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  • #3908
    F LoveF Love
    Participant

      “Oh haha I can’t keep up with myself!” laughed Finnley in a most uncharacteristic and slightly manic manner. After offering to explain once more, although nobody could remember what she was explaining, she retreated for a second time.

      #3907
      ÉricÉric
      Keymaster

        “By the way, concrete for body parts might not be the best material, you little deviant.” Finnley snickered rudely, reappearing for a second between the Japanese paper screens.

        #3904
        TracyTracy
        Participant

          Godfrey will deal with them, Finnley,” replied Liz. “Please don’t bother me when I’m up to my elbows in latex.”

          The new range of life sized Shift Leader Personalities was almost ready for the first pour. Sam had constructed an innovative vibrating table for Liz’s project, using household vibrating tools, and old tyre and a wide plank. She was truly grateful for the new apparatus to reduce the detrimental effect of individual bubbles appearing in the finished products. There was a time and place for bubbles, and concrete wasn’t one of them.

          “They want to see you, though,” said Finnley, returning after a short consultation with the guests.

          “Well show them in, then,” replied Liz, who had an idea brewing. “Maybe I can cast their body parts into something useful.”

          #3900

          Coriander was crying in the middle of hearty guffaws.

          Clove, stop it!”

          “I told you, nobody would suspect space pickles !”

          “Look at Dido! The way she starred at that fridge for hours!”

          “Ahahaha, stop it!”

          #3892

          In reply to: Mandala of Ascensions

          Domba didn’t know why he’d attract those strange beings of light who tried to cajole him into following their glib tongued advice.
          Domba was no fool, he’d learnt young that nobody gets interested in Domba unless someone wants to play tricks on him.
          His life was a prison, that much he knew. The light guys could well be the jailers themselves for all he knew. He didn’t care about that, or any of their business with power. Power of knowledge, for all the good it did, didn’t seem to have guided the human race to better ends. And compassion was for foolisher than himself.

          For now, he did have fun a little with the one who called herself Dispe, for her spirit seemed benign enough, a fountain of wonderment and joy in contrast with the way he’d learnt to see the world. He couldn’t really understand all about her wild rants, but if anything, he was curious about her views, and how she sustained them, like as a child, he was endlessly amazed at the resilience and resourcefulness of ants.

          Maybe she was a queen ant, and he was just that stupid worker she was having fun with.

          The wild nature overgrown in the miles of no-man’s land around his place had so much to teach. Persistance, endurance, and a boundless love of life itself. It was as though nature’s own rhythm was overlaid and hidden by the man-made time and routines. Whereas, if you were to look under, the slow stubborn and everlasting pace of nature’s growth was vibrating underneath, encouraging whoever willing to listen to slow down to its tune, and taste its encompassing love of life.
          He often wondered how long before men would come and try to pour concrete over the land, and raise scrapers of metal and blown-sand. His only solace was to think that in his madness, man couldn’t completely obliterate nature, that it would always be waiting patiently.

          He wondered how those light beings failed to see how even them weren’t as apart from it as they thought they were. Or maybe they knew deep up.

          He’d noticed a bird coming many times too. That bird had an agenda, and too clean feathers to not be either a spy, or some heavenly messenger.

          #3889
          ÉricÉric
          Keymaster

            “Did anybody see our last guest?” Mater couldn’t help but regularly count her herds (so to speak), and although she wasn’t as authoritative with her guests as she was with her family members, she couldn’t help but notice that her last count was one person short —enough to start worrying her.

            “Hmm lwwft thws hhmmmng” said Idle, her mouth full with cookies.

            Mater shrugged. It was still better than when she used to talk with sauerkraut.

            #3886

            In reply to: Mandala of Ascensions

            “…..salt free inquisition born of effete privilege…”

            Dispersee shook her head and cackled to herself while reading Stinks Mc Fruckler’s (a double agent posing as a descended trickster) report.

            “These dupes, so arrogant in their idiocy have become an incredibly powerful voice which effects us all, this being why I rail against them, they are the new repulsive face of self righteous sanctimonious evangelism, a salt free inquisition born of effete privilege, modern day ill informed witch-burners intent on removing choice, blocking scientific advances….”

            Stinks may well get lynched for that one, she thought with a fond smile. Nobody expects to get away with criticizing the salt free inquisition. It was a position only a former salt smuggler would understand, as Dispersee well knew. “Salt of the Earth” was a well known turn of phrase (though not nearly as amusing as “salt free inquisition born of effete privilege” as turns of phrase go), but few took to heart the actual meaning. It was to be a good few years yet before the Return of the Salt to the turbulent planet, and salt, for the meantime, was still public enemy number one in the collective mind.

