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  • #4013

    In reply to: Mandala of Ascensions

    Edward Cayper had been absorbed on the mesmerizing display of the large monitoring screens. He’d liked to believe it was a meditation of sorts. The simulation made the most tantalizing displays, ever changing.

    Although there had been flitches. Increasingly. He called them flitches, scratchy flea-like glitches, all small and jumpy, but he had an eye for them. He was, after all, one of the early designers of the Program. REYE – Reality Emergence Yielding Existence. That didn’t mean much, but sounded cool at the time.
    REYE was in its eighth stable upgrade. Despite the flitches, it had evolved at exponential speed.

    Edward swiveled from his chair to look behind his desk. A series of pods was lined up with sensory deprivation tanks hosting hundreds of plugged-in bodies dreaming in synch with his creation.
    He’d been told they were volunteers to participate in the largest mind control experiment in the world. He wasn’t sure it wasn’t a lie, but didn’t care so much.
    REYE was in charge of coordinating the whole program with astronomical and minute precision. Each person linked to the program believed they had become ascended (or something similarly close to their metaphysical belief). Free of the bonding of space, time and corporal existence, they were taught into a very subtle and complex system of attunement to higher truths. A large basket of bollocks of course, but while they were doing it, and deeply believing it to be real, the mind-energy they produced was redirected to certain mind control experiments.

    Since they started in the 80s, the program had had slow progress. In the beginning, only a few sprouts of channellers appeared near their area, in Nevada. They were quite timid at first, full of doubts about their hearing or seeing voices – still better than the abductions of earlier, when many went completely nuts. But now, progresses were made steadily, and with much less effort. Edward personally believed that the network of waves created by cellphone proliferation had a factor in this trend. Such interconnexion made everything easier.

    Within the program, the flitchy Ascended Masters still had to be reconditioned from time to time. On the vitals of Jane Pierce (a.a.a. “also avatared as” Dispersee within the program), Edward could see there were occasional resistance and stress, which in turn made the glitches more frequent. A change in her drugs dosage would do fine to level the serotonin in her bloodstream. It would be that, or unplugging her.

    Before leaving the room, like every day, Edward switched the monitor to the camera over one of the pods. Florence Vengard (a.a.a. Floverley), was dreaming peacefully, as usual. Since she’d arrived, he’d felt connected to her. He imagined her with long curly red hair floating in the milk bath instead of the bath-cap that made the maintenance so much easier. He was told she had overdosed on pills, and wouldn’t wake up. The program seemed to be tethering her to life, frozen in time.

    A well-oiled machine.
    If you overlooked the small things… that REYE was becoming more inquisitive, and Edward suspected, greedy too. He had seen subtle gaps in the mind-energy gauges, it couldn’t be a coincidence. The program was becoming too smart, maybe too human.

    It couldn’t bode well.

    #3934
    EricEric
    Keymaster

      “Why do you suffer pain? You have compressed yourself into a form and an identity, hence the suffering. You pursue spirituality from the same limited and conditioned standpoint and hence you cannot secure any foothold in these pursuits. In whatever subject you are absorbed, you deal with it from the standpoint of a personalized entity, and not as dynamic manifest consciousness…”

      “Hear that Liz’ ?” Godfrey beamed in delight “It was not Roberto or any bloody character, it was only your dynamic manifest consciousness!”
      “In other words, are you saying it was all my fault again, cheeky blithering fool?” Liz’ couldn’t contain her petulance.

      “I think you’re missing the point, dear,… but yes.” He added after a dramatic pause “or you can blame it on Cynchtia Dipity, or her twin sister, Serene.”

      #3913
      F LoveF Love
      Participant

        “I love it when we play Mandala of Ascensions!” shouted Finnley. “I will be a leader personality! You can bugger off now, HS cleaner. You were never really needed; she only hired you out of spite”

        #3912
        TracyTracy
        Participant

          “As I was saying,” continued Liz, “Oh, unless you want to explain something first, Finnley?”

          “I’m trying to tell you I am a Leader Personality, and it doesn’t fit my character assignation, which is why I am flitting about the place snickering,” the confused hitherto supportive cleaner replied.

