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  • #3759

    In reply to: The Hosts of Mars

    ÉricÉric
    Keymaster

      At the Monitoring Station Alpha-7, Eb Ruide was looking lazily at logs on the big screen and surveillance images.

      Nothing ever interesting happened on MARS. Eb used all caps in his head, to distinguish it from Mars, the real Mars. But it didn’t actually matter, they only knew about MARS (Mars Animated Realistic Simulation).

      He hadn’t been there at the beginning, but he’d heard the stories — even if all were sworn to secrecy for the sake of the world’s peace keeping, they couldn’t help but gossip among themselves. Must have been fun back then… Not a day without trying to fix something in the simulation. The lab rats were always trying to expand their perimeter, and physical and physiological barriers had to be put in place for them to help improve the simulation.

      They were more or less all willing subjects at the time, part of the big deception. Eb didn’t know how it changed, what made them start to believe in the illusion, and start to forget. He could only assume… many didn’t believe in the world as it was, and preferred to go back to a foregone settler era where every life counted, and you could measure yourself against the big expanse of unknown land, instead of living the comfortable torpor like he was, alone in his Monitoring Station, only virtually connected.

      Since the Aurora, it had been a bit hectic there. Actually, a big solar flare had almost frozen their equipment, and despite all the precautions, some of it filtered through the simulation. Water had leaked too, which could have been a disaster, but interestingly, it had given some of them a purpose, and all in all, it didn’t become the dreaded event they all feared. Even if all the ins and outs and communications were filtered, you couldn’t rule out a blunder. Especially with the lack of gripping activity.

      Something biped on his screen. A red button was suddenly lit. He’d never been trained to know what the red button meant. He had to refer it to his superior. Oh God, I hope she’ll be in a good mood… Since she started her special diet and had lost so much weight, Finnley Morgan was always a bit unpredictable and snappily dangerous.

      The irony of the ever-calm and dulcet AI named Finnley after her in the simulation wasn’t lost on him…

      #3751

      In reply to: The Hosts of Mars

      ÉricÉric
      Keymaster

        Mother Shirley was lost in a trance again, seated in her suspended egg chair in front of the placid Finnley, and monologuing while absorbed in the analysis of the minute movements on the surface of the android’s face.

        “Tell me, how do we learn things? How do you learn things? — It’s a rhetorical question, keep still, like I told you.
        “It seems we speak too much about learning, and the learning process, and all that jazz, but… what if there are only states of knowing. We know, and * poof *, that’s it. I can’t for the dickens of me, figure out when I started to learn the things that led me to this current state of knowingness.”

        She noticed, or thought she noticed a brief and slow ripple on the synthetic skin.

        “Maybe like that, a ripple of relaxation… Maybe we look at it the wrong way, because we’re taught regular steps will lead to a result, so that in the end, you’ll know something… I call horseshit! How many lessons of space mandolin have I had, thanks to dear Mother, bless her devilish soul, and I’m still such a pathetic player! It can’t just be this, or it’d be like playing the roulette over and over, until… what? Don’t start with your tree, Mother, a damn acorn doesn’t get taught how to become more of itself. And when does it start to become a tree? At the first leaf? The first bark?

        Waving her hand at the ghost idea of her Mother, she scrutinised Finnley more intently

        “No you give me ideas, you little monster, you know that, with your peach face and smooth skin to die for. Never ever a sneeze… If I wanted to teach you how to sneeze, how to contract your body in an instant, and expel the devil or the aliens, whatever you’d like,… could I? Could you?

        She pushed back the egg chair to restart the pendulum motion, and leaned backward with a contented look.

        “I think that’s good enough for this session tonight, dearie. Bring me my cognac, remove my headpiece, and make my bed ready.”

        #3740
        F LoveF Love
        Participant

          “No I have not seen the dragon tree in the park,” said Finnley. “What about the dragon tree and what has started already?”

          She was determined to keep the conversation flowing in a continuous manner.

          #3695
          TracyTracy
          Participant

            Haki, did you find that baby a good home?”

            “I left it at the shrine, madam…”

            “Please, call me Liz!”

            “I left the baby at the Shrine of Our Lady of the Yellow Burden, Liz. It’s a busy shrine, I’m sure someone will pick it up and look after it.”

            “Well, perhaps you could pop back and check tomorrow, just in case it’s still there, Haki.”

            “I think the thing with shrines, Liz,” Godfrey butted in, “Is not to keep revisiting them.”

            “Don’t be daft, Godfrey, people flock to shrines all the time.”

            “Precisely,” he replied.