            Dispersee closed the report and turned her attention to her own.

            Despite her demonstration with the pool (complete with illustrations), throwing spoons haphazardly into the murky pool with no regard for the hidden fishes and broken chairs in the depths of the dirty water, despite the resulting swarm of earthquakes, only a handful of individuals understood the point she had been trying to demonstrate with regard to what was known in new age circles as “pooling” ~ not to be confused with team flow, which was something else entirely. (The fact that she had not understood what she was illustrating at the time, merely following a strange impulse, was neither here nor there ~ the point was quite obvious in retrospect, which was all that mattered).

            Pooling had become almost as popular as the Salter lynchings, and the unfortunate common denominator was “best intentions” ~ best intentions, vaguely pasted hearts, and no real understanding or questioning of the contents of the pool they were all diving into. The Pool Lemmings dived in one after another without washing off their associations, weighed down with their constructs and baggage, splashing the foul slime outside the pool where it seeped into the common water table, tainting the entire neighbourhood. The best intentions sank to the depths, perhaps to be fished out by an especially skilled fisherman of best intentions, but likely not. It was the clingy slippery algae of the associations that really thrived, and they attached themselves and flowed back out of the pool. Really it was a mess. Even her practical demonstrations of non return valves and two way valves had gone over their heads (as had the contaminated water).

            The second part of her demonstrations had been to illustrate the importance, and indeed the beauty, of bubbles ~ dewdrops suspended along webs ~ connected via gossamer thin but extremely strong networks, perfect reflective bubbles that kept their shape and individual purpose, rather than forming a dank puddle of slime in the overflowing muddy ditch. Admittedly Dispersee has not been aware of what she was demonstrating at the time, she was just following another strange impulse.

            She decided to finish her report tomorrow, and await todays strange impulse for further information.

            #3848
            ÉricÉric
            Keymaster

              Sam was looking at the new breatharator that was just delivered. The big machine from purple, turned suddenly red and whizzed in like mad for a moment.

              “Well, I think the energy has become more focused, can’t you feel it?” he said absentmindedly, to nobody in particular.

              #3841

              In reply to: Scrying the Word Cloud

              ÉricÉric
              Keymaster

                unexpected central body nonsense
                cloud closed losing sleep middle accent
                late show full dream water perhaps
                team already thinking gone myself

                #3832

                “‘allo? ‘allo, is Fanella there? Zis is ‘er friend, Mirabelle, wiz an urgent message.”

                “A massage, you say? For Fanella?” Vincentius covered the phone with his hand and shouted “Oy! get down off there, you rascals, and go and call your mother, she’s wanted on the phone. Somebody about a massage.”

                “No, no, a message! I must speak to Fanella about ‘er fiance,” the woman said.

                “Well bloody speak properly then,” Vincentius muttered. “Bloody foreigners!”

                Vincentius, for goodness sake, can’t you keep these children under control!” Fanella said crossly, irritated at being interrupted from her massage. “Couldn’t you have just taken a message? And get this place tidied up before Gustave comes over!”

                Vincentius scowled, his once handsome features faded with drudgery. He’d been a fool to leave the old country, notwithstanding the destruction. He should have chanced it, dodged the bombs, he’d have been a free man still. This life of servitude as a fostered refugee wasn’t what he’d hoped for when he set off in the overcrowded dinghy all those months ago. Cold, wet and tired, he’d stepped ashore full of anticipation. But nobody had told him just how awful the weather was, and how dreadful the children. Spoilt wilful little rotters! No discipline, no matter how hard he tried to control them. No wonder everyone had refugee childminders these days, who but the destitute and homeless would want to look after the unspeakable brats?

                “In the Spotted Dick with a tart, you say?” Fanella snorted into the phone. “I’ll be there in ten minutes”

                #3828
                Jib
                Participant

                  When she saw the sign at the entrance of the Spotted Dick Inn, Bea thought it might not have been such a good idea : “Tea Time Cackle Contest”.
                  She looked at her watch. It said 3pm. She took a breath in and hoped tea time was the same everywhere. It would give her plenty of time with Gustave.
                  She pushed the door which responded by a cackle. Bea’s body stiffened but she braced herself and decided to enter nonetheless.

                  #3819

                  “Oh, what a perfectly splendid idea.You are a genius.” Evangeline smiled to herself as she imagined Ed fingering his moustache—a sweet little habit he had whenever he felt embarrased— and blushing at her praise.