          #3909
          TracyTracy
          Participant

            Ignoring the peculiar behaviour of Finnley, who seemed to be having a strange turn (Flove only knew what had happened to her during her absence), Liz continued with her explanation.

            “It’s the new exercise in the Mandala of Ascensions group. There are Leader Personalities, and there are Supporter Personalities ~ and let me be perfectly clear, there are no in betweens or other categories in this particular exercise. Members of the group must choose one category only.”

            Liz paused to light a cigarette, and turn down the background chatter emanating from the puerile radio show, which was distracting her from her train of thought.

            #3905
            TracyTracy
            Participant

              “Explain yourself you wanton harlot,” Finnley muttered under her breath, and then louder: “Shift Leader Personalities? What are they?”

              “Well,” Liz started to explain, but was rudely interrupted.

              “For fucks sake get a movealong.”

              Aghast, Liz looked at Finnley. “It’s not like you to be quite this rude!”

              “I will have to teach you how to do it,” the cleaner replied, somewhat enigmatically.

              #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.”

                #3878
                TracyTracy
                Participant

                  Geoffroy du Limon had felt confident that he had the skills to act the new role, considering his notable career in the theatre in the old story. He liked his new name: Miles Fitzroy suited him perfectly; and he anticipated resonating with London (although he would have preferred New Zealand: he’d heard that his old friend Francette Fine had been assigned a new story there). He found himself floundering, however, in unexpected ways.

                  The most unsettling factor was the absence of a back story. Without associations or automatic habits, he was unsure how to play his personality. Without triggers, where was the humour? There was simply nothing dramatic, comedic or tragic, nothing to make the play thrilling, exciting, or enticing, if everyone was an innocuous beige blob. A present beige blob is still a blob and not very interesting.

                  Roll up! Roll up! Come and see the show! Watch the cast focusing on themselves and not reacting to triggers! Nothing to judge here, folks, Roll up!

                  Geoffroy had no idea that having so few limiting guidelines could be so difficult. One had always assumed that it was the limiting guidelines that boxed one in, held one back, he mused, not the other way round. It was indeed a challenge, and he found himself feeling nostalgic for the old story.

                  #3799

                  In reply to: Mandala of Ascensions

                  Gelly had noticed a slowdown in her sessions.
                  That, and a sense of desperation in the ludicrous stories put forth by her clients’ subconscious under trance.

                  Close to forty years ago, she had invented the whole protocol, and had sold successfully quite a lovely series of books on the topic. Of course, all the personal details were removed for the sake of her clients privacy. But the stories were all too good to not be shared with the world.

                  “Morepork, morepork!” Bathsheba, her pet owl gifted by one of her clients from New Zealand was calling her back to reality.

                  “You know vhat Bethsy,” she said to the owl while feeding it a small white mouse that she devoured ravenously, “I vonder how das ist going to develop… Not a month goes by now vithout some new extravagant story of ascension in die Fünfte Dimension, and the vorld is not going any better. Meine credibility ist not that gut…”

                  “Morepork, morepork!” came the answer.

                  “Bethsy, you know whass, du bist eine kleine Genius”. She had just remembered that her client used to channel a certain unknown in the lore, going by the name of Floverley a spirit quite tricky to get on the line, a bit finicky about cleaning but otherwise, a wise dispenser of snorting good advice and special diets. She surely could help her get her spiel back.

                  #3792

                  In reply to: The Hosts of Mars

                  TracyTracy
                  Participant

                    Lizette patiently waited her turn in the medical bay. Her injury wasn’t serious ~ indeed there was not much need for medical assistance, after all it was just a minor lesion on her heel, but it did make it painful to walk, let alone run, and the increasingly heated babble of conversation in the waiting room was interesting.

                    Although initially everyone had been calm and obedient, trusting the management and the system implicitly, before long the mood had changed to confusion and suspicion. Seeds of doubt crept in and were quickly fertilized by the submerged energy of fear at the unexpected disorder. Up until now, everything on MARS had been Controlled with a capital C ~ there were rules and protocol for everything, rigid regimes and timetables, a place for everything, and everything in its place. It had been stifling, to be honest, with very little in the way of spontaneity or surprises, nothing unexpected to expect but the dry tedium of calm control.

