Search Results for 'arrived'

“Who ratted me out, obviously”.
Godfrey said finishing a mouthful of peanuts from the smallish bag the air attendant had just given to them.
“So, what’s the next destination now? not home surely?” “By the way, this nice Australian family will rue the day they met you. You managed to make their only paying guest flee as soon as you arrived with that bawling baby of yours.”

Maya was overlooking the crops when her son arrived.

“The kales are adapting well to the soil. I didn’t expect them to arrive so fast.”
“I wonder what they’ll taste like, they seem to have that unusual purplish tinge to them, nothing like those in hydroponics…”
“The water we extracted from those rocks seems to contain a very interesting blend of minerals, could be that… we know so little about this place. All of this, these changes, it’s very exciting, to think of the prospect…”

John hugged his mother.

“I came to ask you if you would join the welcome party tonight?”
“I thought it wouldn’t be before another day?”
“The ship apparently had some trouble and felt it would be safer to land their cargo one day ahead of schedule.”
“Really? That’s so unlike them, to be in advance… Well, as you know, my social agenda isn’t too busy, so I guess yes, I’ll join. If only to see what this new batch looks like. We have to give a nice impression if we want to get more of them to stay as settlers. The machines are helping fine, but it’s not enough.”
“We’ll see, last I heard, there are about 10 miners and about the same of religious nutters. The miners are there on a contract, but some usually take well to here and chose to stay. We’ll see…”
“What about the upgrades they promised?”
“Yeah, they talked about that too, saying they had to fix some bugs before downloading the new AI. They’ll leave some of the cybernetic bodies here too, see if they can support the stress. I’ll ask them to assign one here to help you with the plants.”
“That would be lovely, thanks Johnny.”

Commercial Spaceline MX757#33, Mars orbit

Finnley, the board computer of the mothership had started to wake up the suspended animated bodies in preparation for the landing as per its usual instructions.
The craft had arrived in vicinity of the planet just a day ago (counted in SET, or Standard Earth Time), and was in stationary orbit over the main settlement and de facto capital of Mars.
Smaller pods would be flown from there to land the various cargo and the travelling guests, as soon as they would have had time to acclimate.

Everyone was becoming quite excited, and hungry as well, once the initial shock was passed. Finnley’s synthetic voice was as smooth and silky as the modelled butt of her twenty one robotic bodies.

All of her guests were accounted for. A large number of them were sent by a rich Covenant of Holy Elietics, which hoped to enlighten the natives.
A second group was sent by a mining corporation for prospecting purposes.
Finally, travelling in the economy section were a pair of winners from a worldwide raffle that sent people to a promised new life. It was believed to be largely a scam, but the one-trip tickets were valid. That was the only thing that was provided to the winners, the rest was up to them.

Finnley had been craftily programmed to display a wide range of human emotions, although she didn’t really feel them as human did. If that were the case, she would have logged in her journal her feeling to be in a great hurry to get rid of all the now terribly noisy humanity in her ship.

The answer came to Sadie very easily. “Easy. The invisibility just wears off”.

Before Sadie left to prepare dinner at her place, where she’d invited the three queens, she had told them simply “I bet you didn’t bother to check that this Anna Purrna of yours is actually sent by the network management. I’d suggest you do.”

When the Queens arrived ready to bust Anna out of the Bar, she’d already disappeared with all her stuff, like an evil Mary Popout. Why hadn’t they thought of checking her credentials in the first place, so taken by her semblance of authority.

“Let’s get ready for the dinner, it’s time to get some proper attire and get pampered.”
All three of them agreed heartily.

Linda Pol was about to come to hands with Anna Purrna, when both their e-zapper buzzed at the same time. They looked at each other in defiance, then both devices buzzed again.
They checked their messages. The first one read: Let her go. The Management

Second one read: Leave the place. Your reward awaits at the drop-off point. The Management

When Anna Purrna arrived at the drop-off, she opened her box to find some sort of beauty cream packaged neatly. It smelled musky and sweet, eartly and seaweedy at the same time and got her confused so she read the instruction:

Courtesy of the Management: *Regruwenator Cream®™* Apply liberally.

Linda Pol was perplexed at the reward. An open round-trip ticket to Wherever. A vacation, without a catch this time?…

When Linda Pol arrived to the Time Seam Bar, it was St Germain’s time, and everyone in the bar was captivated by the show with the fat pole dancers, and the mesmerizing stroboscopic lights.