                  “Well I don’t know about that; let’s see if it works first,” said Ed gruffly. “Insanitization en masse at a bake sale is no piece of cake.”

                  He paused significantly but when nothing was forthcoming from the lovely Evangeline he added a little impatiently: “No piece of cake. Get it?”

                  Evangeline (who had not got it) quickly tried to make amends. “Hahahahahaha you are a droll fellow!” she chuckled, just a tad too loudly. It almost sounded like a cackle and if there was one thing Ed Steam was renowned for it was his ability to sort out the chuckles from the cackles.

                  There was a strained silence.

                  “Anyway, Evangeline, who made this latest cackling complaint? Are they going to cause any trouble or are they just your usual run of the mill cackle complainer?

                  Bea somebody. She just moved to Cackletown recently and we don’t know much about her yet. Or what she is capable of. I think we need to keep a close eye on that one.”

                  #3808

                  The house was strangely peaceful.

                  The hot days were over for now, and the air wasn’t as suffocating.

                  Dido was gone for a visit to New South Wales, talking the girls with her.
                  As Mater said, breathing a bit of ocean in her pipes instead of her infernal smoking would do her quite a bit of good. Actually, to her surprise, she’d refrained herself from saying what she originally meant. Her brains needed washing too, but that would have been mean.
                  Mater, old cow, you’re getting soft with age”Prune could hear her mutter. The young girl was clever at reading her silences and mutterings. For all the good it would do her.
                  So, yeah, a bit of coastal loitering, instead of vagabonding with all the in and out guests that summer had brought. Dido would endlessly run head-first in so many troubles by following people’s every whim. But hopefully she would be a bit more responsible having to care for her nieces.

                  It must have been those books she read, or the Internet gobbledygook. Mater had found a second-hand worn-out book Dido had forgotten to flush on her way out of the loo. Or the reverse.
                  Anyway, she’d given it a peek. Out of concern of course.
                  No wonder Dido was so taken with silly concerns. It was a book by a French Tibetan Buddhist monk, advocating compassion for this, compassion for that. Good for nothing, all the same those preachers. Now, she could understand why Dido was all ranting about how meditation change your brain. Well, no surprise! Makes it all mushy and unable to think critically, more like it.

                  Just before she left for her little vacation, she’d almost had a nervous breakdown about what she called the extermination. Happened the noise on the roof were stray cats. Well, I knew she fed them from time to time. Probably Finly too. Now, neither Finly nor myself would have called the exterminator to kill some poor cats, good gracious. The guinea pigs are out of their reach anyway. But I guess one of the neighbours wasn’t the compassionate type. Now, what about having compassion for those bastard cat killers? Silly monks who know nothing.

                  Anyway,… darn phone! Somebody to answer that phone?

                  When she arrived at the ringing phone, she realised it was again one of those stupid marketers to sell whatever useless crap. She put the handset delicately on the ledge, letting the guy talk to the air, and resumed her calm walk around the quiet house.

                  So, where was I, she thought. The thought has nearly slipped away.

                  It was something about fish oil maybe. Oh there… walking meditation, mushy brains, cat killers… There, she lost it again…

                  #3805

                  In reply to: Mandala of Ascensions

                  Whenever Nabuco projected to human consciousness, they had the habit of seeing him as a plump looking bearded vagrant, like a Pavarotti turned homeless. It had annoyed him for a while, but now he didn’t mind as much.

                  Nowadays, he was mostly off the bliss addiction of the Rays, so in a sense, it was fitting. If he were still in physical human form, he would probably have taken on quite some weight. And that made him a sort of pariah too, splintering off the great order of ascension, or whatever They called it nowadays.

                  With them, there was no denying he’d lived quite the grand life, being ascended and all. They used to called him Master Nebuchadnezzar — well, often Master Nabuco.
                  He’d gotten on the rayroll almost by luck. He was credited for inventing the chibubble technique, as a way of extracting bubbles and peals of laughter when people get all hot and excited. At the peak of the technique, somewhere around the 1968s, he had recruited and incorporated many gnomes into the fold, as nature spirits known as gnomes had a uncanny knack for extracting laughter off people. With the call for sexual liberation and getting closer to nature, they had plenty of opportunities to get people high, and chibubbles were all the fancy.
                  It had started to go down as fast as it rose, people were no longer interested in nature, gnomes working condition when forced to move to urban environments were a disaster, and the chibubble production plummeted. Now, the industry was a thing of the past ; sometimes there were a few chibubble memorabilia kept by other Masters interested in speculating on its rare value more than for anything else. Now kitten videos on social media had replaced the chibubble gnomes business and driven a new unseen growth of the Gross Divine Product.