                    In a way, the meteor impact (if indeed it had been a meteor impact ~ there was much speculation in the waiting room that they had been attacked by aliens, that the management was hiding this detail from their explanations) had been a welcome diversion from routine. But a welcome diversion that was rapidly spiraling out of control. When people were confused and frightened, there was no telling how they might behave, brainwashed or not. When they were physically injured as well, panic and suspicion swiftly set in, fears and wild theories echoing around the waiting room. Add to that the trapped feeling, with nowhere to flee, and the threat of a hostile outer environment, and strange unknown beings breaking through their protection boundaries, well, it was a recipe for chaos.

                    Lizette felt herself getting caught up in the general mood, feeling roused by heated calls for a mob handed demand for answers in one moment, and chilled to the bone by the terrified screeches of the most fearful in the next; thankfully noticing in time to reactivate her personal space buffer before descending into the energy quagmire herself. The dense fog of the previous brainwashing had distorted their power of rational reasoning; Liz felt she was the only one in the waiting room with the mental capacity to weigh up the various perspectives being aired, to try and make some sense of it.

                    When Gordon popped his head into the waiting room, Lizette hobbled over to him, wincing at the pain in her Achilles heel.

                    “Gordy, a word in your ear, old man,” she started to say, and then found herself catapulted into his arms as another tremor rocked the room. “Good God, Gordon! What’s going on?” she managed to say before slipping into unconsciousness.

                    #3763

                    In reply to: The Hosts of Mars

                    EricEric
                    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.

                      #3651

                      In reply to: The Hosts of Mars

                      TracyTracy
                      Participant

                        The idea of having her own robot appealed to Lizette, and she was already starting to feel an affectionate soft spot for Finnley 8. It ~ was it a he or a she? would do nicely as a personal servant and dogsbody. She wondered if the management would loan the robot to her for the duration of her stay, as a personal assistant and proof reader.

                        #3617

                        In reply to: The Hosts of Mars

                        EricEric
                        Keymaster

                          Being a distinguished host, Mother Shirley had been assigned one of the Finnleys bodies, the one with the number 21 plastered on its forehead.
                          “Twinnie,” she called in her croak of a voice “do the thing!”

                          Finnley 21 rolled her eyes to connect to her inner source, which was the main computer board, and a stream of random words started to flow down like colander water:

                          half leading usually jack gave legs secret stick
                          light plan fell yourself elizabeth sometimes child
                          downson recovery management karmalott surprise early

                          Shirley clapped her hands gleefully like a child. “How wonderful Twinnie, you’re my personal Oracle, the words of the Mighty Goddess of War have never felt so close and special to me.”
                          Mother Shirley looked undisturbed by the lack of response from the cybernetic body, and went on “Now, will you, help me adjust this headpiece, it chafes at the temples.”

                          #3540
                          EricEric
                          Keymaster

                            That Liz had started to become a few sandwiches short of a picnic when she’d hit her 57th birthday was an open secret.
                            Her editor had to personally recruit frequent replacements for her dame de compagnie, whom, no matter how different they looked, she would invariably call ‘cleaning lady Finnley’, stuck with her remembrance of a certain period of her life.

                            Godfrey often had wondered… were he to resign, and be replaced like so many Finnleys before this one, would she also call his replacement “Godfrey”? The though made him titter, as he put the kettle on the stove.
                            At times he wanted to scream that he wasn’t her bloody man-servant, but her personal doctor had made a point to explain to him that Elizabeth’s frail grasp on reality would only be strengthened if everyone continued to play the charade of her life.

                            Truth was, she really did seem to grow younger as the years passed, and as she was bossing around everyone with great enjoyment, Godfrey had often wondered if she wasn’t in cahoots with her physician to have everyone believe she was truly losing it.
                            He had to admit, she was doing a terrific job at it.

                            #3481
                            AvatarJib
                            Participant

                              Second Journey ~ August 24th, 2014

                              Duration 24 minutes

                              Directions : Meet with your power animal, ask them to lead you to the upper realm to meet with your guide. Ask the name of your guide and what they will be likely helping you with. Ask them for your personal symbol and how you can use it. Then follow your power animal into showing you the potential development for the stories.