She yelled at the bar tender “where’s the management? I mean, the regent queens?”

Someone she hadn’t noticed yet seated next to her turned slowly and gave her a mean look. “What do you want with the management. I am the management here.”

“Dear God, Anna Purrna, you look like shit.”

Sadie had almost arrived at the Time Seam Bar when the ezapper buzzed with a note from Dr Doyle.

It was a wild impulse that Sadie had followed asking help from the strange woman, as despite all her quirks, she had an impressive curriculum, and was known as a leading authority in her field. If anybody could help her with her invisibility condition, she had to be the closest choice.

The message was longwinded, so she asked the ezapper to clarify. I was a tricky thing to do, as the device had the tendency to disappear with her touch, so she mostly had to rely on voice only.

summarized message from Dr Doyle at 9:44 PM said the disincarnate voice in the night

It is a long shot but I would surmise your condition is aggravated by a deficiency of fluorine. Knowing your aversion for incorporating the substance in your system, a safe approach would be to put yourself in contact with some crystals of fluorite, sincerely. Choanna

It seemed harmless enough thought Sadie. What worse could happen, getting fluorescent in the night would surely be an improvement.

Linda was mildly flattered by Sadie’s persistence to call her for help.

Sadie, you little demanding poppet, you remind me of a young Linda Pol she’d thought affectionately. Anyway, after all the excitement at the Merry Otter, returning to the usual boring program wasn’t looking like too much fun, and she wasn’t one to ignore the plea of a damsel in distress.

“Bugger that Sir Ed, tell the Network I’m extending my leave for a few days.”
On a second thought, she said “Tell them I’m sick, and if HR sends any comments, post them a picture of moi without make-up, that should get them scared enough to give me a full week to recover.”

With that, she went off to Sadie’s apartment, thanks to the information kindly provided by the unfailing ezapper.

It was already night when she arrived, and a light moisture was hanging in the air, gently cooling the summer heat.

“What? She’s left?” Linda had to roll her eyes to the news that the robotler gave her “Not even a word for me?” She bit her lip.

The P’hope could be seen everywhere: leading the Builders to work double shifts to strengthen the collapsing structures of the flying City, exhorting the Magi to contain the failing beliefs of people back to virtuous resilience by ways of special masses held throughout Karmalott, and ensuring with the Sentries that all tremors of civil unrest was properly contained and the ring leaders properly admonished into good conduct.

The situation at the secret political prison known as Gazalbion was alarming. With most of the dangerous interlopers free to roam Abalone, and no walls to contain new prisoners, it could take a while to rebuild its walls, and the P’hope didn’t have the luxury of time on his side. It meant that no civil and belief dissidents could be brought there at the moment, and any spark of disobedience could spread like wildfire.

The P’hope dreaded what could happen if, despite all the efforts, the beanstalk was beyond repair. He knew his faltering belief in it could only hasten its fate, but even so, he wanted to be ready for the worst.
Considering the limited amount of rescue storks which were available off the walls of the city, it was likely that the result would be of apocalyptic proportion. Nevertheless, he refused to consider evacuating for the moment, even knowing it would take days for those on foot to climb down the bean’s tendrils.
Especially, as he was now in the perfect position to be the hero of the day.

…

He had been robbed of his share of light many, many years ago.
At the time, a young boy had arrived from the sea and from an outside world to Abalone. Jube, who was not yet the P’hope, was a striving leader of a group of survivors of the island. The bog’s dangerous and foggy emanations and its wild life were a threat of all instants, and he had soon realized there was strength in numbers. Many lost souls had gathered, but didn’t have the strength on their own to remain focused on a reality they wanted, a dream made reality.

He, Jube the Brave, had such strength in himself. But even so, they were only less than a few dozens of men and women in the camp, and the reach of what they could create was only good enough to sustain them for short periods of time.

But the boy named George had arrived from afar, and things had changed gradually. Jube had found out pretty quickly that the boy had the great potential to bring people together, and hold their beliefs like a mighty rope made of the thinnest of strands of hair. So he had offered to mentor him, while at the same time working his words into suggestions, and shaping the boy’s future to fit his own dreams.