            #3694

            Aunt Idle:

            It was good to see the back of them, although it was a shame that Crispin Cornwall ~ alias Godfrey Trueman, I now knew ~ hadn’t paid his bill. I could trace him via Liz, but I wanted to keep a distance. I had two pieces of the Tattler, Trout and Trueman puzzle, but who was Trout? Why did they send me that note made of ripped up maps, and what did Flora have to do with it all? And what were they doing buying up ghost towns?

            Of course, considering Liz was involved, it was entirely possible that none of it meant anything at all. Then again, with Liz, one never knew. And I don’t know a thing about Trueman, and less about Trout.

            Perhaps there was a clue in room 8.

            #3668
            F LoveF Love
            Participant

              “Will someone get rid of that old woman with the horrible accent?” hissed Finnley, ungraciously.

              “What on earth for? She is doing a splendid job. I must say though, Finnley, just as a side note, it is good to hear you sounding more like your normal ungracious self.”

              “I found dust,” muttered Finnley, glaring accusingly at Haki.

              Elizabeth look unaccustomedly thoughtful. “Do you think you need a break, Finnley dearest? You really must be exhausted after all the splendid proof reading you have been doing for me this year. Why don’t you go home for a while, on full pay of course.”

              Finnley burst into tears. “Where is my home though?” she snuffled. ”I am not good with descriptive details. I just found myself in this stupid story doing your stupid cleaning. And now I have a Bulgarian sister, to boot. And,” she looked witheringly at Elizabeth, “ proofreading is one word”

              “Crikey, matey,” said Norbert patting her awkwardly on the shoulder. “Christmas is a killer, in’t? Family coming out of the woodwork like blimmin worms. Keep ya chin up though, eh. Ya can’t be letting things get to ya like this. Ya wouldn’t be able to carry on like this if ya were in bloody China ya know. Like bloody robots they are there. I don’t think they know the meaning of the word feelings over there.” He shook his head in wonder at their philistinism.

              “And ya right about that one,” he added quietly, with a conspiratorial raised eyebrow and a slight nod of his head towards Haki.

              Elizabeth leapt up and rushed to the bookshelf. “I know what you need! some Lemon Juice! I will pick one at random; they are all absolutely superb.” She opened the very small book and closing her eyes stabbed the page dramatically with her finger.

              ”Let’s not be overachieving fucks.”

              “Wow,” she mouthed, awestruck. After taking a moment to recover herself, she looked sympathetically at Finnley.

              “The oracle has done it again. Do you hear that Finnley? You are an overachieving fuck.”

              Finnley rolled her eyes.

              #3660
              TracyTracy
              Participant

                Finnley, what are you still doing here? Can’t keep away, eh! Well, you’re welcome to stay as long as you like, you amuse me,” Elizabeth said graciously.

                #3658
                F LoveF Love
                Participant

                  ”Don’t worry, Lady Elizabeth, Your Royal High Goddess, you go and take an aspirin. I will keep an eye on him for you,” smirked Finnley.

                  #3627

                  In reply to: The Hosts of Mars

                  ÉricÉric
                  Keymaster

                    Karthik was feeding some nonsense to the AI, while inspecting the logs of the central intelligence.

                    Finnley was listening with great interest to the teleporting stories of Togi Bear in Outlandis that he was spinning.

                    Dear Lord, he said after his maintenance routine was over, I wish they had an opening for creative writing, so that someone else can take this silly job. Blathering all this nonsense is exhausting.

                    Sadly, it was known to be the only thing that would keep the AI evolving and learning, and operating the mothership.
                    New information to sort and sieve through was the AI’s purpose. As much as humans were feeding off food, they fed off information.

                    #3618

                    Aunt Idle:

                    Bert came with me. Usually one of us always stayed home to keep an eye on Mater and the kids, but now we had that capable girl, Finly, to keep an eye on things.

                    It was good to get away from the place for a few hours, and head off on a different route to the usual shopping and errand trips. The nearest sizable town was in the opposite direction; it was years since I’d been to Ninetown. I asked Bert about the place on the other side of the river, what was it that intrigued him so. I’ll be honest, I wondered if he was losing his marbles when he said it was the medieval ruins over there.

                    “Don’t be daft, Bert, how can there be medieval ruins over there?” I asked.

                    “I didn’t say they were medieval, Idle, I said that’s what they looked like,” he replied.

                    “But …but history, Bert! There’s no history here of medieval towns! Who could have built it?”

                    “That’s why I found it so fucking interesting, but if it doesn’t fit the picture, nobody wants to hear anything about it!”

                    “Well I’m interested Bert. Yes, yes, I know I wasn’t interested before, but I am now.”