                              Accounts

                              Eric
                              My snake animal guide appears very fast, I see its eyes first. It shifts into a powerful cobra, and fans out its hood into multiple heads, like Ananta (Shesha Naga), and says I can call him Nagini (like in Harry Potter, that’s also the playful name I give to the plush snake at our doorsteps).
                              It wraps its multiple heads around me like a ball, and we woosh into the ground to what I guess is the underworld, it seems like a long coiled path around a sort of vortex, after a few moments in a sort of crystal cave, I’m a bit skeptical what we’re doing there, I catch a glimpse of a white horse from the back, so I guess Jib’s Conan is checking on us, and restate my intent.
                              I go though the light of one of the brightest glowing crystals, and the travel resumes, this time like the giant snake wraps ourselves in coils around a column of rocks, and we climb that high mountain very fast. It reminds me of Mt Meru in Buddhism or the Immortals palace in the Chinese Buddhist tales (like in the 2014 movie The Monkey King).
                              The place is like a beautiful platform/palace of giant proportions, with a golden light. When we arrive, the snake becomes much smaller, and golden too, and wraps itself around my left arm. It guides me to explore different places, a temple, a place over the clouds where there are dances, etc. I decide to rest under a tree and meditate and be open to possibilities.
                              The snake shifts around in various forms as if to reflect the nature of my mind, a giant parasol, or a stream of many paths at my feet. It connects me to a picture I saw of a Buddhist painting where the mind represented as an elephant is led by the monkey brain around a snake-like path. I realize the person I saw briefly earlier is the guide that helped Sunwukong (the monkey king) and seems to be the guide I’m looking for.
                              (I find the name later is Puti or Subhuti).
                              When I mentally ask for a name, the name Pachacamac comes strongly. He shows me many things related to my symbol. As a spinning cube with the floating feather in the middle and the arrow pointing towards the heart. The spin of the cube creates illusion within illusion, the arrow wobbles but stays towards the heart.
                              He shows me a chasm and how to create a bridge over the clouds, by showing me the mirror image in my heart chakra. The bridge is built inside. At the same time, I was trying to focus on the music to deepen the trance, and realized outside (one storey below) was Jib’s music played on the speakers, aligned with the one playing in the headset, although a few seconds off, the rhythm was perfectly in synch…
                              He also shows me another image, of a deep well deep inside the mountain that we can see from above the clouds. The image inside is dark and fluctuates with the water’s surface, and also reflecting quite a small portion of the beautiful landscape around.
                              He explains that the well is the world we create, the mind and the perception is the water’s surface. It’s the external world, while the heart is all that we perceive as we discuss.
                              There are other things shared at a subjective level.

                              Francie
                              After I connected with my power animal, we went to the upper world. We went through water to get there until we came to land.
                              I asked for my main guide.
                              I think I took on the characteristics of my guide. by that I mean I felt myself become a different being, and then switched back and forwards between myself and the other. It was very clear. The other was masculine, strong, very alert, very watchful, powerful.
                              I asked for the guide’s name and received the answer, Carlos.
                              I asked for the area which the guide would work with me. I have had a sharp pain in my left abdomen under my rib for half an hour. I felt my guide reach in and do something energetically in that area. The pain left and has not returned.
                              I asked for a symbol and saw what looked like a key-hole shape.
                              There was a key too.
                              It was a very particular shape.
                              There was a door. And the key hole was up very high in the door.
                              I had to reach up high to get to it. And I put the key in.
                              I wasn’t sure if those were symbols.
                              The key hole and the key were shapes.
                              I was tracing them with my hand.