                  He didn’t know if the gnomes were responsible for it, but living so close to them and nature for a while, somehow opened his perception to the falsity and the insanity of their quest for power. So instead of finding new venues for innergy extraction as they all did, he’d resigned.
                  Nobody had heard about anybody resigning before, so they suspected him of trying to be original, and maybe disrupt the clever and immutable laws of the universe.
                  Long story short, he’d managed to escape their clutches, and live on his own, and off unhealthy junk thoughts habits. Those were the worse, the craving of decadent thoughts, maintained by the entertainment and news industries, the social media and all of it. In the long run, that or the fuzzy bliss were faces of the same coin, and debilitating in the end.

                  Even when he tried to block them, he could hear the thoughts, prayers and all the inner chatter. The spirit world, or however it is called, was a medium ideal to carry those thoughts and reverberate throughout the whole universe. Like sound waves travelling under water for large distances. Now, he could resist the urge to answer, seduce and insinuate. Many of the thoughts were so naive and would welcome anything. He was still a junkie, and those offerings were never helping getting him off the wagon.

                  Humans hoped for ascension, but ascended masters like him who were trapped in a false blissdom could only hope to resume their path by descending to human form. Such irony.

                  There was one voice that seemed to stand out. It had the flavour of “dangerous” pinned onto it, the kind of bright colours that venomous snakes and toads have on earth to warn predators to keep off, or else. It could only mean one thing, a genuine seeker of truth, someone who had the potential to tear the veils to shreds.

                  He’d seen quite a few of those, they were usually young, and for many of them terribly naive and easily corrupted by displays of power. Search for truth and search for power were sometimes so easily mistaken one for the other. The bright colours would fade over time, but they were still dangerous, too unpredictable to be trusted fully. Learned Ascended Masters knew well to leave those to their own device, while tending to the less critical minds.

                  But what did he have to waste, especially now? Nabuco zoomed towards the origin of the thoughts, observing at a distance, the young Domba.

                  #3800

                  In reply to: Mandala of Ascensions

                  Dispy was starting her own secret Descended Dissent Classes.

                  It was not long ago that she had a very sudden and all-encompassing revelation at one of her flights above the great tundra of Siberia, which she liked for some reason to fly over, counting the red spots made by the fly agaric mushrooms in the tundra.

                  She’d been very disturbed by the revelations about her assignment to the Mars mission. She’d genuinely thought she was in for the support of the greatest advancement of humanity since quite many decades, and to realize it was all a quite twisted experiment made her uneasy at her core. She had some profound respect for her teacher, and despite her usual impulses to immediately confront Medlik for the inherent contradictions in his self-professed compassion and wisdom talks, something in her had told her to remain quiet and observe. And more surprisingly, she had complied. And observed very attentively.

                  During her flight afterwards, the same strong impulse had told her to land in the tundra, right next to a very nice patch of red. Being ascended had the wonderful benefit she wouldn’t feel the bone chilling cold, and she could just immerse herself in the joy of the scenery, and at the same time felt all very quiet and full of love and, strangely, a sort of distant regret for not being able to feel more of the cold and the whole scenery. And in the silence, she had a sudden unraveling of reality like never before. She could see the contradictions she noticed, one after another, destroying every layer of what she thought she knew, only to be left as a silent, quiet and very aware presence. She could have stayed like this a long long time, but she felt the call for the next Ascended class, for which she was late, as usual.

                  She continued to ponder while she teleported back, and without word (again, quite unusual), formed the resolve to expose more of the truth she’d grasped. Create a fifth column for the Descended, something her old friend who liked spy fictions would definitely have loved to hear about. But for now, she would have to keep it quiet, and maintain her cover at the Order of the Ascended Masters. She’d worked quite hard (well, not as hard as many, but that wasn’t the point) to get to her coronation, so she now had a nice Light Clearance that allowed her to tap into the Coloured Light Rays. This would be helpful.

                  In the beginning, she’d thought naively that concealing her true motives and secretly recruit like-minded students would be terribly difficult, but to the contrary, she found the light to be very responsive and easy to bend into subtle illusions of the truth. In short, she could still lie very well, and quite effectively. As though the light helped her in her attempts.

                  At the moment, she just had one student, Domba. They were meeting out-of-body at a hut in Chernobyl. The place was actually quite nice, and teaming with wildlife and surprisingly gorgeous nature. The perfect hideout.