                    Bert grunted and lit a cigarette.

                    ~~~

                    We stopped at a roadside restaurant just outside Ninetown for lunch. The midday heat was enervating, but inside the restaurant was a pleasant few degrees cooler. Bert wasn’t one for small talk, so I picked up a local paper to peruse while I ate my sandwich and Bert tucked into a greasy heap of chips and meat. I flicked through it without much interest in the mundane goings on of the town, that is, until I saw those names: Tattler, Trout and Trueman.

                    It was an article about a ghost town on the other side of Ninetown that had been bought up by a consortium of doctors. Apparently they’d acquired it for pennies as it had been completely deserted for decades, with the intention of developing it into an exclusive clinic.

                    “There’s something fishy about that!” I exclaimed, a bit too loudly. Several of the locals turned to look at me. I lowered my voice, not wanting to attract any more attention while I tried to make sense of it.

                    “Read this!” I passed the paper over the Bert.

                    “So what?” he asked. “Who cares?”

                    “Look!” I said, jabbing my finger on the names Tattler, Trout and Trueman. Bert looked puzzled, understandably enough. “Allow me to explain” I said, and I told him about the business card that Flora had left on the porch table.

                    “What does Flora have to do with this consortium of doctors? And what the hell is the point in setting up a clinic there, in the middle of nowhere?”

                    “That,” I replied, “Is the question!”

                    #3611
                    TracyTracy
                    Participant

                      Finnley, I do hope you realize the extent of my kindness and patience with you. I hope you appreciate it. Not only should you be cleaning, which I have generously turned a blind eye to while you read cheap tuppeny scandals, but you badger me to keep busy while you are relaxing on full pay!”

                      But Finnley was engrossed in her tawdry novel again, and didn’t hear her.

                      #3601
                      TracyTracy
                      Participant

                        Deep in thought, Devan didn’t notice Finly watching him from the end of the porch. As he clumped down the steps and made his way towards the clapped out banger that served as transport to work, she weighed him up, pausing for a moment with the window cleaning cloth poised in mid air.

                        He was young, but then, she liked them young. Virile, energetic, easily controlled. The rebellious ones were not so rebellious towards an older woman of experience in their bed. Not that she was all that much older than he was, but the difference in age was enough to create an air of experience. Finly liked to keep on top of things ~ both her cleaning duties, and her young men.

                        Nice ass, she said to herself, with a warm tingle of anticipation, rubbing the windows with renewed vigour. She licked her lips, smirking at her reflection in the glass, and then blew herself a kiss. A slight movement caught her eye. Prune bobbed her tongue out, and then disappeared from view.

                        #3600
                        DevanDevan
                        Participant

                          When I left the Inn this morning, Mater seemed upset. I regularly kisses her on her forehead before going to the gas station, as I know it pisses her off, but today she seemed lost in her thoughts and she called me Fred. I don’t like it when she does that, it gives me the impression she’s losing it. I wonder who’s going to hold that crumbling place when she’s gone. Certainly not Dido, she can’t focus her mind on a project for more than a few minutes, and it usually does not pass the stage of smokey ideas. I see clearly her game, she’s messing around with Mater for God knows what twisted reasons. They never seemed to appreciate each others much, and I’ve only known them for eighteen years. Looking at how it didn’t evolve much during that time, I bet it had been like that for quite some time. Family relationships are boring, and usually quite messy.

                          Take Joe for example, he’s crazy. His father is crazy, and his grand-father well he spent so much time in the mines that his family didn’t really miss him when one of the tunnels collapsed while he was inside. They never found the body. The Mining company gave the family a ridiculously small amount of money as an indemnification. Joe’s father lost it in some fracking wallaby race. Bad luck had stuck to him his whole life. Jasper once told me to avoid him. I would have, even if it was not for my dead brother’s warning.

                          Joe’s working at the gas station with me. He had been working there since he was sixteen when the school told his parents it was a waste of time [for them] to try and teach him anything valuable. His father beat him to keep up the appearances, but they were glad they could put him to work to bring in some more money.

                          Joe is nuts, but he’s not dumb. He just likes to experiment. He must have a good star watching upon him, unlike his father, because each time he manages to make something explode or break in a real bad way, but he always gets out without a scratch. He’s excited, he’s finished working on his last project. He wants us to borrow a gas tank and go to his place after work. I’ve rarely seen him so excited. We’ll have to put off the hockey with Callum.