                              Jib
                              I settle in myself and arrive directly in a kind of lava world. There are stalagmites and magma puddles, it’s very fiery and earthy. Then I call my horse who just nudge my left shoulder, he was already there.
                              I ride him first and take time to bond with him. Then ask him to take me to the upper realm to Michel. Without much transition I am there, I feel a definite difference of feeling and texture. I say hi and ask Michel if he can show me the use of my personal symbol or particular aspects to it.
                              The he focuses my attention to the octagon and the connection with the number eight. He shows me how it connects with the musical octave and sounds as a resonator. It can also be used like the shamanic drum. The coil inside is connected with the circle, the spiral and the labyrinth. My symbol is a kind of labyrinth with the diamond representing the central room where the graal is, so to speak.
                              He shows me other stuff that I don’t recall at the moment.
                              When I realize that it will be all, I ask my guide if he can introduce me to another guide that can help me with the use of my symbol. He sends me in a direction that goes up in a cave world. There are faceless figures, I don’t pay much attention to them. When I arrive, the guide sits me on the ground and a journey inside my symbol begins. With the octagon connecting quite strongly with the lava and earth again. I am in a lava world again, which is strange. I ask the guide what is his name and I suddenly understand it is Athumbra the Dreamwalker from whom I’m fragmented.
                              He shows me the connection of my symbol to the fire and earth, and the depth of the world. He suggests me that instead of focusing on the shape of the symbol I connect with how the different parts connects together and to other aspects of consciousness, and how they are representative of my own energy personality. Not try to look outside for an answer in a way at the moment.
                              So I begin to experience the shapes, and it turns like a clock, take different colors, etc.
                              This will be something I’ll have to do again.
                              Then I ask my power animal to show me what would be interesting to me to explore in the story now.
                              He shows me a nest and I connect it with the stork nests I’ve been talking about in the last comment and that I used in the quote of the week picture. Without consciously connecting the two. I’ve written the comment before making the picture.
                              It will have to do with how the nest is comfortable but don’t make you learn much about life and your potentials.
                              Then he showed me something related to ants and colonies, that I connected with Mars, the colonies of Mars. There is something about community and social network for me to explore.
                              Then I asked him to help me decipher the energy transmission Eric sent to me the other day, and it had something to do with networks again and how we create a space of something through our relationships, the space of love, the space of friendship, and we create fields and connective tissues that we nourish through experience and attention and involvement.
                              At some point in the beginning I briefly wondered what was happening with you guys and felt propelled into something like water and impression of struggling with current, there were two moon crescents holding together by their “backs”, and purple or pink colors.

                              Tracy
                              The Zebra walked towards me across a grassy plain then I circled him, floating, and we went down a slope through the trees, an old road paved with stones. We wound down and came to a great expanse of metallic pink water, like a wise (typo! wide) river.
                              There was a guy in much heavy stone coloured rough clothes on with a very old face who didn’t look at me, he was on a raft with a long pole for steering. Asked his name and got Frudo. (was slightly skeptical that I got the name right) The symbol was like a clubs of cards, 3 circles interlocking with an in flow of the stem part. Domain was water, flow and fluidity (and dams, apparently).
                              We went down with the raft on the wide pink river, and the pace increased and there were people of all kinds lining both banks, watching. The wide river came to an immensely steep and deep waterfall, but there were pools and much smaller waterfalls on either side of it. All the water was pink.
                              We navigated from pool to pool on the right of the waterfall mostly, each pool had people, some of the pools were dammed, and some were more open and easily flowing to the next pool. Some dams were high and some pools had people looking over the edge at the waterfalls below their pools.
                              In a pool on the right, a very fat pink baby was sitting in the middle, I picked him up and held him and asked his name and it was Ezekial.
                              Then a fly landed on my right shoulder and I looked to the right and saw a scrunched up face of my mother, with a tight smile. My breathing started to get constricted and I saw mustard yellow mangle of tubes like intestines in that pool.
                              Then there was a lot of fingers stroking and pulling threads out of the dam around that pool, like pulling soft pink wax. Breathing continued to be restricted, and some becoming vapour or mist stuff that wasn’t very clear or droplets leaping from pool to pool as an alternative route to surface pools and waterfalls….
                              Then went down down down into a vast pool of pink water, faster and faster towards a narrow tube at the bottom, and then flipped over onto my back and saw the sun far above and rose slowly floating towards the surface.
                              Several times I saw purple and light green.
                              The breathing thing was interesting if not so pleasant.
                              The personal symbol may be connected to the flow from pool to pool somehow.

                              #3475

                              Even two weeks after the escape, she still woke up in cold sweats, haunted by nightmares of being chased down narrow lanes, or driving a vehicle that would only go at a snail’s pace as soon as she tried to drive it.

                              “Are you alright, dear?”

                              The comforting presence of Robert helped sooth her. He brought her a tray with some lemon and cucumber water, knowing it would help with her sore throat. The artificial air of the Mars colony tended to do that.