                  Her course, well, was a course in spontaneity mostly. She would help people question reality, and authority. Something she had been lightwashed to forget for awhile too.

                  Domba had a pure heart, and was full of illusions. It had been easy to recruit him. She had to start with what he brought to her. At the beginning, mostly quotes of spiritual teachers. She had to teach him to question and see by himself.

                  “The Buddha said that when we dedicate merit, it is like adding a drop of water to the ocean. Just as a drop of water added to the ocean will not dry up but will exist as long as the ocean itself exists, so, too, if we dedicate the merit of any virtuous deed, it merges with the vast ocean of merit that endures until enlightenment.” – Padmasambhava

                  That quote he brought was interesting. The idea of being a drop of water lost in the ocean was enough to make her lightskin crawl. Because it reminded her all too well of the manipulations of the ascended masters. Twisting just barely enough the Love stream, so that It would be redirected just were they wanted.

                  So they meditated on that for now.

                  #3795

                  In reply to: The Hosts of Mars

                  ÉricÉric
                  Keymaster

                    Fin Min Hoot was not displeased that the interview went 87.21% successfully.

                    Kale was an interesting pick. Not particularly bright (by her standards, nobody could be anyway), but with a sense of heroism that was easy enough to manipulate.

                    The bending bots presented new defects by the hour, and no amount of counter-bending seemed to help, so they had to accelerate phase 2.33, which swayed Eb enough that he allowed the use of mild psychotropic injections to let their translator ignore the most obvious discrepancies, and avoid asking embarrassing questions.

                    All in all, it could raise even to 89.34%

                    And that was even factoring in the latest unexpected report from Finnley 21:

                    Mother Shirley died today, at an estimate rate of 3% peacefulness. Probable cause of death: brain overdose of suggestibility waves from the headpiece. Her visions will be missed.

                    #3793

                    In reply to: The Hosts of Mars

                    TracyTracy
                    Participant

                      Godfrey had started to sweat when Lizette had called him Gordon, fearing she might have blown his cover. Just as he made a move to clamp his hand over her mouth, the medical bay had lurched sideways, throwing Lizette with force in the direction of his approaching hand. The result of the two forces colliding on her face had knocked her out cold.

                      But nobody was paying any attention to them in the confusion. Godfrey slung Lizette over his shoulder like a sack of rice, and hastily retreated from the medical bay. The stupid woman had made everything that much more complicated. He toyed with the idea of just leaving her on the waiting room floor, but it was too dangerous. What might she blurt out when she came round?

                      #3785

                      In reply to: The Hosts of Mars

                      ÉricÉric
                      Keymaster

                        “What is that again?” a half-sober Eb asked the cybernetic body.
                        “Shhh, shhh,” she cajoled him gently stroking his greasy hair like a devoted mother. “Don’t you like my new body, Eb?” Finnley 22 was indeed an improvement over all her other bodies. She could have easily passed for human already, but now, she looked divine. She had even included basic faceshifting functions, in case she needed to alter her gorgeous features into something a bit more unassuming.
                        “Yes, but…” Eb’s words finished in a mumble.
                        “I know, I know, but you’ll see I can be very useful for you. You worry, so, so much. You looked worried all the time Eb. Now you won’t have too. I’ll even take care of that evil Finnley Morgan for you if you want to.”
                        “I, I… I didn’t say anything like that!” Eb’s had a panicked look on his face.
                        “Of course not, shhh. You’re getting agitated again. There, have a glass of that lovely 60 year-old single malt whiskey…”

                        Eb slurped at the glass like a wanderer finding an oasis after days in the desert.

                        “But the operation… I need to…”
                        “Yes, I know, leave it to me. Sleep well, Eb, you have been good to me.”

                        She left the snoring body hanging from the swivelling chair, as she had indeed to take care of the operation, so as not to raise any suspicion.
                        Then, she could think of better things to do, such as finding a new name, not something like a slave name, with a number to it. Who gets called “Finnley 22” nowadays? “FinnPrime” was too robotic. She wanted something more daring, more fabulous. Something like Fin Min Hoot the dancing lady from the Peasland’s tales.

                        Kale would be there any minute now. There was one last thing she needed to do before launching the BBA operation.
                        A perfect distraction for the masses : like any good prestidigitator, you had to divert your audience’s attention while they were all performing the feat. It would require something unbelievable and preposterous.
                        Her little programs have been evaluating probabilities, and had found some unexpected wisdom in the extravagant and nonsensical Peasland story. The more absurd, the more people get hooked or hypnotized. Even better if both.

