)- unit was placed along all spaceships and bases, not to count the several units sold over the earth itself. It virtually eliminated every kind of illness and/or conventional surgical intervention! So ... our most active, mature years of life were mainly enjoyed with this tools and tasks, among others ... Again: it was really fun!


Kia and I had our fighting days too. But ... everything was promptly solved. We matched really well, and our sons helped a lot too!



---xxx---




Time passed by and we are happily old now. Our normal life is obviously and naturally reaching into an end.

No regrets at all.

Anyone which could eventually peek at us would be extremely puzzled by our silence. We don't need to talk between us. At least not in spoken words, as we ended up doing all our chat by mind speaking. This was by far more convenient than normal talking, particularly with all our sons -five of them at the end- sharing the very same mind gifts with us. But now, our children were all gone, irremediably immersed in their own lives.

These arrows of us did follow similar paths to our very own ones, I should add.

They took care of everything left over by us. They fully enjoy being at the very same risks that we once did too. As a result, they spread out into different tasks, covering a wide spectrum, ranging from universe exploration, all the way down to political and executive charges in the -now stronger than ever- Alien Federation. Consequently, they had little time to physically visit us, but, due to our shared mind abilities, we kept always in touch. Well, -almost- always: They too shielded themselves away from time to time.

For our other sons, the androids... Ironically enough, they are always the same, just like brand new. Obviously, they don?t suffer from growing older ... not under their actual design! But Eishell already mentioned to us the possibility to include ageing functions inside the new ones. That might prove interesting! Then they would start visiting a shrink at any time too!

They were a very strong community by now. They ended up colonising an entire planet -it was rather inhospit, but they eventually managed to do a pretty good work over it- and finally they were recognised by the Alien Federation as another race. Eishell's main memory banks were moved up into there, but they left a link -with an autonomous Artificial Intelligence module- inside each one of our houses, just as I planned from the beginning.

Needless to say that we were honoured in their planet just in the same way as in the earth. They also kept visiting us... this being a strange concept, coming from them, due to the fact that they still lived under a data network all together, including Eishell and the couple of Eileen androids that stayed permanently with us. Anyway, several times per year, a spaceship landed at the side of the house, carrying a small committee of androids and bringing some interesting -and usually funny- anecdotes from our bloodline sons. If we got lucky enough, even one of them could be physically included in the group!

For the androids that permanently stayed with us: We got pretty much to thank them, particularly over these last years. They helped us a lot with the house.

But now, there was not that much to be done. Again, we were aware that our lives were merging into an end. Not that we didn't want that! ... I mean, we were no afraid by this natural fact of life.

This particular morning, we were comfortably installed over our big, cool couches in the outside of our house. That was only accomplished with the help of the androids, as we could barely walk by ourselves. Our physical age was around a hundred years old by now. Thankfully enough, our mind was still as clear as our early days, and our mind-gifts were almost as powerful too.

Then, something incredible happened. And that -being said by us- earned every bit of such a label.

We realised that two persons were approximating us, slowly walking through the house's park. I asked Eishell about which ones of our sons were them, due to the fact that it would not allow to enter the house's park perimeter to anyone else but any of our sons. Not without asking first!

Most surprisingly, Eishell answered: "No sons of yours ... and I've been asked to be silent from now on ... There are a lot of things I would anyway like to say to both of you. Right now, I will hold to my silence. Don't worry about them ... you will understand everything in the next couple of seconds"

I turned my attention back into them. No mind scanning was possible on those both persons!. Once consulted, Kia had the same problem. They both were shielded against such an action. No other known being -but our sons and us- got that ability.

Then, I recognised one of them.

It was that old man ... the one that was part of the genetic designers civilisation responsible of the life of all creatures in this particular universe. The other man was far older than he was -he was just like us- but had no apparent physical wearing because of his age.

Both carried a wide smile on them.

They finally reached at our side, and we noticed something strange on them: They portrayed some kind of distortion halo around their bodies. I couldn't remember such an effect the last time I saw him.

"Hi, my dear sons! This is a family meeting!. Grandfather, " -he signalled the older man - "father and sons together. ? a small pause was introduced by him, then continued: ?We came to carry you at our side." he announced in mind-talk mode.

The older guy mind-talked then: "Thanks for using the rings I gifted you both. I am pleased to see you got my message and lived together after that last incident. You were right at that time: we used those rings to easily pinpoint you both... not that we got other meanings of finding you over the entire set of universes ... but those two pieces of metal kept things on the plain and easy side!"

"You ... came ... to carry us at your side? Is this what I am thinking about?" I managed to ask them.

Our father, the old man, answered: "Not quite. This universe set was created for us. Normal physical death means only a small step in our soul training. Usually, each soul ends up emerging in some other place -either in the same universe or not- as a new being or -in the worst case- converted into raw energy. This ends up being used by other souls, in turn. But not us ... we've discovered something which earned us a highly concept on our grandfathers." He paused, glancing at the older man, which looked down, kind of honouring our father's words. Then he continued:

"We -our souls- were able to reach places not meant to be found; accomplishing tasks of such a magnitude that are totally out of frame for normal beings. You both particularly excelled on finding -what you named- the zero universe. What you really discovered is the gate to a place out of your wildest imagination efforts! Surprise is that we all are just about to go in there." Another pause was made, this time to watch our reactions. He already said it: surprise. He continued, smilling:

"For any practical concept, your bodies will be dead a couple of minutes from now. Our own ones already are. That is the cause of the halo that involves us ... this is only a projection of what once was our physical body."

Our grandfather spoke then: "Before starting this new journey, I am willing to fulfil a promise: Your computer wants to say good bye to both of you... So we better give it the chance. You may speak now, Eishell"

After some seconds of silence -that was quite uncommon, coming from it, the computer spoke, visibly emotional:

"You both ... you have been my brothers ... and my fathers ... all at once." and then stopped, kind of gaining strength to go on with it?s talking.

Then, it continued: " All of us, all your sons are quite aware of what is going on. They wave you from their different co-ordinates, aware that they won't be able to come in here before you are gone." Time for another pause, as Kia started to silently cry. I hugged her, with renowned strength -one of the last bits of physical power that I would spend in this material world-.

Eishell continued then: "Mixed emotions fill up our minds. But the ones of joy and cheeriness prevail among the rest. We can only hope that this is nothing more than a momentary good bye. We will all meet again in some better place. Yet again, you are going like first time explorers, in a journey that was wisely postponed by your own fathers, on that zero-universe incident. I don't know if you ever realised the correct meaning of that whole play, but that was my interpretation of it." Another emotionally induced pause was introduced.

A couple of seconds later, it continued: "Those rings, and the denial of getting inside that universe meant just that. Now, you are ready to enter it for real ... and through the front door. Enjoy it! We will think on you both for the rest of our functional, material lives. And once we are finished too, we will seek you -if we are allowed in such a place- ... So ? Good bye Captains! If you can communicate with us from there, please do it!" it ended, with something that appeared to be an electronic chuckle in it's voice.

Both our father and grandfather were grinning too. Eishell's got a real soul "You will meet us again, Eishell. Be sure on that" our father added, but Kia and I were silently crying now.




So ... this is it.

A couple of seconds later, the house, park and sky exploded in a myriad of particles.




The End



Started: 01/01/98
End: 26/4/1999
Last Revision: 5/10/1999

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