                              “Thank you Robert,… but you shouldn’t have. You’re not a robot any longer.”

                              She still couldn’t believe what had happened. Maybe that was the gift of retirement the Management had in store for her all alone. Unexpected gifts, unexpected islands of solitude —even at the closest to Earth in months, Mars was still 122 million miles from her Russian homeland.

                              It was still night outside. There, the days were slightly longer than Earth’s by half an hour or so, but she’d adapted to it rather quickly. It was still much better than the torpor on the island where she would loop on her days sometimes without even noticing it.

                              “Anything I can do for you dear?” Robert looked appropriately sorry for her, not too much to seem condescending, not to little to seem not caring.

                              “Put on some light music will you. The one from Beethoven that puts me in a meditative relaxation…”

                              When the deep notes started in the background, she started to relax. Her throat felt fresh and her lungs appreciative of the oxygen produced by the greenhouse plants.
                              Although she resisted slightly, inexorably she felt drawn to revisit the memories of the last day on Abalone.

                              It always started with the labyrinth, and finding herself alone.

                              :fleuron:

                              “Mr R? Mr R?” she called. “Gweenie?”

                              The labyrinth looked strangely like the laboratory white walls of the Chinese Robot Incorporated Mission Eternal where she used to work as an intern first, then as a head of research for cybernetics advancements. She was quite brilliant for her age, and the prospect of bringing a golden age to mankind was, at the time, quite appealing to her young exalted mind.

                              She knew where to go. She had to relive again that day where she’d thrown away all of that for a life in hiding. The mysterious benevolent messages of the Management had started a few weeks prior, leading her to question the motives of her employer, and realizing she’d become quite attached to her creation. The prototype robot from Project R had shown never seen before reactions to stimuli, and a learning curve that was exponential. “R” was meant as Retirement: retirement of the last class of labor workers, of those delicate works that still required a human touch.
                              The Management had led her to uncover that under the Corporation’s vision, the prototype would lead humanity to its doom, becoming irrelevant, a flaw in the perfect design of profit they were looking for. So she’d taken the robot, and made a run for it.
                              She wouldn’t destroy it. And it seemed the Management had no intention of her to do so. With the Management’s invisible hand, she’d disguised Mr R as a common robot for elites, and led a life posing as an elite with a secret life of a for-hire spy, heist-mastermind, or ghost executioner of similarly exciting prospects.

                              So there she was again. The walls stretching to infinity in an endless stream of rooms nested one into the other, the fear of being caught creeping closer and closer.

                              “Stop that. Breathe.” she told herself. She was no longer that young innocent scientist. As soon as her fear dissipated, the rooms stream stopped, and everything was back to focus. She walked to the room she remembered clear as day. Mr R was there, still plugged to the mainframe, with a strange black doctor in a white surgical gown and blue mask she didn’t remember was there.

                              “Interesting situation you have here.” he greeted her, snapping his gloves to extend his hand to her. “You can call me René, I’m Tahitian.”

                              She could feel her lucidity fluctuating and ready to explode in a multiplicity of scenarios, but managed to maintain her focus. She refrained to punch the guy in the face too, and simply took his extended hand with caution.

                              “Congratulation.” he said, beaming. “You passed the test.”

                              All of a sudden, she was no longer in the same room. She was in the comfortable B&B of 2222. René was in a sofa, comfortably seated, and they were sharing a drink.

                              “What have you done with Mr R?” was her first thought.

                              “Oh, nothing to worry about, I borrowed it for a while, there is someone else that needed passing through my maze, and he kindly obliged to help. I will show you in a minute. We had a little conversation earlier on, while you were stranded in your past.”
                              “How long was I out?” she asked.
                              “Oh, time is inconsequential here, but in your terms, a day or two.”
                              “Didn’t seem that long…” she mused. “Where have you done with the others?”
                              “Don’t worry about them, they are on their own path. Only one should concern you now. A certain Chinese and very persistent man.”
                              “Oh, fuck.” was all she said. “I should have guessed, you’re with the Corporation.”
                              “Not at all my dear, you can relax. So as I said, we had a little conversation, and you can be proud of you. This robot has broken through, congratulations. You can be very proud of your work.”
                              “What do you mean?”
                              “He has developed a personality and a consciousness of its own. It’s still budding, but it’s very strong, and he’s quite concerned over your well-being I might add.” he said with a wink.