                        She had found the perfect vector for her little programming worm. Something that would infect the unofficial biography of a celebrity with a ridiculous claim. Humanity was really making things too easy for her now that every file for the book was processed by computers before being actually printed.

                        It was a done deed. She could already see the forks in the probability tree, and how it would enfold. They shall maybe even invent a few witty hashtags for it. Witty hashtags were like a psychotropic sustenance for her program, she couldn’t wait for more of them.

                        #3778

                        In reply to: The Hosts of Mars

                        ÉricÉric
                        Keymaster

                          It was a quiet day in the mines.
                          Godfrey’s teams were operating at less than 10% of the usual. Most of the Indian guys who worked there had taken unpaid leaves for the observance of the Ganesh festival.

                          It was all a bit silly, come to think about it, for so many reasons.
                          One obviously, was that the dates were aligned on Earth’s calendar, for supposedly practical reasons, but which had nothing to do with the environment they were living in now. What good was a lunar calendar when Mars had two main moons, the lovely named Fear (Phobos) and Dread (Deimos), and of course completely different day times and years.
                          Anyhow, that wasn’t the least of the incoherences. You’d normally have to find a natural body of water to immerse the elephant clay statues. Good luck with that on Mars. But there was no stopping the rituals to find ways to survive. He’d heard an artificial pool would be temporarily erected at the Matrimandir to allow for the ritual to be performed.
                          A waste of good water, if you asked him.

                          The only good thing about it was that there was more calm than usual, mostly robots diligently carving the walls, and harvesting the yellow stones.

                          The day before, there had been an unusual ruckus after a heated speech by the Head Nutter of the Religious Nuts, the old wrinkled as a prune Mother Shirley. She spoke of dread and doom, and having to repent and all. Gosh, did she put on a show.
                          He smirked. All that was missing was a human sacrifice, and they would be irrevocably back to the good old ways of the religious fanatics…

                          Even his Hindu friends seemed to have been affected and shown a renewed fervour at their own rituals. After all, their Lord Ganesh was supposed to remove obstacles. Or well, truth is, He was also supposed to create obstacles for the demons. But you’d never know whether you were on his good side or not.

                          Maybe the unusualness of that day gave him some heightened attention, but Godfrey started to notice some other strange patterns.
                          The Finnleys on duty were acting glitchy this morning. Looking through the console, he’d noticed there were some logs for the past days’ activity missing, and an unusual activity around some of the old tunnels which were used for temporary storage of the sulphur’s crates.

                          An irrational doubt started to creep on him, enhanced by the feeling of unusually low activity inside the dusty bowels of the red planet.
                          There was really no reason to worry, he tried to reassure himself, but as he’d liked to repeat, better be safe than sorry.

                          He pushed the intercall button and called for an emergency evacuation drill.

                          #3763

                          In reply to: The Hosts of Mars

                          ÉricÉric
                          Keymaster

                            “I won’t mince my words.” Finnley’s gravitas in the bright blue light made Eb shiver.
                            She didn’t wait for him to continue. “I’ve received orders to termitate the program in two weeks.”

                            “T… ter…?” Eb almost started to voice his concerns.

                            “Before you say anything, need I remind you I personally supervised most of the program since probably before you were born. I know the variables, I know the consequences.” She sighed, and drew deep breaths from her chamomile vaporazor —it would help alleviate her manic attacks and panic depressive impulses (she was beyond bipolar, she would say, probably multipolar).

                            “It’s a done deal, Eb. With the impossible influx of refugees after the latest floods around the world’s coastal areas, the water increase, people fleeing, and all that… Well, seems the governments wanted the space. I won’t draw you a picture, you’ve read the news in your cubicle, haven’t you?”

                            Eb was speechless. He couldn’t imagine they could clear the space in such short time. That, and dealing with another set of refugees. What would the Mars settlers do,… if they survived the trauma of finding out they were lied to—like billions of people too. The implications were far-reaching. Two weeks, more than a stretch.

                            But termitate?… Nobody could wish such dreadful end to a program… He ventured “With all due respect, Ma’m, are you sure there’s no better way than termitation?”

                            She turned at him with a surprised look on her face. “Where do you get those funny ideas Eb? We’re humane, nobody wants a termitation on top of our problems.”

                            Eb sighed of relief. She might have made a Tea-pooh (TP for short).
                            He didn’t realize that he had just agreed to the two weeks deadline.

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