                          #3599
                          TracyTracy
                          Participant

                            Corrie:

                            I woke up this morning with an idea in my head, and I don’t know if I was dreaming about it or if it just popped in, in the brief moments between sleep and waking. I made a connection with the topic I was doing an anthropology report on, and something I’d forgotten. No, not forgotten, it wouldn’t be true to say I’d forgotten it as it was always there at the back of my mind niggling at me that there was more to it somehow, but I hadn’t made the connection so obviously with the current project.

                            My research was about disconnection, and the separation agenda of the American channeling dream. At first I felt driven to explore particular areas and then piece by piece the puzzle that had nagged at me for years ~ I say years, it felt like years, but maybe it wasn’t so long ~ started to fall into place.

                            At first when I woke up the idea of censorship was in my head and the idea to start a petition and public awareness campaign about certain channeled texts that were withheld from public viewing, despite repeated requests for them to be public along with all the other texts. But then it occurred to me that censorship and omission wasn’t always deliberate. I mean, not a conscious choice to keep information secret, but something else. Almost like a case of some information not being seen clearly through the filters, yet for some reason dismissed as not fitting, and pushed away, almost unconsciously, and suppressed.

                            The text was about disconnect mainly, and there was some stuff about Nazi’s although the part about animals was the part that had stuck in my head, probably because I felt more connected to animals than Nazi’s. There were more animals growing up here than Nazi’s after all, Nazi’s was only something I’d heard about. But then it occurred to me that I’d been hearing more and more about Neo Nazi’s, in Europe mainly, forming groups and having protests. So that got me wondering about that too.

                            Anyway, the disconnect part: it was the reaction on the American channeling forums to the Ferguson riots that started me on this project, and Aunt Idle was full of encouragement when I started to explain to her what I was noticing. She said she had noticed similar things in her remote viewing circle online. Everyone seems to think Aunt Idle is losing her marbles, but don’t you believe it. She seems vacant and scattered but that’s only because her mind is occupied elsewhere.

                            The gist of this suppressed text was extreme separation, but it was the part about using words to seem enlightened to hide extreme disconnect that seemed to fit my project.

                            I did have to chuckle though, I wondered if I was being a racist by calling Americans disconnected as if it was a racial characteristic. More of a cultural thing, I suppose, can one be called a culturalist as if it’s a bad thing? I don’t see how you can study anthropology without a certain degree of separating into cultural groups though, even if it is shift anthropology. I’ll think about that a bit more later.

                            #3597
                            TracyTracy
                            Participant

                              Yogi’s teleporting classes in Camden Town had been going on for about 6 months, a small group of people determined to master the art, each member dedicated to the pursuit for particular reasons of their own.

                              Freya wanted to be able to travel, but was restricted because of her dogs and cats. He aim was to “lunch travel” and have lunch in a different country every day, being home in the mornings and evenings to look after her pets. John wanted to retire to the south of France, but keep an eye on his book shop in London, without the tedium and expense of airline flights. Justin, however, was a black bloc anarchist, and wanted to be able to teleport to protests all over the world, and be able to evade police kettles, and escape from Jail should he ever find himself in that position. Samantha was writing an exposé on the nefarious goings on of government ministers, but was for obvious reasons denied access to the places and documents that she needed to see. Fred missed his children and wanted to visit them, an impossibility in his current homeless destitute situation. Luckily for Fred, Yogi didn’t charge a fee for the classes, more interested in determination and commitment than monetary rewards.

                              Fred had managed on several occasions to project his awareness to the Flying Fish Inn, but had not yet achieved a full physical materialization. He had blinked in and out a couple of times, but had become nervous of frightening the children when he’d unintentionally startled Mater.

                              #3592
                              prUneprUne
                              Participant

                                I don’t know what possessed Mater, but I like the new version of her.
                                She’s a true inspiration. The way she commandeers, how she pays attention to the little things. If she wasn’t so wrinkled, I’d want to become her.
                                She doesn’t seem to need anyone in her life, maybe that’s why she’s so strong.

                                I don’t know how this all happened, but we now seem to do well enough. We have one paying guest (he seems to pay on time too, I don’t know where he gets that kind of money around that place), and it seems we can afford some manservant. Well, that’s something Aunt Idle would call that nice lady, surely not Mater. She was very kind to her.
                                Hope she doesn’t get funny ideas like she should become some sort of Mary Poppins or the like.

                                The way Mater was sad after her piggy passed, I realized having a dog is a huge commitment. I told Battista I lied and I was sorry, but we couldn’t have the puppy. I knew she wouldn’t mind, she likes to keep dogs around.

                                Instead, I thought I could start breeding guinea pigs; they don’t live too long. Everybody thought stealing the fish was just a prank, but I wanted to pawn it to kick-start my business. The sad truth is that it isn’t worth a dime.
                                Luckily, Bert who noticed me, said he would help.
                                I wonder why the only persons I can relate to are more than ten times my age… Sometimes I’m like an alien in my own family.