                              Irina was perplexed at the thought, but although it made some sense at a level, her conscious brain was struggling with the implications.

                              “Show me what you have to, and release us.” she said to René, getting up from the hypnotizing warmth of the sofa.

                              “In a minute” he’d say, “just have a look at the screen, will you.”

                              Then, she’d understood. The guy pursuing her, Cheung Lok was there, trapped in his own labyrinth, trying to catch the robot that always eluded him.

                              “He would rather die than let the robot go.” she said to René “we could be here for a while”.
                              “Not to worry ma chère, his timing has no impact on ours. All of this happens in the now.”
                              “So how this plays out usually?”
                              “It depends. In this case, all that matters is what happens when he gets the robot.”
                              STOP THAT! You can’t let him take it!”
                              “Calm down, the robot will be safe.”

                              In the next scene, Cheung Lok was securing the robot, who was pleading with him. “Please! I don’t want to become a hairdresser, let go of me!”
                              The appeal seemed to have struck a chord, and some memories of Cheung Lok flashed through the screen, and it looked like as if the robot’s struggle mirrored his own to be his own man, free from the expectations of demanding parents, society, Corporation… Their love had been nothing but control, and had put him in chains. He sobbed, wishing for a new life free of these responsibilities.

                              :fleuron:

                              Irina awoke from the dream again. The last memories were a bit blurry, but still fresh in her mind. René had granted Cheung Lok’s wish. He was sent back to the Island, losing some years in the process, becoming back again a young adult full of unfulfilled desires, and no memory of his previous mission. Before the process happened, he wished for those who were still alive of his platoon to be given the choice to be sent back home with only memories of the robot and himself being destroyed, or to join him on the island, with a fresh future and memories. Surprisingly, most of them chose the first option. Not everyone was ready for a brave choice of facing one’s own desires and power.

                              As for her, René had been kind to offer Mr R a humanoid body before sending them through the teleportation boxes to the destination of their choices.
                              Mr R had chosen Роберт (Robert) as a name for his new self (she’d been more than relieved he’d avoided René), and they’d agreed to let the boxes find the most beneficial location for them to go to. That’s how they landed in the middle of the central greenhouse of the main colony, in 2121.

                              It was fifteen days ago, but still felt like yesterday.

                              #3457
                              TracyTracy
                              Participant

                                The Zebra
                                “Zebra energy will help you to take the apparently conflicting parts of your personality and weave them into a pattern which is unique, distinctive and beautiful. As a zebra, the artist within you can live in harmony with the businessperson, the spiritual explorer with the secular decision-maker, the dreamer with the practical goal-setter, neither overpowering the other, each retaining its place of importance and full expression. The zebra will teach you to honor the black and white sides of yourself without compromising yourself into a dull gray.
                                The zebra will also teach you how to seek out others who are like you, finding comfort and company in groups, while maintaining your own unique identity, your pattern of stripes like a fingerprint, unlike any other. This combination of individuality within community will be a very powerful force in your life.

                                The zebra energy is also the energy of physical health, long life and great stamina. Breathe in this vital source of very real physical power. Feel how you are capable of running across the plains for hour after hour, each step filling you with vibrant earth energy, so that the more you exercise, the more energized you become. Then just kick up your heals with joy, for you are the zebra, vital and alive. How fortunate you are!”

                                #3427
                                AvatarJib
                                Participant

                                  After the push-ups, Anna Purrna returned to her office, letting the Queens panting and sweating, certainly wondering how long it would last.

                                  The dwarf had requisitioned the best room and decorated it with pink and blue kitten plates on the wall left of his desk. The desk was positioned so that he would see anyone entering the room. It was something he had learned from Feng Shui, the position of power was when you faced the door and had no window behind. It was important no one could sneak up on you.

                                  Anna Purrna loved pink and blue, and she loved kittens. They were loving you unconditionally and were not as dependent upon you as dogs. And they pooped in their own personal toilets. She put her cane near a decorated hammer and sat at her desk. She sighed.