That’s how the beanstalk started. The first sprouts were so tiny and frail, but the more people came and believed in the leadership of the one who was to become their King, the more it grew, and lifted them above the clouds and the fog of their minds.
Years had passed, Prince George became King Artie as another suggestion of the P’hope which had the side-effect to cloak Artie from his memories. The P’hope grew in power, always in the shadows however.

For a while, people were happy. Truly happy. But progress was inevitable, consciousness had to move and grow, otherwise their dream of a City would have been another foggy and soul-numbing projection of their feeble minds.

The first real threat happened when Abalone, in one of its inexplicable changes of time and space, drew to them a stranger. True to their principles, they had welcomed her, nursed her, and given her a place of choice in the Magi’s ranks despite her young age. But she could see clearly between the cracks and the varnish of order. Worse, she could see the P’hope’s intentions were not so pure.

So it become soon apparent to Jube that the young Gwinie had to disappear, and her followers had to be contained. For the sake of the great Karmalott, and to shield everyone from the impending chaos, the same chaos they had came from victorious many years ago.

He and his minions had struck in a very swift and coordinated movement. Gwinie was tragically lost in the bog during her rite of passage. A truce was arranged with her followers, and they were allowed a concession, with enough resources to survive. They ultimately built Gazalbion, which also became, in a mutual arrangement, a political prison for Karmalott, unknown to virtually everyone in the City. The Processor, one of Gwinie’s former followers, was glad to receive prisoners who would add to the strength and mass beliefs of his encampment. The P’hope in return, was glad to be rid of difficult problems.

That was so long ago, but it rang like a warning from no further than yesterday.

They had never found out what the old temple’s ruins were for, or by which civilization before them they were built. They were as old as the island itself, and seemed to be doomed, full of an ominous power he couldn’t and feared to harness. If anything else failed, he would go back there. Maybe that was his only solution.

Cheung Lok heard the news of the Processor’s death along with the others.

He’d been parachuted on the island of Abalone some days ago, he started to lose count. Shortly after being dropped by the airplane, with a platoon of a few others that he had lost since, he started to hallucinate elephants falling from the sky, and had wondered for a brief time about the true nature of the island, and the peril he had more or so willingly thrown himself in.

He had not expected the fancy welcome committee. Some comely ladies in alluring flying gowns leading him towards a promise of a nearby city, only to find himself inside a barren walled city.
He would have escaped by now, but something in the newly arrived prisoners (or settlers as they were called) caught his attention, when they started to mention Sanso. He couldn’t actually believe his luck, which made them disappear for a while, then after he realized he had to be more of a believer, he found himself sent forward in the waiting line, just next to the others in the so-called waiting room. He’d learnt the woman was named Lisa, and countless other useless information about dog herding, hair conditioning and lazy bowel movement, but little more about Sanso.

Panic had started to spread among the small city, as huge boulders of earth started to fall from the skies and crack open on the soft land, toppling parts of the walls encircling Gazalbion. The news of the loss of the Processor led to even more confusion.

Cheung Lok decided it was time to pursue his mission, and extract the information the others had not yet given to him, by force if needed —he was a capable qigong master, who would crush nuts with his butt cheeks as a training, and that was the least of his deadly capacities.
But apparently, the woman named Lisa and her travelling companions had disappeared already.
In the midst of the confusion, it was hard to tell where they could have gone.

That’s when he was reminded of the shifting map, that the map dancer had drawn. He took it out of his front pocket, and unwrapped it cautiously.
The island’s lines were shifting even more erratically than before, but somehow there was a smaller concentration of activity at a location not far from where he guessed he was.
One of the rescued elephants would be good to ride out of this mess he thought, looking for the source of the trumpeting noises.

When Berberus arrived at Gazalbion, still wet from his swim down beanstalk through the City’s sewer waterslides, the Great Processor in person came to great him.

“Dear, dear, what have we here. That’s not so often the P’hope sends someone down here with us poor heathen… To what do we owe the pleasure?”

By the look of his office, the Processor was doing well. Small favours had earned him enough belief of his worth, and his office was full of amenities otherwise hard to come by and much more to sustain, down there.

“Would you share with me some hydromel, made from waterbee honey, you’re not mistaken. That should help you get more… comfortable.” He said his last word intently, giving a look at the hook-leg.