                                #3586
                                TracyTracy
                                Participant

                                  Aunt Idle:

                                  Well I’m not one to complain, as you know, and I’m not the competitive sort at all, but I did have to raise an eyebrow when everyone agreed to Mater’s suggestion of getting some help with the cleaning. It’s a wonderful idea, but it wasn’t her idea, I’d been planting the seeds for ages. She never would have suggested if I’d carried on doing it all myself, I had to let it go a bit, get in a mess. When they started talking behind my back about me drinking, I played along with it, splashing gin on my hair and leaving an empty bottle laying around. I had to keep retrieving the same bottle from the bin, so I could pretend it was another bottle I’d drunk. They were all easily fooled, and I started to enjoy it.

                                  #3584
                                  F LoveF Love
                                  Participant

                                    It was Mater who decided they needed to get some cleaning help. She commandeered Clove to do some research on the internet and eventually found a woman from New Zealand, Finly, who was offering her cleaning services in exchange for room and board.

                                    “Bloody kiwis,” said Bert when he heard. “The place is riddled with them. Bloody come and take our jobs. Haven’t we got more than enough of them here already? I am having a hard enough time avoiding that Flora, going on about her spiritual bloody awakening.”

                                    “If you can find anyone local who would be willing to do the cleaning in exchange for a place to stay, I will be glad to consider them,” retorted Mater sternly. “But in the meantime this place is fast becoming a pig-sty and Dido is too busy smoking and drinking to see it.”

                                    Naturally Mater got her way and a few days later Bert, still grumbling, agreed to go and pick Finly up from the airport. Mater assembled the family in the main living room.

                                    “Now remember, the main thing is to be courteous. God only knows why she agreed to come to this backwater of a place, but we don’t want to put her off.”

                                    ”Don’t we indeed?” smirked Aunt Idle.

                                    “Yeah exactly, it is friggin’ weird I reckon. Why would she come here?” asked Clove, privately deciding she had better run a more thorough background check on Finly.

                                    “I thought Finly was a boy’s name,” said Coriander. “That would be cool. A boy cleaner. I hope he’s hot. He can clean topless”

                                    Aunt Idle, who had already been into the gin even though it wasn’t yet 10am, put her hand over her mouth and started to giggle.

                                    “It can be a girl or a boy’s name and someone called Coriander is in no position to throw stones. And mind your language, Clove.” responded Mater tartly.

                                    Clove rolled her eyes and sighed dramatically. “Well as long as she doesn’t try and boss me around, it might be quite fun to have a slave to clean up after me.”

                                    Prune had been keeping an eye on the window. “Shush, she’s here!” she shouted excitedly.

                                    #3583

                                    In reply to: The Hosts of Mars

                                    F LoveF Love
                                    Participant

                                      Prune had only just managed to get 157 — Mater had liked to call all the guinea pigs by numbers; she said it helped her keep track — safely back inside her jacket when a loud screeching alarm went off. The next moment Finnley’s smooth voice, programmed to convey anxiety, reverberated around the ship

                                      “Code Red, Code Red. Leave whatever you are doing and assemble in Area 12. I repeat leave whatever you are doing and assemble in Area 12.”

                                      Prune and Hans looked at each other uneasily and began to run.

                                      #3581
                                      TracyTracy
                                      Participant

                                        Bert raised an eyebrow at Elizabeth’s obvious sarcasm, which unfortunately caught her eye and put him in the spotlight of her penetrating gaze.

                                        “How about you Bert? Were you listening?” she asked, raising an eyebrow of her own to match Berts.

                                        Finnly, always on the lookout for an opportunity to out do Liz, raised both of her eyebrows simultaneously; then looked quickly down, pretending to examine her nails.

                                        Bert decided that in this case honestly was the best policy and replied “No. I was wondering if Prune had cleaned up the blood spattered corridor.”

                                        While Liz was momentarily speechless, Finnley quickly interjected another line from the book she had hidden under the table.

                                        “Then why did none of us hear the blood crazed howl?”

                                        “Ah! Aha! I’ll tell you why nobody heard the blood crazed howl!” Elizabeth had become alarmingly animated, leaning forward and rapping sharply on the table with her cigarette lighter. “The walls of isolation that surround you, the windows you keep closed and shuttered for fear of a draft of passion, the fences of barbed trotted out dogma you use as protection ~ but I ask you, protection from what?”

                                        “Buggered if I know, Liz. Can I go now?” said Bert.

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