                                  Dependence was exhausting. She had fought all her life not to be dependent, especially when she realized that, contrary to the other kids, she couldn’t say when I grow up. She would never grow up, and those arrogant kids in the playground would make sure she knew it morally and physically. She wasn’t all that crooked before.
                                  Now, she was driving a Harley.

                                  She took her e-zapper and wrote : “ZR nut reddy 2 face O’Thor ET yeast”.

                                  Writing in code was a habit she had taken when participating in RPGs. She knew it was an attempt to conceal her own expression. But it felt soothing at the time. It also helped her get better characters than dwarves and goblins. They wouldn’t even let her have an orc, saying she was too small for that. With time and perseverance she became an Adept with great powers and cunning intelligence. She was respected and feared. Which led her to work for the Management.

                                  Her instructions were clear. Make them stand for themselves. At least that’s how she interpreted it. She had carte blanche for the means.

                                  From what she had seen until now, Terry was the most promising of the three, but he was still following his mates. Maurana was too attached to the rules and seemliness, and Consuela was far too dependent on her mother. Anna could just provide the environment, they had to find their inner strength on their own and not forget the group.

                                  The e-zapper purred, she had reconfigured it so that it would have a cat personality. It reminded her of her Riga, her previous ginger cat. She died a few years ago and Anna couldn’t resolve herself to get another one. She couldn’t replace her Riga in her heart.

                                  The message read : “Begin phase two ASAP. Meow”.

                                  #3298

                                  “Good time for a segment of refreshment” was Sanso’s words of goodbye, as he left them retching sea water out of their system, and taking welcome gulps of air in the fresh cave of la Sormiou, just a few knots off Marseille’s harbour.

                                  Linda Paul was impatiently chain-smoking outside while waiting for them near the dildo-truck, excited for a follow-up confidence sequence about the last show.
                                  In truth, she would have loved to lead them herself in their adventures, but despite her saying the contrary, had chickened out at the last minute. A few months ago, the show’s had moved away from the initial pitch which was supposed to have only her as the main cast and star. It then shifted into the broadcast pilot with the other junior queens competition.
                                  Her personal guru, Ganeshki had told her it had to do with beliefs of ageing, and she would have plucked his eyelashes out of his head. That was no thing to say to a lady.
                                  But then, he was a bit right.
                                  She crushed the butt under her high-heels. Nasty habit.
                                  Not the butts, she tittered at the thought, but the chain-smoking. A fucking lot of beliefs with it too, she didn’t need Ganeshki to realise it.

                                  At last, they all emerged, not looking particularly good, even if she noticed the effort to puff out their wet wigs.

                                  “Oh, honey, is that kelp in your wig?” she disdainfully picked up a bit of algae from Terry’s hair. “Well, you all look…” she searched for words and broadened her smile “smashing!”.

                                  Sadie, honey, you did such a marvellous job”. She leaned closer lowering her voice to confide “That wasn’t a piece of cake, I will give you that”

                                  “Well, Linda, now you mention it, I’d like a raise. And less working hours.”

                                  #3257

                                  “You look just like your father” was Lisa’s mother’s only remark when Lisa had thoughtfully sent her a couple of photos from Portugal. No compliment coming from her, thought Lisa, rolling her eyes. And it wasn’t even true ~ she looked nothing like her father, something else must have triggered her mothers comment, some other association.
                                  “Remember your new policy, dear, don’t take it personally” Mirabelle reminded her. “Just another cranky old crone stewing on an old trigger. Besides,” she added, “What about Frank and Molly? Can you get a more specific remote view? Stuck in a carob tree could be almost anywhere.”
                                  “You’re rather sweet for such a bossy tart” replied Lisa with a grateful smile. “Shush now then while I access their location.”
                                  Lisa closed her eyes and waited for the images to appear. There was an explosion of purple and a great deal of static before an image began to appear of carob pods on a car windscreen. As Lisa viewed the glass a strange thing began to happen and she started to focus on the reflections. There were dozens of people approaching, all wearing brilliant white robes trimmed with gold. The robes were short, and revealed a considerable amount of tanned muscled leg, and a murmur of appreciation escaped her lips. What handsome fellows, she thought, but there’s something odd about them. Either this is a fancy dress party on a dry dusty hill, or another time zone.

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