Berberus liked to have people guess at why he kept it so visible, while obviously he could have conjured enough belief to alter it himself. It gave him an edge over them. And the hook gave nasty scars too.

“Not drinking on duty.”
“Very well, suit yourself.” the Processor said drinking his voraciously.

“Any strange people coming lately? Out of the ordinary beliefs to contain?”
The other brushed off the question “No, not really… Now, about this promotion our dear friend the P’hope mentioned back in 2020, what do you think… Any chance to get out of this hellhole? Promised Land my butt. What do we get next? Flying whales?”
“You’re not. Answering. My. Question.” Berberus was already losing his patience and started to mentally conjure the many painful ways he could believe this talk would end.
“I have already answered it, and if you have nothing else to share with me, you might as well me back to your sad master.”

The Processor made a movement to get up from his chair, but a swift and precise swipe of the hook-leg anchored him back in it.

The other was looking at him with empty eyes, and the Processor’s mistake was to think he was an idiot that could be sent away easily.
He poured himself another drink, casually answering with a “We’re done. Get out.”

When Berberus got out, it was of his own volition, leaving a trail of blood up to the door.
He had managed to extract one word from the slob before his soul left his body: Sanso

If the sabulmantium was to be trusted, the beanstalk was a tangle of many paths, and the main and easiest accesses down its dangling twirly greenish tentacles were all outside of the city walls, in a zone where some lords managed to rule pockets of mass beliefs and a bunch of unattractive mongrel mobsters.

“Sounds potential adventure material” Mandrake had had the nerve to say when they’d packed.
“No it isn’t” Arona had said.
Then with more gusto “NO IT ISN’T” as though to convince all the sleepy tarts of the nymphouse below her rented room.

More doubts had sunken their claws in her tender heart, and a gulp of whatever astral cup didn’t seem in hindsight a worthy deal for all her troubles. Nonetheless, she was a woman of her word, which was probably why she wasn’t of many. Too much trouble being of all of them, whatever that meant.

“Honestly Mandrake, keeping you on track is worse than herding… dragons.”
She would have said sheep, but she wasn’t so rude yet. Mandrake could have taken that too badly, and he would again prove useful to distract the guards of the Southern Post. That’s where she decided to go, as with all the heat, it had to be the one less guarded.

Indeed, when she arrived, as planned, the gate was badly manned, and sleepy soldiers where reaching for the rare spots of shadow.
She decided to make a run for it. The soldiers didn’t look very fit. She started to go, thinking about zigzagging between the air bottles littering the plaza, when she felt a tug pulling her back by the cloak, almost sending her flying off her butt.

“FUCK!” she shouted as silently as she could. “You again! I thought I told you not to follow me! Mandrake, attack! Go for the balls!”

She was in a fury, but Mandrake licked his paw with a disgusted look on his face that meant “Hnhn, not going for that, sweetie. You’re on you own to herd that dragon, my lovely pooh.”

“Shhht!” the guy said with a bit smile.
“Don’t shush me, you… ninnyhammer!”
She didn’t know where the last word came from, but they sure felt good, although not quite rude enough.
“Oh, the lady is a pirate who knows her insults.” he answered with his cocky smile.
“Don’t mock me, you mooncalf”
“You were trying to sneak out, were you?”
“Why do you care, hobbledehoy?”
“The guards have aircon chain-mail and armours, see, look at those bottles on their backs… How could you beat them running with your heavy cloak?”
“Maybe Mr Snollygoster has a better suggestion?”
“Of course I have, if you care to follow me, Ms Mumpsimus.”

Arona was almost speechless. Not keen on following any stranger, she asked her guts, and they seemed to have a liking for the handsome fellow. It stirred old remembrance of going with the flow tactics, and when she did actually follow him, it had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that he and Mandrake were already ahead in one of the alleys.

“Oh, no, let him have the keys to some secret tunnel, I won’t go for another sewer escape!”
As if her guardien angel has heard her secret prayer, it happened that the stranger had some strange stone key in his bag, opening a secret wall entrance.

“Oh.” was all she conceded to the stranger.
Nonplussed he offered her his hand “George” he presented himself still with the same broad smile.
She took his hand haughtily, and entered the vaulted tunnel, not telling him yet her name, in case she felt like choosing a sexy and mysterious code name. She could trust no one…

“Traitor” she hissed at Mandrake who was purringly looking at the strangers’ boots.